Economics 101 with Yaron Brook

The capitalist answer to all that populist sniping from left and right.

Last week in Newsweek:

Who Is To Blame?

Some point to Alan Greenspan. But his hands-off approach to the economy originated with Ayn Rand.

Read on: "Who Is To Blame?"

"The Tennessee Waltz" (Bisexual Polyamorous Edition)

I was dancin' with my darlin' to the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see
I introduced her to my loved one
And while they were dancin'
My friend stole my sweetheart from me.

I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz
Now I know just how much I have won
Yes, I won another darlin' the night they were playing
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz.

I was dancin' with my darlin' to the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see
I introduced her to my loved one
And while they were dancin'
My friend kissed my sweetheart for me.

I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz
Now I know just how much I have won
Yes, I won another darlin' the night they were playing
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz

Capitalism, Communism, and a Mixed Economy

What's the difference between capitalism, communism, and a mixed economy?

In capitalism, if a CEO like Roger Smith bets the company on a new technology and loses, losses are limited to the money invested by preexisting shareholders and creditors.

In communism, if a commissar bets the kolkhoz on a new type of whip and loses, every soviet citizen is on the hook for the losses until the next purge, when the commissar gets executed.

In a mixed economy, if a CEO like Roger Smith bets the company on a new technology and loses, every taxpayer is on the hook for the losses indefinitely.

Downsize Two Dinosaurs

A good idea, actually: "Merge the Big Three"

Just make sure that Ford takes over GM and Chrysler, not the other way round. The dinosaurs with the worst track records ought to be eliminated.

Carey Lowell Is Too Beautiful

"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" — Christopher Marlowe

Too beautiful to dock a ship, that is. To put into perspective my statement to the effect that only blondes are beautiful, consider Carey Lowell.

There's scientific evidence that though brunette, she is beautiful. As Pam Bouvier, the main Bond girl from the last real Bond movie, License to Kill, she crashes the WaveKrest into a dock. That proves that she lacks the ugliness of one millinegahelen required to dock a ship.

And the M Stands for…

Bond: "I thought M was a randomly assigned letter. I had no idea it stood for…"

M: "Utter one more syllable, and I'll have you killed!"

— Casino Royale

In case you were wondering, M stands for moron.

An M Is an M Is an M

Bond fans used to wonder whether M is a position or a man, that is, whether Bernard Lee and Robert Brown were playing the same character, or one man and his successor. Now, since the appointment of Judi Dench to the role of M, those suckers believe that question is settled.

Little do they know. What most people don't know is that Miles Messervy underwent a sex change operation. You know, he was sick and tired of being an old man.

Nor Any Drop to Drink

Alex answers his mail, re: "They Don't Know Who Their Friends Are."

Oleg writes:

[Y]ou don't know a thing about Bolivian water story, which took place in a small town Cachabamba. "Bad guys" (Aquas Del Tunari, controlled by International Water Limited, controlled by Bechtel) through corruption (the price of the contract was laughable - 20'000 USD) took control over the town water system, then doubled retail prices for water, then used imported weapons (courtesy of the U.S. embassy) to stifle a "paro civico", then government was forced to rescind the contract with Aquas Del Tunari, then contractor sued Bolivia for the loss of earnings, which was 25'000'000 USD. The loan for the operation came from World Bank. So, you know, those "capitalists" are true parasites, who are not simply "ask another men to live for them", but force them to.

Ted writes:

The foundational principle being ignored on all sides, is that individual liberty, being natural, has also natural limits. When anyone deliberately decides to use their liberty to manipulate and control others, whether the vehicle of that control is religion, politics, philosophy or even "capitalism", the natural boundary has been overstepped.

Steven writes:

Since when is overthrowing governments, doing business with killers or establishing a water monopoly behavior we admire? This sounds like a thoroughly neo-conservative reading of the film not a libertarian one. If you really want to associate Capitalism with Gangsterism, then by all means continue these misdirected, knee-jerk tirades.

Obviously, they still don't know who their friends are.

First off, Steven's remarks are so wrong on so many levels that they merit a blow by blow dissection.

"Since when is overthrowing governments, doing business with killers or establishing a water monopoly behavior we admire?"

We, Steven? Dou you presume to tell me what I admire?

Or is we you and Ayn Rand? Looking at "Egalitarianism and Inflation" (The Ayn Rand Letter, Vol. III, No. 18, June 3, 1974) you'll see that Rand didn't believe Allende was better than Pinochet.

Or is it you and some unspecified libertarians? Why would I care what some anonymous libertarians admire?

"Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we.' " — Mark Twain

"Three groups are permitted that usage: pregnant women, royalty, and schizophrenics. Which one are you?" — Hyman G. Rickover

I'm afraid, Steven, you just outed yourself as a closet collectivist.

By the way, does that mean you don't admire the American Revolution?

"If you really want to associate Capitalism with Gangsterism, then by all means continue these misdirected, knee-jerk tirades."

Of course, capitalism, voluntary cooperation to mutual advantage, is preferable over either gangsterism or socialism. Yet if you can't have capitalism, gangsterism sure is better than socialism. Where were people better off in 1926, in Chicago or in Moscow?

Why did Ayn Rand flee from St. Petersburg to Chicago? And why didn't she flee back to the Soviet Union in horror when she saw the Chicago gangsterism?

If you can't have "voluntary cooperation to mutual advantage," "everybody fights for himself" sure is better than "the individual gets enslaved and sacrificed for the common good of the majority."

"Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism?" — Howard Roark

Who was the worse violator of human rights, Al Capone or Adolf Hitler? I'm not so sure what Steven and his tapeworm may choose, but I'd take Al over Adolf any day.

"This sounds like a thoroughly neo-conservative reading of the film not a libertarian one."

Who told you I'm a libertarian? "Libertarian" is a broad catchall term that includes about everybody who claims to be in favor of liberty, from anarcho-capitalists to objectivists, and then some. Why would I care if a specific viewpoint of mine is neo-conservative or libertarian?

As for the Bolivian water story, it's Oleg who doesn't have his facts straight.

In the Aguas del Tunari case, the corporation raised rates not out of greed, but to be able to invest in the water network. True, poorer Bolivians claimed they could not afford this, and to cut a long story short, an angry socialist mob with torches and pitchforks kicked out the capitalist company.

The upshot: Without the capitalists' capital to fix up and expand the water system, most folks there still have no connection to the water main. And unless that socialist mob finds some idiot who builds water mains for them without getting his money back through higher rates, they won't get any faucet water, ever.

Don't take my word for it. Read the relevant entry at everybody's favorite joke of an encyclopedia.

Then again, while this particular company can be blamed for nothing except maybe for misjudging Bolivians' ability to pay, there are no doubt some shady capitalists just as there are corrupt government officials. However, Hollywood will make you believe that all capitalists are corrupt, while government agents are only corrupted by the need to fight fire with fire.

But neither is my principal point. That point — and I probably did not make that clear enough in my review — is: If someone takes control of a resource and doubles the price on consumers out of pure spite or greed — it's OK. Sure, it's not nice, and cause for censure, but it is not cause enough to resort to the use of force.

It's mind-boggling how ready people are to resort to force at the slightest provocation. People cry, "We cannot live in anarchy. Everybody would go after his neighbor with a shotgun for the slightest perceived offense." Yet that is what people are doing under and through government.

The mere fact that you get a judge or a jury to agree with your peeve, or even a legislature elected by a majority (of those who care to vote) to agree with you that "there ought to be a law," does not give you any "objective" right to have the government use force against others over trifles. The shotgun of anarchy is the litigiousness of archy.

It's the road to Obamastan. Seven billion people believe there ought to be a law against their pet peeve, like their high water bill, or their high gas bill, or whatever.

The result, quite predictably, is world socialism. If the pet peeves of seven billion people are grounds for government regulation by force, what else can the result be but a totalitarian state?

In the water rights case, there are no grounds to use force against the "industrialists," unless you're the victim of outright, overt force or fraud, or dying of thirst. In the latter case, of course the ethics of emergencies kicks in: "[M]any Objectivists say that, if they fell off a building and hung onto somebody's balcony, they ought to die rather than trespass."

But if the matter is of no vital importance to you —

"Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog, than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite." — Abraham Lincoln

Bench That Dench

Uh, I mean, ditch that bitch. I guess it's no secret that I'm no fan of Judi Dench.

I don't care that our British friends believe she's one of their finest actresses. I mean, Brits believe Roger Moore can't act.

(Shouldn't become a closet collectivist here, though. It should be: "most Brits," not "all Brits.")

Anyway, let's cut to the chase. Dench's #1 problem is that basically she's nothing but a punk: She's rebelling against beauty itself.

Until a cure for aging is found, one can at least try to age gracefully. Letting one's face implode into a crater with wrinkles around and then smearing eyeliner and lipstick on the remains like whitewash on the ruins of the WTC is only adding insult to injury.

Like so many things, it's either or. Either go for a facelift or forgo the makeup.

And if she doesn't want to dye her white hair, fine. But that doesn't mean she has to opt for a do that looks like it's been nibbled by boogle of weasels. The Donald's do has more dignity.

As for her "acting," I've seen her only in Shakespeare in Love and in those disastrous howlers that pass for Bond movies these days. Nevertheless, in both roles she played a mean old bat, and from her performance as M it's obvious that she can't act, can't even tell acting from frenzied histrionics.

So I can't help but wonder, is she being typecast or isn't she acting at all — is she just playing herself? If an actor's playing the same type again and again, that's basically the only two possibilities.

Either she's had some real bad luck being cast, or she enjoys being a mean old bat because she is a mean old bat in real life. Given her open rebellion against beauty, I tend to think the latter.

Bond Barbie Keeps the Streak Alive

From the day Barbara Broccoli was promoted to producer, there's never been a blond Bond girl. No true blond "main Bond girl" (what other franchises would call a "leading lady") since Maryam d'Abo as Kara Milovy in The Living Daylights, to be precise. And two movies later, Brunette Barbie assumed producer duties.

Well, as long as Brunette Barbie stays in charge, I trust she won't tolerate any Bond girl more beautiful, uh, blond than her. The fact that Barb lost her boy toy to a blonde won't help matters much, I'm afraid.

But then, given the esthetic nosedive the Bond franchise has taken with the reboot, with virtually all the fun elements — from humor to gadgets — gone, either Bond is headed for a slow slide into oblivion, or the production team will have to be rebooted.

Be it Brunette Barbie or the end of the Cold War — since License to Kill, Bond has never been the same. And no, it's not that I've grown up. I still like to watch the classic Bond movies.

And it's not only my subjective dissatisfaction at not getting the quantum of blond I paid for with the ticket. (No, Daniel Craig doesn't count. I'm not gay. And even if I were, I'd prefer tall dark strangers. Call me old-fashioned, but chicks are supposed to be blond; guys, dark. 'Nough said.)

No, even in the nineties, Bond was running out of steam, out of credible opponents. I've watched every one of those movies, and the plot of every one of them was forgettable, straight-to-DVD material.

If North Koreans and Chinese can be made to stand in for soviets, the writers sure didn't manage to pull it off. (With the possible exception of Die Another Day, which was quite tolerable, or would have been, had Brosnan's presence not reminded me of his three preceding bombs.)

The fullest expression of that degradation can be observed in the rebooted Casino Royale: the movie trying to become relevant by latching onto the destruction of the WTC. Of course, Bond movies always tried to be topical. Think The Man with the Golden Gun and the seventies energy crisis.

However, before the nineties, Bond was larger than life. He did not play second fiddle to a real-life terrorist attack.

Nowadays, Bond is no longer larger than life (fighting villains scheming for world domination or the annihilation of mankind) or even as large as life (fictionalizing the Cold War or the war on drugs) but just your garden variety hero, no, protagonist, struggling to impersonate a secret agent, badly, and losing even that fight. A sad shadow of his former self.

As a former Bond fan, here my ultimatum:

(1) I want Blond girls, uh, blond Bond girls, and not James Blond.

(2) Craig shall never again be permitted to act in a movie, except maybe as Frankenstein's monster. A yellow dog could act better than he.

(3) I want Timothy Dalton back. Or even George Lazenby. Too bad Sean Connery and Roger Moore are probably too old by now. Anyway, Dalton should have made more Bond movies. Pierce Brosnan sure looked the part, but now he's associated with those stupid nineties Bond movies. I guess I could settle for Gerard Butler.

(4) There shall be writing that manages to create some credible villains, and without catering to the very worst populist clichés.

(5) I want that sense of humor and those gadgets back.

(6) All Bond movies after License to Kill shall be booted from the canon, particularly that sick joke of a reboot.

Until these conditions are met, don't expect me to buy any merchandise, any DVDs, or any tickets (unless I have to write a review).

They Don't Know Who Their Friends Are

My review of the new Bond movie Quantum of Solace at The Atlasphere:

"They Don't Know Who Their Friends Are‏"

You may also be interested in this review over at Unspoken Words:

"Quantum of Solace — Where's Mine?"

Global Warming Cooked Up?

This article, "The World Has Never Seen Such Freezing Heat," from The Daily Telegraph, can really make you wonder how much reality there is behind all that global warming hype:

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month…

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. … The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

…

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

I don't pretend to know if the world is headed for global warming or for a new ice age, but given the way those global warming enthusiasts acquire their data, it's pretty obvious that global policy decisions affecting the very air we breathe should not be made based on the say-so of those sensationalist alarmists.

Good Riddance, Sarah!

Here's the farewell America has for Sarah Palindrome. A representative sample:

"Boy, I sure hope you keep her in Alaska forever."

"Keep her — please keep her!!!!!"

"Yikes! The dumbest candidate for anything in my lifetime and the only person who can make George W. Bush look presidential."

"She came, she saw, she got her butt kicked!"

One of the few fundie dissenters opined: "Yep […] hatred for someone that has gone much further than any of you could even amagine [sic]."

If only she would go a little farther still, to the North Pole, and never be heard from again.

Not that I like "President" Barrack Hussein Osama too much. Too bad that McCain self-destructed by picking that fundie nitwit.

Anyways, now is the time of healing, of getting over the nightmares of the Palindrome starting World War III by going after Putin with a shotgun if he rears his head… The nagging fear that a "President" Palindrome would replace the Constitution (imperfect as it is) with her interpretation of the ten commandments… That, like her poor son-in-law-to-be, all men would be shotgunned into joyless marriages to some fugly war pigs they happened to pick up. Too horrible to contemplate.

No new fundies! (Yeah!)

Top Ten Things to Do on Election Day

The top then things to do on election day, best to worst:

(1) Vote for Barr/Root.

(2) Write in Ron Paul.

(3) Write in yourself.

(4) Write "Fuck You All!" all over the ballot.

(5) Tear up the ballot.

(6) Hand in a ballot as illegible and hard to process as possible.

(7) Hand in a blank ballot.

(8) Stay home.

(9) Vote for Osama/Bidet.

And the single worst thing you can do on election day is:

(10) Vote for Alzheimer/Imbecile, uh, McCain/Palin.

No new fundies!

Barring the Greater Satans

"American voters deserve better than simply the lesser of two evils."

— Bob Barr.

Why would any freedom-loving individual who chooses to sanction democracy by voting proceed to waste his or her vote on just another collectivist?

Both McCain and Obama openly and unabashedly campaign on their "value" of service. They claim they want to serve you, but they're as proud of the fact that once elected, they will force you to serve your fellow man — and the government that rules both you and your fellow man.

The hope that McCain may be tougher on terrorists and the axis of evil than Obama cannot justify voting for a man who is every inch as much an altruist, a collectivist, an enemy of liberty as Obama. OK, it's tempting to vote for a man whose famous temper will likely make him hit the big red button in case of another terrorist attack, instead of for a man who would negotiate a compromise with them that gives in to materially all their spiritual demands.

Yet any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. No terrorist threat, real or imagined, can justify selling the foundation of civilization, capitalism, down the river.

Let's look at only one example of too many to count: Both McCain and Obama have vowed to fight "speculation" and "windfall profits" in the oil industry.

Bear in mind that it's the government that caused America's dependence on foreign oil. The government destroyed passenger railroads by subsidizing highways and airports. The government claims unowned land that should be open to be claimed by oil companies that wish to establish ownership by improving it, by making it useful by drilling for and producing oil.

These government follies have curtailed oil supply and driven up demand, increasing prices and profits. Can you imagine what will happen if one of the mainstream looters confiscates those "windfall profits" oil companies need to continue working in the stranglehold of an environmentally correct, altruistically price-controlling government?

It took a century of hard work to rebuild ExxonMobil after that overgrown teddy bear Roosevelt took the initiative in destroying Standard Oil. Do you think it is a good idea to vote for a Roosevelt groupie now, when the product of the oil industry has become the lifeblood of civilization?

Bob Barr, in stark contrast, holds that:

The free market, driven by consumer choice and reflecting the real cost of resources, should be the foundation of America's energy policy. The federal government should eliminate restrictions that inhibit energy production, as well as all special privileges for the production of politically-favored fuels, such as ethanol.

In particular, Congress should allow the exploration and production of America's abundant domestic resources, including oil in the Outer Continental Shelf and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and alternative sources such as shale oil.

So you believe voting for a third-party candidate amounts to wasting your vote? It takes away votes from McCain and ensures the victory of Obama?

That's probably what an unreconstructed Whig would have told a Republican in the 1850s. Wake up and smell the coffee.

If you want change to happen, you have to make it happen. If you want to get rid of both established parties, you have to vote for a third party.

Everybody keeps telling everybody else to not "waste" their vote on a third party. This way, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, game theory at its worst. There will never be liberty unless you there in front of your computer decide to become the political Howard Roark on your block, the first person to go against the grain, the first person to vote for a third party.

In fact, you throw your vote away if you vote for a mainstream candidate. If you vote for either McCain or Obama, you stand up to be counted among those who approve of their identical altruist, collectivist premises.

"See," the mystics of muscle and the mystics of spirit alike will crow, "the people don't want liberty. The people want to serve, want to be ruled by one of us."

Besides, voting for Barr doesn't necessarily have to hurt McCain, much as he has it coming. Christopher Barron, a Republican political consultant, told the Los Angeles Times:

"If Barr's candidacy is fueled by the same people who supported Ron Paul — college students, antiwar advocates and hard-core libertarians — then I think it is unlikely to hurt Sen. McCain in any significant way because these are not the type of voters McCain is reaching out to. I could actually envision a scenario under which Barr's candidacy actually helps McCain by siphoning off some of the enthusiasm among college voters and antiwar advocates for Obama."

Either way, there can be no reason not to vote for the one candidate who's standing firmly for freedom from G like gun rights to P like property rights — while under McCain, the former GOP is being further reduced to a big, fat 0.

Like every one of us, Barr isn't perfect. Like every one of us, he has made mistakes (like prosecuting drug dealers) and held quirky opinions (that same-sex couples should be denied the chance to marry, to become as unhappy as everyone else). But is that an excuse for voting for candidates campaigning by openly brandishing their collectivism and altruism?

It looks like Barr has become enlightened regarding his follies, like the war on drugs. We can only hope this change for the better will be a change for good, and not a flip-flop.

So in some ways, Barr is a reformed "sinner." But is it better to vote for a man who openly says he will do evil?

Oh, by the way, did I mention that Barr is to my knowledge the only candidate who's at least something of a fellow Ayn Rand fan?

We should seek to establish a wall of separation between government and the economy. The legitimate economic functions of government are to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. The government should stop attempting to "manage" the free market.

Ayn Rand? Nope. Bob Barr.

If life, liberty, and property is what you want, Bob Barr is your last, best hope in 2008. In fact, as the candidates of the two mainstream parties have disqualified themselves, Barr is your three best candidates: Barr is the first, last, and only line of defense for liberty left in America.

Happy Halloween, Looters!

The beef I have with Halloween is not its pagan origin (love it) or the silly costumes. It's not the glaring contradiction of letting kids run around in the dark accosting strangers in an age when taking any kind of photos of kids is being criminalized.

The fact that kids running around after dark might get them killed does not justify banning running around after dark. Just like the fact that guns can be used as murder weapons does not justify banning guns. Just like the fact that kitchen knives can be used as murder weapons does not justify banning kitchen knives. Just like the fact that drugs can get you addicted does not justify banning drugs. Just like the fact that photos of kids can be used by perverts to jack off does not justify banning taking photos of kids.

The problem I have with Halloween is that kids are being taught it's OK to blackmail people. Suddenly, kids that supposedly are too young to drink, to consent to having sex, to own guns, to drive, or to vote are expected to understand that "trick or treat" is only kidding, and that big-time blackmail is not acceptable in real life.

So is it witchcraft that every second a looter seems to be born?

Regulation: Everybody's Stupid

So everybody's stupid and dishonest, that's why the economy is in turmoil, so "we" need to regulate it some more, so "that can never happen again." (Where have I heard that one before?) As investment bankers are apparently stupid and reckless, they need to be restrained by force, so that the government can fix the economy by fraud.

"Regulation" is nothing but barefaced aggression by government thugs against consenting adults doing business with each other. But unabashed use of force is not the only weapon in the arsenals governments (i.e., criminals elected by mobs of idiots and bums) bring to bear on the economy (i.e., on all productive people). Simple caveman force is accompanied by the most complex forms of fraud, like deficit spending that has to be recouped some day either by force (like taxes or tariffs) or more fraud, like printing "money" (i.e., worthless paper instead of real money, which is a commodity with real-world uses like gold or silver).

As I pointed out before, the government is to blame for at least half of the turmoil going on right now. But of course, even in a totally free, capitalist country without any government, there would be periods of boom and bust — as long as human beings aren't omniscient and perfect.

So consenting adults doing business with each other get high on irrational exuberance, causing a boom. When they see the error of their ways, irrational exuberance collapses into the hangover of irrational mistrust, causing a bust. Well, what do you expect from a system where billions of less than perfect people interact, everyone of them acting on imperfect information?

Stock speculation is nothing but gambling. Ever heard, A Random Walk down Wall Street? If you want to be on the safe side, you got to be a long-term investor.

But how in hell can the government clowns and the morons that elect them make themselves believe that they are honest, intelligent, or perfect enough to know what everybody else should do, to the point of initiating the use of force? If people are too stupid and dishonest to be permitted to engage in voluntary, unregulated trade with each other, how can they be wise and honest enough to elect those who will be authorized to force everyone how to do business?

In the olden days, the people had a monarch. It was believed that through his breeding and training, he would be the man who could be trusted to order everyone else around.

The result was general starvation and misery. Naturally, a monarch is the result of utter disregard for genetics, the product of a distinguished long line of incest ensuring the greatest ass possible, sure to come up with the dumbest decisions possible.

Nowadays, we are more enlightened. We elect our dictators. Yet we retain the warranty that our rulers remain the greatest possible asses, even though they're not the products of incest (maybe excepting the Palins). If "we" are stupid, how can we hope to elect anybody who's not stupid?

You say, Main Street can and should be trusted to rule Wall Street? Because the Jesus freaks on Main Street and the selfless silver spoon socialists on the Upper East Side are less greedy and dishonest than those godless, egoistic "Wall Street Jews"? (Yes, that's what those fascist Jesus freaks are calling bankers again. Just Google it if you don't believe me.)

If so, then they're more stupid, too. Just look at the scum they propose to elect to enforce either national socialism or national socialism. The Jesus freaks: McAlzheimer and the Palindrome. The silver spoon socialists: Barrack Hussein Osama and the Bidet. Neither McAlzheimer and the Palindrome nor Osama and the Bidet would be fit to run a moose burger joint.

Did you never notice that in fact the average politician or regulator is always more stupid than the average businessman? Well, that's democracy.

It's a basic law of nature that you cannot get more information out of a system than is in it. Ever tried to blow up a pixelated photo?

Accordingly, elected politicians will be as dumb as or dumber than the average of the electorate. (Barring aberrations, like when the mob underestimates a candidate).

The difference between capitalism and democracy is that under democracy every individual, irrespective of his or her stupidity, has an equal vote. In capitalism, the more intelligent individual tends to be more productive, thus tends to be richer, thus tends to own more stock, thus tends to have more votes at the shareholders' meeting.

That does not mean that capitalism is perfect. Just think worthless heirs.

As most people are stupid to some degree, even capitalism can only mitigate that general stupidity of humanity. Yet, on average, any action undertaken by a capitalist corporation will be more rational and successful than any action concocted by a democratic government.

In the context of today's economy, any action by governments can only make matters worse. The only rational thing to do is to wait for people to overcome their irrational fears and start trusting and lending each other again.

And while we still have democracy, not capitalism, you can of course vote for Bob Barr. Sock it to the collectivist McAlzheimer-Palindrome-Osama-Bidet cabal.

Word of the Day: Palindrome

palindrome (pal' in drōm'), n. something that does not make sense either forward or backward: Sarah Palindrome might just as well talk backwards, it would make just as little sense. [Palin + syndrome]

What's the Difference between Sarah Palin and…

What's the difference between Sarah Palin and a jack-o'-lantern?

Well, one is a shriveled, empty-headed country pumpkin; the other is a jack-o'-lantern.

By the way, the kids on my block wanted to dress up as Sarah Palin for Halloween. I told them to go for something prettier, like a witch or Frankenstein's monster. Or something fresher, like a zombie. Or something more civilized, like King Kong. Or something more intelligent, like a cabbage.

OK, back to our scheduled program…

What's the difference between Sarah Palin and a moose ass?

A moose ass ain't that full of bullshit.

What's the difference between Sarah Palin and a Rocky Moose-tain oyster?

A Rocky Moose-tain oyster got a higher IQ and better taste.

What's the difference between Sarah Palin and the server at the Wasilla moose burger joint?

The server at the Wasilla moose burger joint knows how to spell "moose."

What's the difference between Sarah Palin and the Wasilla wastebasket?

The Wasilla wastebasket has already seen a newspaper.

What's the difference between Sarah Palin's IQ and winter temperatures in Alaska?

Both are negative numbers, but winter temperatures in Alaska don't go off the scale.

What's the difference between Sarah Palin's IQ and an oil well?

An oil well doesn't go that far down.

What's the difference between Sarah Palin and an idiot?

What? Did the fundies already indoctrinate your brain out of your head? Obviously, there is no difference.

No new fundies!

Presidential Elections Postponed?

Today, Sarah Palin's lawyers applied to the Supreme Court for an injunction to postpone the presidential election till next July.

Their legal opinion: "It would be extremely unfair to Governor Palin to hold an election at this time of year.

"You have to understand, Governor Palin ain't stupid. Her brain just froze."

No new fundies!

Top Ten Things Sarah Palin Can Do for Her Party and Her Country

(10) Tell Vladimir Putin (and his ex-KGB guards) to his face what she's telling about him behind his back.

(9) Start breeding brain cells like she breeds kids.

(8) Get her head back into her moose ass, fast.

(7) Have a brain switch operation with baby Trig, easily doubling her IQ.

(6) Move her Mormon tribe to Salt Lake City and run for village idiot.

(5) Shut the fuck up.

(4) Apply for a job she's qualified for, like janitor at the Wasilla town hall.

(3) Quintuple her IQ by going blond.

(2) Get laid by Dubya: As two negatives make a positive, their kids simply have to be geniuses.

And the single best thing Sarah Palin can do for her party and her country is:

(1) Go hunting with Dick Cheney.

No new fundies!

People Who Live in Glass Towers…

Having defended The Donald's do, I can't possibly let this one slide… In case the link goes dead, it's the good old "flip-flops and skimpy attire in the office aren't professional" routine.

(Note the toadying comments below his post! Hilarious!)

I have to admit, I was a bit surprised to hear that from The Donald, of all people. Who would you rather do business with: someone in skimpy attire and flip-flops, or someone in an outrageous comb over — who, to add insult to injury, even refuses to shake hands with you? The Donald should be the last person in the world to criticize anybody's style.

By the way, the other day I saw a pic of him in an old magazine, from the early nineties. Back then, his do didn't look quite that bad. I think it was some kind of a comb over even then, but he still had a reasonable enough amount of hair to wear it with some dignity.

I think the evolution of The Donald's do is like frying a frog. They say if you set a frog in a hot frying pan, he'll hop out. But if you set him in a cold pan and slowly turn up the heat, he'll never notice the gradual increase in temperature and allow himself to get fried.

Now, I'm not a Frenchman, so I wouldn't do that to a poor varmint, but it sure has some bearing on the matter at hand, or rather, at hair. Likely, slowly losing hair after hair, The Donald never noticed how his comb over got more and more, to use his expression, "inappropriate" over the years.

Anyway, when I start hiring, it'll be:

"Keep, ancient firms, your professional pomp!" cries me
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your sweating masses yearning to breathe free,
The flip-flopping refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the workless, Trump-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside Trump's golden door!"

Palin in a Wolf Trap

When I was hiking in Alaska the other day, I happened across a Palin in a wolf trap.

How do I know that guy was a Palin?

Well, he had a Swiss Army Knife between his teeth, had amputated both arms and a leg, but was still stuck.

No new fundies!

Maverick and the Moron

Team of mavericks? My ass.

Either you're a maverick or you're part of a team. You can't be both.

Every time I hear Sarah Palin speak, my brain tries to skip from my skull. It just can't stand such a concerted attack of idiocy.

She makes Bush look like a genius. If nomen were omen, Sarah Palin's first name would have to be Sahara, for the barrenness of her mind.

Too bad Palin's not intelligent enough to pass for a moron. Would have been such a catchy title for her ticket: Maverick and the Moron. The M&M ticket.

Now it's gotta be Alzheimer and the Imbecile. Or rather, Alzheimer and the Idiot.

No new fundies!

Happy Boss Day, Assclowns!

Happy Another Hallmark Holiday! With this one, the clowns at Hallmark hit the jackpot, didn't they? Not a brownnoser in the world who won't become their customer tomorrow.

According to everybody's favorite joke of an encyclopedia, this "holiday" is about "Thanking workplace superiors for being kind and fair throughout the year." But in capitalism — voluntary cooperation to mutual advantage — being kind and fair is the responsibility of every boss and merits no special gratitude.

Any boss who fails to recognize that does not deserve the title "boss," is only grist for the mill of socialists (like Commissar Day is any better), and ought to be treated like the assclown from Nine to Five.

Instead of giving your boss a card or even a gift, give him or her a report card stating how well he or she fulfilled his or her responsibility of being kind and fair this past year.

But don't blame me if that gets you fired or stalls your career. Well, unless you're morbidly risk-averse, a born brownnoser, or working for an exceptional company, you're better off as an independent contractor anyways.

Sock it to the man, buster.

Category Five Bimbo

Hey, let's talk some more about everybody's favorite bimbo. Make that, brunette bimbo. In fact, she's brunettes' answer to blonde jokes.

Sarah Palin's been called a lot of things. Dan Quayle with a Ponytail. Hitler in High Heels. Now, Bill Maher called her a "category five moron."

I beg to disagree with this one. That cannot possibly be true.

Moron was originally an English scientific term, coined in 1910 by psychologist Henry H. Goddard from the Greek word moros, which meant "dull" (as opposed to "sharp"), and used to describe a person with a mental age located between 8 and 12 on the Binet scale. It was once applied to people with an IQ of 51-70, being superior in one degree to "imbecile" (IQ of 26-50) and superior in two degrees to "idiot" (IQ of 0-25).

Thus, you see, there are no category five morons — if a person is category five in stupidity, that makes her a category five idiot. In fact, back in Alaska, Palin was a regular participant in the Idiot Race (not to be confused with the more well known Iditarod Race).

Too bad she lost every time because she shot and field dressed her dogs. But then that's more or less par for the course at the Idiot Race.

Yet we should be grateful that Sarah Palin is with us today. Had she been around in 1925, Nome would have been wiped out by diphtheria.

By the way, speaking of field dressing…

If you've killed a cow moose, locate its uterus — if it's pregnant, remove fetus and transplant it to a surrogate moose womb because you don't believe in killing the unborn. You can shoot it later when it grows up.

Palin may be good for nothing, but at least she disproves all those stupid blonde jokes. You may not know this, but blondes are highly intelligent. All the stupidity that was available to nature went into Sarah Palin.



The eye of the bimbo:



Not a pretty sight. Someone's IQ going negative.



And I thought nobody could beat Dubya. At least no one with a pulse. Well, having a pulse doesn't guarantee having brainwaves.

Why, oh, why, did they ever let her out of her padded cell? But I already suspect the ugly truth.

You know, Alaska must be a bit behind the times. They don't yet have that nifty little invention called "Bellevue."

As the saying goes, you can put all the lipstick you want on a war pig… I say, no new fundies!

Quote of the Day

"Right now we are advising all our clients to put everything they've got into canned food and shotguns."

— Brain Gremlin

Free Levi!

Please help! Don't let this poor boy get field dressed!

http://www.freelevi.org/

Free Levi! Save the children!

Meet Sarah Palin, the Thief

Speaking of corrupt fundie-publicans, Sarah Palin, the moron, stole $13,000 from taxpayers to go and spread her religion. How does that bode for the separation of church and state under Maverick/Moron?

The real perversion is that corporate executives go to jail for embezzling so much as information from their shareholders. It's called insider trading.

Now, other than in government, in business it isn't wrong to take such perks. If a shareholder disagrees with these perks, he or she can always get out. Did you ever try to get out from under your government?

Both in a corporation and under a government, you can elect new executives. But with just two parties and political machines being political machines, chances are the next government executive will be just another crook.

Moreover, a government has the power to take more money from you by force once it has wasted the money it originally took from you. A corporation has no power to take any more money from you above and beyond your initial investment.

As for your initial investment, you can sell your stock (maybe at a loss). To get out from under your government, you have to sell all of your property in the state (maybe at a loss) and physically move out of state.

On the federal or national levels it's even worse, as all land is claimed by some government and no other government may be willing to accept you. It may be very hard to get a visa to move to another country.

And of course you can't secede and set up a new country. That would be treason or terrorism or worse, wouldn't it?

The problem is that governments arrogate themselves a territory where they claim a monopoly on the legal use of force. That's what makes them more dangerous than corporations.

That's why insider traders should not go to jail, but Sarah Palin should. And why in the future everything should be done by corporations, and nothing by government.

"Even the most precious functions of government — say, collecting taxes or hanging men — would be better done if the doing of them were farmed out to Ford." — H.L. Mencken

Now, Mencken was wrong about the first part. If a corporation is permitted to collect taxes, it becomes a government. But he was dead right on the latter part.

So Your Daughter Is a Porn Star…

In my outrage, I didn't say what should be done if a minor distributes nude pics of herself.

This isn't a case for the police. The school should have called the parents or legal guardians and told them:

"Your daughter keeps sending nude pics of herself to who knows who. There's an off chance that might get her raped.

"You may want to talk with her about that. And maybe you should take away her cell phone."

And that should have been the end of that matter.

But thanks to fascist laws written by fundie-publican morons, and thanks to the universal hatred for sex, the human body, and this world spread by the fundies, no person of any age is safe anymore enjoying herself, particularly not in Redneckistan.

"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." — H.L. Mencken

As happy as sending nude pics of her body to her friends.

To the fundies, any pleasure, and particularly sex, is sinful. They believe that on this earth, human beings must suffer, so they may go to heaven. They believe that only by extirpating any kind of joy anywhere, they can buy their ticket to heaven.

Wake up and smell the coffee. You think rapists and perverts are the gravest dangers to your kids?

It's the fundie-publican pigs that aggress against your kids. And if the fundie-publicans are permitted to further poison minds by being permitted to hold offices of public trust, you and your children won't be safe anywhere, not in Realistan, nowhere.

Down with the fundie-publicans! November 2008 is yellow dog time!

Apex of Moronia: Newark, Ohio

(History will mark this as the point where Alex lost respect for all mankind.)

"Teen Charged for Sending Nude Phone Photos"

Authorities considering charges for students who received photos

If this goes on, I fear for the continued existence of the US of A.

Some lessons for the christo-fascists:

A fifteen-year-old is not a child. (People treating the sexuality of sexually mature teenagers as pedophilia have no business whatsoever looking down on Islamic extremists stoning women.)

Victim and criminal cannot be the same person. (If she's too young to agree to produce porn, then she's too young to be held responsible as well, you morons.)

Receiving something against one's will cannot be a crime. (If someone emails the moron in chief teen porn, will he be impeached?)

What's next?

Will masturbating teens be charged with statutory rape?

Will people who commit suicide be charged with murder?

If a thief forces me to take a stolen dollar bill from him, will I be prosecuted as a fence?

In any event, the title of Apex of Moronia has now officially passed from Arkansas to Newark, Ohio. Obviously, the IQs of those fucktards holding the august offices of pigs and prosecutors in that shit hole of a town, and those of the cavepersons that elected them, never ever reach room temperature.

Then maybe, the pigs and prosecutors in question are cowards, not morons? Maybe they did not want to do that to the kid, but felt the law left them no choice?

That neatly refutes "rule of law, not of men." Laws can only be very general guidelines that will never be applicable literally to any one case.

Those tasked with enforcing the law need common sense and the leeway to act on it. As I said before, "What is needed is not so much objective laws as objective people…"

Then I was talking about corrupt lawmen ignoring good laws. This is the diametrical opposite, potentially good lawmen not being free to waive bad laws.

In any event, laws, good or bad, can never replace reason. There are more than enough of the former, in Jesusland and everywhere else, but the latter is in woefully short supply, particularly in Dumbfuckistan.

I thought only people from the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon Line sleep with their sisters. But what else but centuries of indiscriminate incest can be responsible for the raging moronia in Jerkwater, Shitsforbrainsylvania, pardon, Newark, Ohio?

In one word, this is disgusting. At the moment, I'm even ashamed of being a fan of country music.

Time for whatever reasonable individuals are left in the US to secede from Dumbfuckistan? And no, the rednecks don't get to keep the nukes, no way.

For further exploration:

The morons' paper discussing the moron lawmakers' surprise at the unintended consequences of the fundie law: http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20081008/NEWS01/810080302

Visit the Apex of Moronia on the web: http://www.ci.newark.oh.us/

Yes, Virginia, even Podunk got a website these days.

Where Did the Neanderthals Go?

Where Did the Neanderthals Go?

Easy. They went nowhere. They just kept hiding in our homes, behind furniture, all the time.

But now they come creeping out of the woodwork:







And that's the problem.

But this gentleman knows how to treat varmints like those:



Bob Barr. Keeping the Neanderthals from the door.

Spaceship 2, Government 0

Reason and Liberty Central extends its heartfelt congratulations to SpaceX on the launch of the first orbiting spacecraft not developed with stolen money.

A French Objectivist

Received wisdom has it that in collectivist countries like France and Germany, there are few Objectivists or Libertarians. Yet today I met a French Objectivist.

How do I know he's an Objectivist? He always kept going, "Roark! Roark! Roark!"

How do I know he's French? Well, he's a frog.

Quote of the Day

"I despise mediocrity above all things. I fear it, yet I know some of my performances have been mediocre. I also know that I have turned in half a dozen good performances. I call myself a bum; but I have been working hard most of the days of my adult life."

— Errol Flynn

Whatever Happened to Rosie O'Donnell?

Speaking of horror, fascists, and moronic gun control freaks… What's up with Rosie?

The ruins of her face somehow imploded further. I thought that was physically impossible.

Thar she blows:


Image courtesy of David Shankbone, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Serious self-tanner malfunction? (LOL, I just typed "elf-tanner." Obviously not a product Rosie would use.)

No, I guess she just crept into an oven to get at the cookie batter before it solidifies into cookies. So stick a fork in her: She's done!

Before, it was bad enough:



Image courtesy of Jason Chatting, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

Now, no doubt due to the same hormone imbalance that caused her hoplophobia, she felt compelled to slap on ten times the amount. Clearly, this knocks her from a 2 down to a 1.

(Yes, of course I've seen a 0. I tried to take a photo of her, but she broke the camera. No joke.)

Or maybe she's such a hoplophobe 'cause every time she passes a mirror she's tempted to improve her looks and state of mind by shooting herself? Anyway, Rosie, you are not allowed to spook folks with that mug of yours, and if you do run around without your bag on, I think you should go to prison.

Man, it'll be a sad day in Heifer County when Kelli Carpenter decides to have her eyesight restored… 6+1= Major mismatch.

"I mean would you want to wake up next to that? … Would you want to kiss that face?"

— The Donald

True in 2006, twice as true now. The Donald rules.

His comb over, you say?

"I don't say my hair is my greatest strength in the world, but it's not terrible," says he.

I agree. That puts him head and shoulders over everybody's favorite gun control freak.

Now, you wonder, what could poor Rosie do to escape comments like these? In fact, there are two things.

First, she could eat less — about a ton a day. Second, she could stop making light of other folks' right to self-defense.

Gun Control Is Bad for the Environment

Gun control freaks will tell you that the lead in bullets is bad for the environment. But did you ever consider how many people that drive to work now would dare to commute by train if only they could get a carry permit so they know they can defend themselves when walking between the train station and their place of work?

Texas Annexed by Krautistan

The Texas state government seems to have settled on the dirty trick they want to use to deprive innocent people of the ruins of their properties.

Hundreds of people whose beachfront homes were wrecked by Hurricane Ike may be barred from rebuilding under a little-noticed Texas law. And even those whose houses were spared could end up seeing them condemned by the state.

…

Worse, if these homeowners do lose their beachfront property, they may get nothing in compensation from the state.

The reason: a 1959 law known as the Texas Open Beaches Act. Under the law, the strip of beach between the average high-tide line and the average low-tide line is considered public property, and it is illegal to build anything there.

Over the years, the state has repeatedly invoked the law to seize houses in cases where a storm eroded a beach so badly that a home was suddenly sitting on public property. The aftermath of Ike could see the biggest such use of the law in Texas history.

So the government can steal your land just because it happens to be under water now.

The former state senator who wrote the law had little sympathy.

"We're talking about damn fools that have built houses on the edge of the sea for as long as man could remember and against every advice anyone has given," A.R. "Babe" Schwartz said.

At least now we know what he thinks of his peons.

"And whether you like it or not, neither the Constitution of the United States nor the state of Texas nor any law permits you to have a structure on state-owned property that's subject to the flow of the tide."

What is the saying? "In America everything is permitted except for what is prohibited by law. In Germany everything is prohibited except for what is permitted by law."

Isn't that patently un-American? What's become of "a government of limited and enumerated powers"? Looks like it took only two hundred years to turn into a dictatorship where people have only limited and enumerated rights.

This is exactly what those Founding Fathers who opposed a Bill of Rights feared: That some future government running amok would turn it into a finite list of the few rights the government has granted to the people.

Of course, no constitution can ever be a final arbiter. Even if a constitution did grant a government the power to pass a fundamentally unfair and cruel law, that wouldn't make that law right. It would only make that constitution wrong.

And what if some flood deposits sediment on a public beach? Do local landowners get to keep the land so created?

No? The law doesn't cut both ways?

As always: rulers and peons, rulers and peons.

Go Get the Guilty Government Goons!

Re American International, Stalin, no, Hitler, no, Roosevelt, no, congress critter

Barney Frank, the influential chairman of the House financial services committee, told the New York Times: "This is one more affirmation that the lack of regulation has caused serious problems. That the private market screwed itself up and they need the government to come help them unscrew it."

As I said before:

Early twentieth century: Fed cuts rates, causes stock market bubble of the roaring twenties, bubble bursts, renowned power brokerage Roosevelt, Hitler, Stalin & Co. claims capitalism has failed and needs to be saved and/or replaced by their plans advertised as "The New Deal," "Fascism," and "Communism."

Early twentieth-first century: Government forces lenders to lower lending standards, causes housing bubble, which bursts into subprime mortgage crisis, big government moon bats claim the free market has failed and needs more government regulation.

Am I saying that American International should have been allowed to fail? No way.

But it should not have been bailed out with taxpayer money. The money should have come out of the personal fortunes of Bush, Bernanke, Frank, and all those politicians and bureaucrats who are responsible for the existence of the Fed and for trying to micromanage and regulate (read: centrally plan) the economy.

If, for instance, a central bank arrogates itself the power to regulate the money supply, those responsible for the central bank should be held responsible for the actions of said central bank, including a too high or too low money supply distorting markets, and any bubbles and bankruptcies resulting from that. Of course, those monies should have been taken from said culprits as simple damages, without giving them any AIG shares.

Lesson: The Moscow communists could not centrally plan the economy of the Soviet Union, Washington cannot micromanage the US economy, and the Fed cannot replace banks and the free financial markets in supplying money.

Sheeple and Heroes

This speaks for itself:

True Grit: well I never doubted that Mrs. Isaacks at 81 would show that. I asked her granddaughter, now that we know she is ok what do you think she doing? She said... she out helping to clean up the mess… and sure enough that's what you tell us in your report. I had the pleasure of being her guest last summer on High Island. I saw the damage from Rita, she had just completed putting her house back on its foundation. What a difference from what I experience here in Marshall at the shelter. These people lay around all day on cots, demanding service and complaining that nobody is helping them take care of their children. They better be glad Mrs. Isaacks isn't here. She would have them organized and working to help themselves. The WalMart employees are telling me that these evacuees are rude to the staff, they come into the store on busses and go thru the store like termites… buying [cosmetics] and complaining about the shelter being nasty. Hey... wait a minute, who making it nasty? You can't keep up… these people are slobs and they wont' do the simplest things for themselves. They complaining that by now FEMA had already given them their $2000 checks… and on and on...while on High Island Mrs. Isaacks and her neighbors are simply cleaning up and trying to stave off a government determined to remove them permanently from their Island. Who do I admire? the High Island people. But who does our government honor? the lazy slugs laying up in the convention center complaining.

A Deal with the Devil

It looks like reason and liberty are prevailing on the Bolivar Peninsula — for now.

"We can get through this; we have for many storms, although this is probably the worst," said firefighter Orbin Thompson, who along with EMS coordinator Robert Isaacks, persuaded authorities Tuesday not to force residents off the island.

...

Isaacks said the deal with the higher authorities isn't without caveats.

"If we leave, we can't come back," he said.

That means no one can go out to get supplies.

"We're working on a plan to address that," he said. "We got gasoline today and we're pooling resources for food. We'll find a way."

Still, it looks like government agents are making life hard for the heroes of Bolivar, instead of helping them. Of course, 250 residents driving to buy supplies in 250 trucks on a highway already half blocked by debris might interfere with a cleanup. Yet, what harm can one man in one truck do if he drives out for supplies, to sell, trade, or gift them to his neighbors?

How much of the government bureaucrats' obstructionism is due to wanting to go ahead with the cleanup, and how much is due to the sadistic pleasure of using force against people, while being able to appease the world and their own conscience: "I'm doing it because it's in their best interests"?

Public Health? You're Insane.

If the fascists try and force the heroes of the Bolivar Peninsula from their homes, it looks like their stratagem, their commerce clause, their — literally — dirty trick will be an argument from "public health."

The sliver of land is just too damaged for residents to stay there, and the population must be cleared so that recovery can begin, officials said. With no gas, no power and no running water, there is also concern about spread of disease.

So what if diseases like cholera spread from contaminated water? Those who are afraid of catching cholera are free to leave the peninsula voluntarily. Those who stay because they don't care whether they catch cholera endanger nobody but themselves.

And don't try and tell me that the shit of 250 people is enough to trickle down to some aquifer. By that "logic," shitting in national parks would have to be illegal, too.

The only valid public health issue is somebody infected with a contagious disease that can be spread from person to person running around in public. Only against such a person, who negligently endangers others' health and life, force may be used.

Forcing the heroes of the Bolivar Peninsula from the ruins of their homes is as legitimate a public health issue as incarcerating everybody who's infected with HIV. Mind you, I'm not trying to legitimize incarcerating anybody infected with HIV, unless he or she has unprotected sex with someone in the dark about their condition. I'm showing you how insane the "public health" argument in the Bolivar case is.

If Judge Yarbrough is worried that the people out on the Bolivar Peninsula have no safe drinking water, he should get his fat, bureaucratic ass moving, load his car (no doubt paid for by tax money) with water bottles, and drive out to said peninsula.

The only public health that is in question is the mental health of those government clowns that dare to resort to such sophistry.

What Kind of a Person Are You, Judge Yarbrough?

What kind of a person would abduct innocent people, people who lost nearly everything, from the remains of their homes, robbing them of the rest of their property? Who out there believes that if those people are "permitted" (as if they needed a permit) to return to their homes, anything of their property will be left?

Will it be the first time in recorded history that law enforcement officers succeed in protecting an abandoned neighborhood from looters? If they do, how many homes will have been bulldozed with everything in them because government agents declared them unsafe?

Even if neither of the above outrages happens, does it make any difference? Initiating the use of force is wrong per se.

Whenever one person initiates the use of force against another person, the result is disaster. Committing such a crime "to help" the victim even adds insult to injury.

Every individual values things differently. No man can make a decision for another man, much less enforce it.

As I'm writing this, 250 innocent individuals on the Bolivar Peninsula are desperately trying to save what can be saved of their treasured possessions. Instead of helping them, their government schemes to kidnap or murder them.

Now you may say the government will give those people money towards rebuilding their homes. Tax money, by the way.

Bear in mind that nobody, particularly no government, has the right to take anything by force from anyone to give it to someone else. If individuals want to donate money for rebuilding, that's fine. But there can be no right to hurt one person to help another.

Nevertheless, for the sake of the argument, let's ignore the fact that it's tax money. So the victims of the hurricane and of government aggression will get money from said government. Does that make any difference?

Imagine some dude trying to move his, well, uh, say, his stuffed lizard collection to higher ground. Now some jackbooted thugs drag him from the remains of his home "to help him," "for his own good," "because it's in his best interest," "to save him from himself." After all, it is obvious to every collectivist on earth that he should not be risking his life for his stuffed lizard collection.

The actual motives of the collectivists may vary. The worst fascists among them truly believe his life belongs to "the people," that he should not be allowed to "throw away" his life, because his labor is needed to benefit his fellow man. Less extreme collectivists may believe they have the right or even the duty "to save him from himself" if he does something they regard as insane and suicidal.

Yet the facts remain: Even if the jackbooted thugs don't murder that dude for "resisting" them, his stuffed lizard collection will have been spoiled by mold by the time he's allowed to return to his home. If it hasn't been bulldozed in the first place.

Even if the federal government were to turn over its entire multi-trillion dollar budget over to him, there's no way he could buy another stuffed lizard collection like the one he lost. Well, he has the money. But maybe he liked his stuffed lizard collection better than all the money in the world.

Maybe he loves his stuffed lizard collection so much he will risk his life to save it. Who are you to make that decision for him, you fascists?

Many, if not most, of you so-called human beings out there may believe that no man should value his property above his life. But who are you to tell anybody what to do with his life, what value to assign to what entity?

It's his property, not yours. It's his life, not yours.

How would you like it if I were to make decisions for you there in front of your computer? If your wife were trapped in rising water, and you're setting out to save her — how would you like it if I forced you at gunpoint to stay and watch her drown, because I believe you should not value your wife's life above your own?

Open Letter to Judge Yarbrough

Delivered via email

James.Yarbrough@co.galveston.tx.us

Re: Forcible Evacuation of Bolivar Peninsula

Judge,

Just a short note to remind you that another person's life is not yours to dispose of.

Regarding your plans for a forcible evacuation of the Bolivar Peninsula residents, you are being quoted: "I'm doing it because it's in their best interests."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26695458

Did you ever hear, "all men are created equal, … are endowed … with certain unalienable Rights, … among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"?

So because you don't believe in those folks' idea of the pursuit of happiness, because you believe it's risky and maybe suicidal, you are proposing to deprive them of all three.

You are aware that any legal action is a threat of lethal force, aren't you? If your agents aggress against those people, they may end up killing innocent individuals.

If you go ahead with initiating the use of force against innocent folks who are harming no one except maybe themselves, I hope some freedom-loving individual in your neck of the woods will get himself elected to office and then force you to do something he thinks is good for you.

Finally, you are being quoted: "I don't want to do it."

Interesting. You are the first person I heard of who doesn't have free will. How can you be qualified to be a judge if you lack free will?

If you agree, additional letters would be appreciated. By me (and probably by the residents of the Bolivar Peninsula), not by the judge, of course.

James.Yarbrough@co.galveston.tx.us

Fascists Are at It Again

"Ike Holdouts Told to Leave Ravaged Area — or Else"

The few hundred holdouts on Texas' ravaged Bolivar Peninsula will be required to leave in the next few days, and officials said Tuesday they are ready to use emergency powers to empty the barrier island scraped clean by Hurricane Ike.

The threat came as the death toll in the Houston area rose by six, bringing the number of people killed in Texas to 17. The new deaths, all after Ike made landfall, were tied to carbon monoxide poisoning, a home fire and falling tree limbs. Ike has claimed 47 lives in 10 states as it spread inland.

In the Bolivar incident, Judge Jim Yarbrough, the top elected official in Galveston County, said the roughly 250 people who defied warnings they would be killed if they rode out the storm in the rural coastal community are a "hardy bunch" and there are some "old timers who aren't going to want to leave."

The Texas attorney general's office is looking into the legal options available to force the remaining residents leave, Yarbrough said. Local authorities are prepared to do whatever it takes to get residents to a safer place.

"I don't want to do it," he said. "I'm doing it because it's in their best interests."

I'm not a guy who goes, "I told you so," but I told you so.

Hey, if they resist arrest, why don't we shoot them dead "for their own good"? Will teach them bastardly individuals a lesson to never disobey the authority of the fuehrer, uh, the collective, uh, the police, uh, the people, uh, whoever.

I mean, what is that Yarbrough clown thinking? Nothing, probably.

Not one thought in his whole life. That's the way you do it, that's the way you get elected.

The sheer horror.

Hey, why doesn't some freedom-loving individual in Yarbrough's neck of the woods try and get elected to office and then force Judge Jim to do something he thinks is for Jimmy-boy's own good?

Top Ten Reasons Gun Control Freaks Are Insane

To really believe in gun control, you have to believe these nifty little lies:

(10) That guns are not an effective means of self-defense, which is why police carry them.

(9) Washington, DC's low murder rate of 80.6 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, and Arlington, VA's high murder rate of 1.6 per 100,000 is due to the lack of gun control.

(8) That a hijacker could easily take a gun away from a pilot, but the hundreds of passengers aboard would then be unable to take the gun away from the hijacker.

(7) That if there'd been a gun aboard American Airlines Flight 11, someone could have been hurt.

(6) That we should outlaw bullet proof vests so criminals can't use them, and private citizens should be then proud to be killed in the crossfire, knowing they are doing their part for society.

(5) That a baseball bat is good protection against a burglar, provided his gun fires baseballs.

(4) That it's safer with less guns, which is why lunatics shoot up schools instead of gun shows or police stations.

(3) That an intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot with a .44 Magnum will get angry over your retaliation and kill you.

(2) That firearms in the hands of private citizens are the gravest threat to world peace, and China, Pakistan, and North Korea can be trusted with nuclear weapons.

And the best reason gun control freaks are insane is:

(1) That guns are the gravest threat to society because 83,000,000 gun owners didn't commit a crime yesterday.

For more reasons, read this article:

"Forty Reasons to Support Gun Control"

And for even more:

Michael Z. Williamson, "It's Amazing What One Has to Believe to Believe in Gun Control" (Apparently the original, from which this and the other article are excerpted.)

Don't Use THE Force

Recently, New York

Governor David Paterson "made a bold statement" in support of the construction of Moynihan Station when he announced conditions related to the future of Moynihan Station at New York Building Congress forum. He emphasized the critical importance for the project to emphasize infrastructure improvements and to that end announced that the Port Authority of New York would be taking over the project.

Scare quotes mine; apparently, everything politicians say is bold.

"By any measure the 20th century was the New York Century. We entered it as a burgeoning metropolis and we left it as the greatest and most powerful city in the world. We can make the 21st century the New York Century as well, but only if we invest wisely in our infrastructure."

Paterson said the Federal government must put together a plan for the nation's infrastructure so we may reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and avoid catastrophic disasters like last year's bridge collapse in Minneapolis. He also decried the Federal government's "starving" of Amtrak and reduction of slots at the city's airports. The Governor said that we must bolster the rail options between Washington DC, Boston and other cities within 300 miles of New York City. Rail is the most fuel-efficient way to move people, and it is critical that we lighten the loads of our airlines and on our highways.

…

"If we are to realize our full potential for growth in the 21st century, then we must look to increase our rail capacity."

(Thanks to Dave for forwarding.)

I agree wholeheartedly that rail is the most efficient means of transportation and that the Tri-State Area's infrastructure needs investment badly for New York to remain competitive. But why should the state be doing it?

Originally, building railroads was principally funded by private investors. As for Amtrak, privatize the Northeast Corridor and ax the unprofitable rest.

But is that the end of the line? Far from it.

In the first place, passenger rail was destroyed by government subsidies for highways and airports. If all highways and airports are privatized, and distorting subsidies removed, establishing many more intercity passenger services between cities outside the Northeast Corridor will become profitable once more, thanks to the unrivaled economy of railroads.

Railroads will dominate commuter markets and mid-haul intercity travel. Airliners will dominate long-haul travel, where a train would take days. Automobiles will dominate rural markets that cannot support railroads or airports.

Besides, making passengers pay the full price of their actions will result in less commuting and less traveling. Once people realize how much it costs to drag their asses from place to place, much more business will be done via the internet.

Now, socialists will say that the government has the duty to provide "socially desirable" services the market fails to provide because they're unprofitable. Never mind that even if 299,999,999 people deem a service "socially desirable," that doesn't make stealing from even only one man right.

But let's for the sake of the argument ignore the fact that taxes are theft. What "socially desirable" benefits do commuters get out of indiscriminately subsidized plane, train, and automobile mileage?

Families can afford to move out to suburbia, where their dollars buy more square footage. But what kind of square footage do they get? They trade an admittedly cramped apartment in a reinforced concrete high rise or a brownstone walkup in Manhattan or a similarly pricey downtown for, say, a wooden house in a brush-choked canyon or a single-story house on a floodplain in hurricane alley.

They may want their kids to attend suburban schools perceived as better than inner-city schools. (In my experience, there's no such thing as a better government school. If you have to have children, home schooling is the only option.) They may hope to be safer from crime in the middle of nowhere, and be glad to pay the price of cultural anemia.

Of course, people who really want to pave over a swamp or move their families into a wildfire or a hurricane should by all means be free to do so, but they should not be subsidized with tax money. Why should suburban sprawl be subsidized with money taken from taxpayers by force?

Privatize all means of transportation, and if the Trans-Hudson Express (THE) Tunnel project is profitable, let the free market fund it. Incidentally, fewer people moving out to suburbia would not only increase demand for apartments in Manhattan, but also bolster New York City's tax base, which for so long had been suffering from white flight to suburbia (assuming you believe in taxation).

Hurricane Is Lesser Evil

A mandatory evacuation order was in place, but there were no signs anyone was being forcibly removed.

"We're not going to drag them out of there and handcuff them," Davison said. "They've made their decision."

Wow, fascists being generous. Well, to answer that, what's the appropriate saying? Too little, too late.

The very idea of dragging someone from his own land "for his own good" turns my stomach. Anyone who even just entertains a monstrous idea like that disqualifies himself as a human being and should hand in his application for the gestapo.

Hey, if they resist arrest, why don't we shoot them dead "for their own good"? Will teach them bastardly individuals a lesson to never disobey the authority of the fuehrer, uh, the collective, uh, the police, uh, the people, uh, whoever.

As for those fascists handing out markers to scare heroes, asking them to write their social security numbers on their arms for identification purposes, my knee-jerk advice would be to hurl the marker right in the face of that jackbooted thug. But come to think of it, that would be exactly what they want: an excuse to arrest you.

The best course of action is to write on your arm, instead of your name or number, "Fuck you, fascists!" Best worn with something short-sleeved.

This, by the way, is one of the situations where it's good to have no family for whose sake you'd want to be identified. Why make work easy for those Quincy wannabes?

When you're dead you're dead. An unmarked grave is as good as any other grave.

At By George Automotive repair shop, owner George Elizondo and others in Freeport gathered to grill chicken leg quarters, shoulder steak and tortillas with pico de gallo. Coolers from the nearby grocery store sat filled with soda and beer.

The hurricane block party tradition began with Hurricane Rita in 2005, when Elizondo and others stayed behind to offer mechanical help to anyone those heading out.

Well, rock on! More power to you!

"If my stuff is going to get washed away, I'm going to watch it get washed away," Norton said.

That's the spirit. I couldn't have summed up the moral any better.

Yet, that was where things started to decidedly go south (excuse the pun).

Many of them evidently realized the "mistake" too late, and pleaded with authorities in vain to save them overnight.

(Scare quotes mine.)

Some emergency officials were angry and frustrated that so many people ignored the warnings.

"When you stay behind in the face of a warning, not only do you jeopardize yourself, you put the first responders at risk as well," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. "Now we're going to see this play out."

Steve LeBlanc, Galveston's city manager, said: "There was a mandatory evacuation, and people didn't leave, and that is very frustrating because now we are having to deal with everybody who did not heed the order. This is why we do it, and they had enough time to get out."

Of course, anybody who stays should equip himself to be self-sufficient: food and water for several weeks, fire extinguishers, maybe an inflatable boat if you live in a single-story home on a floodplain. Nothing is as disastrous for the cause of liberty as getting picked off your roof by the same fascists you told to go fuck themselves the night before.

After all, the fascists' sophistic reasoning is that they should have the power to drag people from their homes — and murder them if need be — because otherwise they would be responsible for rescuing them during or after the hurricane, risking the "rescuers" lives. Never mind that no man can ever have a duty to save another man.

As always, the fascists are intellectually dishonest. After all, the city government of Washington, DC, went all the way to the Supreme Court to secure a ruling that cops are not responsible for protecting victims from an armed burglar, even though the government disarmed the victims in the first place, even when the cops are physically able to help and just decide they prefer to fight some donuts.

Obviously, the fascists can't have it both ways. Either they are responsible for saving civilians, or they are not.

In Surfside Beach, retired carpenter and former Marine Ray Wilkinson became something of a celebrity for a day: He was the lone resident in the town of 805 to defy the order to leave. Authorities found him Saturday morning, drunk.

"I consider myself to be stupid," Wilkinson, 67, said through a thick, tobacco-stained beard. "I'm just tired of running from these things. If it's going to get you, it's going to get you."

He added: "I didn't say I had all my marbles, OK?"

Oh yeah, man, you do, you sure do. The only reasonable thing to do in such a situation. ^5

You're Cavemen, Too!

Another one for my horror file:

"Honor Killings Persist in 'Man's World' "

Looking over the comments, most of them appear pretty reasonable and enlightened, condemning the murders and calling for a harsh punishment for the criminals (death penalty in my book, BTW). At first glance, you guys and gals out there seem to be more rational and less politically correct than I would have thought.

Yet, how enlightened are you, really? Even the Western world is barely out of the Dark Ages yet.

Some decades ago people here began to acknowledge the fact that daughters aren't the property of fathers. But that's as far as it goes.

Most of you still seem to believe your spouse or your significant other is your property. You believe you are entitled to your property's, to your slave's undivided attention — and that you have a god-given right to prohibit him or her from loving, kissing, or fucking anybody else besides you. If your or your god's commandments on that matter get broken, you feel as "dishonored" and "disrespected" as those tribalist fathers.

Yes, in the Western world, we are a lot more civilized. Even the jealous control freaks among us are too civilized to bury their victims, uh, spouses alive.

They only beat them up, or their cars, or they shoot them with a shotgun, or they go for the "civilized" method of letting the government initiate the use of force in their name. Can you spell "alienation of affection lawsuit"?

Either way, every time you beat up your boyfriend's car with a baseball bat for "cheating" on you, every time you slap your girlfriend for "being a slut" sleeping with ten other guys, you're being one of those cavemen. Don't be too proud of yourselves for not burying that "errant" spouse of yours alive. That's only a very thin veneer of civilization barely covering up the same Bronze Age morality.

As always, you've been a lousy audience.

Word of the Day: Random

Random (ran' dəm), n. the totality of everything Ayn Rand: With Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand founded Random House. [Ayn Rand + -dom]

Terrorists 1,380,000, America 0

No, today I don't want to talk about the government morons' failure to rebuild the World Trade Center seven years and counting. No, I'm not talking about the failure to complete that useless mega-memorial in time for some arbitrary anniversary, either.

(When people are dead, there's nothing you can do for or against them anymore. That's why everything humanly possible should be done to prevent innocent people from dying. Anybody who advocates wasting money on memorials to "honor" the dead ought to have their head examined. Whether a memorial may make people remember the past so they don't have to repeat it is another story, but today's politically correct memorials couldn't deliver in that respect anyway.)

What I want to talk about today is how you — yes, you there in front of your PC — are Bin Laden's best propaganda tool.

Now, 1,380,000 — that's the number of results you get for a Google search for "September 11 attacks." I didn't even want to try and search for "ground zero" or "9/11" because it would be hard to tell how many hits would refer to the terrorist attacks and how many to the legitimate meanings.

Every time you liken the World Trade Center site to a nuclear wasteland by calling it "ground zero," you make it a little less likely that someone will sign a lease for rebuilt WTC towers. Every time you do it, you help the terrorists make sure that what they destroyed stays destroyed. I hope you're proud of yourself.

Every time you refer to the World Trade Center site as "ground zero," you might as well send Bin Laden a dollar. Every time you refer to the destruction of the World Trade Center as "9/11," you set aside a day for Bin Laden, help entrench a terrorist holiday the magnitude of the Fourth of July.

Sure, casually referring to the WTC as "ground zero" may be cool. But so is shooting somebody in the face just to see him die. Dou you really believe either is a good idea?

Sure, "the terrorist attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon" means investing a little more breath than "9/11." But if you advocate airport "security," spending money extorted from taxpayers on the war on terrorism, and maybe reinstating the draft, you should be glad you can make such a tiny little contribution of your own.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad. You people elect fascist governments because they promise they'll protect us, their slaves, from terrorists. You don't mind being herded through airports like cattle in a Chinese fire drill charade of "security." (Despite the concentration camp style "security," folks keep wandering onto planes with guns they forgot to check.)

Dishonorable mention for the PC among you, who won't use any words that might offend anyone, but don't mind aping terrorist propaganda.

Apparently, seven billion "human" beings don't have more than two brain cells between them. (Present company excepted.) If you wish to consider yourself a human being, don't ever again use the words "ground zero" in any other context than that of an exploding nuke and "9/11" in any other context than that of one of 365 days in the year.

Otherwise, go and celebrate your terrorist holiday. You've been a lousy audience. :P

Why Labor Day?

What about producers who produce much greater value than raw labor, which can easily be replaced by machines, robots, or if need be, by trained apes? What about artists, architects, engineers, scientists, industrialists, businessmen, and capitalists?

Happy Producer Day!

Dictatorship: Local and Express

Speaking of ugliness and school violence, on a related note this article asks: "Do School Uniforms Make Better Students?"

No, but they make better fascists.

"President Clinton championed uniforms as a way to keep schools orderly and disciplined."

Sure thing. No surprise here. Of course a communist must love stomping out individuality in the name of order and discipline.

But did nobody tell him that blowjobs are usually illegal in totalitarian states? The typical attitude of a moon bat power luster: Blowjobs for me, order and discipline for my peons.

"I enjoy it, actually," says Altuner, while conceding she's never known any other way. "If I didn't wear uniforms, I'd probably be stressing every morning (about what to wear) — with girls, it's always a competition."

Eradicating competition — another ancient moon bat aim. Of course, fashion is often ludicrous, and not always beautiful. The reason is that many people are irrational and follow mindless fads instead of defining beauty for themselves.

But making everybody equally ugly by forcing them into uniforms is not the answer. You might as well become a punk, rebelling against the concept of beauty itself.

More than 55 percent of public schools already enforce a strict dress code, according to federal statistics. Increasing concerns about gang activity, test scores and community perception all play into the decision to take the next step.

Of course, the time-tested way to fight amateur gangs is founding a gang of professional thugs.

The fascists themselves admit that much:

"Here they'll be part of the biggest gang around — the school gang," Jackson says.

Another fascist declares:

"…it's an opportunity for schools to create a positive culture. 'We're a part of something that is bigger than we are.' "

That's the root of the problem: The idea that there's anything bigger than the individual is the most lethal anti-concept those cavemen ever came up with. It's the cause of every war, every dictatorship, and every horror in human history.

Fascism, communism, collectivism, any ism is no positive culture. It's lethal. The two fascists running for president ought to take note.

This may be local, but the next stop sure is Hitler Youth. Or rather, McCain Youth or Osama Youth. Oops, Obama Youth.