POLITICAL: Maximo Guillermo “Max” Manus

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Notes from JWR:

by Jim Rawles

December 9th, 2012 would have been the 98th birthday of Maximo Guillermo “Max” Manus. He was was one of the few Norwegians who had the testicular fortitude to put his life on the line, fighting the Nazi occupiers. (There surely would have been many more active resistance fighters in Norway, but fearing widespread reprisal executions by the Germans, King H7 urged the civilian populace to stand down.) Manus passed away in 1996. His exploits are fairly accurately shown in the movie Max Manus: Man of War

–30–


MONEY: What have we allowed to be done?

Sunday, December 9, 2012

http://www.cmi-gold-silver.com/blog/government-money/

Book Review: What Has Government Done to Our Money?

*** begin quote ***

In the United States we currently have a stated policy by the Federal Reserve to create higher levels of inflation while artificially lowering interest rates. This is a policy devastating to savers and those attempting to live off of the proceeds of their capital. How did we arrive at the point where a government created agency can arbitrarily opt to destroy the value of people’s savings?

Murray Rothbard’s What Has Government Done to Our Money? lays out the step by step process by which the commodity based monies of the free market are slowly and deliberately usurped by governments and their central banks. The end result of this control is the ability of government to take purchasing power from the savings of its citizens through inflation.

Understanding money and its creation are essential to understanding how inflation originates. Rothbard assumes no prior knowledge of the subject and begins with first principles to derive what money is and how it is used in a free market. He then covers the manipulations used by government to wrestle control of money away from the free market. Finally he finishes with a two hundred year history of money and currencies in the Western world. It is through this history he demonstrates how government abuse has resulted in a series of breakdowns of the dollar with respect to gold that have inevitably led to our current global monetary crisis.

*** end quote ***

We have allowed the politicians and bureaucrats to inflate the paper currency and silently steal from everyone — rich and poor  alike — their wealth. For the poor, it’s the value of their labor. For the rich, it’s the value of their savings.

argh!

–30–


FUN: Hat, scarf, and gloves as heart attack prevention

Saturday, December 8, 2012

http://lewrockwell.com/orig13/bennett-l4.1.1.html

Woolly Hats and Heart Attacks

by Lizzie Bennett

Medically Speaking

*** begin quote ***

Each winter there is a myriad of articles published warning us about the dangers of hypothermia, how to spot it and what to do about it. There are articles warning about cold injuries such as frostbite, warnings to the elderly about the dangers of not keeping at least one room warm. Warnings to get the boiler serviced in case carbon monoxide builds up if its faulty. We are warned that we may need extra vitamins, warned to drive carefully, warned to take care if using candles and warned not to leave the lights on the Christmas tree switched on overnight. Not once, anywhere in this plethora of warnings have I heard the one that warns you that you are more likely to suffer a heart attack if you don’t wear a warm hat in cold weather.

*** end quote ***

Makes a believer out of me.

Interesting that my work location is always cold. Even in summer time.

The women are always saying it. And, recently, I couple of ties I felt it. Power of Suggestion? Anyone who knows me that I like it at “Meat Locker” temps. Wife used have a blanket when we took car trips. (Although I always thought she was being sarcastic.)

Maybe there is something to the article.

Maybe if I wear a hat, gloves, and a scarf in the office they think I’ve gone around the bend  and pay men off?

Then, it’ll off to New Hampshire to get warm.

–30–


RANT: Any one remember Pearl Harbor day?

Friday, December 7, 2012

… and remember who caused that disaster?

 

No, not the Japanese. FDR!

–30–


GUNS: Bringing a gun to a knife fight

Friday, December 7, 2012

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/knife-wielding-home-intruder-breaks-into-wrong-home-greeted-by-40-cal-handgun/

KNIFE-WIELDING HOME INTRUDER BREAKS INTO WRONG HOME, GREETED BY .40 CAL HANDGUN

Posted on November 27, 2012 at 11:52pm by Jason Howerton

*** begin quote ***

A homeowner in Grand Prairie, Texas shot a knife-wielding home intruder after the suspect shattered a side window to gain entry into the home, KXAS-TV reports.

The homeowner, who has not been identified, was reportedly on the phone with 911 operators when he shot 21-year-old Gilberto Banderas. The shooting occurred at around 2:30 p.m. after the sound of breaking glass prompted the homeowner to get his .40 caliber handgun.

The suspect, Banderas, was shot in the stomach. As it turns out, police discovered he lives just blocks away from the home he attempted to break into. In other words, he apparently tried, and failed, to rob his neighbor.

*** and ***

“During the conversation with him, we could hear him yelling, ‘You came at me with a knife,’” Grand Prairie detective Lyle Gensler said. “We responded within about a minute and 30 seconds.”

*** end quote ***

Note for the unarmed, dial 911 and die.

Critique of the shooting: The suspect was still alive.

The military taught me to keep pulling the trigger until nothing moved.

I’ve heard that advice often repeated.

Even if the bullets are going into the floor and ceiling, no one in their right mind wants to be down range of a loon with a gun and is using it.

Critique of the shooting: Good dhot to the center of mass — the belly.

Hope I never have to do it. Hope no one ever has to do it.

But the best way to stop crime is get rid of few of the criminals.

Make getting caught by the police an unlikely outcome.

–30–


RANT: Schools are prison training centers

Thursday, December 6, 2012

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/127265.html

November 28, 2012

End the Pretense that Government Schools and Prisons Are Different

Posted by William Grigg on November 28, 2012 03:13 PM

*** begin quote ***

It’s for your own good, kids: The “Isolation Box” at Longview, Washingon’s Mint Valley Elementary School

Warrantless “drug sweeps” in government-run schools have become routine in recent years. So have “lock-down” drills in which SWAT teams conduct training exercises involving hostage or terrorism scenarios. In some lock-down drills, students inmates have been kept in the dark about the fact that the incident is a training exercise, rather than a genuine crisis.

Vista Grande High School in Casa Grande, Arizona, held a lock-down drug sweep on October 31. Students Inmates were confined to their classrooms, then led in small groups to another room where they were forced to line up against a wall and be searched with the help of drug-sniffing dogs. This exercise introduced a new element: Among the four law enforcement agencies involved in the search was a group of prison guards employed by the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest for-profit prison contractor.

*** end quote ***

We need the home schooling movement to break out.

I suggested a 40 year plan to end gooferment skrules during the tax revolts in Nu Jerzee. First 20 years was to get them out of the operations; the second 20 years was to end the funding.

Argh!

–30–

 


INTERESTING: Bitterly disappointed

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9686219/I-am-bitterly-bitterly-disappointed-retired-naval-officers-email-to-children-in-full.html

‘I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed’: retired naval officer’s email to children in full

This is the full email that retired Royal Navy officer Nick Crews sent to his son and two daughters in February expressing his and his wife’s disappointment in them.

***

When I read this, I saw a boomerang.

Were you such a bad parent that you weren’t able to steer the children correctly?

My parents made a lot mistakes. But, I would never fault them for the choices they made. I’ve made a lot of my own bad choices.

This 0 for 3 tends to make me blame the “builder”.

imho.

–30–


MONEY: Thinking about employer 401Ks and IRAs versus retirement savings

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/11/26/401k-with-no-match-should-contribute/

An interesting article. My gripe with 401ks has always been the investment options and fees are “unacceptable”. Especially when you consider the real inflation rate.

I know I am a gold bug. But with the FED printing money and the subterfuge of them buying their own bonds, I think we are at risk of an even higher inflation. I remember the Cater inflation. And, I am not buying that the interest rate is zero.

I think an interesting facet is that the price of gas, which goes into every product indirectly, has actually decline in price since 1968. (Ron Paul said it best: “Three silver dimes bought a gallon of gas in the Sixties; today, those same three silver dimes equate to a gallon and half.”)

As a poor retiree, inflation is my concern. (If it evokes more sympathy, I’m also an orphan.) I realize that I probably personally have a lot to worry about. It’s really just me. But for posterity, this stinks. Hence my obsession on commodity bullion.

And, it is a way of avoiding the estate taxes.

–30–


SERVICE: LASTPASS’ security check

Monday, December 3, 2012

https://lastpass.com/index.php?securitychallenge=1

The security check ignore how I use LASTPASS.

I keep my old passwords in LASTPASS as well as all non-critical new ones. (No one gets the passwords to my financial accounts. Those I have memorized. If I ever get alzs, I’m in trouble.) So what the security check calls dupes are either iteration of the same account. Not every url is a simple single entry point.

Additionally, there is a need to keep old passwords for restored systems,

Another topic, I have problem is those secondary authentication questions for lost passwords. I NEVER give the correct answers. In fact, I use last pass’ tool generate to create the answers. And they are unique by site. So my favorite book might be “4zm7#ut47” on one site and “ut47#vj4a” on another. I use special notes for those. But it would be nice if last pass helped me with them.

so I don’t agree with my score.

fjohn

–30–


TINFOILHAT: The “killing” of OBL

Sunday, December 2, 2012

http://lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts377.html

The Osama bin Laden Myth

by Paul Craig Roberts

*** begin quote ***

Although only a few Americans are aware of the September 28, 2001 interview in which bin Laden states his non-involvement with the 9/11 attacks, many Americans have seen post-2001 videos in which a person alleged to be bin Laden takes credit for the attacks. There are two problems with these videos. Experts have examined them and found them to be fakes, and all of the videos appeared after bin Laden was reported by the Pakistan Observer, the Egyptian press, and Fox News to have died in mid-December, 2001, from lung disease. See also.

Bin Laden also suffered from kidney disease. According to a CBS news report on January 28, 2002, Osama bin Laden was hospitalized for dialysis treatment in the Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi on September 10, 2001, the day before 9/11.

Obviously, a man suffering from terminal lung and kidney disease did not survive for another decade to be murdered by a US Navy SEAL team in Abbottabad. A Pakistani TV interview with the neighbor of the alleged “bin Laden compound” exposed the assassination hoax. This sensational interview also went unreported by america’s “free press.” I had the interview translated, and it is available here. See also.

Shortly after the alleged assassination 30 members of the SEAL unit died in a mysterious helicopter crash in Afghanistan, and now we learn that not a single one of the thousands of sailors on the aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, witnessed bin Laden’s alleged burial at sea from that ship. The press reports with a straight face that for unexplained reasons it was kept secret from the ship’s sailors. This is supposed to be the explanation of the sailors’ emails reporting to family and friends that they witnessed no burial at sea. Some speculate that the SEALs were bumped off before their questions to one another, “Were you on that raid?,” reached outside the unit. Apparently, it doesn’t strike the media or the public as strange that the US government captured and killed the terror mastermind without interrogating him and without keeping any evidence or presenting any witnesses to support the assassination claim.

*** end quote ***

Here’s a more logical explanation of why there was no interrogation of  this valuable intelligence asset.

–30–


RANT: You always have the right to secede

Saturday, December 1, 2012

http://lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams147.html

Parting Company

by Walter E. Williams

*** begin quote ***

For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission or simply parting company? In a marriage, where vows are ignored and broken, divorce is the most peaceful solution. Similarly, our constitutional and human rights have been increasingly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.

*** end quote ***

I like that Professor Williams always goes to the crux of the matter.

Do we have the RIGHT from Nature’s God to peaceful leave the Union?

–30–


TINFOILHAT: Voter fraud in 2012 election?

Friday, November 30, 2012

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/maker-of-unskewed-polls-creates-obama-voter-fraud-map-see-which-states-he-thinks-shouldve-been-romneys/

Media
Maker of Unskewed Polls Creates ‘Obama Voter Fraud’ Map — See Which States He Thinks Should’ve Been Romney’s    Posted on November 23, 2012 at 9:15pm by Mytheos Holt

*** begin quote ***

Evidence of vote fraud is very much like that. Those who engage in it are slick and do all they can to hide it, so the evidence is often quite circumstantial. In fact, often the circumstantial evidence is all the evidence we have, such was finding tens of thousands of bogus votes in the ballot box, we didn’t see someone actually put them there, but they are found, they are there, and they are clearly evidence of vote fraud. Such is true of the voting divisions where Obama gets 100 percent of the votes cast. As if anyone REALLY believes that is legitimate.

*** end quote ***

It’s the old joke by Stalin about who counts the vote. And, Daley who would ask: “How many do we need?”

I have ZERO confidence in the USA’s voting process until there is: (1) an irrefutable paper based process (I’m a computer geek and I know how fragile they are) and (2) an irrefutable voter identification requirement.

Then maybe we’ll get an honest count.

# – # – # – # – #   

Media

Maker of Unskewed Polls Creates ‘Obama Voter Fraud’ Map — See Which States He Thinks Should’ve Been Romney’s


POLITICAL: What there’s corruption in yet another Gooferment program?

Thursday, November 29, 2012

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2012/11/new-report-how-food-stamps-benefit-corporations/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-report-how-food-stamps-benefit-corporations

Report: How Food Stamps Benefit Corporations (EBT is Big Business)
Posted on November 17, 2012 by Nick Sorrentino

*** begin quote ***

An investigation by the Government Accountability Institute has found that:

Three companies – J.P. Morgan EFS, Affiliated Computer Services, and eFunds – provide EBT services for 49 states and 3 US territories.

Since 2004, 18 of 24 states who contract with J.P. Morgan to provide welfare benefits have contracted to pay $560,492,596.02. New York alone has a seven-year contract worth $126,394,917.

Projected average food stamp spending post-recession will be 175% greater than prerecession average spending, from $28 billion to $77 billion.Since 2009, 32 states have followed the USDA’s suggestion to use Broad Based

Categorical Eligibility “as a way to increase SNAP participation and reduce State workloads.”

Changing the rules for eligibility, along with state-level changes in

application methods, has contributed to a 70 % increase in food stamp participation from 2007 to 2011.

Lax security by EBT processors and states invites food stamp fraud, often through social media. There are understaffed fraud investigation units at both the federal and state level. For example, Florida has just 63 staff positions to police approximately 3 million EBT users state-wide. These investigators not only handle TANF and SNAP eligibility fraud, but also EBT trafficking, Social Security Disability and Medicaid eligibility fraud, Emergency Financial Assistance for Housing, and Low Income Energy assistance, among many others.

*** end quote ***

This is just no surprise. Argh! 

# – # – # – # – #   


RANT: Red Cross stymied by NYC Gooferment

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

http://commanderzero.com/blog/2012/11/21/article-why-there-are-no-red-cross-shelters-in-new-york-city/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=article-why-there-are-no-red-cross-shelters-in-new-york-city

Article – Why there are no Red Cross shelters in New York City
Posted on November 21, 2012

*** begin quote ***

But that shelter operation never came to pass, and volunteers were told that the Red Cross would not be needing shelter workers. In the meantime, images of New York City’s many devastated neighborhoods filled nightly newscasts; and the housing situation for many New Yorkers grew increasingly dire. The city has estimated that between 20,000 and 40,000 residents could be homeless or forced to live in unheated homes with no running water or power. The conditions are particularly deplorable in the high rises that dot the landscape near the waterfront in Brooklyn and Queens. About 5,200 Staten Islanders have applied for FEMA housing, but according to the New York Post only 24 or so have been placed.

Criticism has rained down on the Red Cross for not providing places for this mass of displaced people to live, but it seems that the aid organization is not permitted to set up shelters in the city due to a snarl of red tape.

*** and ***

Moral of the story is, even if there are groups predicated on disaster services, and they get to the scene, and local governemnt has plans as well, there’s no guarantee anything is going to get done. You’re far better off preparing on your own.

Which, really, brings me to something I’ve been curious about. Everyone is related to everyone in NYC. Big Catholic, Jewish, Italian, Irish families with relatives spread all over the place….why are these people not staying with relatives?

*** end quote ***

I’m not fan of “Big Charity” — Red Cross, United Way, any of the institutional charities — but I don’t fault them for not being able to get anything done

# – # – # – # – #   


TINFOILHAT: Another detailed look at the JFK assassination

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/126921.html

November 22, 2012
Live at the Grassy Knoll, Dealey Plaza
Posted by Charles Burris on November 22, 2012 10:19 AM

*** begin quote ***

The Coalition on Political Assassinations will broadcast live events and presentations from their 2012 Regional Meeting in Dallas, Texas: November 22–25. Speakers include LRC contributors/Podcast interviewees Russ Baker, Peter Dale Scott, Donald Miller, Jr., Judyth Vary Baker, as well as Joan Mellen, John Judge, David Montague, Jefferson Morley, Jared Ball and Ben Rogers.

*** and ***

OFFICIAL INVESTIGATIONS WERE FLAWED: BALLISTICS, FORENSIC, LEGAL, PHOTOGRAPHIC AND AUTOPSY MANIPULATION LED TO FALSE CONCLUSIONS

7:00 p.m. — David Montague (ARRB) — Records and investigation

8:00 p.m. — Robert Groden — Photographic evidence and investigations

9:00 p.m. — Donald Miller, Jr. — Pursuing Truth on the Kennedy Assassination: The Medical Evidence

*** end quote ***

Hope these show up on YouTube.

I’d have watched if I knew about it.

# – # – # – # – #   


POLITICAL: The total failure of the Last Responders to prevent looting

Monday, November 26, 2012

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/126949.html

November 22, 2012
Why Did the Coverage Stop?
Posted by Lew Rockwell on November 22, 2012 09:30 PM

*** begin quote ***

Why did the insistent coverage of Sandy stop so suddenly? Because of the stupidty, hostility, arrogance, and crookery of FEMA and the rest of central, state, and local governments. and the people’s burning hatred of them in NJ and NY. Such things must not be mentioned, nor the total failure of the Last Responders to prevent looting.

{Extraneous Deleted}

*** end quote ***

I thought that the Gooferment’s politicians and bureaucrats were arrogant.

It was terrible what they did to the victims of the Hurricane.

Then there was the insult that flood insurance would only cover primary residences. (Personally, I’ve been paying for more than 30 years and never heard a whisper of that.)

A plague on all their houses.

# – # – # – # – #   


MONEY: Why the BND is an important exemplar in the road back to liberty

Sunday, November 25, 2012

On Tuesday night’s Free Talk Live, a caller tried to make the case for the “Bank of Oregon” a la the “Bank of North Dakota”.

I thought the hosts didn’t understand the point he was making. (Yes, he made it very badly. As you would expect to a non-politician non-public speaker. Not that I’m any better. But, I think he was on to something.)

So I wrote up some stalking points and called in.

(As a long time AMPlifier and long time listener since back when the boys were in Flori-Duh fighting the good fight, I knew that they were going to be a tough “sell”. In retrospect, I should have prepped some more.)

Here are my points: 

# – # – #  

Why the Bank of North Dakota is important to secession and liberty:

(1) It’s a depository for all state tax collections and fees; The state itself and all state agencies do their banking with BND. Wrests control from politicians and their cronies on Wall Street.


(2) It plows the funds (I should have said “capital”!) back into the state in the form of infrastructure, farm, business, and student loans. Consistent with sound fiscal and banking practices.


(3) It acts as a bankers’ bank or a wholesale bank. So the BND provide services to banks, whether it’s check clearing, liquidity, or bond accounting safekeeping. It can subsitute for the Federal Reserve System. 


(4) It provides a dividend back to the state. In the case of BND that 60M$ or 50% of their annual profit. That’s profit that everywhere else goes to crony capitalism.


(5) It deprives the current Federal politicians and bureaucrats of the ability to inflate the currency. A state bank could introduce a hard currency or allow free market competition in currency. 



This could be a stepping stone to “killing” the FED. It is a way to “shrink” the problem. Replacing the FED with 50 State Banks is a good step on the road to liberty.

# – # – # 

Here’s the link to my “performance”; starts at the 1:18 mark and completes at the 1:32 mark.

https://www.freetalklive.com/content/podcast_2012_11_21

I must have done well because I got a huge chink of air time. At about the 45 mark of the second hour and held over as the first bock on the third hour.

So the hosts must have found me “interesting”.

As expected Ian, who is a raving Anarcho-Capitalist, immeidately went for the jugular, that he is against ANYTHING that the government does. (Me 2, but how does one change the status quo. It took 100 years to get into this mess; it’ll take a 100 to get out. The water erodes everything by the passage of time.) Ian, a more a pragmatic libertarian, was ore open to being convinced. Initially, the third host (Stephanie?) didn’t have anything to say; she joined in later on as she got the concept. 

I never got the feeling that they were “convinced”, but they did understand that it was not the absurd idea that came across by that prior caller. Two out of three seemed to like the conversation. So it wasn’t a bad experience. Next time I do it, I’ll be better prepared.

Any way listen to me as a “talk show caller” and give me your opinion.

# – # – # – # – #  2012-Nov-22 @ 10:43  

 


Ipad1: interesting problem

Saturday, November 24, 2012

I have never been happy with the “app store” concept. As usual, immoral, inefficient, and ineffective.

(this is, as readers of my blog will know, my standard meme for gripes. Stuff that’s immoral is always wrong. Ineffective is does it work. Inefficient is it easy and cheap.)

The “app store” concept is;

~ “immoral” in that it transfers control from the “buyer” to the “seller”

~ “ineffective” in that problems are insoluble; support is non-existent

~ “inefficient” in that it doesn’t work flawlessly

My current gripe is the GMAIL icon has disappeared from the front screen, but is running in the background. I get alert messages on new email.

Double clicking start does not show it in the task list.

A hard restart or a soft restart doesn’t recover it.

App store thinks it is installed.

Argh!

I have had problems with app store in the past that were never solved.

Argh squared!!

Loss of control of my device annoys me.

–30–


interesting: Obamacare is NOT about h, hc, or hci; it’s about control

Friday, November 23, 2012

http://personalliberty.com/2012/11/19/obamacares-real-costs/

Obamacare’s Real Costs

November 19, 2012 by Bob Livingston

*** begin quote ***

“The Obama Care Health Care Reform Plan or Health Care For America Plan will cost the average American around $70.”–obamacarefacts.com

First of all, allow me to disabuse you of the notion that Obamacare has anything to do with “health” care. Obamacare is not about health. It’s not about lowering the cost of health insurance. And it’s not about ensuring that everyone is insured.

It is about locking more Americans into the clutches of the Big Pharma/Medical Industrial complex, providing more customers for Big Insurance and confiscating more wealth from individuals and businesses.

The American healthcare system should properly be called “sickcare.” It’s a subtle and esoteric system of population control with prescription drugs issued at the public expense by the drug cartel — the conglomerate of pharmaceutical houses.

They commit population control under the pretense of “healthcare” and make people pay for it. And this medical cartel has no legal liability. It is forced — or at least deceptive — medication. And most doctors don’t have a clue. They write prescriptions based on falsified data and kickbacks — from speaker fees and ghostwriting glowing medical reviews — without regard to whether their patients will benefit.

*** end quote ***

I too am very disillusioned with this whole discussion.

It’s NOT about “Health”, “Healthcare”, or “Healthcare Insurance”. It’s all about “control”.

“Death Panels” was a good two word summary of the Gooferment’s objective.

When we think of the drag that seniors represent in socsec, medicare, and the taxes that they don’t pay, no wonder cigarettes are legal!

The exemplar for this is the (American) Indian Healthcare, wwhere the rule is ‘don’t need anything expensive after June’. Or maybe the VA, “die”!  (Some old vets firmly believe that VA wants to kill them. And, not with kindness.)

If it was about health insurance, then it wouldn’t be tied to your employment.

Argh!

–30–


POLITICAL: Voluntary?

Thursday, November 22, 2012

http://ncc-1776.org/tle2012/tle697-20121118-01.html

THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE

Number 697, November 18, 2012

Letters to the Editor

Letter from A.X. Perez

Re: “Making ‘Voluntary’ Service Mandatory—One Step At A Time”, by C. Jeffery Small

*** begin quote ***

I continue to be amazed that people who call Heinlein’s Starship Troopers fascistic for suggesting that honestly voluntary service a condition of voting or holding office

*** end quote ***

What was wrong with that concept?

I always thought that this would filter out the grifters and war mongers!

Remember Heinlein’s idea was not just warriors, but all sorts of dirty dangerous jobs that make one value being part of the body politic.

sigh!

–30–


POLITICAL: Raise sex; lower civii society

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

http://keywestlou.com/fifty-shades-of-grey

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY
Posted on November 18, 2012 by keywestlou

*** begin quote ***

Book review time! I finished reading Fifty Shades of Grey yesterday morning.

The book is a trilogy. The three volumes fast moving. The author is a woman. E. L. James. I specify her sex since from my perspective it is a woman’s book written by a woman.

Fifty Shades is #1 on the New York Times best seller list. It is being read world wide. Book stores keep running out.

Fifty Shades is a love novel. Again, written by a woman for women. Not generally the type of book men read. Too lovey dovey.

My sense is the book is going to raise sex to another level.

*** end quote ***

And, yet for all the development of “technical knowledge”, the civil society has more failings in all of the moral values. Just drive down the road and crazies endanger lives by poor driving technique despite having far better hardware. So to, divorce is rampant, the children are deprived, and the takers far outweigh the makers. Pop star Taylor Swift is uniquely notable because she doesn’t do slut publicly; what she does privately is her own business. Listen to any “comedian” and they’d make a Drill Sargent blush. Manhood has been reduced to a metrosexual homosexual who’s no longer needed. Womanhood has been reduced to whiny trivial want-it-all given to her. A la Sandra Flock who wants her birth control paid for by others. Our pioneer ancestors would be ashamed. Sadly, I don’t know how to fix it. So maybe we just watch it all spin crash and burn like all the empires before us. A lot of folks are going to get hurt along the way. We’ve come a long way from “You are what you produce.” A long long way.

# – # – # – # – #


RANT: Twinkies die; union “wins”

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Hostess, the maker of iconic treats like Twinkies, is shuttering its plants and liquidating its 82-year-old business.

A victim of changing consumer tastes, high commodity costs and strained labor relations, Hostess ultimately was brought to its knees by a national strike orchestrated by its second-largest union.

http://online.wsj.com/home-page?mod=djemalertNEWS

# – # – #

What was the Union’s logic for this?

Now that’s a story worth reading.

Symbiotic parasites don’t kill their hosts usually.

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political: am i just being a grinch?

Monday, November 19, 2012

I was listening over the net to NJ101.5 to get info about Seaside Heights.

The Guv’s wife, Mary Pat, was on touting the Guv’s amd Ms Guv’s charity.

Now I’m sure that she’s a very nice lady, but doesn’t anyone see a “structural problem”.

The government is taking over “charity”.

In the old days, “relief societies” were formed. Fraternal organizations abounded. Churches were virogous.

I remember reading how after the Chicago fire folks were helped with loans and such. There was networking and judgement. The able body were shown were work was available. Loans were provided and paid back. The truly devastated were taken in.

So what I see is that cradle to grave, Mommy Government will take care of all your needs. Daddy Government will hand out welfare checks.

Handouts are not a hand up.

Only by affiliation can people be truly moved out of poverty. They walk out of it by their own efforts with help and guidance of good people helping. Not doing for.

Sorry, but I guess I am the modern embodiment of old Ebenezer!

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RANT: I wonder why?

Monday, November 19, 2012

i just wonder why?

how different am i?

–20–


MONEY: Imagine that your car insurance was tied to your job?

Sunday, November 18, 2012

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/retirement-plan-shift-is-creating-a-generation-of-workers-unable-to-retire.html

Retirement Plan Shift Is Creating a Generation of Workers Unable to Retire
CBS MoneyWatchBy Steve Vernon | CBS MoneyWatch – Fri, Nov 9, 2012 3:55 PM EST

*** begin quote ***

We can no longer afford to ignore the long-term consequences of short-term thinking about our retirement programs.

Yahoo! Finance/Thinkstock – We can no longer afford to ignore the long-term consequences of short-term thinking about our retirement programs.

Large U.S. employers continue to eliminate traditional pension plans that pay retired workers a monthly lifetime pension in favor of defined contribution and hybrid plans that offer lump-sum payments at retirement, according to a recent survey HR consulting firm Towers Watson.

Among Fortune 1000 companies, only 11 percent still offer a traditional pension plan to newly hired salaried workers, down from 14 percent in 2011 and continuing a long slide from 90 percent in 1985. Conversely, in 1985 only 10 percent of those companies offered only a defined contribution plan to salaried workers — today that figure stands at 70 percent.

The primary reason for this trend has been financial: Employers don’t want the exposure to unfunded liabilities if capital markets perform poorly. At the same time, until recently employees generally hadn’t expressed a preference for traditional pension plans and, in fact, have largely embraced 401(k) and other defined contribution plans.

But this trend has its consequences in the workplace, as large numbers of baby boomers have 401(k) balances that are inadequate to fund a traditional retirement. To make matters worse, most retiring workers don’t know how to turn their nest eggs into reliable retirement income. Employers also haven’t provided much help by offering retirement income options in their defined contribution plans.

*** end quote ***

Well, the Gooferment has been messing up the economy and distorting the employer – employee relationship since it first ERISA rule attempted to prevent Lockheed from stealing pension benefits from older aerospace engineers. 

They only made the problem worse.

Suppose that they stopped giving their corporate cronies tax breaks that weren’t available to individuals and let individuals fend for themselves for “benefits”, no problem.

Imagine that your car insurance was tied to your job?

It’s just dumb!

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RANT: Voting doesn’t matter; Opting out, aka secession, does

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Jim Gearhardt
NJ 101.5 

Jim:

I own several houses in NJ. (I’m in the process, as are many older retiring new jersey-ites, of transitioning from NJ to NH via VA. Personally I’m being driven out by the high taxes. Most notably the Inheritance Tax.) I knew when the Storms hit that the taxpayer would be paying.

Can I ask you to consider some points?

(1) Were these towns self-insuring? This may have been a decision to save money in the short-term. To spend on other priorities. Why is the taxpayer being punished for a decision that they had no input to?

(2) “No taxation without representation.” What a joke. I have a summer family property in Seaside Heights. How do I vote for lower taxes? Or about anything they decide?

(3) In the recent election, the “takers” won. People love “free” stuff. But what are they going to “take” when those that “make” stop “making”?

Sorry to sound like an old grump. I did HANJ. I did GRIP. I tea partied.

I know you say that “secession was settled by the Civil War and isn’t going to happen” is unthinkable. I would suggest individuals can secede by just not cooperating. Remember Martin Luther King and Gandhi.

“Yes. In the end, you will walk out. Because 100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate.” — movie Gandhi (1983)

Peaceful. Non-violent. Non-cooperation.

Sound familiar?

I have enjoyed your morning rant for many years and now listen from VA via the inet. Thanks for the shore updates. Fight the good fight.

p.s., ½ the folks don’t vote and the ½ that did vote doesn’t make a mandate. And remember if voting made any difference, they would let us do it. “Democracy” is two wolves and a lamb deciding what’s for dinner. You have demonstrated to me that VOTING in NJ is meaningless.

Fjohn

—-
Ferdinand John Reinke
… a proud Virginian since March, 2012
1641 International Drive #414
Mc Lean VA 22102
(732) 798-0508
http://www.reinke.cc (Personal page)
http://www.reinkefj.com (Professional page)

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