Recent comments

Damn commies. I really hope Google will pull out of China to make a statement. Eventually this will the best for everyone. In a few years Google will return. Cheers, Samuel. online casino  

I remember reading about the rise of French Hip Hop. It was the unintended consequence of a French law that required radio stations to play a certain percentage of French language music. The strange result is that a traditional Italian folk song would not count as part of this percentage but Oxmo Puccino rapping in French would. For every law there are unintended consequences.

Its all about pretexts for advocates. Those they claim the motive (unprovable) is to help never seem to be "helped", only made more dependent and, to resolve this, the "advocates" claim more resources required. This is also the script according to Machiavelli (strategically denied bible of arbitrary power – politics): Machiavelli Paraphrased: “Arbitrary power can get away with ANYTHING, so long as it appears “necessary” to intellectually crippled populations (falsely framed arguments, based on lies for input facts, flogged by corrupt experts, shilling and prostituting their academic degrees for power, blind trust of populace, a social disease and mental illness I call “expertitus”) . In essence, all such arguments are a house of cards, false assumptions built upon false assumptions, the false equating of speculation to REALITY.” The is the exact same algorithm used to rationalize the initiation of aggression against Iraq, a war crime. The same false “argument” is being carefully constricted against Iran. Embargo, the first step of war, initiated. With the discrediting of socialism, all pretexts regarding slavery of the productive to “help the unfortunate” (who adapt to dependency, collapsing civilization) have been replaced by pretexts “to avoid terror” such as necessity for preemptive justice, war or “save the environment” (AGW fraud, etc). In these false arguments, the “bad guys” always have something to steal. The “good guys” are those who intend to profit by the thievery.

One of the interesting things about this article is that it provides a good example of how unresponsive government can be to the wishes of its subjects. This is an article written in a mainstream publication and there were 266 comments. I perused the comments and saw that nearly everyone found this practice by the police to be reprehensible, and yet they keep doing it anyway.

Disagree. Its the intelligent versus idiots (left or right) falsely equating subverted opinions with reality. Objective thinkers, with courage must prevail, or we stay on the path to social / economic collapse and anarchy by "corrupt judicial discretion" (rule of man, destroyer of civilizations): http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/ross/ross2.html

"Happy feely jig with big smiles after seeing the likes of Avatar" ??? Read this article from the UK where viewers are feeling depressed and suicidal after seeing the film. Maybe coming to terms with what we have done to our planet? I think the candy coated vitamin pill is the only way to get the message to where it needs to be heard. Reminds me of the Idaho logging communities who attempted to get the school system to ban Dr. Seuss's Lorax Tree books from classes because their 6 years olds were coming home in tears and asking Daddy why he was cutting down all the trees. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242409/The-Avatar-effect-Movie-...

This is a great example of Thoreau's quote about hacking at the branches of evil rather than the root. Just a bunch of people with opinions about HOW the govt should handle airport security - and not even a mention of WHETHER the govt should be handling it at all.

Ken, I've listened to several interviews that Scott Horton has done with Glen Greenwald. While he's not a libertarian, he is consistently anti-war and I think we would probably agree that war is one of the worst of all govt programs. Greenwald is very knowledgeable and does a good job of fact-checking and exposing lies told by the administration. He is very good at explaining the legal arguments and their flaws. Although he was hopeful Obama would be better than Bush, I think he's been very good at admitting that Obama is heading down the same path as Bush at least when it comes to war and civil liberties and contempt for constitutional protections.

Noam Chomsky is no anarchist, "best known" or otherwise. He is a statist through and through. Read his stuff and this becomes readily apparent. Dr. Long is full of shit. Who Is Chomsky?

I've read some of his stuff, and indeed the idea that Americans will NOT do as well with a collapse as the Russians did is something I first saw in an interview with Orlov. Like many unsettling predictions, its an obvious point but we don't tend to think in that direction, meaning that most of us expect "normal" life in the US to continue, with minor changes over time and short ups and downs from the business cycle. Something much more severe is coming to a head, though, and this fact has begun to filter into more and more people's awareness. The first week or two of this year has already seen a large number of very scary predictions and commentary. Two examples: Willem Buiter [former Bank of England policymaker] warns of massive dollar collapse http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/4125947/Willem-Buiter-warns... and Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr. on the Failure of the Public Sector, the Coming Military Crackdown and What Can Be Done to Stop It http://www.thedailybell.com/724/Edwin-Vieira-the-Coming-Military-Crackdo... As for planning: the first thing is to understand the underlying forces and dynamics in play, and then apply that understanding to your own personal situation, including your resources, weaknesses, preferences, and so on. Fiat currency always dies; the entire world is using fiat currency today -- and the end-game for all of those currencies is very near. The dollar is now worth so little compared to its historic "1/20 oz of gold" that each dollar now has about the purchasing power of a PENNY (or two) in my grandfather's day. Combine that with mega-trillion dollar deficits, $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities, a dismantled manufacturing infrastructure and a largely centrally-controlled market for most things, and -- well, all the rest; you know the story as well as I do -- and SOMETHING big is coming. Be ready for that. How? Move overseas, maybe. Put in a large garden, maybe. Stock up on staples and goods for bartering. My personal situation is not the same as yours, and I am reluctant to suggest anyone else do what I think is right -- it might NOT be right, even for me, not to mention for you. But if you will look the future in the eye and see what today's information is telling you about tomorrow, you'll know what to do. It won't be easy, or cheap, or pleasant, so you'll want to not see it. Try to get past that and see things clearly -- that's the best advice I think I can give anyone.

Body cavity searches can't be far off the horizon.

How does the government keep track of someone w/o a SSN for tax purposes? I was born in the US, and have a valid US passport, but have lived my entire life in Canada and never got a SSN. I'm supposed to file taxes every year for the rest of my life! But I don't know if i'm even on record, so i don't want to start unnecessarily.. Any ideas?

Its just a matter of presenting the truth to the sheeple in a form they may get. Luckily, Hollywood still has ideological faction wars and has not fully succumbed to the "dark side". Our tyrants are toast if MSM ever figures out a way to make truth profitable. Currently, lies sell. Here's how and why: http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/ross/ross2.html

Yep. In terms of financial damage to the empire it's a hugely successful strategy. Eric Margolis is one of my favorite commentators on foreign policy. I've listened to several of his interviews with Scott Horton at antiwar.com.

Voting may be able to make a statist system a little less oppressive for a while. But the very act of voting helps strengthen the statist system. Small picture / Big picture.

lol, "Liberty County Jail".

Glenn, do you forsee pockets of stability based on some geographic areas having higher percentages of people who will be prepared to care for themselves withough federal government support? I'm referring to some rural areas and some areas where there are resources of international value that are grown, mined etc? Or will the federal government tax all businesses and resources out of viability.

This is a very interesting video. I highly recommend it, if you have the time to watch it (23 minutes long).

Greg - Good observation. I did read the D.C. statute on prostitution-free zones, and you are correct. There is no provision that demands arrest of those who exceed the two condom limit. However, like many arbitrary laws - particularly those that are implemented to control voluntary behavior between consenting adults - it makes for interesting reading. For example, this passage regarding enforcement of the law: "If two or more persons are in violation of the Prostitution Free Zone law, they first will be informed by an officer that they are in a Prostitution Free Zone, and that they should disperse and depart within a reasonable time frame before any arrests are made." Presumably, they are free to leave the 'Prostitution Free Zone' and engage in their amoral behavior in a zone that is not designated as 'Prostitution Free'. Nonetheless, I wonder if D.C. bureaucrats realize that if prostitution was legalized, the 'health and safety of residents' would no longer be 'endangered', as there would be no streetwalkers prowling for customers.

This is an interesting article and apparently at least some DC Cops have attempted to use possession of multiple condoms as evidence of prostitution. However, the best thing about the article is a comment from one posters who did his homework and found that this is apparently not an official policy as one might infer from the article. It demonstrates why skepticism is so important when you hear something outlandish. (However many of the things especially regarding the police that I might once have thought were outlandish, occur so regularly and are so well-documented that I just consider them commonplace and a symptom of a growing police state).

I wish the corporations would stand up for their customers and put their foot down on things like this, but they are entrenched with the State via licensure I guess.

Airline travelers may want to prepare for body cavity probes by the friendly TSA agents in the near future.

Surveillance is the flip side of Information suppression / subversion. Both are tools used to enslave us. Accurate information for our predators, bullshit for us. Surveillance provides information used to control us. Information subversion is used for Environmental Control 101, to trick us into CHOOSING our own slavery. Darwin warned us: Survival EQUALS ability to adapt to environment EQUALS ability to CHOOSE correctly EQUALS freedom: http://www.strike-the-root.com/62/ross/ross1.html THINK about it, choose correctly and survive: http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/ross/ross2.html

"as a way to help creative entrepreneurs who the wave of digitization has left behind." If they are "left behind" in this the wave of digitization how "creative" are they exactly?