Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Cheesus Crispus?
| 'Cheesus?': Woman Finds Jesus In Bag of Cheetos | |
| | |
 From MyFoxStLouis ReportsA High Ridge, Mo., woman says she has found Jesus in a bag of Cheetos (video: MyFoxStLouis). Kelly Ramey says, "I think I found Jesus on a Cheeto as funny as that sounds." She bought a bag of a "I looked at that and I thought, 'Oh my that looks like Jesus on the cross.' It was just like wow," she says. Family and friends agree with her. Her daughter says, "I thought it was pretty cool." But Kelly Ramey's friend, Sue Edelman, sees something different. "I looked again and I thought a horse head." Kelly says her husband has a special name for it. "He calls him Cheesus." The pastor of | |
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Randy Pausch R.I.P. Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008)
--Randy Pausch
If you didn't hear or see this, Randy Pausch died Friday July 25th from pancreatic cancer. As a fan of theoretical computer reality aka virtual reality, I knew of Pausch's work. Pausch was a well-liked computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specialized in virtual reality. A tradition at CMU was for profs to deliver a "last lecture" as if it were the last one they could give before they died. Since he knew he really was going to die, a month after his diagnosis he gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. His last lecture was so compelling, so full of life, that it attracted millions of views online -- and a book deal. Pausch lived long enough not only to complete the book, but also to see it published in 29 languages -- and achieve New York Times Bestseller status. His goal was for his lecture to be a time capsule of advice for his three young children. He was 47. Thank you Randy.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
The Dominant Culture
-Mit
The Dominant Culture
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com
Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith has been called one of the world's foremost authorities on the ethics of self-defense. He is the author of 25 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope (with Aaron Zelman), and his collected articles and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page" at lneilsmith.org.
Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise
I remember George.
It doesn't come as much of a surprise to me that for the past eight years, we've had a President whose effective IQ is a smaller number than his age. It's far from the first time—you all remember Gerry Ford—and, judging by current events, it will be far from the last.
However I confess I never expected to have a President whose IQ is smaller than his shoe size. To call George Bush a dickhead is an insult to dicks, since the average little head is smarter than his big head.
Here, after all, is a guy who gave up being an honest drunken coke snargler, just to get laid by the dullest woman to occupy the White House since, well, his mother. Like Teddy Kennedy, he seems incapable of uttering a single coherent sentence, and he appears to have only a passing acquaintance with English, which is like a second language to him.
Whatever else you may think that you know about George W. Bush, however, understand one thing with perfect clarity: he would never have been elected President—nobody would ever have heard of him—if it weren't for the stupidity, incompetence, and arrogance of the Left.
George W. Bush is their creature entirely.
I'm referring here, not simply to the members, activists, and operatives of the Democratic Party, or to their Quisling allies, the various and sundry RINOS and LINOS infesting the so-called opposition parties. They're only the tip of the iceberg, the point of the spear, or some other metaphor plenty sharper in literal reality than they are.
I'm also talking about their ideological scouts and outriders, the politically-correct gatekeepers at the communications "chokepoints" in this culture whose job is to muzzle meaningful dissent, by commission or omission, aided by the network nickel-a-dance news floozies and hairsprayed gentlemen of the evening. They got us into this mess, and there is nothing in their behavioral repertoire that can ever get us out.
If it weren't for them, Ron Paul would almost certainly be the presidential nominee of the Republican Party by now, Barack Obama would be exposed (at best) as just another George McGovern, Walter Mondale, or Michael Dukakis in blackface, a lasting peace with the whole world would be just over the horizon, and Americans would be both prosperous and free, with a glowing future ahead to look forward to.
Gasoline would be a dollar a gallon.
Instead, our would-be keepers in both "major" parties want you to accept a lower standard of living, and begin a long slide back into the Dark Ages (more and more often using "environmentalism" as a justification), because they've damaged the economy worse than it's ever been damaged before, and they haven't got a clue how it can be fixed.
My greatest worry—informed, I freely confess, by little more than the same intuition that motivated me, the first time I ever saw Hillary Clinton on TV, to say, "That woman has the stink of the deathcamp about her"—is that Barack Obama is going to teach the suicidally naive Productive Class of America what everybody else around the world already knows about governments: that they are killing machines, pure and simple, that they exist to serve no other purpose.
That "little more", by the way, is Obama's plan to create a civilian domestic security force larger than the present U.S. military. Can you say "Brownshirts" or "Red Guard"? I thought you could.
Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party, the one organization that might have done something about this mess, crawls through the slime instead, dragged down by the sleazoid opportunist Bob Barr and his socialist ilk.
To my friends on the left: don't bother protesting what I've said here, or what I'm about to say. The world we live in is the world you made. You own the television networks, newspapers, magazines, and the movies.
Every time some Democrat got himself or herself elected over the past half century, everybody in the general freedom movement came to know that we would be in yet another bloody fight to save the basic liberties on which this country was supposedly founded. All you ever want is to take something away from us, our money, our homes, our land, our cars, our guns. Our children. All we want is to be left the hell alone. It's been soul-sapping, wearying right down to the marrow; it has used up our entire lives—and yours—to absolutely no purpose. Your nagging, controlling, thieving, busybody pathology has turned our America into a dung heap of lost rights and squandered opportunities.
There was a time when the concepts that comprise libertarianism—conceivably conveyed by more competent carriers than turned out to be the case—might have saved this country from the fascism under which it presently begins to labor. But it was "liberal" gatekeepers who kept libertarians out of the national discourse, and it is these same "progressives" who are inavoidably responsible for the present ugly mess.
And you wonder why you are so thoroughly despised.
The lamest Republican assertion that Moslem fundamentalists attacked us because "they hate our freedom" is fully matched by Elton John's ridiculous mealy-mouthing when Hillary Clinton's political fortunes began to wane: "I never cease to be amazed," he whimpered and pouted, "at the misogynist attitude of some of the people in this country."
People don't hate Hillary because she's a woman. If they did, they wouldn't have made Oprah Winfrey one of the richest women in the world, or stood with Martha Stewart when she was railroaded by the feds and sent to prison. They hate Hillary, as an individual, because she's a shrill, insatiably power-hungry, fascist bitch, who wants them arrested and locked up if they make their own arrangement with a doctor.
And so is her husband.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Gitmo 'Justice' for US Citizens?
A conservative-dominated U.S. Appeals Court has opened the door for President George W. Bush or a successor to throw American citizens – as well as non-citizens – into a legal black hole by designating them “enemy combatants,” even if they have engaged in no violent act and are living on U.S. soil.
The federal Appeals Court in Richmond, Virginia, ruled 5-4 on July 15 that Bush had the right, while prosecuting the “war on terror,” to hold Qatari citizen (and Peoria, Illinois, resident) Ali al-Marri indefinitely as an “enemy combatant.”
But some of the court’s more liberal judges expressed alarm, saying the legal reasoning that denied al-Marri meaningful due process not only trampled on American legal traditions but could be used to lock up U.S. citizens as well.
“For over two centuries of growth and struggle, peace and war, the Constitution has secured our freedom through the guarantee that, in the United States, no one will be deprived of liberty without due process of law,” wrote Judge Diana Motz, a Bill Clinton appointee, who dissented against the court’s approval of sweeping presidential powers.
Motz noted that al-Marri has been imprisoned for more than five years, “without acknowledgement of the protection afforded by the Constitution, solely because the Executive believes that his indefinite military detention – or even the indefinite military detention of a similarly situated American citizen – is proper.”
Al-Marri’s lawyers plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the case underscores one of the biggest issues at stake in the November elections: whether Republican John McCain will get to fulfill his promise to appoint more Supreme Court judges like Samuel Alito and John Roberts, who have embraced Bush’s vision of an all-powerful President.
Currently, the U.S. Supreme Court has a slim 5-4 majority in favor of limiting Bush’s authority to deny basic constitutional rights to people designated “enemy combatants,” but the replacement of one member of the majority with another Alito or Roberts would tip the balance and effectively permit the rewriting of the U.S. Constitution.
Though the July 15 ruling was convoluted and did call for a federal District Court to afford al-Marri some more rights, the Appeals Court decision effectively upheld Bush’s assertion of nearly unlimited power to have people detained as “enemy combatants.”
The ruling suggested that even American citizens – if they are deemed “enemy combatants” – could be subjected to Bush’s military commissions, where truncated legal rights make proving a person’s guilt much easier than in civilian courts.
Stunned Realization
Previously, the New York Times editorial page and some liberal legal experts had criticized Bush’s high-handed approach toward non-citizens, but had assured Americans that the military commissions would not apply to them.
But at Consortiumnews.com, we noted that language buried in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 seemed to cover – indeed even target – U.S. citizens. [See “Who Is ‘Any Person’ in Tribunal Law? or our book, Neck Deep.]
For instance, one section dealing with penalties stated that “any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission,” according to the law.
Another clause stated that “any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States ... shall be punished as a military commission … may direct.” [Emphasis added]
Presumably, Osama bin Laden has no “allegiance or duty to the United States.” Such a phrase seems aimed at American citizens.
But it took the Appeals Court ruling – and the blunt language from Judge Motz about denying constitutional rights to U.S. citizens – to catch the New York Times’ attention.
In a July 20 editorial, the Times wrote that the Appeals Court's “decision gives the President sweeping power to deprive anyone – citizens as well as non-citizens – of their freedom. …
“The implications are breathtaking. The designation ‘enemy combatant,’ which should apply only to people captured on a battlefield, can now be applied to people detained inside the United States. Even though Mr. Marri is not an American citizen, the court’s reasoning appears to apply equally to citizens.”
Bush’s victory in the Marri case reflects his continued insistence that for the duration of the “war on terror,” Bush or any successor can exercise “plenary” – or unlimited – powers as the Commander in Chief.
And, since the “war on terror” will go on indefinitely and since the “battlefield” is everywhere, Bush is asserting the President’s right to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants wherever the person might be, virtually forever.
In effect, Bush’s interpretation of his own powers – allowing him to imprison, torture and kill at his discretion – trumps the Founders’ vision that everyone possesses certain “unalienable rights” that a government can’t take away.
Despite some reversals in the U.S. Supreme Court – and the loss of Republican control of Congress in 2006 – Bush still sees himself as a kind of a global monarch who gets to decide which rights and freedoms his subjects anywhere in the world can enjoy and which ones will be denied them.
MORE HERE
Monday, July 21, 2008
Milestones In Tyranny
by Francis A Ney Jr
n4zhg1@gmail.com
FROM: The Libertarian Enterprise
In our nation's not-so-slow march towards fascism, I have a few milestones of note not mentioned elsewhere in our little part of cyberspace.
First, the ACLU has announced that yet another supposed constabulary organization has been caught infiltrating and "investigating" terrorist assemblies. Peace protesters, anti-death penalty activists, and property rights advocates, for example. This time, it's the Maryland State Police.
www.commondreams.org/news2008/0717-06.htm
Cue Gilbert Godfried as Iago the Parrot here. I guess I should be grateful that it was MSP and not the Prince George's County (BANG! BANG! BANG! "Stop, or I'll shoot!") Police. MSP is obviously taking a page from F-Troop: Go after soft targets instead of people that might put your feet in a tub of cement and dump you in Chesapeake Bay.
Fucking cowards, the lot of them.
Speaking of cowards, the leaders of New York's largest street gang deserve no gold-of-valor after they caved in to the strident howls of the New York Post, setting yet another undeserved double-standard for our putative overseers.
www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Jul15/0,4670,PoliceShootingBreathalyzer,00.html
www.nypost.com/seven/07162008/news/regionalnews/new_cop_rule_is_just_call_911_120140.htm
Anyone else who did this without the ability to hide behind a badge would still be on Riker's Island. And the same Post and all the other liberal fish-wrap, as well as the traitors in the Brady Campaign would be screaming their heads off about how this is why the Supreme Court was wrong in Heller.
Sorry, a pilot can't fly for 8 hours (12 for commercial ratings) after taking a drink. A paramedic or EMT in New York can't treat a patient for 8 hours after taking a drink. I don't believe it unreasonable to expect that someone carrying a gun stay sober while he does so. A breathalyzer and DWI limits may not be the best way to determine this, but the expectation is valid and I say this as a gun owner and NRA life member. Guns and alcohol do not mix, not even for cops.
Unless you're NYPD, apparently. And I just love the self-righteous indignation from the union, stating that off-duty cops should just call 911 and not get involved. Small loss, since you can't get them involved ON-duty and in uniform half the time, and the other half it's probably not a wise idea anyway.
Next on the hit parade is everyone's second favorite government agency, Thousands Standing Around -oops- Transportation Security Administration.
According to the ACLU, the "potential terrorist watch list" now has over a million names on it. The six or seven people who suck down our tax money writing the TSA blog dispute this with a number of statistical sight gags. Mark Twain was more right then he ever knew.
www.tsa.gov/blog/2008/07/myth-buster-tsas-watch-list-is-more.html
That's no comfort to people like me, or even Jim Robinson (former Asst AG under Clinton), or the thousands of others who are delayed, harassed and humiliated daily at the hands of small-minded people drunk on power. That includes the unfortunate passenger who was told by an ignorant TSA supervisor in Atlanta that the TSA Standard Operating Procedure was "a national intelligence secret" and if the passenger actually saw it, "you wouldn't be going anywhere tonight."
flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=844976
But don't bother complaining about it. CNN reporter Drew Griffin started broadcasting a series of reports critical of TSA, their policies, procedures, and general incompetence. He is now on the watch list.
rawstory.com/news/2008/CNN_reporter_wants_off_terror_watch_0716.html
Tell me this isn't politically motivated retaliation. TSA spokesman Christopher White may say otherwise, but the timing is too much of a smoking gun. And as long as the list is secret, the methods of inclusion are unknown, and the oversight nonexistent (it took an Act of Congress to get Nelson Mandela off the watch list), TSA has become the fourth famous lie in history, right next to "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."
That steady "tromp tromp tromp" you hear in the distance are the stomping of jackboots prepared to grind your face in the dust. 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are soon to become reality, unless we can stop it.
Frank is a computer consultant and professional gadfly. He serves as the Travel Gestapo Editor of TLE.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Americans don't appear to have a clue about irony
Everyone knows that Americans don't understand irony. Soon after moving to England from the U.S., I discovered that my country was universally assumed to be an irony-free zone. I was at a dinner party when irony came up, and another guest launched into a diatribe against Alanis Morisette's song "Isn't it Ironic?" as an example of my compatriots' presumptive misunderstanding: "Rain on your wedding day is not ironic!" he railed.
"Serving utensils are not ironic! What's ironic is that she doesn't understand what irony means!" "No," I replied. "What's ironic is that she's Canadian."
Situational irony is distinct from, but analogous to, verbal irony: Both rely on the tension between a false or misleading appearance, and an underlying, contradictory reality. Alanis and I were both employing situational irony, when reality doesn't conform to expectation. Verbal irony is when reality doesn't conform to your statement. For the record, Americans are capable of employing both. Exhibit A for the defense: the first sentence of this piece. You may not find it ironic, although I will find it ironic if you don't, because I trusted you not to need me to spell it out for you.
Irony depends upon context, and the extra-verbal cues by which we ascertain intended meaning. In this case, the context includes my being American, which until a few days ago I would have considered reason enough to doubt that I could hold such views. Thanks to the recent uproar over the New Yorker Obama cartoon, however, I have learned my mistake. The reason why the cover, depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as flag-burning-Osama-loving-Afro-sporting-Muslim-militant-terrorist-fist-jabbe=rs, has created such a hullabaloo has everything to do with America's understanding of irony. It turns out, ironically, that Americans also think America doesn't understand irony -- or rather that the rest of America doesn't understand irony.
Apparently, my fellow Americans are under the impression that only people from New York are ironic. Everyone else will think that the cover means what it says, because they are too stupid, crass and literal to understand context, nuance, or implication. A pundit on a CBS news program differentiated herself emphatically from the rest of the literal-minded, simplistic nation, explaining: "I get that [it is satire] -- I get that. But I think that there may be people who just look at the cover and see it for what it is."
The New Republic agreed, arguing that the magazine "claimed not to support the allegations they were visually or rhetorically putting forward -- obviously! -- and yet a reader would have to have a fairly sophisticated understanding ... to immediately intuit the intended ironic distance."
Indeed: because that's how irony works. It relies upon a sophisticated-subtle, discriminating, complex understanding that appearances can deceive, that meaning can be oblique. It relies on not taking things at face value.
But increasingly we live in a culture of face value, a superficial world of skim-reading, snap-judgments, and thin-slicing, in which perception is all, and tends only to reconfirm pre-existing attitudes. So let's be clear: Anyone who thinks that the Obamas are secret terrorists is stupid enough to misunderstand the New Yorker cartoon. But that is no reason for shooting the messenger.
Satire -- advanced irony, if you like -- is supposed to be deadpan, and it ought to be dangerous, even inflammatory. Satire is polemical; it should test limits. Satire has faith in the intelligence of its audience, in part because it is itself a humor driven by ideas. The New Yorker cartoon, rightly, does not wink, or nudge the viewer. It plays it so straight that it reminded me of nothing so much as Stephen Colbert's satirical character on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, the blustering, know-nothing right-wing pundit and Bush apologist whom Colbert himself once described as a "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-class idiot."
One of Colbert's favorite targets is what he calls "truthiness," which is "truth, unfiltered by rational argument," for those, like Colbert's character and President Bush, who pride themselves on anti-intellectualism: "We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? ... We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Those comments come from a speech Colbert made, in character, before President Bush, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2006. For my money it was one of the greatest moments of political satire in living memory. The only thing more breathtaking than Colbert's audacity was the stupidity of whoever had given him the opportunity to insult the president to his face. It turned out the man in question hadn't seen much of Colbert's show and took him at face value. Now that's ironic.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
List of House and Senate Republicans who voted with George W. Bush Medicare Veto
The issue is not that complicated. The recent reduction in Medicare funding of 10% has caused doctors to stop taking new patients under the Medicare plan, leaving more and more of our senior citizens with no health insurance and little recourse other than they die while wealthy Republicans live. This is a very very REPUBLICAN issue, an example of that we all have suffered for a generation under their cold callous fascist boot. All Democrats voted to override the veto, only Republicans voted against our senior citizens.
This is much like the Senator Phil Gramm foo-pah last week telling us that our economic woes are all in our head. John McCain was about the only Republican to disagree, only because he is in a tight race. All conservative (Republican) pundits and most Republicans in office agreed with Gramm.
Both Texas Senators, Hutchinson and Cornyn did vote to override the President's veto. Cornyn is up for re-election and Hutchinson is on her way to the Governors Mansion. Which by the way, burned down recently.
The 26 Republican Senators Voting For the George W. Bush Veto to Help Deny Seniors Medicare
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bennett (R-UT)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
-
The 41 Republican House members Voting for the George W. Bush Veto to Help Deny Seniors Medicare
Akin (R-MO)
Barrett (R-SC)
Barton (R-TX)
Bishop (R-UT)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boehner (R-OH)
Brady (R-TX)
Buyer (R-IN)
Camp (R-MI)
Campbell (R-CA)
Cannon (R-UT)
Cantor (R-VA)
Carter (R-TX)
Cole (R-OK)
Conaway (R-TX)
Doolittle (R-CA)
Duncan (R-TN)
Flake (R-AZ)
Franks (R-AZ)
Hensarling (R-TX)
Johnson, Sam (R-TX)
Jordan (R-OH)
King (R-IA)
Lewis (R-KY)
Linder (R-GA)
Marchant (TX)
McCrery (R-LA)
Mica (R-FL)
Neugebauer (R-TX)
Paul (R-TX)
Pence (R-IN)
Renzi (R-AZ)
Rogers (R-MI)
Royce (R-CA)
Sali (R-ID)
Scalise (R-LA)
Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
Smith (R-NE)
Tancredo (R-CO)
Weldon (R-FL)
Westmoreland (R-GA)
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Update With Aaron James
The ongoing collusion against Aaron
Gabcast! Freedom Shenanigans #5 - Update With Aaron James Under Siege in Winnipeg
The ongoing collusion against Aaron
Monday, July 14, 2008
Is John McCain (McBush) Too Old to be Preseident?
At what point is one too old to be president? How do we know that McBush is NOT in the early stages of Alzheimer's? Would we even be told the truth?Dr. David Reuben, chief of geriatrics at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, said he sees no outward evidence of such a problem with McCain, despite the occasional gaffe.
"As a clinician, I look at whether they appear to be robust, whether their sentences flow, whether their thoughts connect, whether they are easily distractible," said Reuben. "McCain appears to be quite robust."
Reuben said there's very little difference in clinical terms between McCain's age and Ronald Reagan's, who turned 70 soon after he was sworn in for his first term. Reagan managed to avoid the "old" label by often riding horses and clearing brush on his ranch in California. But could seem to be forgetful at times.
However, in Iran-Contra testimony in 1990, ONLY ONE YEAR year after leaving office, he could NOT remember that Gen. John W. Vessey served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for three years in his administration.
In spite of a growing number of memory "gaffes" and occasional disorientation episodes, Reagan's Alzheimer's diagnosis came nearly six years after leaving the White House.
Who was covering this up? Who was really running things behind the scenes? We may never know. However, by just observing McBush on the campaign trail we see that he almost always within speaking distance from his wife Cindy who consistently provides memory clues and corrections for him. Will Cindy be the "shadow" president? What interests does she answer to?
The Six-Pack. The six-pack is younger than John McCain.
Oddly, it took until sometime in the early-40’s for someone to come up with the brilliant idea of packaging drinks (”Dad’s Root Beer”, to be precise) six at a time. (The concern about the whole fish-killing thing, although widely overblown, didn’t kick in until the 1970’s.)
So, in other words, what we’re saying here is that John McCain is older than what amounts to little more than a system of counting. Fantastic.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Swedes Massively Protest Wiretap Law
Written by Ernesto on July 07, 2008
In June the Swedish parliament passed a controversial surveillance law that gives authorities a mandate to read all email and listen in on all phone calls without warrant or court order. In response to the law, The Pirate Party organized rallies, bloggers and journalists turned into activists, and even Google decided to relocate their servers.
The aftermath of the vote on wiretapping legislation has been turbulent, to say the least. Bloggers have not wasted a minute in their criticism, mainstream media eventually caught up and the newspapers are now running stories and editorials every day. Various viral campaigns have flourished along with grassroots activism and The Pirate Party has hauled full sails to catch the wind that will blow them straight into European Parliament during the elections of 2009.
That’s not all. Google and former public telecoms company Telia moved their servers out of Sweden. Belgium says it will sue Sweden since Belgian citizens may be wiretapped without any apparent reason. Anne Ramberg, secretary-general of the Swedish Bar Association, has called for challenges to the law in Swedish and European courts and similar demands have been heard from several other interest groups, like the Journalist’s Union. It’s FRA hunting season this summer in Sweden!
It is now obvious that the legislation was a deal made between the leaders of the four government parties without full support, even from within their own ranks. Active party members resigned in protest, like Fabian Norlin of the Moderate party who quit on June 24 and instead launched FRApedia, a Wiki covering everything about the law and the authorities.
Meanwhile, the people responsible have not uttered a word in defense of the legislation. They haven’t even tried to justify it. In fact, the few quotes that were made referred in smug terms to the nature of the debate and the debaters. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said “It would be best for everyone if the debate would calm down.” Others have called your-rights-online-bloggers “spirited amateurs”, sparking even more fury.
During the time since the vote, the Members of Parliament have appeared everything from sad through to ridiculously stupid when trying to handle the turbulence. A representative of the “ridiculous” faction was Liberal Party member Gunnar Andrén who wrote a very upset internal email claiming he hadn’t been told by party colleague Camilla Lindberg that she was going to vote against the bill (she was the only member of any of the four government parties that voted against the bill and received much appreciation and media by it). His email was leaked to the press by another party colleague and Andrén was later heard on a recorded phone-call exclaiming that his secrecy of correspondence had been broken and that it was “Gestapo methods”. Dude, you just voted for a bill that allows all emails to be read and all phone calls to be recorded. Live with it!
The big shift in public opinion came at the time of the vote when the blogs, who had pushed on the issue for many weeks before the vote, finally found the mainstream media with them, and with that the power to reach the masses. Some 6.6 million emails were sent to the Members of Parliament through an online petition created by daily newspaper Expressen which allowed easy protests to the members. Göran Petterson of the Moderate Party (until 2006 a military officer and one of those in favor of the FRA legislation) wrote on his blog: “Email is a great way to communicate with my voters but then you can’t do like Expressen has done now. […] Now, normal emails from the citizens are drowning in these.” Clearly, he didn’t understand his voters were trying to communicate with him, sending him a clear message of what they thought of him and his party.
This Thursday, rallies were initiated in Malmö and Stockholm by The Pirate Party which gathered more than 2000 anti-FRA protesters. They were in fact parties rather than protests, celebrating that Sweden has become a banana republic. As in the protests before the vote in June, the parties’ youth organizations stood side by side fighting the FRA, all ideological differences set aside for what may be one of the most important issues in their political careers.
In Malmö, Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay spoke at the rally saying “the FRA bill is unnecessary, ineffective, unwanted and last but not least, expensive. The government should listen to the people, as they cannot replace us. However, we have the power to change the government.” Meanwhile, in Stockholm, Maria Wetterstrand of the Green Party promised that an abolishment of the FRA bill would be one of their demands in order to form government with The Social Democrats after the elections 2010 while Alice Åström of the Left Party promised to motion this fall to give members of the government alliance parties the possibility to break up the legislation.
The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde at the Malmö rally
Yesterday, the annual Swedish political gathering in Almedalen began, where ministers, parliament members, journalists, pundits, lobbyists and interest groups traditionally meet during a week on the island of Gotland. The government thought that putting the FRA vote at the back of the spring schedule would make it go unnoticed. Instead, it’s the only current political hot topic as the Almedalen week is approaching with the Pirate Party in full presence on site to further push the agenda.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Who Killed the Constitution?
I have said it before and I say it again, the Constitution is false holy writ for a false religion of Statism. It is inherently hypocritical because its interpretations are not immutable and thus change with each passing generational crises. It gives nothing more than a false legitimacy to the majority to oppress the minority with the hubris of "our might makes right because we followed the law!" The Constitution is also nothing more than the third failed attempt of representative self government by a people who espoused the five foundational premises of the Declaration of Independence.
The Constitution secures few rights and restrains government minimally.
~ Mit
From LewRockwell.com:
Who Killed the Constitution?
by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.Today is the official release date for Who Killed the Constitution? The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush (Random House/Crown Forum), the book I wrote with Kevin Gutzman, the New York Times bestselling author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution.
But ours is not the standard right-wing lament about the emasculation of the Constitution at the hands of liberal judges, though such judges receive in our pages none of the superstitious reverence Americans are taught to have for the judiciary. (Mencken once described a judge as merely a law student who graded his own examination papers.) To the contrary, we suggest that all three branches of the federal government, either separately or in collusion, have been responsible for turning the Constitution into just a museum piece, and that conservatives and liberals alike have much to answer for as well.
To hear the Left tell it, the Bush administration is a strange aberration in our history. But bad as the Bush administration is, it is not an aberration, and most of its deformations of the Constitution enjoy bipartisan support. The Democrats have made and will doubtless continue to make equally bold claims for presidential war powers, and Bill Clinton sought measures similar to the Patriot Act in the 1990s.
As I wrote in last year’s 33 Questions About American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask, "The philosophy of an activist, vigorous executive possessing inherent powers that override congressional prerogative is not a recent development at all, but has been an integral part of the thinking of most of the presidents our historians teach us to admire. Demonizing only one president, as the left is by and large still doing in 2008, is far too timid. So many others merit the same treatment."
We show that Harry Truman’s seizure of the steel mills in 1952, for which the Supreme Court rebuked him (though not as sweepingly as the standard account suggests), was based on the same philosophy of the presidency that nearly all twentieth-century presidents held, and was likewise no aberration at all.
Woodrow Wilson is another good example, for more reasons than we can chronicle in this book. As Bill Kauffman puts it, Wilson makes George W. Bush look like a pro bono lawyer for the ACLU. In tandem with draconian penalties for the most harmless statements about the Great War, voluntary enforcement agencies with names like the Sedition Slammers, the Terrible Threateners, and the Boy Spies of America sprang up across the country. Eugene V. Debs made the best of his situation, collecting a million votes for president in the 1920 election while in prison for giving a speech. (A popular campaign button read, "For President: Convict No. 9653.") All three branches of government heartily approved.
MORE HERE
Thomas E. Woods, Jr. [view his website; send him mail] is senior fellow in American history at the Ludwig von Mises Institute .
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Breaking News - Aaron James Under Siege?
The Aaron James story is intriguing and infuriating. Look to the side bar for the link to his story and here.
Aaron called afraid and concerned because somebody pounded on his apartment door but didn't announce who they were. Aaron kept silent fearing that if he acknowledged his presence the door would then be broken down and he abducted to the American gulag. His mother then came by the apartment and noted that Winnipeg police were in the area waiting.
The following recording was made in haste and under poor conditions. Aaron can be heard wonderfully. However, your reporter's voice is muffled and we are not sure why unless it has to do with the long distance three way calling connection. In our mind it is best anyway that Aaron can be heard better as it is his story that needs to be told.
Please listen, copy and post on your sites.
Call the Winnipeg police and ask why they are harassing Aaron James 204-986-6222.
Contact your favorite radio host with this story content.
Gabcast! Freedom Shenanigans #4
Friday, July 04, 2008
Why We Mourn July 4th
In 1776, fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring that,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident. . ."
What truths were "these truths"?
There were only 5 Truths (premises or foundational principles) articulated as the reasons for the Declaration.
The whole idea and reason for the Declaration of Independence and the subsequently instituted governments of the United States of America rest upon these 5 Truths.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence believed that those who supported these 5 Truths were good people and supporters of freedom.
However, those who opposed the 5 Truths were against liberty as agents of dictators, tyrants and despots.
Which one are you?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you believe in the 5 Truths?
Truth 1. All people are created equal by "Nature's God." (No commentary was given about the nature of, or, who "Nature's God" was believed to be. However, knowing who Jefferson was and what he and other founders believed, it can be inferred that the implication was from a Deistic
Truth 2. All created equal people are endowed with certain unalienable rights.
Truth 3. By the consent of the equal people with endowed certain unalienable rights, governments are formed to secure those endowed certain unalienable rights of the equal people.
Truth 4. When any form of government becomes destructive of those endowed certain unalienable rights of the equal people, it is the right and duty of the equal people with endowed certain unalienable rights to replace that government with one that will secure those, endowed certain unalienable rights of the equal people.
Truth 5. Changes of government should not be for casual and changing reasons, therefore, the equal people with endowed certain unalienable rights must declare the causes that make them change governments.
Make no mistake in thinking that this is a light matter. We as a nation are approaching a fork in the road together.
There are those among us who believe that "government" is the source of rights and liberty. They are the modern day Tories, the royalists, and believers in the divine rights of kings. Only today their "king" is the Government.
We have almost come full circle in our experiment in liberty from where we started.
From:
an out of control constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government that reduced its loyal citizens to property of the State,
To:
a "constitutional republic" form whose substance is a "democratic representative" legislative government that distorts the words, meanings and intent of the Constitution thereby reducing the people to property of the State.
True American Patriots still believe in the 5Truths of Freedom
- To embrace these truths by believing in them and living by them is to be an American patriot, honoring the men and women who fought and died for liberty.
- To infringe or alienate these truths by action or accepting government's actions is to dishonor the patriots who have lived and died for us.
On which side do you stand?
(a)The promise of tranquil security by intrusive government, mouthing words of liberty while taking away rights by regulation forcing you to give up your "fair share" of freedom for privileged benefits that rest upon you as chains of control?
(b)The 5Truths and the certain human rights endowed to an equal people that must not be infringed by your countrymen in your service in government leaving you to live the "animating contest of freedom" in liberty while pursuing the happiness of responsible self-ownership?
If you believe in the 5Truths then generate interest in the 5Truths. Tell others about the 5Truths. Compare our government today to the 5Truths.
Prepare! Prepare! Wake Up! To Arms! The Ameritish are coming!
To understand more please read the following from Larken Rose
Blind Nationalism
Today is a day when millions of victims of a tyrannical regime go out and proudly display their blind loyalty to that regime. The modern celebrations which occur on July 4th make about as much sense as Jews proudly parading around carrying banners of Swastikas.
What, exactly, does the American flag represent? I don't mean what do you WISH it represented--I mean, given how it is used and displayed today, what must it ACTUALLY represent? Well, the nationalistic "pledge of allegiance" says that the flag stands for a "Republic." In other words, millions of children (not to mention adults) are trained to swear allegiance to a FLAG and a GOVERNMENT.
Eeww. How revolting.
A lot of people have told me they think I'm a "true patriot." I know they mean it as a compliment, but I'm not sure why. What is it that I'm being loyal to? It sure as heck isn't the government, or a piece of cloth (the flag). In short, I'm loyal to the idea of FREEDOM--that every individual rightfully owns himself, and that any infringement upon that right (e.g., ALL "government") is an evil abomination.
Now, some people like to imagine that that is what the U.S. of A. is about: freedom. However, I don't see a shred of support for such a claim. A couple hundred years ago you might have been able to make such an argument, but what about today? Most of the country continues to vote for one of two clubs of nationalist socialists, though they use the meaningless names "Democratic" and "Republican." Neither club cares a whit about freedom, inalienable rights, or even the flawed Constitution.
So in what way can the U.S. be called pro-freedom? The tyrants in Washington obviously aren't, nor are the sheep who elect them. In short, if you care about freedom, waving the American flag now makes about as much sense as waving the flag of the Soviet Union. Whatever you WISH it represented, it is now in reality a symbol of tyranny, at home and abroad. Do you really think the symbol that flies over all of the giant monuments to power--the federal buildings--represents liberty anymore?
If you love freedom, as I do, there is no country on earth for you. Every flag, every nation, stands for your enslavement, in one way or another. The megalomaniacs have their tentacles just about everywhere. But what is more sickening than that is how the same people being controlled, taxed, and regulated into economic and psychological ruin will be out in force today, celebrating their purely imagined "freedom." I, for one, can't stand the sight of it anymore, so don't expect to see me at any parades or celebrations.
Unlike 99.9% of this country, I see no reason to celebrate my own enslavement.
But have a Happy Dependence Day anyway. "If you're free and you know it, clank your chains!" ...
Sincerely,
Larken Rose
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream
So you wonder why it all keeps moving toward a fascist police state? Because they are still alive and in power!The McCormack-Dickstein Committee was established to investigate a homegrown American fascist plot hatched in 1933. In documents uncovered, details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush´s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.
Prescott Sheldon Bush (1895 to 1972) attended Yale University and joined the secret society known as Skull and Bones. Prescott is widely reported to have stolen the skull of Native American leader Geronimo. As far as I know, this has not actually been confirmed. In fact, Prescott seems to have had a habit of making things up. He sent letters home from World War I claiming he'd received medals for heroism. After the letters were printed in newspapers, he had to retract his claims.
If this does not yet sound like the life of a George W. Bush ancestor, try this on for size: Prescott Bush's early business efforts tended to fail. He married the daughter of a very rich man named George Herbert Walker (the guy with the compound at Kennebunkport, Maine, that now belongs to the Bush family, and the origin of Dubya's middle initial). Walker installed Prescott Bush as an executive in Thyssen and Flick. From then on, Prescott's business dealings went better, and he entered politics.
Now, the name Thyssen comes from a German named Fritz Thyssen, major financial backer of the rise of Adolph Hitler. Thyssen was referred to in the New York Herald-Tribune as "Hitler's Angel." During the 1930s and early 1940s, and even as late as 1951, Prescott Bush was involved in business dealings with Thyssen, and was inevitably aware of both Thyssen's political activities and the fact that the companies involved were financially benefiting the nation of Germany. In addition, the companies Prescott Bush profited from included one engaged in mining operations in Poland using slave labor from Auschwitz. Two former slave laborers have sued the U.S. government and the heirs of Prescott Bush for $40 billion.
Until the United States entered World War II it was legal for Americans to do business with Germany, but in late 1942 Prescott Bush's businesses interests were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Among those businesses involved was the Hamburg America Lines, for which Prescott Bush served as a manager. A Congressional committee, in a report called the McCormack-Dickstein Report, found that Hamburg America Lines had offered free passage to Germany for journalists willing to write favorably about the Nazis, and had brought Nazi sympathizers to America. (Is this starting to remind anyone of our current president's relationship to the freedom of the press?)
MORE HERE
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