Maoist in the White House – Media Is Silent

A current White House official explicitly endorses one of the greatest tyrannical butchers in the history of the world, and the main stream media is silent (surprise, surprise).  I think we had better move that moral doomsday clock forward.

It is now 11:57:00.

Maoist in the White House – George Reisman – Mises Institute.

“The greatest enemies of the Constitution are… right here at home…”

If you value liberty, you have to see this powerful video of Adam Kokesh.

All of the gold since the time of Christ…

Wow.  The cost of “bailing out” the present economy is already up to six times the value of all of the gold in existence since the time of Christ.

At last count, the Federal Reserve and the government have either lent, guaranteed or spent $12.8 trillion in their efforts to get the economy back on track. We know that these numbers  lose their significance after a while and it’s hard to relate to them but we’ll try…

You may remember a couple of years ago when a study was done by two respected economists estimating that the total cost of the Iraq war would eventually reach $2 trillion. At the time, people were shocked. But compared to the nearly $13 trillion for the economy, the Iraq war expenses now seem small in comparison.

Looking at it another way, the value of all the gold in existence since the time of Christ is currently worth about $2 trillion. In other words, just the costs to bail out the economy and nothing else, like Social Security, military, infrastructure, is so far going to be more than six times all of the gold that’s been produced over the past 2000 years. (Just last December the cost was three times, which illustrates how quickly the costs have multiplied over the past five months.)

That is the cost.  And what do we get for our “money” (I use the term loosely)?  A soon-to-be-worthless fiat currency, devalued savings, redistributed wealth, more crony-capitalism, fascism, legal plunder, socialism, war, and the destruction of what little was left of the free market.

How not to do environmental cost-benefit analysis…

The World Health Organization estimates that a child dies every 30 seconds from malaria, and acknowledges that this is largely preventable by the judicious use of DDT.  Yet, it still concludes that the unknown costs of DDT use outweigh the known benefits.  Hmm..

More…

http://greenhellblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/a-dead-child-every-30-sec-vs/

Obama a “homophobe”?

Greg Gutfeld asks the question in this interesting video.  If so, why isn’t he being criticized for it (not that he should be, not that “homophobe” is an applicable term)?

The leftist anti-war movement is MIA. Wars in Middle East continue unabated.

Where in the world is the anti-war movement?  Where are the protests?  Where are the silent vigils?  Are we still counting civilian casualties?  Where are the placards and bumper stickers?  For that matter, where is the media coverage of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?  We are not out of Iraq, and in fact we have been promised a long term presence there.  We have been told more troops will be sent to Afghanistan.  The nation-building, police-of-the-world rhetoric has not changed.   Has war become the answer?  What happened to Obama’s change?  Where are the “Obama lied, thousands are still dying”  bumper stickers?  And where are the Move-ons of the world who all but set themselves on fire during the campaigns?  As David Boaz of CATO points out:

But meanwhile, where’s the antiwar movement? President Obama rose to power on the basis of his early opposition to the Iraq war and his promise to end it. Now he has doubled down on the war in Afghanistan and has promised to keep the war in Iraq going for another 19 months, after which we will have 50,000 American troops in Iraq for as far as the eye can see. If McCain had proposed this sort of minor tweaking of the Bush policy, I think we’d see antiwar rallies in 300 cities. Calling the antiwar movement!

I have an idea where they are.  They are counting their money and revelling in their new power, laughing at me for believing they were really anti-war.

Thanks to Jesse at C4L for the link.

Can the media really be this clueless about the Tea Parties?

I watched the video posted here of the Rachel Maddow show–a piece from MSNBC, and I was amazed at how apparently clueless these ladies were about the ideas behind the tea parties.  They revealed a slight amount of knowlege in linking them to Ron Paul’s supporters, but other wise they appeared to have no idea what they were all about.  There are two possibilites:  either these ladies are too lazy to simply pull up the reteaparty.com website, or they are purposely trying to confuse people and misrepresent the movement.   Their strange fixation/obsession  on the word teabagging was a notable.  Journalism is truly dead.

They also engaged in the standard “crazy ideas” assessment of Ron Paul and his movement.  I believe it may seem crazy to them.  As Carabini writes in his new book:

 

I have often wondered why those with strong opinions about social affairs are always attracted toward one of two opposing poles. There are those inclined to liberty—freedom of the individual to live his or her life in any peaceful way. And there are those who are inclined to mastery—permitting others to live their lives only as another sees fit. 

 

 

 

 

Ron Paul Tea Party? « America’s Independence Day Tea Party.

 

A new study on the causes of Arctic warming and melting…

I wrote on this issue in the past.  Now a new study suggests that…

“We will have very little leverage over climate in the next couple of decades if we’re just looking at carbon dioxide,” Shindell said. “If we want to try to stop the Arctic summer sea ice from melting completely over the next few decades, we’re much better off looking at aerosols and ozone.”

The study also implicates soot in the melting of arctic ice.

Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates.

At the same time, black carbon emissions have steadily risen, largely because of increasing emissions from Asia. Black carbon — small, soot-like particles produced by industrial processes and the combustion of diesel and biofuels — absorb incoming solar radiation and have a strong warming influence on the atmosphere…

Since decreasing amounts of sulfates and increasing amounts of black carbon both encourage warming, temperature increases can be especially rapid. The build-up of aerosols also triggers positive feedback cycles that further accelerate warming as snow and ice cover retreat.

Interesting, the melting of the arctic is one of the main arguments for anthropogenic carbon dioxide as warming agent.  But Roger Pielke has been saying all along…

In terms of climate change and variability on the regional and local scale, the IPCC Reports, the CCSP Report on surface and tropospheric temperature trends, and the U.S. National Assessment have overstated the role of the radiative effect of the anthropogenic increase of CO₂relative to the role of the diversity of other human climate forcings on global warming, and more generally, on climate variability and change.

Judge throws out case, orders criminal investigation of Stevens’ prosecutors.

Not at all surprising, but still disturbing:

“In nearly 25 years on the bench, I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case,” U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said. 

Sullivan appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Justice Department lawyers who repeatedly mishandled witnesses and withheld evidence from defense attorneys during the monthlong trial. Stevens was convicted in October of lying on Senate forms about home renovations and gifts he received from wealthy friends. 

The case cost Stevens a Senate seat he had held for 40 years. Once the Senate’s longest-serving Republican, he narrowly lost to Democrat Mark Begich shortly after the verdict. …

The prosecution team was replaced and, last week, new prosecutors acknowledged that key evidence was withheld from Stevens. That evidence included notes from an interview with the government’s star witness, contractor Bill Allen. 

On the witness stand, Allen said a mutual friend told him not to expect Stevens to pay for the home renovation project because Stevens only wanted the bill to cover himself. 

But in the previously undisclosed meeting with prosecutors, Allen said he had no recollection of such a discussion. And he valued the renovation work at far less than what prosecutors alleged at trial. 

“I was sick in my stomach,” attorney Brendan Sullivan said Tuesday, recalling seeing the new evidence for the first time. “How could they do this? How could they abandon their responsibilities? How could they take on a very decent man, Ted Stevens, who happened to be a United States senator, and do this?” 

Hmm…

This just in from the Ministry of Information: 90% of Mexican drug guns come from U.S.. Really?

Not according to the facts:

You’ve heard this shocking “fact” before — on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

– Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

– CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

– California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing…

There’s just one problem with the 90 percent “statistic” and it’s a big one:

It’s just not true.

In fact, it’s not even close. By all accounts, it’s probably around 17 percent.

What’s true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency’s assistant director, “is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S.”

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S….

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced — and of those, 90 percent — 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover — were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

So why is the Ministry of Information misinforming us?  You guessed it:  They don’t want us armed.  Why don’t they want us armed?  You guessed it:  Guns and freedom go hand in hand..