I'm Back

Where was I?

Or, more appropriately, where are we?

Projected GDP growth has proved to be non-existent, our body politic has reduced our ability to govern to mush, and the U.S. and the rest of the West are now fully under surveillance at all times by our friendly police state courtesy of the internet and mobile communication technology.

I have theory... it goes something like this... our government has gotten so efficient at regulating and has educated our population how to take complete advantage of this, that nothing outside of the Big Corporations functions anymore. Small businesses can't hire a receptionist, or a cleaning person, or ANY entry/low level employee anymore... if they do they will have brought on themselves a sexual harassment claim, a "slip and fall" disability claim, an improper termination claim, etc...

Our government "revenue agents" have destroyed the black market in part time "off the books" workers... and now these people are on the government dole. The legal profession has incentivized all manner of contrived claims and special interest groups, from the NAACP to the Women's Movement to the Catholic Knights of Columbus to Jewish Media Moguls, into believing that they are operating under an aggrieved status... and now everybody hates everybody else, and everybody is a victim. (My response? Stop over for a glass of wine and a walk through my garden... and I don't care what victim class you belong to).

Clearly, I am not the first to attempt describe this... the media and our government has been in the business of creating a series  crisis/catastrophes for a number of reasons: "The Lawyer Full Employment Act" (my brother's)... Michael Crichton coined it the "Politco/Legal/Media Complex"... I called it the "Marriage/Divorce Industrial Complex" year's before I read Crichton's excellent book "State of Fear"... but its all the same thing.

In the West, the legal profession is overpopulated... and they desperately need a new crisis-de-jour in order to get paid... the judiciary and Law Enforcement fit in here, too... the primary vehicle, despite what you might think, to get the vast majority of Lawyers paid was the War on Drugs, liability and personal injury, and divorce/family law. There just aren't that many suckers like the Dow-Corning Corp. and their multi-billion$$$$ award to lawyers for silicon breast implants... 

The media needs an audience... and nothing sells like disaster, crisis, fear, and victimhood... and as Will Rogers famously quipped "all I (we) know is what I (we) read in the newspapers"... and who consumes the most media? Who controls consumer spending? Well, whoever "they" are, that is the group that all of this "victimhood" is most directed at... and the consequences? Eating disorders, depression, BPD, anger, hate, rage, divorce, abuse.... all from people that have never missed a hot meal and always sleep in a warm clean bed. Go figure.

And here we are watching the debt debate in Washington, DC! What a freaking joke!  We have only loonies and innumerate lawyers conducting this debate... and given my dim view of the media and their coverage of anything... oh, never mind... in the end, fiscal discipline will be forced on the U.S.... and not by a Balanced Budget Amendment... not by the "fiscal conservatives" (they don't really exist... we have better chance at sighting a unicorn...)... and certainly not by America's Left (ROFL!!! The only people more evil than people that describe themselves as "religious")... Nope. Fiscal discipline will be forced on the U.S. by the Bond Market. When, you ask? I don't know... exactly... soon enough and with certainty.

--------------------------------

I hear knuckleheads saying crazy things like "watering the tree of freedom with blood" or whatever silly sh#! these folks have to say. Wanna be a "patriot"? Really??!!

The ultimate display of patriotic civil disobedience - don't drive/don't consume.

Here's the best thing you can do for yourself. Unplug. Focus on having a good time and working hard and smart (being frugal). Life is short. Stay out of ANY entanglement with the government, law enforcement, lawyers... to do that, shrink your life... the biggest risk of any collision with those evil bastards is in your car... that means, drive as little as possible. If you are not behind the wheel, you can't get: shot by the police for "failure to obey", arrested for DUI, sued for an accident... its just probability theory in practice... every mile driven increase the odds of all of the bad things that happen while driving... I have tried to cut driving out of our lives as much as possible, and have taken up hobbies and interests that do not require me to do so... when I venture about, I take great care... pay your taxes in full and on time... want to rage against the machine? You'll do it best by staying home and not consuming.

As an organized political force... a well organized group of 3 to 5% of the electorate could do more to force the government's hand than all of the loonies with their shoot-em-up fantasies could ever dream of. I have already mentioned action number 1:  stop driving and consuming. Action 2: Get on a jury and exercise your ABSOLUTE RIGHT of jury nullification. When Courts (the Judiciary) see hung jury after hung jury for victimless crimes... that will be the end of that... because defendants will stop taking plea deals and will go to trial... the Court system would have to stop being an armed government extortionist and start functioning as they were intended because the number of defendants that choose to count on their fellow man to actually do their job and PROTECT them from our government would increase many fold. Drug crimes, prostitution, tax crimes, and crimes where the punishment does not fit the crime... let jurors have be conscience of the facts AND the morality of the underlying law itself, and watch how fast that system comes around.

Starve the f***ing beast.

No More Timothy McVeigh's - PLEASE

"So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs." - Elbert Hubbard.

------------

92 People have been slaughtered in a political statement by an individual in Norway. The killer was quoted as saying the killings were "atrocious, but necessary".

Isn't that what government's say from the safety of their offices when when they drop a bomb from an airplane or joy stick guided predator drone kills 75 people in a wedding party?

Timothy McVeigh used a car bomb to blow up a Federal Building, killing 168 innocent people.

He did this, according to all reports, to take the "fight the enemy"... a government that killed 82 people in gun battles and by a fire that erupted in the Branch Davidian compound at the Waco, Texas; and, 3 people in the Ruby Ridge incident.

Unintended consequences are everywhere.

I have no idea how the Norway killer's claimed beef would lead him to kill innocents.  Crazy people often invent their own... but any American with any sense watching this has got to be saying "there but for the grace of G-d go us"... but that's wishful thinking... whistling past the cemetery... because something like this will almost certainly happen here.

We have a media that does NOTHING but incite political hatred, special interest groups with no sense of restraint or responsibility, and a government hell bent on micro-managing and regulating our lives... people who are healthy and well fed and who sleep in a warm bed every night and who have never missed a meal are as angry and as full of rage as a starving hoard... and over what?

Please tell me what these people are so angry about? Not a thing. Their anger has been contrived by special interest groups and given to them on a media platter in order to manipulate government policy for the purposes of gaining access to the cash cow of government deficit spending.

Here's an idea. Today, and just today, don't be angry. Don't watch Oprah or Keith Olberman or Glenn Beck (he's off now, isn't he? Sorry, I don't watch TV) and, at all costs,  stay clear of the Matron de Rage - Nancy Grace.

----------------------------------------------

My old desk partner from Bear Stearns sent this to me today: "In Africa, Wealth Breeds Rage"

Dear New York Times Columnist: Wealth is breeding rage here, too. I've been a stone cold free market capitalist my entire life... and what we have here in America IS NOT free-market capitalism.... it is free-market corporate cronyism.... and it has placed us at risk.

------------------------------------------------

I have been doing some research into the reproductive habits of our elected officials and political pundits and bloggers (where I can find the data) to support or disprove my theory that the Left's procreative habits are dooming them politically. Without question, elected and appointed Democrats have fewer children than Republicans... women elected to the Senate, the House, and appointed to the SCOTUS has fewer children than men in the same positions... pro-Life officials have significantly more children than their pro-abortion counterparts... I was doing this just for fun and not terribly scientifically... but I think (not "sure"... I said think) I have noticed a trend... a disturbing trend... and I want to ask for some help from anybody willing to do a little research... here's the trend that I am noticing:

Elected and appointed officials, and... Bloggers and pundits and activists in the Left/Feminist camp seem to have more female children in proportion to male children than would be expected. Look, I am just saying this is what I am noticing and I want to make it clear that I have not selected the data set by any particular scientific method... only by availability. That disclosure aside, I do think that this issue deserves a proper examination. Accordingly, I am looking for some volunteers to help compile the data.

Any takers? If not you, perhaps you could forward this to someone interested in the abortion debate. No doubt there are people out there that might find this to be worth pursuing... though, once again, this is more a nagging doubt than anything. However, I do have a knack for picking up patterns in data...

I would think the best data set would be the offspring of record for the graduating classes of 1978 to 1988 of the 3 largest and most prestigious universities with close ties to the Left and a data set of the offspring of record for every person elected to the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, each State House, the U.S. Supreme Court and each state Supreme Court.  That should be a large enough sample.

Let the truth take us where it may.

Libertariananimal (at) yahoo (dot) com

Technology Catching Up With Government Officials

A rash of fraud crimes by L.A. County Deputies.

Outrageous disparities in criminal sentences.

The days of folks working in Law Enforcement and the Judiciary getting away without anybody noticing are over. So, get over it, folks.

Cameras are everywhere. Your cell phone is tracking your movements (the deputy in the L.A. article's cell phone gave the lie to his alibi). You simply can't get away with this B.S. anymore, and you will be forced to stop protecting each other.  So while you are at it, since cameras are everywhere, it is time for the state and federal legislative bodies to issue statutes preventing law enforcement from arresting people for using cameras.  Arrests require force, and there are endless youtube.com videos of police pointing guns at people for nothing more than using a camera... considering that police cars have dash cams, and officers have chest cams, and every commercial establishment and many homes have cameras going 24/7... this seems to be an outrageous criminal abuse of human rights.

Get with the program.

-------------------------------------------------

I loved this article. Maybe it reminds me of my childhood.

I can tell you from personal experience that the path to "freedom" is not in consumption... it is in living small and being self-reliant. My own experience of living far, far under my means has led to a certain peace of mind... I recommend it very highly.  I am not recommending poverty... Living small nearly always yields abundance. My little house has a little electricity bill and a little property tax bill... and no mortgage. I haven't had a mortgage since my late 30's... and its not that I inherited money or anything... I lived small, saved money, and lived debt free. I had some big earning years... and rather than buy a $100k car, I kept my old pickup truck. When we got married, we had a nice party for a few thousand $$ and spent no money on rings or limosines (actually, one of my buddies gave me the use of a limosine as a wedding present to take us to and from the party... I am not above accepting gifts... but our wedding was a "bring no gift" affair)... in fact, we don't own any jewelry (though I do own plenty of gold and silver bullion) whatsoever. I don't even own a watch.  Accordingly, I don't have to worry about people breaking into our home to steal anything of value... because I don't own anything of value! (Personal safety is another issue.)

Here's the upside. Because I live small and modestly, my family and I are going to spend next winter someplace tropical, on the beach, and surf every day... and it won't be at the Ritz, either. I'm thinking of Rio... Or Costa Rica... in a little apartment with a couple of beach towels, toys for the kids, and our surf boards... I will all of this for about 25% of what it costs to live in an executive neighborhood with a couple of BMW's in the driveway... maybe less. You gotta enjoy this life, but you don't need what the Corporations want you to need, and you do need to start young.  If you stay in college until 30, you better come out as a surgeon or Harvard lawyer... otherwise, its the grind for you.

There are no "do overs". You don't get your 20's back. Going to work young and starting a business will give most the best opportunity for financial independence.... because its just math. By 30, you should have half of your house paid off and money saved. By 40, no mortgage and real money saved. By 50, you should be coasting... some business owners will go through bouts of failure and success... I went "broke" twice... but people that know how to go out and get customers/clients and hustle a service that the market needs ALWAYS come back. Corporate folks put out to pasture in middle age? Not so much.

Don't buy the BullSh#!... and there is plenty of it. Get your boots on and wade through it. Every year counts. All your spending decisions count.

My favorite quote of all time comes from the book/movie "Fight Club":

"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need."

And there it is.

Its the Judiciary, Stupid - part 1

America is ANGRY. Very ANGRY. And while the media spends its time bashing the politicians, I spent some time talking to my peers - every one a middle aged man/middle class millionaire (40 - 60 years of age) that is/was the primary or sole provider for their wife and family; remember.... these are MY peers, not society's peers - and I asked them:

"What pisses you off?"

It wasn't the deficit, or their congressman, or the president... nope. What pissed them off was their wife (almost universally) and their kids (about half as much). For the most part, these were the other half... the 50% of marriages that survived... and these guys were none too happy. Far more than half said they would have left their marriages years ago but were terrified that they would be financially destroyed by a divorce.

I asked the obvious: "Do you feel that your wife knows how you feel?"

To which the reply almost always came as: "Are you kidding me? My wife feels entitled to everything. We have a nanny and a cleaning lady... and the kids are in high school or college!... my wife does not make any contribution to my life or to the family... its all about her... my love life is non-existent... and I am stuck here."

When I asked about how bad could a divorce would be, considering what they just told me... the answer was invariably: "Are you kidding? I have worked hard and have been successful. My friend just went through a divorce and the legal fees for both sides totaled $500k. His net worth was only $2 million. After the settlement, alimony, and child support he was left with a few hundred thousand $$$... after a life time of work? I can't believe where I am."

Got that?  How is it that a Court would let this happen to a family? Let them lose 25% of their life savings in a divorce proceeding? Is it that hard and complicated to divide up some assets and declare a marriage ended? REALLY??!!

BULLSH#!! The lawyers in that courtroom representing plaintiff and respondent are members of the local legal community that funds nearly the entirety of that judge's political campaign. Its just another payoff.

Our Court System has created a monstrosity, one that served their interests nicely, at the expense of the people... And in serving their interests, they created an entitled class (the non-earning spouse's of professionals and business owners that fund the majority of the system that is oppressing them) of miscreants and a new generation of men that do not wish to marry under any circumstances (and when they do, it is with a 95 page pre-nup agreement) leaving many children to grow up in fatherless homes... among man, many other unintended consequences.

Yet nobody calls these people out onto the carpet.  Why? Why is it nobody criticizes our Judiciary? Uneven sentencing, drawn out decisions, tolerating prosecutorial abuse... why does this branch of government get a pass?  Don't they matter?

More soon.

A Nation of 12-year-olds

"Through violence, you may ‘solve’ one problem, but you sow the seeds for another." - The Dalai Lama

--------------------------------------------------

The drama coming out of Washington, D.C. is all about the 2012 elections... and not a cent of it is about fixing the essential problem, and that is this:

Over the past 30 or 40 years or so, the Washington establishment overreached on every front and in every capacity, and said establishment is having a difficult time coming to grips with this and how it might affect them. The Washington Establishment is completely unconcerned with you.

Our founder's knew this, and had made provision for it... but then a Great Depression came along and the establishment during that time had "to do something" about that... which "required" them to subrogate their political expediencies for the U.S. Constitution.... and here we are.

Our political system (the Constitution) was not designed to withstand the government itself ignoring it... The Constitution would only work if the government abided by it.  And to be fair to FDR, Lincoln was the first U.S. president to completely depart from our founding document... funny, as a result each of these dead president's was favored for this with a likeness on U.S. coinage... but I digress...

Now read the above quote again... the government has a monopoly on violence... we know it as "Law Enforcement". Whether a cop with a gun or the IRS with a tax lien, the government uses its monopoly on violence to fund itself and its programs, be they Constitutional or not... as the Dalai Lama so rightly points out, when you solve one problem using "violence" you sow the seeds for other problems... and that is exactly what all of the social programs cooked up by the FDR and Great Society folks have done. They solved one set of problems - temporarily -  and have sowed the seeds for myriad other problems... which we are trying to sort out as I write this... Government loves this. Each problem will require a new commission of bedfellows of the establishment, new powers and new laws - which must be enforced... which leads to new restrictions on our freedoms, more prisons and prisoners, which means more and more police/judiciary/justice personnel and the budgets to pay them... and massive taxes on the private sector... and in order to secure the votes for the programs somebody has to benefit from this largess, and those that benefit build their lives around this benefit... our government is in the business of addicting people to this largess.

(And I am not suggesting the government shouldn't have the monopoly on violence. The alternative is a "War Lord" society.  What I am suggesting is that the sheer size of that monopoly is endangering the Constitution itself.)

This includes not just the social programs and the prison/"justice"/industrial complex... but the military industrial complex, too. In fact, the social programs require the military/industrial complex be of the size and scope that it is in order to enforce US$ hegemony... after all, without that why would the world fund the deficits that fund the social programs? They wouldn't. In the final analysis, it is the LEFT far more than the RIGHT that supports the U.S. War Machine.

The Left can't stand to hear this, yet absolutely, positively refuse to answer the charge... always preferring to obfuscate the chain of events I raise with arguments about income distribution, abortion, and gay marriage. Of course the Right is equally as delinquent... having done such a poor job of politicking, the Right has been left with no choice other than to align itself with some very objectionable people.  And the result? America's body politic has been divided up between our "educated intelligentsia" on the Left whose 2 primary issues are the right to kill unborn babies and the right for 2 people who can't possibly have children together to marry; and the Right whose primary issue is to raise the bile of superstitious white people concerned with school prayer and "under G-d" and other such non-issues in "fly-over land".  WTF??!!

No wonder the fastest growing political affiliation is the Independents, mostly comprised of Libertarians, Constitutionalists, and other Thinking Peoples. If you are a thinking person affiliated with one of those other monstrosities, its time come on home.

This will make you sick...

Watch this video of a Seattle Police Officer Paul Schene beating the snot out of a 15 year old girl.

A grown man, under "color of authority" beats this girl severely... it is a miracle that she is not brain damaged or dead...

Here's the best part:

He was tried on 4th degree assault (only because there is no 5th degree assault... that would be defined as massage with healing-warm-oils) on 2 separate occasions, and in both cases the case resulted in mis-trials with hung juries.

Got that?

Watch that video again. Now, imagine a set of circumstances leading up to that beating... and tell me what kind of people would give this man the "benefit of the doubt"?

Answer: Nancy Grace viewers.

---------------------------------------------------

Not only is it illegal to ride a skate board but apparently it is illegal to videotape police officers beating people.

Our elected officials and the Courts need to wrap this up... cameras are now EVERYWHERE... what kind of human being would point a gun at someone for using a camera?

----------------------------------------------

I have been trying to get data on police killings by year since from 1940 on... my sense is that, as a percentage of population police killings of unarmed citizens has risen dramatically... but I am looking for empirical data... I have written the FBI... if anyone out there has any data please email me:

Libertariananimal (at) yahoo (dot) com

Judge, Jury, and Executioner

I was recovering from an anti-biotic resistant bronchitis... and then relapsed again... or maybe it was the research I have been doing for my documentary series.

The sheer volume of incidents of abuse of American citizens at the hands of their government(s) is simply overwhelming, staggering, and depressing...

Rogue prosecutors, excessive-use-of-force-NAZI-like police killings, arresting members of the press for filming and keeping the public informed, police abuse of power, again, and again... I could literally link all day... to spew off meaningless descriptions... "outrage" comes to mind, just doesn't cover it.

Here you have government agents that have sworn an oath to "uphold", "protect", "support", and "defend" the Constitution of the United States... and then making a mockery of everything the United States stands for. Somewhere along the line (I pinpoint FDR's stacked Supreme Court... feel free to pick your own... but please, do so and defend it!) this has all become acceptable, perhaps because the Constitution has become a "living document" (snicker). My response is that it is exactly these instances which will most likely lead to political violence here in the U.S.  One day soon one of these asinine police killings is going to set off a firestorm... I can foresee the father of one of these police killing victims seeking revenge, Timothy McVeigh style, with a mushroom cloud appearing over some local police station - or worse... are we ready to accept responsibility for that? Well,  I'm not.  This has to stop now before things get really, really out of hand.

Many of these "outrages" are linked to the War on Drugs in the form of unintended consequences.... others are part and parcel of the collective anger running rampant in America.... I have just ONE QUESTION:

WhoTF is watching the people watching us? One nation, under surveillance, with stricken liberties, and injustice, for all.

If you have been following the world's Oil supply situation, the spread between Europe's Brent and America's WTI has made trading the American contract a freaking nightmare.  Nightmare... unless you are one of the midwest refiners buying your crude from Cushing... in that case its a wet dream.

American and international energy equities are the place to be if you want exposure to energy... and I want exposure to energy.

---------------------------------------

Did someone know that Obama was going to tap the SPR? Smells bad to me... of course, it could be a coincidence... but I don't believe in them for the most part.

--------------------------------------

Remember how the Feds said they needed the USA PATRIOT ACT to protect us from terrorists? In the final analysis, our Government used the 9/11 crisis to enact a permanent security state... there is NEVER an action without unintended consequences. EVER.

A society completely addicted to government programs will never be able to stand up to government.

---------------------------------------

Hey Feds: We don't need an Export Import Bank. There's another program that can go...

---------------------------------------

Another nail in the coffin of the War on Drugs. The criminal justice system in general, and Law Enforcement in particular, has been a total failure when measured against the goal of lessening drug use. I would assert that they have had a "boomerang effect". By securing convictions and prison time against a huge portion of the population these (the effect of a criminal conviction on an individual's economic future and the effect of putting young men in prison together... which gives them the time to form associations (gangs)...) our system has created an economic nightmare for the state and local budgets while doing nothing in the way of achieving their goals and actually increasing crime and drug use.  Way to go, fellas...

"That which is not measured is not managed."

"We have met the enemy, and he is us"

"We have met the enemy, and he is us" - Walt Kelly

I love July 4th, Independence Day.

Yet America is the land of the dependent. We depend on Social Security to save for us. Medicare and Meicaid to care for us. Food stamps to feed us. We are dependent on foreign oil, tobacco, alcohol, drugs (both illegal drugs and prescription drugs). We are dependent on "comfort food"... just take a look at us... and like a bunch of over indulged, snotty kids of privilege, we are angry with our national "Daddy Figure" - whatever man is sitting in the Oval Office (Liberals blame the Religious Right, the Right Blames the Liberal Media... but everybody blames the President).

John Bon Jovi's excellent rock band raked in $135 million dollars last year. A number of bands did better. Most of this largesse was earned by touring in concert (why is it American's seethe about CEO compensation but not about Rock Band compensation? Go figure).

yet...

50% of Americans probably cannot lay their hands on $2000 in an emergency... another 25% probably could raise the $2000 in an emergency. Probably?

The average concert held about 17,000 fans... a large enough sampling that the fans were likely representative of Americans at large. The average ticket? Nearly $100 bucks.

Ergo, half the folks in the seats at those concert halls probably can't raise $2000 for an emergency, but they can raise $200 for a couple to go to a rock concert.... WTF??!! Did I miss something here? Is concert going some kind of "Right" or obligation?

We have become a nation of completely Full of SH#! whiners... dominated and regulated and controlled by a bunch of government regulatory agents (but at least MOST of them aren't dressed up like they are about to invade Poland... so we got that going for us)...

This is Independence?

Americans need to spend more time looking in the mirror and less time watching T.V... and I don't mean literally looking into a mirror... I mean taking stock of our selves and our lives... taking responsibility for our own weight and our own savings... If you spent every hour that you now spend watching T.V. doing odd jobs for neighbors in no time you would have $2000, and then $5000, and then OMG!!!... $10,000 in your mattress! Well, that is if you don't spend $200 on concert tickets, $4 on a cup of sweetened dirty water at StarBucks, and $400 per month on a car lease...

You wanna know why you are poorer than you should be? Because you made OTHER people rich. Every debt you owe is owed to somebody else. Your liability is their asset, and it is these assets/liabilities that make some people rich at the expense of others... Just bought an IPhone? Congrats! You just made Steve Jobs richer! Just bought a Louis Vitton bag? Sucker! OK, maybe you need an IPhone because of your job (and that $100+ per month cell phone bill per family member?)... maybe you need 300 cable channels... maybe you need... oh, come on. If you have less than $2000 to your name, what you really need is to save some money... and stop blaming everybody else.

No Coincidences

"I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need. I recognize no obligation toward men except one: to respect their freedom." - Ayn Rand

------------------------------------------------

So the maid accusing DSK worked at the hotel as an in house prostitute (anybody surprised by this? I lived in New York most of my life, and NYC just isn;t Mayberry RFD)... there are no coincidences in this world. SOMEBODY got to her and set him up - excellent work on their part... I guess "they" could do little about her background... it would have been hard to get Maureen Dowd to take the mission on... I suspect they got what they wanted. Perhaps it had to do with the IMF... more likely with the French presidency.

It is also fairly amusing to listen to America's women respond to all of this... a fair majority just cannot fathom how DSK's wife doesn't ditch him with a good slap in the face for the cameras... I suspect that the DSK's have an interesting and amusing love life arrangement. Good on them.

---------------------------------------

This is how FOS we have become... living in a land of Disney animal character fantasies as we pick up our beef burger (slaughtered cow) sandwiches in the driven-thru complete with plastic toys of said animal characters... ever notice that none of the characters are cows? We have laws preventing the slaughter of horses in a country that slaughters millions of cows, hogs, and chickens every year? In what universe does that make sense? Is there a hierarchy in the "rights" of animals?  Really? Show me where it is written. The Bible? The Constitution? The Magna Carta? In one breath/scream certain elements were calling for the execution of Michael Vick for killing/fighting dogs... and in the next they were setting rat traps in their basements. Anybody see a lack of consistency there? Certainly not the prosecutors that got famous in the Vick case or the defense counsel that got rich... Millions of $$ in resources squandered in a nation where 1 in 7 people are on FOOD STAMPS... just another example of the complete absence of cost/benefit analysis within our governing bodies.

------------------------------------------

Read this article on a Canadian Court's ruling on Medical Marijuana. This is happening in a country that shares a 3000 mile border with the U.S. The tide is going to overwhelm the lunatics supporting/promoting/provoking our insane "War on Drugs".

------------------------------------------

A first, baby step, to end the insanity of the War on Drugs.

-----------------------------------------

I am not a fan of the President's policies... BUT...  Under no circumstance would I refer to a sitting U.S. President as a "D**k" in a public forum. WTF is with us? I watched in horror the Looney Left's "Bush Derangement Syndrome". I watch in equal horror at the equally Looney Right's "Obama Derangement Syndrome". I could not agree more with the moniker that John Avlon hung on all of this: "Pathological Hatred of the President Posing as Patriotism". I reject it out of hand as being beneath us as a democratic people and nation. This not political discourse. This is biting the heads off of chickens.

For all of our troubles, the U.S. is still our homeland and country. We have democratically elected leaders. No president is ever going to win 100%, or 90%, or 80%, or 70% of the popular vote... ergo, there will always be a sitting president whom a great many people did not vote for... yet whoever that individual is... he is still THE PRESIDENT of the United States of America.

I couldn't care less about Monica's dress, GWB former drinking habits, or BHO's former Cocaine use... when they are sitting in that seat, I care about their performance of their duties.

--------------------------------------

One of the problems for Libertarianism in the past is that we won't pay people off for voting for us. Perhaps this is a time where we might gain support without that.

The Duke Rape Case's LOOOOOOONG Shadow

DSK can thank the North Carolina Bar Association and their handling of the prosecutor in that case, Michael Nifong. In the past, almost without exception, when the famous or infamous have been accused of a crime prosecutors have been all too happy to score political gains at the expense of justice.

While I worry endlessly about the impacts of technology to follow our every move, record every phone call, and read every email... it is these technologies that saved the day for 3 innocent college kids from a life time of eating prison gruel in the Duke case.  What got them off the hook was the geographical location data from their cell phones. Without that, the rush to judgment would have overwhelmed everything else... at best, they could have hoped for a decade of "professional defendant" status while the lawyers picked their bones clean. I have come to value my smart phone.

The sad fact is that even though the young men in the Duke Rape case were found to be "Factually Innocent" (which is very, very different from "Not Guilty"), their accuser was never charged with a crime. Several years later she stabbed her boyfriend to death.

Read this story. A woman fabricates a brutal sexual attack for the purpose of winning custody of her child and ridding herself of the inconvenience of the boy's father. The man spends 83 in solitary confinement, loses his job, his life savings, only to have TECHNOLOGY prove that he was "Factually Innocent". His accuser had tried to kill him using the criminal justice system... yet she has faced no charges as of yet.

WHY?