http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuwgHNtyD54
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RANT: A good five minute rant about socialism
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Leave a Comment » | 
Ranting | Tagged: SOCIALISM | 
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Posted by reinkefj
POLITICS: The Drinking Age
Wednesday, February 4, 2009http://www.reason.com/blog/show/131173.html
And Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds suggests inculcating respect for disparate ideological points of view and comes up with a specific idea that’s not only right, but do-able:
*** begin quote ***
I will make one policy proposal. Some of my fellow libertarians hope that the Obama administration will put an end to the drug war. I hope so too, but I’m not too optimistic. Instead, I propose a smaller step toward freedom—eliminating the federally mandated drinking age of 21. This mandate was a creature of Elizabeth Dole (who is no longer in the Senate to complain at its abolition), and it has unnecessarily limited the freedom of legal adults, old enough to fight for their country, to drink adult beverages.
*** end quote ***
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I find the logic of prohibition incredulous. Even if we skip over the lack of a Constitutional basis for any Prohibition and the argument about who owns your body, it is unbelievable that a man can go to fight and die for a country that won’t let them drink.
At the very least, a military id card should trump ANY age restriction.
Argh!
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1 Comment | Political | Tagged: DRINKINGAGE, Gooferment, Obama, POTUS, POTUS08, Presidential2008, PROHBITION | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
INTERESTING: Return to one’s roots?
Wednesday, February 4, 2009Maybe it’s like the salmon swimming upstream to spawn and die.
I’m sitting in a remodeled classroom in DeLaSalle Hall waiting to take part in a panel discussion for the benefit of the Manhattan College students.
Probably, no one knows it but I went to high school in these few rooms on THIS VERY FLOOR.
Eons ago.
Technically not eons. 1960 – 1964! ~45 years ago. Four plus decades?
Argh!
Travel so far to come full circle.
To see the young people on the campus. Make one feel really OLD.
Argh!
And, you know what happens after that salmon spawns?
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Leave a Comment » | INTERESTING | Tagged: Success | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
SERVICE: VERIZONWIRELESS webservice changes silently?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009Chat InformationPlease wait for a site operator to respond.
Chat InformationYou are now chatting with ‘Stephanie’
Stephanie: Hello. Thank you for visiting our chat service. What kind of help do you need with My Verizon Log in or Registration assistance?
reinkefj: trying to login and it looks like it doesn’t remember me.
Stephanie: I’m more than willing to assist you in any way that I can. Your cell phone number did not pull up for me. Do you mind verifying that number again please?
reinkefj: xxx-xxx-xxxx
reinkefj: ?
Stephanie: I do understand how frustrating it can be not being able to log into your online account. It is okay and I am here to help you today by walking you through a password reset. First, can I get you to verify the Account Owner’s last four digits if the Social Security number?
reinkefj: xxxx
Stephanie: Thank you so much for verifying that information Reinkefj. May I have your full name please?
reinkefj: sigh, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Stephanie: Please scroll to the top of the page and hover your mouse over “My Verizon. Choose Account Type and then click on “Forgot Password,” under the log in section.You will be prompted to enter in your mobile device number. Please enter your mobile device number, and do not include any dashes or spaces. Once entered, please click “continue”.
reinkefj: say not registered with myverizon
Stephanie: Ok. Please scroll to the top of the page and hover your mouse over “My Verizon”. Click on that and you’ll see a blue link that says “Register”. Then click on that link. Next enter your mobile device number, and do not include any dashes or spaces. Once entered, click “continue”.
reinkefj: I don’t want to go thru a reregistration. I was registered already. Has it all been lost?
Stephanie: Which number did you enter?
reinkefj: xxxxxxxxxx
Stephanie: The number ending in yyyy is registered as the account owner. The Account Owner has access to all account management functions. This includes viewing and paying bills online, upgrading equipment, account and calling plan changes.
reinkefj: When I logon to the site I use reinkefj and my password. Now it doesn’t work. Explanation?
Stephanie: Your online password is between 8-20 characters, should contains at least one (1) number and one (1) letter. With spaces or special characters. ‘
reinkefj: My online password is eight characters and has a number in it. Has Verizon changesd its password standards and that is why it doesn’t work now?
Stephanie: No that I am aware of. What I can do is walk you through a password reset to help you access your account. Is that ok?
reinkefj: yes
Stephanie: Please scroll to the top of the page and hover your mouse over “My Verizon. Choose Account Type and then click on “Forgot Password,” under the log in section.You will be prompted to enter in your mobile device number. Please enter your mobile device number, and do not include any dashes or spaces. Once entered, please click “continue”.
reinkefj: It says “not registered”.
Stephanie: The number ending in xxxx is not registered. The number ending in yyyy is what was registered.
reinkefj: Not unless some one changed something. aaaa, bbbb, and cccc are the numbers I use. My car has a number. And, my VWBB has a number. But, that’s it. xxxx is the main number.
Stephanie: I can change that for you, but as of right now the xxxx is not registered.
reinkefj: Thanks. I quit.
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Argh! Here’s a half hour of my life I’ll never get back. So what once worked, doesn’t. And, I, as the customer, have to jump through hoops. Great!
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Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Tagged: cloud computing | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
MONEY: What is a dollar?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009http://www.lewrockwell.com/rajiva/rajiva12.html
Fiat Law and Fiat Currencies – the Relic of Barbarians
by Lila Rajiva
*** begin quote ***
The free market arose wherever there were laws and systems like that – whether in Europe or Africa or Asia. One way to think about this difference would be to see it as the difference between a fiat money, like paper, and a real store of value, like gold. You can print all the money you want, but if there’s nothing to back it up, then you’re in a bit of trouble. Your creditors are unlikely to put much store in you as a credit risk, just as the world’s wringing its hands today over the dollar. Pretty soon, they come calling for their loans with cudgels and pitchforks.
Gold does not have the same problem, because there’s a limited supply of it. It has to occur in nature. It has to be found somewhere underground and then mined and refined. It’s an expensive business – that takes risk, time, and money. There are costs attached to it that someone has to pay. Paper money, on the other hand, can be printed any time you want. Just ask Ben Bernanke. He’s dropping it by the helicopter load from the clouds.
*** end quote ***
They are “counterfeiting value” by printing more money electronically. It’s slight of hand. To understand, you have to understand the answer to the question: “What is a dollar?” and proceed from there.
The answer is it’s NOW an imaginary unit, backed by the belief that you can exchange a green peice of paper for something. A Keynesian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian) will never talk about what the definition of money is. An Austrian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School) will insist that the pricing mechanism in the economy have commodity money. It USED to be tied to gold.
Sadly, as an Austrian, I think you are in for hard times. O is going to “finance” 2T$ in current spending. By monetizing it. A fancy word for counterfeiting. And, the value of the dollar is going down even further.
To understand, you have to go to Robinson Crusoe’s island, that economist’s use to simplify ideas. A fisherman, egg gatherer, and a fruit gatherer are on the island. (Magic; don’t ask questions yet!) They barter between themselves. After a while, 1 fish = 2 eggs = 4 coconuts. Due to the relative difficulty of effort. But the fisherman and fruit gatherer don’t deal directly. The egg gather is the middle man. Then a banker arrives. He creates money so that the Fisherman can deal directly with the Egg guy. He uses seashells. Then the value equation is 1 fish = 2 eggs = 4 coconuts = 8 seashells. The evil banker after a while introduces more seashells into circulation by spending them. So he get more stuff. Similarly through out the ages, the King (Government) seeks to enrich itself that way. When the currency is gold coins, it’s much harder. (I first learned this when I saw an exhibit at the Smithsonian of French Francs over time. The French Franc of Louis I was a gold hockey puck; Louis XIV’s was a very thin button. Inflation!) When the currency is pretty green pieces of paper, it’s much easier.
So there you have how O44 is goign to spend 2T$ that we don’t have.
Basically, it’s a “tax” on anyone who has a dollar or dollar denominated assets. By adding a “seashell”, the value of all the other seashells is adulterated. Watered down.
So who get’s screwed?
The Chinese have 5T$. There’s a lot of dollars out there. The poor and people on fixed incomes (i.e., the purchasing power of their few dollars goes down) get less for their money.
Who makes out?
The US Government mostly. People who have “valuable stuff”. Commodities, commodity producers, land owners, people who produce stuff that others want.
So that’s how O will spend what he ain’t got.
He’s betting that before the inflation comes, the economy will “restart” and we won’t notice. (Think LBJ and Carter!) It worked for Kennedy because he lowered taxes on the productive class and everyone was motivated to get to work. His quote was: “A rising tide raise all boats!”
Sadly, I don’t see O or his staff being that smart.
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Economics, Foreign Exchange, FRAUD, Inflation, Moral Hazard, Obama, POTUS, POTUS08, Presidential2008, Problems | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
INTERESTING: Bush’s RENDITION OK to Obama?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/02/obama_to_keep_renditions.html
February 01, 2009
Obama to keep Renditions
Rick Moran
*** begin quote ***
Rhetoric notwithstanding, Barack Obama does not want a terrorist attack on his watch. Since he and the Democrats decided to politicize the entire war on terror by making it a virtual crime for the president to do much of anything to protect us, he has suddenly woken up to the fact that much of what Bush initiated might not be such a bad idea if you’re a president who doesn’t want to be blamed for a mass casualty assault on America.
Hence, his hedging on keeping the Terrorist Surveillance Program and other programs that, while being controversial, nevertheless were effective at keeping America safe.
{Extraneous Deleted}
It also underscores the idea that Obama is a two faced hypocrite who pandered to his far left base during the campaign by savaging Bush and calling him a criminal but now that the responsibility is his, things take on a different light altogether and what Bush was doing is fine with him.
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Interesting how politicians can say one thing and do another?
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Leave a Comment » | INTERESTING | Tagged: Gooferment, Obama, POTUS, POTUS08, Presidential2008 | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
INTERESTING: Probability lessons for weighing the odds
Monday, February 2, 2009http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article5446920.ece
From The Times
January 5, 2009
Probability lessons may teach children how to weigh life’s odds and be winners
Professor wants ‘risk literacy’ on the curriculum Risk literacy could be taught as part of maths, science, or civics and personal and social education
Mark Henderson, Science Editor
*** begin quote ***
Professor Spiegelhalter’s four rules of risk, which he says everyone should know
* Stuff happens We cannot predict exactly how every precise event will turn out, but we can often predict the overall pattern of events surprisingly well
* Compare like with like If you want to show that speed cameras reduce road traffic accident rates, don’t just put them in places that have just had a run of accidents
* What am I not being told? This person may well have got better after she took this wonder treatment, but how many other people’s stories are not being featured?
* Twice not-very-much is still not very much Increasing a tiny risk may not be so important: almost everything interesting might help and it might also harm. The trick is working out the balance for you
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Leave a Comment » | INTERESTING | Tagged: Economics, Education, Propaganda | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
NATIONAL: Expansion Of SCHIP Passes
Monday, February 2, 2009Expansion Of SCHIP Passes, Millions Of Kids Get Health Insurance
February 1, 2009
*** begin quote ***
The Senate has agreed with the House and has approved an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), supplying millions of low-income children with health insurance.<br /> ….Washington (dbTechno) – The Senate has agreed with the House and has approved an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), supplying millions of low-income children with health insurance.
*** end quote ***
While on the surface this seems that it’s a “great idea”, however let’s look at the “silent victim”. The taxpayer. We are getting hammered all over the place.
Is it efficient to send money to Washington in taxes? After all they take half for handling to send it to the states, the states “handle” it, and “distribute” it. What the “load” or losses do to friction of all those hands.
Is it effective to “insure” children in this manner? It’s not MY problem that parents haven’t provided for their children. I am taxed to educate them even though I had no part in the decision to have them or anything else. I’m not taxed to feed them. YET? Is that next?
Argh!
And, we are sending a message to parents that they can’t take care of their own children without the gooferment. What happens when the choices conflict? You know they will. And, the queues for service and reimbursement?
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | NATIONAL | Tagged: Insurance, limited government, Policy | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
GUNS: ‘Defiance’ — “Without a rifle, you are nothing”
Monday, February 2, 2009http://westernrifleshooters.blogspot.com/2008/12/vanderboegh-defiance-without-rifle-you.html
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Vanderboegh: ‘Defiance’ — “Without a rifle, you are nothing”
*** begin quote ***
Though the movie may insert inappropriate comic relief and its versions of the Bielski brothers are at times so incompetent that they would not have survived for a week, let alone for years, it does what Holocaust movies all too often avoid doing, it focuses on the survival. The Germans, when they arrive, are soldiers in gray moving in and out. The locals collaborate or don’t, for their own reasons. There is no moral to be learned, except that if you want to live and want others to live, you must be prepared to do what it takes.
That is the first and foremost lesson of the Holocaust to be learned. For all the unanswered moral, philosophical and theological questions– the bottom line is that millions of Jews were killed, because they could be. The only true defense against a Holocaust is the ability to resist and to survive one.
Before the State of Israel was officially declared, the Bielskis made their own Jewish state in a forest, to live as free men and women mere kilometers from their would be killers, and though like the real state and its real leaders, they may have been flawed, their triumph is not some uplifting moral, but a matter of accomplishment, the 1200 they hid in the forest against all odds, and through determination and hard work, they did not become victims or fatalities, they survived. And through their guidance and efforts so did 1200 others.
No higher praise is needed.
*** end quote ***
Makes me want to see it even more.
Hopefully, this isn’t a portend of things to come in America.
Disarming the people is the first step on a short road to genocide!
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Leave a Comment » | GUNS | Tagged: genocide, Gooferment, Rights, RKBA, VICTIM DISARMAMENT | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
RANT: Who’s the “worst” President?
Sunday, February 1, 2009Well, imho, we need a few decades to properly evaluate the “worst” label.
There were the fellows who tried — Eisenhower (Identified the Military Industrial complex) and Regan (Couldn’t control the Congressional spending).
There was Carter whos was merely incompetent; not evil.
Bush41 reneged on “read my lips, no new taxes”.
Clinton was too busy with intens to kill or capture Bin Laden; that might have prevented 9/11. Clinton (“I did not have sex with that woman” and parsing the word ‘is’) set a new low for personal conduct. And, was a negative moral influence on a generation.
Bush43 was another incompetent big G socialist.
Now we can get into the competition for the “worst”! Runners up:
Wilson, who campaigned on peace, instituted the draft, signed the Federal Reserve act, and immediately led us into WW1 which set the table for WW2.
FDR, who maneuvered us into WW2 via Pearl Harbor and entrenched Socialistic Big Government.
Truman who dropped the A-bomb on civilians.
BUT, the “worst” has to be Lincoln.
(1) The War of Northern Aggression. What you call the Civil War. What some call the Second American Revolution. There is no Constitutional, legal, or moral justification for this war on “his” own citizens. That alone would rocket him too the top of the list.
(2) Income tax to pay for that war. Government debt too. And, a draft for poor folks to fight the war; rich people could buy their way out.
(3) Freedom of Press savaged when editors dared to criticism him.
(4) Atrocities against civilian populations like Sherman’s “March to the Sea”.
(5) Single handedly destroying the concept of a Union of Equals amd morphing into the USA as the tyrant state.
And, don’t forget, he want to send all the “Negros” back to Africa. A racist among his other “endearing” qualities.
Slavery was a smokescreen! It wasn’t about slavery. The rest of the world, for the most part, eliminated slavery peacefully. At the time of the war, there had been plans to buy all the slaves and free them. It was a labor model that was unsustainable.
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Leave a Comment » | Ranting | Tagged: POTUS | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
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