INTERESTING: Gallup continues the false dichotomy — liberal versus conservative!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conservatives-Single-Largest-Ideological-Group.aspx

June 15, 2009
“Conservatives” Are Single-Largest Ideological Group
Percentage of “liberals” higher this decade than in early ’90s
by Lydia Saad

*** begin quote ***

PRINCETON, NJ — Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.

*** end quote ***

This part of that “false choice” nonsense.

The labels — conservative and liberal — have zero meaning.

No one defines what they mean.

The Nolan Chart http://www.nolanchart.com is a much better way to assess views. It’s not single line spectrum.

Argh!

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: BOYCOTT Simon Malls!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/06/july_4_atlanta_tea_party_cance.html

June 23, 2009
July 4 Atlanta Tea Party Cancelled
Jason Lee

*** begin quote ***

With as many as 20,000 people attendance, the Atlanta Tea Party on April 15 was one of the largest and most successful Tea Parties in the country. The Atlanta Tea Party on July 4, 2009 had been expected to be just as large. Unfortunately, plans have changed. Simon Property Group has forced the cancellation of the Atlanta Tea Party.

*** and ***

Following the money, connecting the dots:

   1. Gwinnett Place Mall shut down the Atlanta Tea Party.

   2. Simon Property Group owns Gwennett Place Mall.

   3. Melvin Simon (a Forbes 400 billionaire) is Co-chairman of Simon Property Group, Inc.

   4. Melvin Simon has provided large political contributions to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Al Franken, John Edwards, the DNC and many other Democrats and Democrat organizations.

   5. Melvin Simon was a major contributor to Barack Obama inaugural committee and has given at least $1 million to the William J. Clinton foundation.

   6. Melvin’s wife, Bren, personally donated almost $100,000 to various political candidates, was a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, and contributed to President Obama’s inaugural committee.

*** end quote ***

AND IN THE COMMENTS

*** begin quote ***

Two can play that game. Call for a boycott of all Simon Malls – there are plenty of alternatives looking for our dollar. Write to the merchants management and say why you will not shop at a Simon Mall – they suppress Freedom of Speech and the constitutional right to assemble. Boycotts worked in the South before, they will work again especially if wide spread throughout the country. Nobody tells Simon where to invest his money and it is his right to contribute to whichever candidate he thinks will benefit this country. But our choice of where to shop is beyond his reach. Not that one can’t smell the stink of perversion from Chicago via Washington. Hardball they want? Hardball they get.

*** end quote ***

BOYCOTT Simon Malls!

http://www.simon.com/findamall/noflash/find_mall.aspx

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Posted by reinkefj

FUN: The “tin foil” hat

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/items/tinfoilhat.xml

*** begin quote ***

“On behalf of the International Gnomish Conspiracy, I’ve got to inform you that we’re almost out of tinfoil.”

Every engineer knows that in order to achieve true greatness, it is imperative to always keep a clear, unclouded mind and to protect one’s secrets from those who would seek to steal or plagiarize the radical new designs of a hard-working genius. The Tinfoil Hat is the logical result of this profound insight, combining tinfoil’s powerful mental shielding properties with the excellent counter-hexing effect of troll tears and the outstanding mind-focus powers of one of Azeroth’s most precious gems.

However, besides keeping the wearer safe from mind spies and the thought police, it also removes the wearer’s character profile from the World of Warcraft Armory to further guarantee that no one will be able to divine all of the wearer’s tightly held secrets. Furthermore, wearers of the Tinfoil Hat will not show up in /who listings, and they will also be immune to inspection from other players.

The schematic for the Tinfoil Hat can be obtained by high-level characters from two faction-specific vendor NPCs in or around Area 52 that sell the schematic to anyone. There is, however, a catch. The creative masterminds who invented the Tinfoil Hat, special engineers Sculder and Mully, are extremely suspicious of any and all visitors. They use Gnomish Cloaking Devices and their own Tinfoil Hats to stay out of sight, and they will only reveal themselves to connoisseurs of their favorite foods — Dried Mushroom Rations for Sculder, and Dried Fruit Rations for Mully (these items can be bought in Thrallmar and Honor Hold).

The only drawback is that the increased focus provided by the Tinfoil Hat may sometimes lead the wearer to achieve a superlative level of mental clarity, through which he can see the manifold subtle connections between seemingly unrelated facts and events, revealing to the wearer a much sharper image of the truth. Resisting the urge to share this truth with other, less illuminated players can be difficult, indeed…

*** end quote ***

“Allows the wearer to see “the truth.” May lead to an incontrollable urge to share “the truth” with others.”
Yes, it does!
And, blogging allows me to share “the truth” with you so you can’t see my tin foil hat!
ROFL!
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POLITICAL: THe new “inside trader”

Monday, June 22, 2009

http://www.suntimes.com/news/1620776,CST-NWS-durbin13.article

Durbin cashed out during big stock collapse
WASHINGTON | Asset sales came after meeting with Fed, Treasury chiefs
June 13, 2009

*** begin quote ***

As U.S. stock markets plummeted last September, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, sold more than $115,000 worth of stocks and mutual-fund shares and used much of the money to invest in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

The Illinois senator’s 2008 financial disclosure statement shows he sold mutual-fund shares worth $42,696 on Sept. 19, the day after then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged congressional leaders in a closed meeting to craft legislation to help financially troubled banks.

*** end quote ***

Of course, there was no connection between the meeting and his actions.

The fact that Paulson probably said “I wouldn’t be holding any equities” and Bernake “I’m printing money like there’s no tomorrow”, never entered into his thoughts.

Inside information. Insider trading.

Only applies to non “public servants”.

Yeah, right!

Poor Martha! I’m sure she did less than this fellow. She didn’t create the mess.

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Posted by reinkefj

POLITICAL: Healthcare debate

Monday, June 22, 2009

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2009/06/health-care-naysayers.html

Sunday, June 21, 2009
Health care naysayers

*** begin quote ***

Republicans were out in force, trying to kill the kind of healthcare reform that Americans — if opinion polling is any indication — desire and expect. All are claiming to support reform, but none seem to be listening to the majority, which repeatedly says it wants a public plan as an alternative to the current system — and that it trusts the government to manage health care coverage better than the insurance companies.

*** end quote ***

MY RESPONSE

(1) Put me down as a naysayer. And, I am not an R. Nor am I a D.

(2) Hope you’re not relying on that NY Times “poll”. Non-partisan stats lookers find that they polled 66% D’s versus 33% R’s. Polling partisans isn’t really polling.

(3) While the insurances companies may not be the ideal gatekeeper of health care, do you really want some version of Amtrak or the Post Office doing it?

(4) How about some “baby steps”, to make sure that we don’t kill what we got, disconnect employment from health insurance. Allow health care to be tax deductible to the individual and treat it like life insurance. (Note: see how cheap life insurance is and how expensive health insurance is. Why is that?)

(5) When Hillary tried to nationalize health care, everyone saw it as socialism. (Which works so well else where.) Her methods turned everyone off. Here is is again. Methods are slightly more “open”. BUT again, like the bailouts, we are being hustled and rushed. DO it now! Can’t wait. That’s the clear sign of a scam.

(6) The Government can not be both the participant in and the referee in this future fiasco. It will set the rules and then “compete” in the marketplace. Please lets not fool ourselves. EVERYONE knows that the Left’s objective is to takeover healthcare. It’s always been that. They have even said that in leaked audios and video. Sometimes they even say it in rare moments of honesty. So let’s not kid ourselves. It’s the Communist Manifesto playbook. This is all about ensure Democratic voters forever. This is all about control. This is a giant scam!

Government is the meme that kills and enslaves its citizens.

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Posted by reinkefj

GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Honeymoon used to expand the gooferment

Monday, June 22, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124407228244683091.html  

It’s the Economy, Stupid
The Obama presidency will rise or fall on results.
Karl Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

*** begin quote ***

Until now, the new president has benefited from public willingness to give him a honeymoon. He decided to use that grace period to push for the largest expansion of government in U.S. history and to reward political allies (see the sweetheart deals Big Labor received in the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies). The difficulty for Mr. Obama will be when the public sees where his decisions lead — higher inflation, higher interest rates, higher taxes, sluggish growth, and a jobless recovery.

*** end quote ***

This pig is going in the WRONG direction.

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MONEY: Expect more intrusions and less roi

Sunday, June 21, 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/5526129/Lloyds-Bank-hit-by-Obama-tax-purge.html

Lloyds Bank hit by Obama tax purge
Banking group drops American customers in UK ahead of costly proposals to stamp out tax evasion
By Louise Armitstead
Published: 9:39PM BST 13 Jun 2009

*** begin quote ***

This week American private client account-holders at Lloyds’s received letters informing them of an “important change in policy regarding clients who are resident, domiciled or linked to the United States by property or asset holdings”. They were told the bank had “no choice” but to “cease acting as your investment manager.”

*** end quote ***

Funny, here comes the unintended consequences!

It will be just the first.

More forms, more intrusive checking, more audits.

Argh!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Fixing health care

Sunday, June 21, 2009

http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=279

April 1993
Volume 11, Number 4
A Four-Step Health-Care Solution
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

*** begin quote ***

It’s true that the U.S. health care system is a mess, but this demonstrates not market but government failure. To cure the problem requires not different or more government regulations and bureaucracies, as self-serving politicians want us to believe, but the elimination of all existing government controls.

*** end quote ***

Summary:

1. Eliminate all licensing requirements

2. Eliminate all government restrictions on pharmaceutical products and medical devices

3. Deregulate the health insurance industry

4. Eliminate all subsidies to the sick or unhealthy

Permit me to add a fifth!

5. Make the tax code neutral with respect to benefits. Emerging form the WW2 wage and price controls, the gooferment has distorted the “playing field”. “Benefits” are deductible to the corporation and not to the individual. That has set up the situation where an individual’s health insurance is tied to their job. No job; no insurance.

How much better would things be if it was like life insurance or automobile insurance. I can buy 20 year term life cheap and no one cares who my employer is. I am required by the gooferment to have auto insurance (an absurd concept), but it’s not tied to my employment.

This seems to be an easy one.

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TECHNOLOGY: How to get privacy?

Saturday, June 20, 2009

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/06/the_hidden_cost.html?nc=16#comment-378824

Bruce Schneier
A blog covering security and security technology.
June 15, 2009

The “Hidden Cost” of Privacy

*** begin quote ***

Forbes ran an article talking about the “hidden” cost of privacy. Basically, the point was that privacy regulations are expensive to comply with, and a lot of that expense gets eaten up by the mechanisms of compliance and doesn’t go toward improving anyone’s actual privacy.

*** end quote ***

I’m a fan of simple non-gooferment solutions. It would seem that “copyright” is an already existing “solution”. If your stuff (e.g., your NAME, your SSN, your PHONE NUMBER, and your EMAIL NAME) was “yours” (i.e., copyrighted), then each entity that wanted to “copy” it (i.e., save it in a database) should have to have your permission by some type of written agreement. Seems that would prevent Credit Reporting Agencies, Google, and such from being disinterested in our collective satisfaction. imho! Copyright metadata for privacy?

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MONEY: Commodity versus fiat money

Saturday, June 20, 2009

http://lewrockwell.com/orig10/hansen1.html

Will Radically Different Banking Plans Work?
Not until we abolish legal tender laws
by Betsy Hansen

*** begin quote ***

Because the fiat money system is both the strength and weakness of America’s tyrants. It bleeds the people’s wealth and labor, but it also threatens to collapse under its own weight – or whenever the scales fall off the people’s eyes. With its green engravings of famous Americans, electrons whirling around in bank computers, and loans created out of thin air, it is one vast confidence game.

*** end quote ***

The Federal Reserve Bank (which is none of those things) allows the congress critters, the Administration, politicians, bureaucrats, and their ilk to raise taxes without explicitly raising taxes.

The sheeple can’t even tell what they are paying in taxes. Inflation erodes their “savings” such that the gooferment can steal all their earnings in a given year. Even the worst tyrant of dictator of old used to have to leave the serfs enough to eat from year to year. And, the sheeple don’t even know they are being robbed.a

Imagine the uproar if a President said: “Sorry we have to take everything you earned this year for the good of everyone.” There would be riots in the streets. But the FED can inflate away. Since 1970, inflation has reduced the value of a dollar 97%!

Sheeple, how stupid can you be?

Independence Day? Don’t make me laff!

We’re not independent as long as the FED exists. Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson, were right.

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