Monday, June 21, 2010

Great Schemes Quote

From a Charles Moore piece at the Telegraph titled The euro’s inevitable failure will be horrendous for all of us.

Again and again in politics, great schemes don’t work – Soviet Communism, for example, and now the euro. Rational people tend to conclude that, because a scheme doesn’t work, it will quickly stop. Unfortunately, rational people are wrong. Bad political schemes are usually given up only when they have been tested literally to destruction…

Moore is writing, of course, about the euro.  Donald Sensing, lists some great schemes being tested to destruction here in the United States.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/21 at 09:59 AM
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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Great Philanthropists or Producers of Slaves

Yesterday, I read Fortune magazine’s story The $600 billion challenge, which provides this opening summation of what the article purports to inform us of.

Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett are asking the nation’s billionaires to pledge to give at least half their net worth to charity, in their lifetimes or at death. If their campaign succeeds, it could change the face of philanthropy.

Within the article itself, we read this.

...The ideas advanced included national recognition of great philanthropists (presidential medals, for example),..

Now, it is none of my business what the exceptionally wealthy, or the poorest dirt farmers for that matter, do with their money, it is their money, not my money, but the idea of the wealthy patting themselves on the back, or being recognized with presidential medals, for their altruistically “pledged” benevolence incorrectly deduces that massive charitable donations will somehow benefit the impoverished.

Do not misunderstand me.  Individual acts of charity, altruism, can provide tangible benefits to an individual in distress, but charities, in large part, simply perpetuate poverty, keeping the impoverished impoverished and enslaved, and this assertion is supported by some interesting and diverse individuals.

A quote from Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

“Charity is not the answer to poverty,” Yunus wrote earlier this year. “It only helps poverty to continue. It creates dependency and takes away the individual’s initiative to break through the wall of poverty.”

And this quote from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.

“Our concept is more to accomplish and solve things, rather than giving; that is, not going around like Santa Claus,” said Slim, as he cracked jokes, smoked a cigar and outlined business plans at a rare news conferences. “Poverty isn’t solved with donations.”

Bernard Shaw, who I am no fan of, also has characters from his play Major Barbara address the relationship between charity and poverty.  Major Barbara’s father, Mr. Undershaft, who is an arms manufacturer, states that poverty is a “crime,” enlarging on this thought with these words.

But there are millions of poor people, abject people, dirty people, ill-fed, ill-clothed people.  They poison us morally and physically; they kill the happiness of society; they force us to do away with our own liberties…

Poverty and slavery have stood up for centuries to your sermons and leading articles;...

Emma Goldman also speaks to this in her essay The Modern Drama - A Powerful Disseminator of Radical Thought.

Poverty also necessitates dependency, charitable organizations, institutions that thrive off the very thing they are trying to destroy.

If this billionaire club wants to do something productive with all their wealth, they should be creating new businesses and opportunities, rather than funding charities which only temporarily assuage the travails of the impoverished.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/17 at 07:25 AM
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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Now That’s a Ride

A good friend of mine pointed me to this car, a 1948 Buick Streamliner.

That’s some ride.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/16 at 01:17 PM
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First Shot Justification Thoughts

What action, or further restriction of freedom, individual or otherwise, instituted by the federal government, would justify taking up arms against the United States government, crossing that line in the sand, firing the first shot?

This is a troubling thought to consider.  I, for one, would prefer that taking up arms against the United States government need not be resorted to, but what will open the eyes of Americans to the fact that their freedom is under assault.  What will be America’s Broken Arrow?  Is there one freedom restricting action that could be instituted by the federal government that would awaken Americans to the systematic destruction of freedom taking place in America, causing Americans to rise up and say “No More?”

“Massive, passive, civil disobedience” has been suggested, and I most recently noted and encouraged this here, noting recent events in Iran, but, for the most part, this suggestion falls on deaf ears, and willing lever pullers.

The impetous for my thoughts on this subject today is a post at American Mercenary under the heading Fort Sumter, which is worth a read.  The question, from within the post, which resulted in the title to my post.

So that really is the question isn’t it? When does the fedgov become so tyrannical that Fort Sumter becomes justified? Then again, what made Lexington and Concord justified?

Good question(s).

Posted by John Venlet on 06/16 at 09:22 AM
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Two Obama Speech Commentaries in One Sentence

First, from Legal Insurrection.

“I don’t know where I’m going, but follow me anyway.”

Second, from New Paltz Journal II.

He looked and sounded like he was practicing to pass a polygraph examination.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/16 at 08:48 AM
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BP Oil Spill - Ironclad Idiots, Zero Defects and Where the Fault Actually Lies

Yesterday, I happened to catch a news story on the BP oil leak broadcast from one of France’s teevee stations.  The news story centered on remarks by Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA), Chairman of a House Energy Panel.  The station played a clip of Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) pontificating to chastened looking oil executives.

If you go and view the viddie of Markey’s pontifications (viddie runs 3:19), you’ll hear Markey state the following (quote is from the beginning of the viddie).

The American people deserve oil safety plans that are ironclad and not boiler plate.

We now know the oil industry, and the government agency tasked with regulating them, determined that there was a zero chance that this kind of undersea disaster could ever happen. (bold by ed.)

Markey’s ascertain that Americans “deserve” ironclad oil safety plans is simply idiocy, and his ascertain is also utopian in nature.  Unless Americans’ minds are so muddled by Obama’s and Congresses’ pronouncements and unrealistics promises, and there are a good percentage of Americans who are under the spell, they fully realize that there are risks associated with any endeavor.  There is no guarantee of “ironclad” safety in anything, and any individual who asserts an ironclad guarantee of safety is simply twisting the philosophy of zero defects championed by Philip Crosby.

The most telling words uttered by Markey, though, are the words in bold, above, as they clearly state where the fault actually lies for the BP oil spill.  BP could not, and would not, have been drilling forty miles offshore without permission of the federal government.  Additionally, as Markey himself admits in his pontification, the federal government’s regulatory agency, without whose permission nothing can happen, gave their full blessing to BP’s drilling, as the federal regulatory agency’s decision is the proverbial place where the buck stops.

Don’t kid yourselves that BP is solely at fault for this leak.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/16 at 07:38 AM
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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Never Waste a Good Crisis Speech Tonight

So, tonight, Obama takes to the teevee supposedly to “defend” his efforts, which I must assume means the Obama adminstration’s efforts, in response to the BP oil leak.

An AP piece, posted at Yahoo! News, says so at least, with this headline.  Obama defending Gulf effort in Oval Office address.

As you read through the article, you find out that oil executives have been getting “grilled,” and other filler information, such as some individual held up at sign along Obama’s Florida motorcade route with the words,

“Obama you are useless.”

which are true enough.

Anyway, the story finally provides some bullet points as to what Obama’s speechifying will cover tonight,

Before a prime-time audience, Obama was to outline a comprehensive response and recovery program — and new promises. With the president slated to speak for only about 15 minutes, it was unlikely he could detail exactly how each would be kept. He was pledging to:

_Ensure BP pays for making whole all local residents and businesses hurt by the spill through a process governed by an independent third-party entity, by federal force, if necessary.

_See all oil cleaned from the water, off the beaches and out of the marshlands and oversee a costly longer-term restoration of the Gulf’s teeming ecology into “better shape than it was before.”

_Bring back the region’s prized seafood industry, the Gulf’s economic lifeblood.

_Enact federal regulatory changes to require stricter drilling safety measures and more robust spill response plans.

and then it drops the actual, non sequitor bomb reason for tonight’s speech.

_Ahieve (sic) passage of sweeping energy and climate change legislation, a key domestic priority of his presidency that had become a long shot.

This also explains why the following quote from the piece, immediately follows the above quote from the piece.

The Oval Office setting was chosen by Obama to convey the gravity of the moment. He had never before used the backdrop, usually reserved for the most serious topics.

Never waste a good crisis, especially when it may allow for greater control.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/15 at 04:10 PM
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Oath Keepers and Freedom

The concern I have in regards to the path America is being forcefully dragged down are not unfounded.  The isms of socialism/progressivism/communism/fascism/statism, et al, infect America like an individual with cystic fibrosis, and it seems as if no amount of pounding on America’s back can dislodge the mucous of the isms previously mentioned, thus the imminent suffocation of America may be at hand, and my concern.

The Oath Keepers is one nascent organization, among others, that have vowed to come to the aid of, and prevent, the suffocating of America, and for Oath Keepers currently on active military duty, this vow does not come without risk.

Now, I, personally, am not a member of the Oath Keepers, for reasons which I alluded to here, but, I am supportive of their aims, and am in full agreement with the Oath Keepers’ Declaration of Orders We Will Not Obey, and if America goes into cardiac arrest from suffocation of freedom, I know where, and with whom, I will stand.

The Oath Keepers have not been much in the MSM, recently, but John Robb points to an interesting piece in Mother Jones titled Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason, with this comment.

The Oath Keepers finds it’s nearly impossible to build an organization.  The problem is that it is an open source insurgency, which resists organizational discipline.  Don’t even try.

Robb’s comment vaguely reflects the closing quote, written in 2003, from my post which I referenced and linked above, but let’s focus on a couple of quotes from the relatively fair Mother Jones piece.  First this.

But beyond the predictable stereotypes, “the reality is a lot of them are fairly intelligent, well-educated people who have complex worldviews that are thoroughly thought out,” says author David Neiwert, who has been following the patriot movement closely since the ‘90s

I fully agree with the above statement.  Most individuals that I am aware of, who express concern for America and freedom, are not just “fairly intelligent” but definitely intelligent.  They are fully cognizant of the unsustainability of the United States government’s economic manipulations and the negative, crushing effects this has on American individuals,  unlike the utopian, kool-aid drinking masses who have thought nothing through, much like those in power whose only thought is maintaining their grip on power over American individuals.

The second quote I want to draw your attention to is this.

I also met Lt. Commander Guy Cunningham, a retired Navy officer and Oath Keeper who in 1994 took it upon himself to survey personnel at the 29 Palms Marine Corps base about their willingness to accept domestic missions and serve with foreign troops. A quarter of the Marines he polled said that they would be willing to fire on Americans who refused to disarm in the face of a federal order—a finding routinely cited by militia and patriot groups worried about excessive government powers.

This should be of concern to all American individuals, as twenty-five percent (25%) of the Marines is a healthy number of troops willing to fire on Americans, and don’t kid yourself, there will be no asking questions, or dispersement options offered, prior to firing.

My oath is to maintain my personal freedom, but my oath is also for all Americans who desire to be free, because if I am not free, how can you be free?

Posted by John Venlet on 06/15 at 01:29 PM
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Monday, June 14, 2010

Crying Over Spilled Oil I Can Understand, But Milk?

I cannot believe this, though it is a reality.  I just grabbed my newspaper off of the front porch, after completing my previous post, and this is the headline that is staring me in the face.

EPA classifies milk as oil, forcing costly rules on farmers

Is it too early to start drinking, hard?

Posted by John Venlet on 06/14 at 02:26 PM
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Rationally Considering the BP Oil Leak with “Cautious Optimism”

Via The Corner, a rational consideration of the BP oil leak, written by Kenneth P. Green and Steven F. Hayward, and posted at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.  The title of the piece is The Dangers of Overreacting to the Deepwater Horizon Disaster.

The piece will take a bit of time to read, wide as it is in its scope and included data, but the time will be well spent.  A portion of the conclusion noting “cautious optimism.”

It will be some time before we have a better idea of the nature and extent of the environmental damage from the Deepwater Horizon spill, but while the severity of the spill should not be downplayed, there are a few reasons for cautious optimism. In general, ocean ecosystems tend to have faster recovery times than either freshwater or land ecosystems because the area available for the dilution and dispersal of spilled oil droplets is so vast, because turbulence in the ocean helps aerate the water, and because it is relatively easy for areas to be repopulated from adjacent areas once the disturbance has stopped. A recent study of seven basic ecosystem types and the disturbances they are most likely to experience found that of ecosystems that make a recovery from various catastrophic events (and, it must be noted, not all do), ocean ecosystems disrupted by oil spills were the fastest to recover, often within a span of one to four years. By contrast, it can take more than forty years for forestlands to recover from deforestation or fire.[26] As the New York Times noted in a 1993 story, the Persian Gulf recovered surprisingly faster than anticipated from the 1.2-million-ton spill Saddam Hussein unleashed on the Gulf at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991: “The vast amount of oil that Iraqi occupation forces in Kuwait dumped into the Persian Gulf during the 1991 war did little long-term damage, international researchers say.”[27] The Deepwater Horizon spill may not even be the most significant chronic environmental problem for the Mississippi Delta and the Gulf coastline, as one of us noted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina five years ago.[28]

Another cause for optimism lies in the type of oil going into the Gulf, which, according to most reports, is light sweet crude oil. As the Alaska Department of Fish and Wildlife observes, light oils are less likely to cause long-term contamination than are either medium or heavy oils.[29]

Still another cause for optimism is the location of the oil. The novel conditions of this spill have created a unique and previously unforeseen situation: rather than mostly rising and moving to shore, most of the oil is remaining dispersed in solution in the ocean. While that oil is bound to cause significant damage to marine life, the damage would likely have been much worse had more of the oil made landfall along Gulf-coast shores. Indeed, it is possible that the conditions of the Deepwater Horizon spill may cause the bulk of the oil to stay in less vulnerable ecosystems, where resilience is highest and recovery is fastest.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/14 at 02:06 PM
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“Who are You?” to Question Me, Punk

Isn’t heartwarming to see the sensitivity of Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-NC2), responding to the simple question from a young student, and mere American citizen, of whether or not he supports Obama’s agenda?

I think Etheridge’s response to the question proves the accuracy of a previously issued summer forecast.  “This could be the summer of scorched megalithic stupidity.”

Posted by John Venlet on 06/14 at 08:51 AM
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Government Induced Tension

The blog dispatches from TJICstan casts its eye on a Boston Globe story about The Middlesex Fells under the headline A piece of the park.  TJICstan’s post is titled what we need is a law!, and it focuses on the following from The Boston Globe story.

…groups representing the hikers, bikers, and dog owners are involved in a bitter debate about the reservation’s use and rules. For decades, there has been a subtle coexistence between the groups, even though some principal rules of the park are blatantly ignored. Dogs are supposed to be on leashes, and mountain bikers are required to use a designated 7-mile trail. But while the park’s steward, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, has two part-time rangers assigned to the reservation, people have bent the rules for their own purposes.

Tensions between park users heightened in the last year after the DCR began a formal review of the reservation…

Here is TJICstan’s plain language interpretation of the above.

“For decades, there has been a functioning anarchy, where – in the absence of rigidly enforced rules – hikers, bikers and dog owners have coexisted by using common sense and courtesy…but now the spectre of top-down, one-size fits all totalitarian land use regulation is making everyone realize that their accomodations may be destroyed at the stroke of a pen, so neighbor is fighting neighbor tooth and nail.”

As TJICstan states, “Thanks, government!”

Posted by John Venlet on 06/14 at 08:34 AM
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Voting and a Lesson from Iran

Americans are admonished to vote, and not just when elections are upcoming.  The message often utilized to encourage Americans to vote is “Let your voice be heard,” or some such nonsense, as if one vote, more or less, is going to change the world.  While in theory, in a democratic society at least, one vote could demonstrably change the outcome of an election, I often ponder on the words, and ramifications of, “What if They Held an Election and Nobody Came?”

This came to mind this morning as I read a post at The Independent Institute titled Iran Watch: 50,000 Buses and One Million No Shows, in which we read the following.

Before the USSR collapsed, “smart” observers bet that the regime had broad support and the people only wanted reform. This was a theme of writers like Stephen Cohen and required reading during my graduate school education.

Similarly, outside observers assumed that nominally democratic Iran maintained broad support for the Islamic Republic. Sure, sure, college students and urban elites would demonstrate but the people outside the capitol were loyal to the regime. Then the disputed election, massive protests and yet . . . still observers wondered if the demonstrators—matched by counter-demonstrators—represented only the educated stratum…

The regime sent 50,000 buses across the country, offered free food and drink for the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini, and the turn out was abysmal (imagine one person per bus!). This “demonstration of silence” is more powerful than the clashes we witnessed a year ago. (bold by ed.)

This Iranian “demonstration of silence” is an excellent example of “massive, passive, civil disobedience,” which I touched on here, and which is much expanded on by Billy Beck here, and the “demonstration of silence” also lends credence to the words “What if they held an election and nobody came?”

Our going into the election booth and yanking levers has not advanced freedom for Americans, but has only resulted in either a slow down or acceleration of our loss of liberty.  Is there something to be learned from the Iranians “demonstration of silence” on a MASSIVE scale?

Posted by John Venlet on 06/14 at 07:46 AM
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A Shallow Victory for Feminism - Politics as Usual

A Ross Douthat op-ed, in The New York Times, under the headline No Mystique About Feminism, comments on the recently held primaries wherein women, alleged conservative women at that, seemed to add credence to the saying, “I am woman, hear me roar,” as these women; Meg Whitman, Sharron Angle, Nikki Haley, Carly Fiorina; won their primary battles, as Republicans no less, graced by Sarah Palin’s notoriety.

Reading further into Douthat’s op-ed, we come upon this statement.

The question of whether conservative women get to be feminists is an interesting and important one. But it has obscured a deeper truth: Whether or not Palin or Fiorina or Haley can legitimately claim the label feminist, their rise is a testament to the overall triumph of the women’s movement.

Douthat reinforces the above statement by ending the op-ed this way.

So however much heartburn Palin’s “mama grizzlies” give to those who associate feminism with the policies and prejudices of American liberalism, circa 1973, they should recognize their emergence for what it is: not a setback for the women’s movement, but a happy consequence of its victories.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not these political candidates, or any other conservative woman for that matter, “get to be feminists,” as Douthat puts it, as I read the op-ed I thought of Emma Goldman’s essay The Tragedy of Woman’s Emancipation, and these words from within the essay.

I BEGIN with an admission: Regardless of all political and economic theories, treating of the fundamental differences between various groups within the human race, regardless of class and race distinctions, regardless of all artificial boundary lines between woman’s rights and man’s rights, I hold that there is a point where these differentiations may meet and grow into one perfect whole…

Emancipation should make it possible for woman to be human in the truest sense. Everything within her that craves assertion and activity should reach its fullest expression; all artificial barriers should be broken, and the road towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of centuries of submission and slavery.

This was the original aim of the movement for woman’s emancipation. But the results so far achieved have isolated woman and have robbed her of the fountain springs of that happiness which is so essential to her. Merely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial being, who reminds one of the products of French arboriculture with its arabesque trees and shrubs, pyramids, wheels, and wreaths; anything, except the forms which would be reached by the expression of her own inner qualities. Such artificially grown plants of the female sex are to be found in large numbers, especially in the so-called intellectual sphere of our life…

...I hold that the emancipation of woman, as interpreted and practically applied today, has failed to reach that great end. Now, woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be free. This may sound paradoxical, but is, nevertheless, only too true.

What has she achieved through her emancipation? Equal suffrage in a few States. Has that purified our political life, as many well-meaning advocates predicted? Certainly not. Incidentally, it is really time that persons with plain, sound judgment should cease to talk about corruption in politics in a boarding school tone. Corruption of politics has nothing to do with the morals, or the laxity of morals, of various political personalities. Its cause is altogether a material one. Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world, the mottos of which are: “To take is more blessed than to give”; “buy cheap and sell dear”; “one soiled hand washes the other.” There is no hope even that woman, with her right to vote, will ever purify politics. (bold by ed.)

Many Americans still seem to feel that women’s rise to power in the political game will bring about hopey changey results, but the words in bold, above, from Goldman’s essay, still ring true, and bear thoughtful consideration by those whom truly desire freedom.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/14 at 06:48 AM
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Sunday, June 13, 2010

Is Obama Going to Come for the Gold?

From an article at Mineweb.com titled U.S. asset managers worried Obama could confiscate gold.

Speaking at the FT Silver conference in London yesterday, lead-off speaker John Levin, HSBC Bank’s Managing Director, Global Metals and Trading (HSBC is one of the world’s top precious metals traders and its vaults in the U.S. and Europe hold huge holdings of gold and silver bullion) recounted conversations with some of the U.S.‘s top asset managers controlling massive amounts of capital asking if HSBC had the capacity in its vaults to store major gold purchases.  On being told that the bank’s U.S. vaults had sufficient space available he was told that they did not want their gold stored in the U.S.A. but preferably in Europe because they feared that at some stage the U.S. Administration might follow the path set by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 and confiscate all U.S. gold holdings as part of the country’s strategy in dealing with the nation’s economic problems.

Though the article writer goes on to state that Mineweb considers such a move “unlikely,” it previously was unlikely that the United States government would own a majority stake in Government Motors, or any other private enterprise, would chain Americans, present and future, with crushing debt to bail out banking institutions for “our own good” and against Americans’ wishes, or pass 2000+ page laws unread.

Linked via The Distributed Republic.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/13 at 11:28 AM
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