Reinke Faces Life

http://drjoewebb.blogspot.com/2006/04/all-kinds-of-stuff-and-rant-about-oil.html

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Industry profits still are exceeded by taxes paid from the processing level to the consumer price. There are 43 different direct and indirect taxes on gasoline, from pumping from the ground until the customer puts it in their tank. Maybe stopping the tax shell game would lower the prices, ya think? Tax collections are so strong, especially in states where sales tax as a percentage of the sale is collected, that there is no incentive to lower or remove the taxes; there is only an incentive to have meaningless press conferences with much flailing about. 

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I know why they tax everything in sight! Because they think we're too stupid to realize it. Taxes are bad enough. But taxes on something that every business and person depends upon? Let come to the realization that only "the folks" pay taxes. You and me and him and her. Real people, who can't include in the cost of producing a good for sale, are the ones who PAY taxes. Do you think that UPS doesn't price their services to INCLUDE the full cost of any taxes that they pay on gas? Do you think, that when you buy bread and milk at the grocery store, you are NOT paying for the gas that got them there? Do you think that any business doesn't just mark up their price to cover the gas? (If they can't sell their product for a profit, including the price of gas, guess what? They close their doors!)

So there you have it. The gummamint sticks it too us by taxing gasoline. It gets buried in the price of everything we buy. And we really really do NOT know how much we pay in taxes!

We'd be better off, to know the true cost of everything minus the hidden gas tax, if we paid more at the annual blood letting than allowing them to think that they have fooled us. The dead old white guys would have never stood for this nonsense. The american revolution was fought over a 1% tax! Best solution is not to pay any taxes at all.

But then I am a Libertarian. I want freedom. And for me to be free, I have to let you be as free as I want to be. So none of us should pay any taxes. PERIOD!

http://www.banthebulb.org/

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A £1 tax on every incandescent light bulb would help to increase the uptake of environmentally friendly technologies, and allow light bulb prices to include more of the environmental costs associated with wasting energy and burning fossil fuels.

Waiving this tax on energy-efficient lightbulbs would also encourage the uptake of existing technologies and drive further innovation.

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On the theory that any idea that increases taxes is a bad one, and on the theory that it's a global world of ideas (i.e., our thieves aka tax collectors will grasp any idea to increase their take), can some one explain to me how giving the government, any government, more of the our sweat of our collective brows will solve this problem.

If we assume that there is a problem as states (i.e., incandescent bulb waste energy and cause all sorts of mischief), then how do we nduce people to change their behavior? Now if we recognize taxes as theft, followed up by men with guns coming to kill us, perhaps we might try some simpler ideas.

Educate people. Work on the economics not by raising the cost of bulbs (i.e., increasing the cost of incandescent bulbs by taxes) but by decreasing the cost of the alternatives. By getting people to look at the total cost of ownership.

AND, by the way, I bet the government, of which the originator seeks to empower with more tax money, probably is the biggest energy waster and incandescent bulb user on the planet.

So much for that good intention paving the way to hell for us.

Fix the government like a cat. Spay and neuter your local politcians!

http://www.smallgov.org/?p=195

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A libertarian is, if nothing else, a person with at least an intuitive grasp of the parameters within which the abstract structures of human society must be limited. A person who at least implicitly grasps that as the seat of human intelligence, the individual must be afforded a maximum of personal freedom in order for the social structure to be consistent with fundamental, immutable human nature. 

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I think I'd prefer the definition "A Libertarian is anyone who believes in the Zero Aggression Principle and acts that way. So I would expect that they would renounce the use of force to achieve social and political goals.

###

http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2006/04/23/news/top/05ab7f414cdfe98886257159000c25b8.txt#blogcomments

Missing 60 years, World War II hero buried with honors
By Dolly A. Butz Journal staff writer

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Staff Sgt. Walter Knudsen, a World War II B-24 gunnery instructor from Sioux City was praised as an American hero at a graveside ceremony with full military honors Saturday at Memorial Park Cemetery.

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We should remember the cost in blood and treasure of all these men and women. Personally, before we dedicate buildings and name streets for politicians, we should have then named for our honored dead. Where is "Walter Knudsen" avenue? In the government skools in Iowa, they should teach about Walter Knudsen. At least, the students would learn that freedom has a price.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2137428,00.html

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Last week I was in a deprived fishing village in Ghana that boasts six flourishing private schools only yards from the state school. A fisherman with an understanding of economics that would put union officials to shame, who had moved his daughter from state to private school, told me that the private school proprietor needed to satisfy parents like him, otherwise he would go out of business. “That’s why the teachers turn up and teach,” he told me, “because they are closely supervised.” His wife, busy smoking fish for sale in the market, concurred. “In the state school, our daughter learnt nothing. Now she’s back on track.”

These parents understand what apparently baffles those in the unions, so used to the dependency culture of the West — that what is handed out for free is likely to be low quality. One father, living in the Kenyan slum of Kibera, summarised it like this: “If you go to a market and are offered free fruit and vegetables, you know they’ll be rotten. If you want fresh produce, you have to pay for it.”

Real privatisation occurs only if the customers of education are empowered, if the educational providers are made accountable to them. We have found a very effective way of doing that over the millennia — it’s called the price mechanism. Only when people pay for something can they be in real control. Poor parents in the developing world recognise this with crystal clarity.

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When the people of this country realize the "Barbara Striesand" that they are being sold, then maybe we will have true Separation of Education and State.

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle364-20060423-02.html

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The public school system—a socialist enterprise that can't seem to teach kids to read, write, or even count, but can shake them down, sample their body fluids, rifle their lockers, rummage through their purses, briefcases, and bookbags, and spy on them cybernetically on MySpace—have made a good start on outlawing knowledge itself, I think.

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Doesn't anyone see the similarities between the State's prisons and its "skoolz"?

http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/180/4578/2006-04-20.asp?wid=180&nid=4578

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Suppose that any of the people at the school that day, had been armed as is/was constitutionally intended? There would have been a far better chance that Harris and Klebold would have been stopped, and quickly.

I contend that it is, in fact, you that needs to learn the true ‘lesson’ of Columbine.

How many people have died, because of being illegally disarmed or prevented from arming themselves for defense? 

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I learned from jfpo http://www.jpfo.org/ the fact that governments kill their citizens. It's almost a fact of nature. Some regimes really do it "right" and wipe out whole segments, generations, ethnicities, or just lots of poor unfortunates. Many regimes at least try to pretend that they want to protect you. In actuality, government is merely a mask for the worst of human nature. It's almost, that by the process of collecting of all our permissions to do "stuff", all of our collective humanity is distilled out of the result. I would no more: torture an enemy combatants; impoverish future generations; or allow any infringement of any human right. So why when our collective will is assembled does it lose any vestige of our inhibitions?

It must be because the wielder of the collective power get intoxicated and forgets that they themselves are human. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's like a brain disease.

The solution is to keep power in very small boxes. Tightly bound with our feedback. Delimited by "rights". Restricted to very limited situations. With horrendous retribution for transgressing.

The Intelligent Designer given right to life, recognized in the Constitution by the Second Amendment, says to me, that if I'm alive, I have "right", nay an affirmative duty, to stay alive. No person or group can deprive me of that right.

I can exercise that right to the extent that it does not interfere with the rights of others. For example, if I'm dying of organ failure, I can't kill you for your organ. My right to life ends where your right to life begins.

So, I have a right to defend myself. No law, person, or government can tell me I can't.

Seems so elementally simple.

Columbine would have been stopped by one armed teacher. There is at least one school shooting that was stopped when a teacher went to his car, returned with his weapon, and ended the rampage. 

The value of concealed carry is that you don't have to carry to receive a benefit. If a criminal has 100 potential victims, then he has to pick one. If out of that hundred people ten are packing, then the criminal has a 10% chance of facing an armed victim. "God made men and women; Sam Colt made them equal." Hmmm says the criminal who should I pick? The gay guy. Ever hear of the pink pistols? The thin spindly blond woman. Agggg, that's Paxton Quigley and she's describing what a center of mass is to me. I know the squat little brownish guy with the big mustache, looks like an mexican arab. Ohhh, good day Mr. Massad Ayoob. Yes sir, I'd be happy to put my hands up. See the unarmed sheep are protected when we "salt" the flock with a few armed sheep. The criminal has to guess. Sometimes they will guess wrong …  dead criminal! Don't have to worry about recidivism then.

Libertarians believe in Zero Aggression Principle; not the do what you want with me "I am a Victim" principle.

So politicians think that they can disarm us? I don't think so.

Part 5 Medical Coding: Compliance Penalties

http://docisinblog.com/archives/2006/04/19/maze-pt-5

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In August 1999, Dr. Robert Gervais, a cataract surgeon practicing in Arizona, was invited to a public meeting on a HCFA project. Federal agents were hiding behind a one-way mirror at this public meeting to see which doctors were making negative comments about HCFA and the project. Dr. Gervais was critical. A little more than a month later, Dr. Gervais’ clinic was subjected to a “surprise” inspection, where federal authorities found “deficiencies” in his documentation. Dr. Gervais’ plans to remedy the “deficiencies” in the time HCFA required (6 days) were deemed unacceptable, and his clinic was then “de-listed” by Medicare.

In another case, in February of 1999, 37 armed, flak-jacketed agents carried out a Medicare raid on East Tennessee Woods Memorial Hospital, a 72-bed hospital in Eastern Tennessee. The invading army of armed federal agents stomped into the hospital, trampling through sterile areas, forced employees into a small room and held them.

In another case, at Dr. Danny Westmoreland’s office in West Virginia, three armed federal agents invaded and held everyone at gunpoint, including the physician, his wife, patients, and children.

{end quote}

Now I see Medicare, distantly, thru the eyes of three retirees, whose affairs I somewhat manage. It's a disaster. Paperwork is a blizzard. I have to believe care is substandard. I've identified a few docs that are what I call "medicare farmers". When I have time, I'll detail my favorite example, but let's just say that: it's a system that is ripe for and full of abuse.

In the old days, you went to the hospital or doc if you could afford it. You paid him (I only knew "him"s in those days!) and that was it. You went to the hospital and on the way out the door you settled up. Like a hotel.

Now, with the federal government intimately involved in everything, insurance companies, and all manner of computer systems, you could tell what you are paying for.

We need to stop the insanity. Separation of Healthcare and State. Now!

http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger82.html

The Separation of Charity and State
by Jacob G. Hornberger

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The primary function of the federal government these days is to help out others with federal welfare assistance. The assistance is dispensed in a variety of ways – directly, in the form of a money payment (Social Security); indirectly, by helping people with payments to third parties (Medicare and Medicaid); subsidies to government entities and private organizations (grants to public schools or corporate welfare); and in-kind benefits, such as housing or food. After the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster, federal officials even went so far as to disburse bank debit cards to hurricane victims.

Federal welfare assistance to Americans has become such an ingrained part of our lives that most Americans hardly give it a second thought. While “waste, fraud, and abuse” have become a standard part of the welfare-state lexicon, the answer for many is simply, “The system needs reform.”

Yet when recommended reforms are instituted, “waste, fraud, and abuse” inevitably rear their ugly heads again, which then generates the call for new reforms, perpetuating an endless cycle of problems and reforms.

All this fiddling avoids the central issue: Why not separate charity and the state, in the same manner our ancestors separated church and state? Why not get government totally out of the charity business? I’m suggesting that we do much more than simply repeal all welfare-state programs. I’m suggesting that we go further and elevate our vision to the same level as that of our American ancestors when they separated church and state. I’m suggesting the following amendment to the Constitution: “The federal government shall not provide any subsidy, grant, welfare, aid, loan, or other special privilege to anyone.”

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A GREAT idea. We have seen the deleterious effects of federal "welfare". I'd assert that goes for corporations as well. One of the reasons that we are in the fix we are in is that we have removed market discipline from both individuals and corporation.

The market place rewards individuals and corporation who satisfy humna needs. It also severly punishes those that do not by withholding those rewards. When the federal government steals from Peter to pay Paul, Paul is taught that failure is rewarded. Nanny 911! And, Peter is demotivated from doing his best.

Personal experience. In my own consulting business, had an extra contract for work to be done. I had no time to do it. It couldn't be time shifted. I COULD have hired someone to do it, taken all the risks, and taken a cut. I did NOT do it because the rewards would have been mostly to the employee and the government. I figured my profit from all this work was 7%. I decided to read a book instead.

When the federal government bails out companies like Chrysler, we teach corporate executives that they can be "to big to fail".

The 82 year old chairman of Ikea flies coach. He's sending a message.

We need to send DC a message. With tar and feathers! Pitchforks and axes.

###

http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_new_jersey.html

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Jersey taxpayers are discovering that, since the last big taxpayer revolt of the early 1990s, their opponents, especially the public-sector unions, have grown stronger and smarter, making ad hoc citizen anti-tax campaigns more difficult. Aided by the courts and the vast expansion of budgets during the flush 1990s, New Jersey’s tax eaters have little by little created a full-fledged example of the kind of regional government that the Left touts these days—a government that forces businesses and residents who have fled the dysfunction of the cities to pay the tab for those urban problems, whether they like it or not.

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It would seem that the taxpayers need another revolt, but this one has to be more successful. If I was founding a new "hands across new jersey", then I would use the Libertarian party. We have demonstrated that at a Federal and State level neither the Democrats not the Republicans can be trusted to deliver "smaller government". When I worked on Wall Street, each year we started out budgeting from zero. Everything was up for grabs. What do you have to do and why? That was the first question. Wall Street also loves to drive costs to the unit that benefits from them. It would seem that the "government" needs to learn that lesson.

Now, the state pensions are really bugging me. Probably more than "state cars"! And that is going some. I remember when they kept whining that they need pensions and benefits to recruit. Now state workers have better pensions and benefits than the taxpayers. So I propose that pensions become 401Ks and benefits are 100% employee funded. Then they will be on a level playing field.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-14-bear-attack_x.htm

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The 350- to 400-pound bear attacked the family at a waterfall near a campground after several adult visitors tried to drive it off the trail, Hicks said.

The bear bit the boy's head, then went after the child's mother after she tried to fend off the attack with rocks and sticks, Hicks said. The animal picked up the woman with its mouth and dragged her off the trail.

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Stinnett, a county fire and rescue chief, said he approached and was about 25 feet away when the bear charged him on all fours. He said he fired at the bear twice with his .380-caliber pistol, scaring it off.

"I know I hit it," Stinnett said. "It reared up on its hind legs. It was as big as you and me."

Authorities said they didn't know whether it was wounded.

{End Quote} 

Trying to drive off a crazed animal with sticks. Or even a 380? A nice 1911 on every Mom's hip would put a quick end to rogue bear, child molesters, and all sorts of other ne'er-do-wells. Lest the reader think Gun Fight At The OK Coral, I would refer to Florida's relaxed concealed carry law. Their experience shows that people are very reasonable.

Now envision this poor woman trying to defend her "cubs", she draws her 1911, operates the slide, thumbs the safety, and proceeds to put 9 rounds into said threatening bear. She then, as is taught in most self-defense classes, drops the clip, inserts a new one, and readies the weapon. She stands in her Weaver stance until she is certain that the threat as passed.

I don't care how crazed that bear was. Nine in the center of mass and it's not going anywhere. It's dead.

Now the woman may have a sore wrist, shoulder, or feel badly about the bear. But she and her "cubs" would be safe.

I don't understand people. Yup, guns are a dangerous TOOL. One should treat them with the care accorded any powerful tool like a car, a chainsaw, or a chipper. BUT, they are just that a "tool". Tromping about in the woods, you need the proper tools.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/12/families_pay_price_of_faulty_policies/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+–+Op-ed+columns

It's clear that our politiicans have made a mess out of another relatively simple thing. (1) Statue of Liberty sets the policy. (2) No social benefits for immigrants. It was that way before and it ensured that only the properly motivated came here. Clearly, there's a reasonable exception for emergency care, but that should be minimal. And, possibly billable. [How do other countries deal with traveling Americans?] (3) Then we need to dismantle the underground economy of "day laborers" with respect to taxes. Seems fair to me?

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Apr-09-Sun-2006/opinion/6593868.html

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Libertarians generally support free movement of peoples, merely demanding that we get rid of mandated "welfare" benefits that attract deadbeats by taxing more productive citizens to fund "free" schooling and emergency-room health care for leeches and freeloaders. I greatly prefer that solution.

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I agree. Eliminate ALL the "free stuff" that I am forced to pay for, comply with, and kow tow to. Then we'd be free again.

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/education/s_440643.html

Girl, 10, protests dress code

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Zoe Hinkle thinks her miniskirt is fashionable. Her school's principal says otherwise. The fourth-grader plans to hold a rally after school Friday along with some classmates at Streams Elementary School in Upper St. Clair. The girls want to let school administrators know they don't appreciate being told their dresses are too short.

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Ahh, the inmates at a particular reeducation camp object to the uniforms! Perhaps one should question what goes on at these propaganda facilities. In fact, they are nothing more than prisions. Designed to reeducate the inmates to be good little consumers, the objective is to turn out compliant zombie-like sheeple who will worship Mother Earth and depend on Father State for all their needs. Obviously, this "trouble maker" is under the illusion that it's her body. She'll learn that it belongs to the gummamint, who will tell her what she can and can't do with it.

Shaking my head, time to refresh that tree of liberty!

http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=44

DownsizeDC would like you to send a message to your elected representatives. I'd like you to vote everyone of the them out. Picking anyone at random from a street corner could not give us any worse of a result.

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Money is a complex subject. We can't explain it all here. The same is true of the Federal Reserve System. Its origin, and the question of whether it's privately or publicly owned, is controversial. (Some have said that the Federal Reserve is as "federal" as Federal Express.) But we do know that the size of government has exploded, and the value of the dollar has imploded, since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.

{end quote}

I don't agree with that.

Money is pretty simple.

It's an intermediary in economic transactions that allows us not to have to barter. How would I give a farmer an hour of consulting for a steak? Simple, I give my employer and hour of consulting and he gives me some "dollars". The farmer and the butcher conspire to give me a steak for some of my "dollars".

Real simple.

Where the problem comes in is who decided that the government should have a monopoly on money?

Yup some king of old who figured out that you could shave every gold coin coming through the Royal Bank and at the end of the day the shavings would equal several new coins.

FOR EXAMPLE, the original French Franc of Louis I was a gold coin that looked more like a small hockey puck than a coin. The last French Franc of the monarchy Louis XVI was a tissue paper thin button. That is what governments do. The debase the currency. They redefine money to give themselves more and the people less. Paper money is even easier to inflate. No coins to shave!

Look up the root of the word "dollar", and you'll find there was a silversmith who made nice coins.

{begin quote}

Monetary inflation is a tricky way for politicians to get you to pay for increased government without you knowing about it. 

{end quote}

That's why they don't want anyone to know what M3 is. You might figure out that they put a third shift on over at Printing and Engraving.

We need to make govenment into a "crystal box". Even if it is ugly, we need to see the sausage being made.

Let's not kid ourselves about what makes inflation. Whether it was the French and English kings shaving gold off the coins, the post WW1 German government prinitng bigger denominations twice a day, or "our" Federal Government running the printing press, messing with the money is a bad idea.

There's a reason that gold is 600 $ per ounce.

And, it's not because we have too few dollars.

Let's have the Separation of Money and the State!

Cabinet in Sucession

• 01. Vice President of the United States
• 02. Speaker of the House
• 03. President pro Tempore of the Senate
• 04. Secretary of State
• 05. Secretary of the Treasury
• 06. Secretary of Defense
• 07. Attorney General
• 08. Secretary of the Interior
• 09. Secretary of Agriculture
• 10. Secretary of Commerce
• 11. Secretary of Labor
• 12. Secretary of Health & Human Services
• 13. Secretary of Housing & Urban Development
• 14. Secretary of Transportation
• 15. Secretary of Energy
• 16. Secretary of Education
• 17. Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs
• 18. Secretary of Homeland Security

White House Toadies

• Council of Economic Advisers
• Council on Environmental Quality
• Council on Women's Initiatives and Outreach
• Domestic Policy Council
• National Economic Council
• National Partnership for Reinventing Government
• National Security Council (NSC)
• Office of Administration
• Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives
• Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
• Office of National AIDS Policy
• Office of National Drug Control Policy
• Office of Science and Technology Policy
• Office of the Vice President of the United States
• President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
• United States Trade Representative (USTR)

—

Independent Agencies & Govt. Corporations of the Executive Branch

• Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
• African Development Foundation
• Amtrak
• Broadcasting Board of Governors
• Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
• Commission on Civil Rights
• Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)
• Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
• Corporation for National and Community Service
• Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB)
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
• Export-Import Bank of the United States
• Farm Credit Administration
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
• Federal Election Commission (FEC)
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
• Federal Housing Finance Board
• Federal Labor Relations Authority
• Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement
• Federal Maritime Commission
• Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
• Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission
• Federal Reserve System
• Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board
• Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
• General Services Administration (GSA)
• Inter-American Foundation
• International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB)
• Merit Systems Protection Board
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
• National Capital Planning Commission
• National Credit Union Administration (NCUA)
• National Endowment for the Arts
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
• National Mediation Board
• National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK)
• National Science Foundation (NSF)
• National Transportation Safety Board
• Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
• Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission
• Office of Government Ethics
• Office of Personnel Management
• Office of Special Counsel (OSC)
• Overseas Private Investment Corporation
• Panama Canal Commission
• Peace Corps
• Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
• Postal Rate Commission
• Railroad Retirement Board
• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
• Selective Service System
• Small Business Administration (SBA)
• Social Security Administration (SSA)
• Tennessee Valley Authority
• Trade and Development Agency
• United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
• United States Commission on Civil Rights
• United States Agency for International Development
• United States International Information Program
• United States International Trade Commission (USITC)
• United States Postal Service (USPS)

Commissions, Boards & Councils of the Executive Branch

• Accounting and Auditing Policy Committee (AAPC)
• Administrative Committee of the Federal Register
• Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations
• American Battle Monuments Commission
• Appalachian Regional Commission
• Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board)
• Arctic Research Commission
• Armed Forces Retirement Home
• Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Interagency Coordinating Committee
• Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation
• Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
• Chief Financial Officers Council
• Chief Information Officers Council
• Commission of Fine Arts
• Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements
• Committee for Purchase from People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled
• Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
• Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office (CIAO)
• Delaware River Basin Commission
• Endangered Species Committee
• Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB)
• Federal Credit Policy Working Group (FCPWG)
• Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council
• Federal Financial Managers Council (FFMC)
• Federal Executive Board
• Federal Financing Bank
• Federal Interagency Committee on Education
• Federal Interagency Committee for the Management of Noxious and Exotic Weeds
• Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy
• Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer
• Federal Library and Information Center Committee
• Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation
• Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor Commission
• Indian Arts and Crafts Board
• Interagency Commission on Crime and Security in U.S. Seaports
• Interagency Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities
• Inter-Agency Electronic Grants Committee (IAEGC)
• Interagency Alternative Dispute Resolution Working Group (IADRWG)
• J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
• James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation
• Japan-United States Friendship Commission
• Marine Mammal Commission
• Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC)
• Migratory Bird Conservation Commission
• Mississippi River Parkway Commission
• Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Foundation
• National Bioethics Advisory Commission
• National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare
• National Commission on Libraries and Information Science
• National Communications System
• National Council on Disability
• National Gambling Impact Study Commission
• National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee
• National Park Foundation
• Northwest Power Planning Council
• Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation
• President's Commission on the Celebration of Women in American History
• President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities
• President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency
• President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
• Presidio Trust
• Regulatory Information Service Center
• Small Agency Council (SAC)
• Social Security Advisory Board
• Susquehanna River Basin Commission
• Trade Policy Staff Committee
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• United States Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
• Veterans Day National Committee
• White House Commission on Presidential Scholarships

Quasi-Governmental Agencies

• Amtrak
• Legal Services Corporation
• Smithsonian Institution
• State Justice Institute
• United States Institute of Peace

Retrieved from "http://localhost/mywikipedia/index.php/Libertarian_Cabinet"

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1786632&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Making Sex Crimes Against Kids a Capital Offense
By TARANA HARRIS

{Begin Quote}

 March 30, 2006 — When two teenage girls were kidnapped from their beds and raped in an underground dungeon, allegedly by a convicted sex offender, it provided a new impetus to South Carolina legislators to make one of the most terrible crimes imaginable punishable by the death penalty.

{End Quote}

I guess this politician is now going to save us from the menace that they created. How did they create it? Why is a sex offender out at all?

There is IMHO a fundamental Intelligent Designer given right to life. I have no right to take someone's life unless they initiate force against me. If they attack, I only have a moral right to use sufficient force to stop them. So my response has to be a proportianal response. So I can't kill someone for anything other than a potentially fatal attack.

How does this bear on the problem?

My government is an extenson of me. It only can do the things that I delegate to them. If I don't have the power to do something, then I can't give them that power.

So the government NEVER has the right to kill it's citizens. The government has a track record of convicting innocent people. So there is never a 100% certainty of a correct verdict, but there is a 100% certainty that the the government can not FIX a death sentence.

These politicians never learn.

Sex crimes probably deserve a life sentence without parole. At least the prisoner will be around should a mistake have been made.

AND, the insanity defense should be reexamined. Anyone, who says a criminally insane defendent is "cured", should have to "guarantee" their diagnosis with their own freedom.

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http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/5243

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"If teaching remains a second-rate profession, America's economy will be driven by second-rate skills," Gerstner says. "We can wake up today — or we can have a rude awakening sooner than we think."

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Sorry, Lou, you missed the root cause!

It's the government involvement in the education of our people.

Government "public schools" have dumbed down the population to such a point that "graduates" know a fraction of what they did in 1890s. Take a high school graduation exam from the turn of the century, and see for yourself. Between the politicians, the teacher's unions, and their "suppliers", we have created a nightmare. The early advocates of "free government public schools" were avowed socialists with visions of creating soldiers for the armies and workers for the factories. All of whom could be manipulated by the "elites". They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. We now have a dismal one-size-fits-all education system which condemns everyone, especially minorities included, to low expectations and political correctness, to the serfdom of an unenlightened life. And, in doing this, we have created an entitlement system for government retirees that is unmatched anywhere else.

Want to fix it? It's easy. Change the paradigm! (Sorry consultant speak for the mental model you're using to understand the problem.) Motivate the individual to solve their own problems and stand back!

We need separation of School and State.

Repeal mandatory attendence laws. Transition from a "public" system to a truly free market education system. Empower parents to choose the education that is best for thier children. Allow them to pay for those choices.

Compare Montessori and Headstart. Compare anytime the government produces a free good and you have a tragedy of epic proportions. Compare a gumamint skool and a prison, they look remarkable alike. Think the Post Office is teaching.

Want to know why education is abysmal, want to know why only why the bright people don't go into education, want to know why we are dropping in the ranks of the world's educational elite? Yup, your gumamint at work!

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http://freetalklive.com

Well the boys over at my favorite podcast asked a very challenging question. What are the most important things in my mind that get us back to our liberty that we used to have?

It's is too hard to identify just one thing. I have three:

(1) Fiat currency allows the government to fool us in several different ways at the same time. A fiat currency is one with no backing. "Our" Federal Reserve Notes, the construction of a favored group of private bankers, have nothing backing them other than the illusion that they are obligations of the United States of America. The Constitution mandated a currency of gold and silver. If followed, it would prevent the Government from just printing more "money" to fund increased spending. The inflation of the currency is a hidden tax on all our savings. In thirty years, the dollar has lost more than 95% of its purchasing power. Unfunded liabilities like "Social Security Insurance", a Ponzi scheme, and the National Debt represent a national disaster in the future. All of this is enabled or allowed by having an unbacked currency.

(2) Government "public schools" have dumbed down the population to such a point that "graduates" know a fraction of what they did in 1890s. Take a high school graduation exam from the turn of the century, and see for yourself. Between the politicians, the teacher's unions, and their "suppliers", we have created a nightmare. The early advocates of "free government public schools" were avowed socialists with visions of creating soldiers for the armies and workers for the factories who could be manipulated by the "elites". They succeeded. We know have a dismal one-size-fits-all education system which condemns everyone, minorities included, by low expectations and political correctness, to the serfdom of an unenlightened life. And, in doing this, we have created an entitlement system for government retirees that is unmatched anywhere else.

(3) The "war on drugs" has allowed the government to repeat the stupidity of Prohibition without the Constitutional Amendment. This empowers the government to oppress us, imprison us, and attempt to defy human liberty and human nature. We have lost our Bill of Rights with their war on drugs. It fills our prisons with non-violent offenders. It attempts to deny the basic human right to do with our body whatever we want. We have an Intelligent Designer's given right to make mistakes AND pay for those mistakes. It also ignores the fact that laws don't make people do things. Speed limits don't slow cars. Drug laws don't stop drugs. And laws are only obeyed by the law abiding.

These are the three things that we need to have our liberty back — Separation of Minting Money and the State, Separation of School and State, and Separation of Medicine and the State.

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I recommend Free Talk Live (http://freetalklive.com) for the intellectual challenge interrupted with some humorous characters and juvenile laughs!