Arrests at the IRS office
The FreeStaters are taking on the IRS and Homeland Security. No First Amendment Rights in Federal Buildings? That’s news to me. And, I bet it would shock most lawyers.
LIBERTY: No 1st Amendment rights in Federal Offices!!
Friday, August 10, 2007
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Posted by reinkefj
LIBERTY: The financial house is rotten to the core!
Thursday, August 9, 2007—–Original Message—–
From: Luddite
Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2007 9:46 PM
Subject: Guns or Butter?
That is the question, isn’t it right now? Money to spend on guns for the war, or money to spend on repairing a weak infrastructure? We probably can’t afford both, since we can’t afford what we spend now!
***My Response***
Not only can’t we afford the guns, or the butter. The financial house is rotten to the core! There are so many chickens coming home to roost, it’s hard to itemize them all. Let’s take a few big hitters:
* The money has no backing hence we have institutionalized inflation that jacks costs, taxes, and gooferment salaries.
* The Chinese and Japanese are send us stuff for green pix of dead presidents.
* Social security trust fund.
* Medicare/Medicaid/The drug benefit.
* Unfunded liabilities like gooferment pensions.
* Gooferment education making us globally uncompetitive.
* Laws, regulation, and diktats that make entrepreneurial activity near impossible.
* A large portion of the population with an entitlement mentality.
* The phony drug war.
* Multi-generation welfare “farmers”.
* Rich people gaming the system to capture “benefits’.
* Fascism where regulators and those regulators conspire to screw the people, consumers, and the country.
Did I overlook anything?
***End Quote***
Upon reflection, perhaps I wasn’t strident enough. Just about any one of these things would kill an empire. But, again as they say in football, “after further review”, it’s our paradigms and memes that are going to kill us. And kill off the American experiment. And where do we get those? From Gooferment Education!
Gooferment is in “education” up to its nose. There seems to be a federal rule about everything. And, what has it done for us? Created minds full of mush. That’s probably our biggest obstacle to a solution. We are creating people, half of whom might vote in elections, who haven’t learned the basics. In the one size fits all education system, doesn’t ever pretend to attempt to maximize output. Genius or dullard, both get the same “education”. No wonder people revolt.
In today’s global economy, we can’t afford to waste a single brain. I’ve laughed when Iran had the fashion police. They are putting half their brain power on hold. Bad for them; good for us. We should encourage them to propagate that idea around the world. Meanwhile, we need to allow all our people the freedom and liberty to outperform the world.
And, that starts with education. It’s too important to be left tot he gooferment.
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Posted by reinkefj
LIBERTY: 2008 Ballot Initiative to END the Massachusetts Income Tax
Thursday, August 9, 2007http://www.smallgovernmentact.org
***Begin Quote***
COMING SOON! The 2008 Ballot Initiative to END the Massachusetts Income Tax
We nearly did it in 2002, winning 45.3% of the vote! We came so close!
The state constitution required us to sit out two election cycles before trying it again. We did, and now the 2008 election year is upon us. We’re gunna run “End the Income Tax” again in 2008!
***End Quote***
Carla is going to make another run at killing the income tax. Hope she succeeds. I urge anyone living in Taxachusetts to join her.
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Posted by reinkefj
INTERESTING: Ron Paul’s proposal for Letters of Marquee
Thursday, August 9, 2007http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2007/tle429-20070805-02.html
Libertarians and Iraq
by Daniel G. Jennings
***Begin Quote***
Well Libertarians can offer answers creative out of the box thinking like Ron Paul’s proposal for Letters of Marquee and entrepreneurial warfare. That is turn the war over to private companies that can adapt quickly and effectively and aren’t constrained by bureaucracy, politics, media scrutiny or public opinion. Or to local groups in the Middle East such as private militias and local individuals. For example private covert operators who don’t have to fight the war on drugs could make deals with Opium Growers in Afghanistan and get Bin Laden and other Al Qaeada fanatics (one of the reasons we’ve failed in Afghanistan is that our forces have antagonized the local people by trying to eradicate the one cash crop they can grow: opium) . Locally hired mercenaries would be familiar with the local culture and languages in ways Americans wouldn’t.
***End Quote***
Out of the box answers are certainly what’s needed. We have an awful lot of chickens on the inbound and some are “huge” (e.g., How does the next generation make good on the promises of today’s politicians?, and a slew of others).
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Posted by reinkefj
LIBERTY: Ron Paul against the Income Tax and the IRS
Thursday, August 9, 2007You Choose ’08 Spotlight: Ron Paul on the IRS
You have to like any candidate that wants to nuke the IRS and the income tax. I’d like to see a stake through the heart on this engine of Big Gooferment.
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Posted by reinkefj
JOBSEARCH: JOBMOB is running a contest.
Thursday, August 9, 2007http://jobmob.co.il/blog/do-you-create-value/
JOBMOB is running a contest. My entry is very simple. I think you can vote for it if you thinks it’s a winner.
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Posted by reinkefj
PRODUCTIVITY: Thinking about decisions
Tuesday, August 7, 2007From an Early To Rise ezine
Learning From Saddam
By Robert Ringer
***Begin Quote***
Unfortunately, there is no foolproof way to avoid making The Big Mistake, but a method that I find works very well is what I refer to as “looking backward from the future.” Here’s how it works:
1. Project yourself into the future before you act.
2. Picture the worst possible consequences of your actions.
3. Pretend to look over your shoulder from the future – at where you are today.
4. If Step 2 is much worse than what you see in Step 3, you would be wise to rethink your plans. Put another way, if you’re not prepared to live with the worst-possible consequences of your contemplated action, take a pass.
***End Quote***
This may be another way of saying above and below the waterline.
Have to think about the two and compare.
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MONEY: Honest money; not “social justice”
Monday, August 6, 2007August 4, 2007
How Money Is Created As A Debt By Private Banks – The Money Castaways
Robin Good
Be Smart, Be Independent, Be Good
Edited by: Luigi Canali De Rossi
***Begin Quote***
The story I present to you here today has nothing with to do with web 2.0, new media or how to make money with your site. Today’s story is all about waking up. Realizing that something you have given for good and granted since you were born, may actually deserve some heavy rethinking ASAP.
This is the story of how private banks force most of us into the vicious, enslaving circle, in which you have long been feeling trapped. Working your ass off for six days a week only to be able to pay the rent, the gas, the bills and very little more. If getting a mortgage to buy a house means signing a slavery contract for the rest of your life, maybe THERE IS something deeply wrong with the economics of our system and the way create debt out of money THEY DO NOT OWN.
But you know what fucks us bad?
Our ignorance.
***End Quote***
Now I’ll need a little help here. I’ve sent out the “bat signal” to real Austrian economists. This cartoon doesn’t seem right to me. But, I’m an injineer, not an ekkynonnnymist.
I suspect that it is in the quick way it whizzes by the transformation from bartering goods to creating a fiat currency. But, I think it makes some big leaps to an unsustainable conclusion (i.e., money for social justice).
One must always read extra careful when you see stuff by the “social justice” crowd. They are usually Socialists at best and Communists at worst.
While they will criticize the “banker” in their little morality play, they ignore conveniently that the division of labor made possible by free markets and capitalism. We can support more of us with everyone doing “their thing” in liberty. The free market allows us to peacefully decide who “needs” what and to satisfy those needs in an incredibly complex calculus. Thousands of needs all integrated and aligned to come up with the “best” solution. Markets with prices allow everyone to decide what is best for them. It came about organically from the barter economy. And, is singularly responsible for human progress in that it allows needs to be peacefully satisfied.
Money, whether it be those big wheels of the Yap Islands, the tikis of some other island, or gold coins, makes the world go around. Money allows prices. Prices induce people to change their behavior — forgo, substitute, or conserve. Some need is expensive; maybe it’s a want as opposed to a need. Steak is “too expensive”; eat “cheaper” chicken. Maybe for an expansive good, I can use less. The marketplace automagically aligns all these calculations. Prices allow people to adjust.
I agree with the conclusion about “ignorance”. We’ve become too “smart” for our own good.
When gooferment was given the monopoly over “money” that’s where the dead old white guys made their mistake. And, we have been paying for it since 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created. They should have stood silent on what constituted money and allowed the marketplace to decide.
imho
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Posted by reinkefj
LINKEDIN: Facebook IS completely different than LinkedIn
Monday, August 6, 2007From a posting on Execunet (http://www.execunet.com) that was tuned up and reposted at the “LinkedIn Discussion Index” blog honchoed by Vincent Wright. Vincent created the genre of LinkedIn spin off groups that allowed an interesting segmentation of the LinkedIn community. Here’s my posting about the differences in different social networking site.
*** begin quote ***
Facebook IS completely different than LinkedIn
I was much amused by all the Facebook versus LinkedIn discussion recently. As I was with the “religious” quality vs quality qauziness (sic craziness). All courtesy of Vincent’s various creations. Of course, as a big fat old turkey, I have lots of DIKW and a few opinions. I wrote this on a pay site for the networking group there and, as a lazy turkey too, I will repurpose it for my blog. But first I’ll drop it here as my inaugural post. I don’t want to reignite religious wars, but I am trying to make the point that just as there are different tools like a hammer, screw driver, and wrench, that start out with different design goals, humans can use their tools in unexpected ways. I personally have used a hammer to keep a reference book open to a certain page, poke a hole clear with a screw driver, and used a wrench to bang a nail. The hammer was holding the book open that said “put nail here”. (Don’t ask it was a bad day!) But seriously, it all starts with the user’s individual goal, then proceeds thru any number of tools, and finally to the results. If the proverbial nail goes in the right spot, who’s to say that the user was wrong.
So with that caveat, let’s dive into the mind of a big fat old turkey thinking about Facebook, as compared to LinkedIn. Bear in mind, that Facebook here is really a specific instance of other social networking sites such as Friendster, MySpace, and all the what I call “near social networking sites”. You know those sites, where they too are bolting on, after the fact, some aspect of social networking.
Here goes. Jumping into a conversation about Facebook as compared to LinkedIn:
I think you have to approach “networking” on Facebook completely differently than LinkedIn. More social! And much more passively. More timeless. And unstructured.
For example, I’m using it to collect as many “alma mater” networking contacts as I can. By that I mean fellow graduates of “my” school, people from past employers, current fellow employees, industry colleagues, and work / home regional granfalloon type contacts. You then proceed to “infiltrate” the target companies where your target position is likely to exists.
Since Facebook aims at a younger demographic, old far … fogeys like me, need to swim gently, being helpful and very non judgmental.
(Posting one sexuality in their profile was the biggest thing I had to “overlook”. Talk about digital dirt! Who knew that all the “hot chicks” from my stogy Catholic College were gay? Or is that defense mechanism. But some of the pictures are borderline NSFW! Can you believe any of the nonsense posted there? Recommend sunglasses and a large supply of NaCl!)
OK, I’m swimming in that “pool”, and remember I have no specific “networking agenda” in mind. I have helped about a dozen people with job leads and resume help. (Seek first to help, then be helped.) And, for example, in the process have acquired one networking contact at a very low level, who is giving me organization announcements for a company in my geography where I’d have a trivial commute. (I could go home for lunch.) Will any thing come of it? Who knows. I have about 100+ new “friends” and bunch of new “fellow alums”. Does it matter? Too soon to tell.
Remember I measure things in decades. My lesson from the Universe on that was a trivial good deed done to an IBM sales engineer 15 years prior snagged me a great job with him as my boss when I needed it. It taught me the value of timeless chronologies. Not everything you plant gives you veggies in 15 minutes. Americans with the “now” mentality have to learn everything comes to fruition in its own time.
Bottom line, that contact had never heard of LinkedIn, and really doesn’t “do the networking thing”.
So you have to become a chameleon. Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom is where you can find it. Here’s some of my whiz-dumb about Facebook, its difference from LinkedIn, and the need to be “flexible” in each social networking instance.
Do I think that I have the pearls of wisdom about LinkedIn, Facebook, or anything else? Sure I do. Even the big fat old turkey has a big fat ego.
I appreciate a new venue to pontificate from, and that VW is an all “right” fellow. Even though he has too much time on his hands to be creating all these genre busting concepts. Due to him, I personally have had to go to the new paradigm store several times for a meme clean out and reload. Maybe he’s a Microsoft Executive in disguise. You know spend lots of time – money – attention to upgrade a perfectly good operating system, just so you can have a new ribbon and lots of old problems. Yup, Vincent, is one of those good kind of trouble makers. The kind that make you think and act differently.
Now if he could just transform me into one of those kids on Facebook, then he’d be impressive. (I wonder if Frau Reinke, my wife, would approve?)
You are, all, of course, welcome to peruse my various and sundry DIKW entries at my various sites. Or, not as you see fit. I don’t have as many as VW has domain names, but then I’m just a poor turkey. Not one of them there domain en-tray-pren-you-ers.
fwiw ymmv faiwwypfi,
fjohn
the big fat old turkey hisself
*** end quote ***
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Posted by reinkefj
LIBERTY: Wave good bye to the Fourth Amendment
Monday, August 6, 2007August 6, 2007
Bush Signs Law to Widen Legal Reach for Wiretapping
By JAMES RISEN
***Begin Quote***
WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.
***End Quote***
Wave good bye to the Fourth Amendment.
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