It happened in Church – October 19, 1962
Chapter Ninety Two – Life without the USA
It Started In Church – October 19, 1962
http://www.itstartedinchurch.com
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WRITING: TEOTWAWKI fiction – Chapter Ninety Two – Life without the USA
Saturday, September 20, 2008
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Posted by reinkefj
LIBERTY: Here’s another “Kelo” like opportunity
Friday, September 19, 2008http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_re_us/ike_beach_houses
Some Ike victims may not be allowed to rebuild
By MICHAEL GRACZYK and CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writers Thu Sep 18, 6:46 PM ET
*** begin quote ***
GALVESTON, Texas – Hundreds of people whose beachfront homes were wrecked by Hurricane Ike may be barred from rebuilding under a little-noticed Texas law. And even those whose houses were spared could end up seeing them condemned by the state.
Now here’s the saltwater in the wound: It could be a year before the state tells these homeowners what they may or may not do.
Worse, if these homeowners do lose their beachfront property, they may get nothing in compensation from the state.
The reason: A 1959 law known as the Texas Open Beaches Act. Under the law, the strip of beach between the average high-tide line and the average low-tide line is considered public property, and it is illegal to build anything there.
Over the years, the state has repeatedly invoked the law to seize houses in cases where a storm eroded a beach so badly that a home was suddenly sitting on public property. The aftermath of Ike could see the biggest such use of the law in Texas history.
“I don’t like it one bit,” said Phillip Curtis, 58, a Dallas contractor who owns two homes — a $350,000 vacation home and a $200,000 rental — on Galveston Island’s Jamaica Beach. “I think the state should allow us to try to save the houses. I don’t appreciate the state telling people, `Now it belongs to us.’ It breaks your heart.”
The former state senator who wrote the law had little sympathy.
“We’re talking about damn fools that have built houses on the edge of the sea for as long as man could remember and against every advice anyone has given,” A.R. “Babe” Schwartz said.
*** end quote ***
Ahh, yes, those “damn fools” who thought THEY owned their property. Still person, the Almighty State owns everything. Just wait, soon everything will be owned by the Gooferment. They hold 50% of all the mortgage market now. Property taxes will soon condemn the rest.
The Supreme Court nuked your Fifth Amendment rights against property seizure in the Kelo decision.
So, you citizen have a tshirt. You know been there, done that, and got the tshirt to show for it.
Sheeple!
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POLITICS: He has to, HAS TO, be kidding?
Thursday, September 18, 2008http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_el_pr/biden_taxes_3
Biden calls paying higher taxes a patriotic act
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 41 minutes ago
*** begin quote ***
WASHINGTON – Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans. In a new TV ad that repeats widely debunked claims about the Democratic tax plan, the Republican campaign calls Obama’s tax increases “painful.”
*** end quote ***
JSMH (Just Shaking My Head)
The thief robs you and then tells you that “giving” them more is patriotic?
Try idiotic!
Just like them.
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Posted by reinkefj
LIBERTY: How to fix healthcare? Boot the gooferment out.
Thursday, September 18, 2008http://duckdown.blogspot.com/2008/09/does-this-make-me-liberal-or.html
Enterprise Architecture: From Incite comes Insight…
James McGovern is an industry thought leader whose focus is on the human aspects of technology around open source, SOA, software security, enterprise architecture and agile software development.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Does this make me a liberal or conservative?
*** begin quote ***
Today’s blog is slightly offtopic but I feel compelled to comment on the absurdity of making a profit from healthcare. I believe that the principles of open source when applied to this problem could make things better…
One of my cousin’s is a recent graduate of a nursing program and has started to learn first hand how people suffer and die because of HMO’s, big insurance (Aetna, Cigna, United Healthcare, etc) and Pharmaceuticals (Pfizer, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, etc) and their decision making process. They are, by law, beholden to their stockholders and the bottom line, and therefore have an ethical conundrum in that at times they have an incentive to deny needed care in the name of profit.
I am not for government healthcare because it suffers from much of the same problem as the current system. The government also is beholden to many of the same financial burdens. Imagine if the principles of open source were applied to healthcare where HMO’s had to make their business rules publicly available in a well-formed XML format that could be inspected by others? Imagine the ability for a consumer to use an open source rules engine such as JBoss Drools and could proactively tell whether a claim is going to be approved or denied. The current model requires consumers to expose themselves to financial risks as they don’t have a clue upfront as to their own liability.
{Extraneous Deleted}
*** end quote ***
I’d say it makes you a Libertarian.
You’re rightly suspicious of the gooferment in your healthcare. I’d suggest that the gooferment get the boot and we begin to unwind the mess we are in. Step One imho is to disconnect employment from health insurance and equalize the tax-deduct-ability of it.
The gooferment should be the insurer of last report; not, like in Medicare, or the VA, the provider, insurer, and the regulator.
If health insurance was like life insurance, there’d be very little regulation (i.e., only what was needed to prevent fraud) and it would be cheap and easy.
Oh, and let’s not kid anyone, that all the gooferment in health care, does ANYTHING but make it expensive and oppressive. And, people die unnecessarily!
When we allow liberty and the free market place to work, it will do wonders. It took “us” a hundred years to screw things up, hopefully we’re smart enough to fix them a lot faster. But give the attitude that “gooferment will save us” I’m not so sure we’re up to the task!
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LIBERTY: Should the Fed bailout failing corporations like AIG? NO! The FED shouldn’t even exist.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008http://www.intuitive.com/blog/should_fed_federal_reserve_bailout_failing_corporations_aig.html
The Business Blog at Intuitive.com
Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is widely recognized as an expert on both technical and business issues.
Should the Fed bailout failing corporations like AIG?
*** begin quote ***
As an investor and citizen, I have been following with increasing concern the shenanigans in the financial market. First it was the huge problem with greedy banks and an overextended Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) that had underwritten loans to more and more risky borrowers, gambling that the upside of high-interest-rate loans would offset the tremendous risk of default.
*** and ***
Which is why I find it so interesting that when I read the WSJ headline that Feds Plan $85 Billion Rescue Deal for AIG [sub required] or the Bloomberg report that the government is considering an AIG conservatorship plan, I dislike the notion and feel that if we really were a free market capitalist economy, we’d let the companies fail, knowing that new ones will spring up to replace them, stronger, smarter companies that will avoid these poor management decisions.
Fannie Mae – fanniemae – logoFannie Mae and Freddie Mac were bailed out by the government. So was Chrysler, years ago, in a quite hotly debated rescue from mismanagement, Lee Iacocca’s hubris, and poor strategic planning. But Enron wasn’t bailed out and the Enron investors were left to their own personal financial nightmares.
The rule seems to be that if it’s a big enough company or enough people are adversely impacted then the never-empty wallet of the Federal government opens up and billions of taxpayer dollars are allocated to alleviate the impending crisis.
*** and ***
Since then both Clinton and Bush aggressively promoted home ownership, even for homeowners who couldn’t afford it. The magic solution? adjustable rate mortgages that had a low interest rate when the prime rate was low, but could rapidly grow to create unmanageable mortgage payments as the rate went up. Now those high risk subprime loans back almost 40% of private-sector mortgage bonds and that’s the root of the financial problem we now face.
Back to the central dilemma, though: should we bail out AIG or not? Should our hard earned dollars paid to the government as taxes be used to prevent these massive corporations from facing the dire consequences of their stupid, myopic actions?
I have to say that, yes, I think that we should. Or at least, we should have some sort of program that helps out those most affected by the demise of these companies. When mortgage holders find that their adjustable rate mortgages prove a nightmare because the rates have gone up, that’s one issue, but when a large corporation actively and aggressively markets to these subprime borrowers without fear of consequence, that’s very, very bad for the market.
The consequences are what we’re feeling today, with a dramatic drop in the financial market, the bankruptcy of Lehman, Federal bailout of AIG, and more to come as the ripples affect other markets and industries. Bailout because too many regular Joes are affected by these failures, but for goodness sake, tighten regulations and fix things so that we can prevent this happening again in the future!
*** end quote ***
Interesting.
The politicians get to pick winners and losers. Lehman loses; AIG gets bailed out. Freddie and Fannie shareholders get wiped out and the CEOs walk away with taxpayer-paid golden chutes.
The taxpayers get 80% of AIG; in bankruptcy, the common stockholders would get zero and the taxpayers would get 100%. Who died and left the Fed as the bankruptcy court?
IMHO we need to let biz be biz and the chips fall where they may. Nuke the Fed! Return to honest money.
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Posted by reinkefj
MONEY: Hope all your eggs weren’t in some big company’s stock?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008The Mess On Wall Street: Four Trillion Dollars Down The Drain
The Mess On Wall Street: Four Trillion Dollars Down The Drain by Erick Schonfeld on September 16, 2008
*** begin quote ***
Each box in the graphic is proportional to the size of the market capitalization of the biggest financial firms then and now. As you mouse over the squares, you can see how much each value each company lost between October 9, 2007 and September 12, 2008. Here are some of the individual losses by market cap:
Citigroup: $236.7 billion to $97.8 billion.
Bank of America: $236.5 billion to $150.2 billion.
AIG: $179.8 billion to $32.3 billion
Goldman Sachs: $97.7 billion to $61.3 billion
American Express: $74.8 billion to $45 billion.
Morgan Stanley: $73.1 billion to $41.1 billion.
Fannie Mae: $64.8 billion to $700 million.
Merrill Lynch: $63.9 billion to $24.2 billion
Freddie Mac: $41.5 billion to $300 million.
Lehman Brothers: $34.4 billion to $2.5 billion.
Washington Mutual: $31.1 billion to $2.9 billion
*** end quote ***
Ouch! Never mind these companies’ “market capitalization”!! What we are seeing is the pensions and retirements of some folks going up in smoke. Never to return. Some one (all of us) is taking these losses.
Argh!
And, politician talk about the various “lipstick” issues!
Where are the two fellows now? We need smaller gooferment, now! Do they think that “tax receipts” (i.e., the money they steal from us) is going to increase to pay for all their new programs? Or that there will be any “rich” left to steal from? Unemployment insurance, Social Security Ponzi benefits, Gooferment pensions.
Watch the screwing we will all take!
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POLITICS: One of the few cogent arguments for O?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/davenport4.html
John McCain and Thinking the Unthinkable
by Charles Davenport
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I think it imperative, and very possibly a matter of national survival, that Barack Obama, and not John McCain, becomes president. Yes, it will mean higher taxes and boondoggle social programs and yes, he has called for more troops in Afghanistan and waffled on any number of key issues.
But Obama, or even Joe Biden, will be better able to act prudently in a time of crisis and not plunge our country into a war with Putin’s Russia. We should seek friendship with Russia, not war.
We need not fear Moslem terrorists. But we should rightly fear an intemperate man like John McCain, and the clueless Sarah Palin.
*** end quote ***
I’m not so sure that this is the argument.
O’s tax raising and corrupt beginnings make him seem the GREATER of two evils.
I’m annoyed at a system that prevents me from voting for whom I want. I’m forever compelled to select the lesser of two evils.
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POLITICAL: The moral hazzard aka when the gooferment picks winners and losers!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122156561931242905.html
* SEPTEMBER 16, 2008
U.S. to Take Over AIG in $85 Billion Bailout;
Central Banks Inject Cash as Credit Dries Up
Emergency Loan Effectively Gives Government Control of Insurer;
Historic Move Would Cap 10 Days That Reshaped U.S. Finance
By MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG, DEBORAH SOLOMON, LIAM PLEVEN and JON E. HILSENRATH
*** begin quote ***
The U.S. government seized control of American International Group Inc. — one of the world’s biggest insurers — in an $85 billion deal that signaled the intensity of its concerns about the danger a collapse could pose to the financial system.
The step marks a dramatic turnabout for the federal government, which had been strongly resisting overtures from AIG for an emergency loan or some intervention that would prevent the insurer from falling into bankruptcy. Just last weekend, the government essentially pulled the plug on Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., allowing the big investment bank to go under instead of giving it financial support. This time, the government decided AIG truly was too big to fail.
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Sorry, but the gooferment should NOT be picking winners and losers. Sorry “Lehman Brothers” stockholders and employees, you lose. Fannie and Freddie, you win. Fannie and Freddie CEOs get big golden parachutes; so they win big.
Who’s the biggest losers? Why the American Taxpayers, of course, silly rabbit!
Get ready Ford and GM retirees, you’re screwing is just around the corner!
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PRODUCTIVITY: “Abandon ship” doesn’t mean “linger aound”!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008http://fseg2.gre.ac.uk/HEED/Email/safety_tips/index.html
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evacuation Information that could save your life
The World’s largest study into the 911 evacuation of the World Trade Center has just begun. However, there have been several smaller studies into the WTC evacuation based on printed accounts from WTC evacuees (for example, go to the following pages to find the UK Building Disaster Assessment Group (BDAG) analysis of the evacuation: http://fseg.gre.ac.uk/fire/BDAG_project.html). While these studies have been limited in their scope we have learnt a number of important lessons that could save your life.
Lesson One – Don’t do anything to delay your departure
Lesson Two – Know your way out
Lesson Three – Don’t stop on the way to reassure friends and family
Lesson Four – Ladies, don’t discard your shoes on the stairs
Lesson Five – Know how long it will take to get out
*** end quote ***
When I had a group in WTC, during the first bombing, the supervisor there called me for instructions what to do. My answer was quick: “Send everyone home now! Have them call me when they get home. Go home yourself, and do the same. We’ll figure it out from there. Go now!” And, I hung up on her.
I didn’t check with anyone. Didn’t have to. It was common sense.
I then called my boss to tell him what I did. “Good! At least you’re not one of the stupid ones I have working for me. But, don’t expect a medal. Now get off my phone. You must have work to do!” And, he hung up.
p.s., I got gigged in my annual appraisal for not checking with HR for the correct policy.
Seems easy to me. You can always find another job!
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FUN: SNL on Sarah and Hillary
Tuesday, September 16, 2008http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/nbc-universal-z.html
SNL on Sarah and Hillary
rofl!
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Sigh, they are hitting youtube with take down notices. How obtuse are these NBC execs? Don’t they see that they are going to get a backlash. Their embed code didn’t work here. Youtube’s always works.
Way to go NBC. Clueless!
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Posted by reinkefj
JOBSEARCH: You could be locked out; plan for it!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/26292488-8360-11dd
-907e-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=11f94e6e-7e94-11
dd-b1af-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
Shocked Lehman staff told to ‘move on’
By FT Reporters
Published: September 15 2008 21:42 | Last updated: September 15 2008 21:42
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“I’ve had people calling me from telephone boxes. In the old days you’d just pick up your Rolodex and you’d bugger off. Now everything in your life is with the company,” said a former employee.
*** end quote ***
You gotta be kidding me. Anyone, who doesn’t prepare for the axe, can’t expect sympathy when it comes. Disaster Recovery means you should be able to operate “You, Inc.” from wherever you are. It’s very nice that you use the boss’ computer to do all your stuff.
But what happens when you are cutoff?
When you own it, they can’t “steal” it from you. You need your own computer!
When you keep a copy of all YOUR important data in the cloud, any inet café can become your base of operations.
So what’s your plan. Do you need a hurricane like Ike, or a meltdown like Lehman, to convice you to protect yourself?
Turkeys never learn!
{gobble, gobble!}
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PRODUCTIVITY: be better at D ‘n’ P
Tuesday, September 16, 2008http://zenhabits.net/2007/08/
five-great-ways-to-achieve-happiness-through-serving-others/
Five Great Ways to Achieve Happiness Through Serving Others
This guest post was written by Stephen Smith, editor and publisher at Business Development in Context.
*** begin quote ***
4. Keep your promises. You can create an atmosphere of service simply by doing the things that you say you will do. Dependability and punctuality are the hallmarks of the service-oriented individual. When people can trust you it creates happiness all around.
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Creating trust is a common failure I see in IT all the time. Just today, I was trying to explain why a team’s participation was need in a group effort. All I heard was that the subteam didn’t feel they were getting value out of the effort. No concern over the grou[‘s perception that they were “mia” and not part of the team. I’m not sure if I got thru the self-centered objection. Sigh!
I’m going to be better at D ‘n’ P.
p.s.: oops, almost said “try”!
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Quote: Tom Peters “irrelevence”
Monday, September 15, 2008Irrelevance comes from always doing the things you know how to do in the way you’ve always done them.
– Tom Peters
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Posted by reinkefj
JOBSEARCH: When you get nuked, ask for … …
Monday, September 15, 2008http://www.careerhubblog.com/main/2008/09/job-security–.html
Job Security – Six Types, and More . . .
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6. Continued Perception of Employment: To some, “perception is reality.” Employers will sometimes agree to give an employee the right to (a) keep their title, (b) use their office, (c) maintain email and phone answering, and the like, in order to maintain their appearance of being employed. This prevents the substantial diminution of “perception of value” in the employment marketplace that comes from coming to an interview “hat in hand,” and also precludes the interview question, “Why were you fired?”
*** end quote ***
Tis probably should be an “ask” when you get the nuking that is coming. Eventually everyone gets the axe!
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POLITICAL: Obama ” … tax hikes … neighborliness.”?
Monday, September 15, 2008“If I am sitting pretty and you’ve got a waitress who is making minimum wage plus tips, and I can afford it (the tax hikes) but she can’t, what’s the big deal for me to say I’m going to pay a little bit more. That is neighborliness.” Obama
No, I’d call that Socialism.
Car jockeys in Vegas make more than I do. It’s only fair that they be “neighborly” and send me some of their earnings?
And, guess who decides what is your “fair share”? The gooferment lead by the Socialist In Chief.
It’s one thing for me to decide voluntarily to support a charity like Homefront in Mercer County, that actually helps women and families on welfare to move off the gooferment dole and out on their own. It’s quite another for the gooferment in DC and Trenton to take money form me by force to put these people on welfare in the first place. From whence, they can’t escape. Modern day gooferment slavery! In the first case, I’m giving to charity; in the second, it’s armed robbery like the Mafia.
The big deal Candidate Obama is that you are supporting and expanding an immoral enterprise.
Amazing that folks don’t see these politicians for what they are. Mafia Dons!
Argh!
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LIBERTY: You can’t support ANY gooferment program
Monday, September 15, 2008http://kentmcmanigal.blogspot.com/2008/09/building-libertys-gallows.html
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Building Liberty’s Gallows
*** begin quote ***
Are you supplying rope, nails, assistance, or knowledge to those who are building the gallows they plan to hang you on?
If you support ANY government agency, program, branch, or function, you are.
*** end quote ***
Bottom line: You can’t support any gooferment program. There’s NOTHING that they can do right. BECAUSE they start from the immorality of theft, continue on using force, and wind up giving you a benefit that isn’t something that is good for you. Everything is broken, underfunctional, or costs too much!
No, thanks, nothing from the gooferment for me.
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MONEY: Saving is a disaster in the Welfare / Warfare State
Saturday, September 13, 2008http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/
b4099087568542.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5
Fair Value September 4, 2008, 5:00PM EST
Why American Savers Have Drawn the Short Straw
There are painfully real reasons why America’s savers feel they’ve got the short end of the stick
by Roben Farzad
BW Magazine
*** begin quote ***
American savers, take a bow. This is your moment of vindication. Your hour of glory. And you earned it (in a manner of speaking).
*** and ***
Good for you! Your reward: injurious savings yields, inflationary rot, and election-season neglect, all served up with a dollop of institutional insecurity.
*** and ***
Indeed, a year ago, a six-month certificate of deposit earned, on average, 3.53%, according to Bankrate.com (RATE). Today, that’s down to 2.03%. A one-year CD that earned 3.75% at this point in 2007 was offered for as little as 1.92% in April, before inching up to its present 2.38%. It’s hardly a secret that banks are only able to pay out such pittances thanks to depositors’ knee-jerk desire for security: “Hey, I might be earning crumbs on my cash, but at least I’m not losing money.”
Sure you are. Wholesale inflation has soared 9.8% in the past 12 months, the highest clip since 1981. The more widely cited consumer price index jumped to 5.6%. In other words, while your saved buck was adding 2 cents or so on one end (and even less after taxes), three times as much was getting singed off the other end of that dollar bill. “Inflation is just deadly to savings,” says David Gitlitz, chief economist at TrendMacrolytics, an investment adviser. Gitlitz observes that, taking into account the hit from inflation, rates haven’t been this negative since the dreary 1970s. (That, in turn, gave way to an early ’80s that saw the worst inflation in U.S. history since the Civil War.) “It steals your purchasing power and sets less and less of an incentive to keep money in the bank.”
*** end quote ***
So, what are the politicians saying about this PARTICULAR pig? Oh I’m sorry, they are only chatting about who put lipstick where!
Argh!
Only Ron Paul even had a glimmer of a plan.
“Savers” are fools. They have to be “Investors”. And, you laugh at my fascination with gold coins and other forms of commodity money.
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WRITING: TEOTWAWKI fiction – It happened in Church – Chapter 91 Ninety One – Second Vermont Republic Life
Saturday, September 13, 2008 It happened in Church – October 19, 1962
Chapter Ninety One – Second Vermont Republic Life
It Started In Church – October 19, 1962
http://www.itstartedinchurch.com
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POLITICS: The “cost” of the absurd drug war
Thursday, September 11, 2008http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-barr/federal-drug-war-rethough_b_125458.html
Federal Drug War Rethought
Bob Barr
Posted September 10, 2008 | 04:12 PM (EST)
*** begin quote ***
It is obvious that, like Prohibition’s effort to eradicate alcohol usage, drug prohibition has not succeeded. Despite enormous law enforcement efforts — including the dedicated service of many thousands of professional men and women — the government has not halted drug use. Indeed, the problem is worse today than in 1972, when Richard Nixon first coined the phrase “War on Drugs.”
Whether we like it or not, tens of millions of Americans have used and will continue to use drugs. Yet in 2005 we spent more than $12 billion on federal drug enforcement efforts. Another $30 billion went to incarcerate non-violent drug offenders.
These people must live forever with the scarlet letter P for prison. Only luck saved even presidents and candidates for president from bearing the same mark, which would have disqualified them from not only high political office, but also many more commonplace jobs.
The federal drug laws affect even those who have never smoked (or inhaled!) a marijuana cigarette. One of the lessons I learned while serving in Congress is how power tends to concentrate in Washington, and how that concentration of power begets more power and threatens individual liberty. The ever-expanding drug war is a perfect illustration of this principle.
*** end quote ***
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It saddens me to think of the cost of the gooferment’s quote war on drugs end quote.
I know some Manhattan College students who’s lives were ruined by it. Even back in the Sixties, I knew it was wrong. A killer. My best friend in high school, who flunked out of Manhattan Engineering, dropped out due to the Vietnam Era Draft, and fell into the druggie crowd. Because I my security clearance and the new “war on drugs”, I could not afford to be anywhere around the stuff. So, he and I parted ways. I never saw him again. He was killed on the Beltway in a traffic accident. A casualty of the gooferment’s war. Either the VietNam war or the War on Drugs.
When America get it’s head screwed on straight, we’ll as a nation realize that Prohibition doesn’t work! Period. What peopel put in their own body is their own business. MYOB. And, there ain’t a single thing you or I can do about the decisions that others make. Anything we think will prevent it, like laws, jails, and fines, merely inflict a terrible cost on the unfortunate user who happens to get caught and us. Us, as a society, where we lose our Fourth Amendment rights, where we can’t buy antihistamine wothut a hassle, and where we suffer the collateral damage in gang violence. Just like Al Cappone in the Twenties.
Want to end gang violence? Just have the gooferment walk away from regulation. Ever see a Coke versus Pepsi shoot out? How about Bud and Miller duking it out on the street? Sending vast amounts of money to drug gangs in Mexico, drug kingpins in Columbia, or the terrorists in Afghanistan! We can end that in a heartbeat.
Legalize, deregulate, and wipe out the age restrictions. End all restrictions. And, for good measure allow WalMart to run it.
Will children get drugs? Yes! Do you think that the current system prevents it? Dreamer!
It’s the Libertarian assertion that a free market in drugs will have much less collateral damage than the current insane ‘system’.
42B$ will pay for a lot of things. Drug treatment, education, and giant tax reduction.
Now, what will all the unemployed drug dealers do?
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POLITICAL: UK PM opines that O should be Prez!
Thursday, September 11, 2008Gordon Brown triggers row with John McCain by ‘backing’ Barack Obama
Gordon Brown has triggered a potential row with John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, after apparently backing Barack Obama – breaking convention not to get involved in foreign elections.
By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor and Tom Leonard
Last Updated: 9:05AM BST 10 Sep 2008
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Oh that’s going to help O with the American people.
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ADMINISTRIVIA: Trying Widow Live Writer again
Wednesday, September 10, 2008Yeah, I know. A glutton for punishment.
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POLITICS: Maybe THAT misstep?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/09/09/obama-attacks-gop-tickets-mantra-of-change/
September 9, 2008, 6:23 pm
Obama Puts Different Twist on Lipstick
Amy Chozick reports on the presidential race from Lebanon, Virginia.
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What’s the difference between a more hopeful kind of politics and old-fashioned attacks? Lipstick.
Barack Obama says the John McCain-Sarah Palin policies don’t represent change, they’re “just calling the same thing something different.”
“You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” Obama said during a town-hall style event here Tuesday night.
The comment played on Republican vice presidential candidate Palin’s joke during the Republican National Convention that the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom was lipstick.
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Given my opinion that this race will be “LOST”; not “WON”. It appears that the O campaign is, are, on the erge of stepping on their … … putting it politely … … their tongues. I would have deleted all references to lipsticks and pigs. When I heard this, I said to myself: “Self, He’s really calling the sitting GOvernor of Alaska a pig? Has he lost his mind?”
Yup, I bet that’s what others heard.
Hit her on the issues. Better yet, hit McC on the issues. The O campaign is acting like they are running against the VP candidate.
LOL, it is quite humorous to see these wanna be tyrants rassel for the right to tell people what to do!
Sheeple need the Massa!
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Posted by reinkefj
PRODUCTIVITY: An envelope for the housekeeper
Wednesday, September 10, 2008First time I ever saw it. An envelope for the maid. It even had a soft message on the front that went something like: “If you are planning to leave something for the maid and we’re not saying you have to, please use this envelope. Our people are scrupulously honest and any money they find loose in the room will be left there on the table.” What a great idea. Frau and I have decided to make up our own for all future trips.
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Posted by reinkefj
GAMBLING: Playing in a ‘tight’ Indian casino
Tuesday, September 9, 2008During our recent traipse around the countryside (NJ – Hickory – Jax – Cherokee – NJ), we happend to linger at an Indian Casino. I can attest that the ‘house’ was the only one that one in this visit. White men got scalped! Hence, I am revising my thinking about how to play in these.
We did well when we played big in the extremes of denomination (i.e., penny and dollar); in the middle (i.e., nickels and quarters) we had very little winnings.
On Poker, (my initial foray with my hand-written cheat sheet form the inet) I KNOW that you are supposed to hold “a low pair” as the about the sixth place on the list. In my play, I NEVER improved on a low pair. I played a lot of hands. I should have kept a stroke count, but I KNOW I never drew out to trips, two pair, or four. NEVER! I don’t know what the stats are, but NEVER! ZERO, nada, zilch. Either I was the unluckiest bettor known to man. Or those machines were rigged.
I did note that the pay tables on some of the slots were biased against the player (Three red sevens play the same as three any sevens.) And why can’t one take pictures in a casino?
Afraid some one might gather evidence?
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Posted by reinkefj
WRITING: TEOTWAWKI fiction — It happened in Church – Chapter Ninety – Settle up
Tuesday, September 9, 2008It happened in Church – October 19, 1962
Chapter Ninety – Settle up
It Started In Church – October 19, 1962
http://www.itstartedinchurch.com
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FUN: I don’t want to go to school!
Tuesday, September 9, 2008What Management Has Taught Me About Life|
September 9th, 2008 by Michael Miles
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One morning, a gentleman knocks on his son’s door. “Jaime,” he says, “wake up!” Jaime answers, “I don’t want to get up, Papa.” The father shouts, “Get up, you have to go to school.” Jaime says, “I don’t want to go to school.” “Why not?” asks the father. “Three reasons,” says Jaime. “First, because it’s so dull; second, the kids tease me; and third, I hate school.” And the father says,”Well, I am going to give you three reasons why you must go to school. First, because it is your duty; second, because you are forty-five years old, and third, because you are the headmaster!”
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I liked the joke!
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Posted by reinkefj
Reinke Faces Life 
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