Person Of The Year for 2011 - the nomination standards

The Person Of The Year for 2010 was Thomas J. Perez, the Justice Department's unelected menace who refused to allow state college textbooks to be made available on the Kindle because they discriminate against blind people. 

The Year Of Our Lord 2011 will require different standards.  The Teleprompter Jesus is being more careful these days and isn't regulating, banning, forbidding, subsidizing and porking quite so blatantly with another election looming.  Therefore 2011's POTY will be selected by other guidelines, guidelines that reflect the spirit of the last 365 days. 

Here goes: 

1)  All successful people avoid paying taxes, much like all sane people avoid drinking diesel fuel.  But to be honored and praised in the year 2011, one must lobby for higher taxes for the wealthy, even if one is wealthy.  Warren Buffett, for instance, lobbied for higher taxes while his Berkshire-Hathaway firm was fighting the government (for two years) over a billion-dollar tax bill.  The successful applicant for POTY2011 must rise to this level of hypocrisy.  

2)  I believe that it is none of the government's business if I send jobs to North Dakota, Canada, Mexico, China, the moon, or the ice planet Nekthar.  It saves money for my customers, and THAT is what helps an economy grow.  This is a minority opinion, though.  Some Republican presidential candidates are being pilloried by other Republicans for committing similar Acts Of Capitalism. 
Obama has thoroughly condemned anyone who sends a "job" overseas. 

To run a large business efficiently, one must seek out the lowest labor rates. 
But to gain favor with The Obamessiah, one must blather on and on about saving American jobs. 
The successful applicant for POTY2011 will do both. 

3)  Green, Green, Green !!   This is one area where our government Lords'n'Masters still insist on more and more regulation and control.  My trucking company is about to jump over some truly idiotic hurdles because of these bundles of red tape.  (And oh yes, oh yes, I'll be posting about them.) 
They're pointless. 
The planet isn't warming. 
But these regulations are nice symbolic gestures that keeps little government toads, gremlins and hobbits employed and feeling righteous.  The POTY2011 must subsidize, manufacture, market, lobby for, or mandate a product or activity that is nothing more than an expression of Cultural Sanctimony. 
He must also profity handsomely from this activity. 

4)  There has been an unhealthy overlap betwen Obama's Big Government and Big Business for the last year.  Well-informed political junkies call it Fascism.  Others call it Crony Capitalism, or a rebirth of old-school British Mercantilism. 
I generally describe it as Fascism because, of course, that's what it is. 

Therefore, the Person Of The Year for 2011 must work for the government and for a major corporation. 
At the same time.   

Those are the standards by which the Person Of The Year for 2011 will be chosen.  I eagerly await the Committee's decision. 

Fascism pic came from here. 

The Parable Of The Talents

The Parable Of The Talents
From Matthew 25:14-30

14 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them.
15 To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.
16 The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more.
17 So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more.
18 But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them.

20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’

21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

22 “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’

23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.

25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed?
27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

28 “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags.
29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.
30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Gary Johnson for U.S. President !  The only candidate who can possibly give you your gold back !!!  (Unless Ron Paul decides to run as a Libertarian.  Then we'll have a real horse race.) 

No one believes in Global Warming

No one believes in AGW.   Not according to Forbes:

Much was written about the most recent United Nations Climate Change Conference, which was held in Durban, South Africa November 28 through December 9 of this year. However, most commentators gave short shrift to the most important—in a sense, the only—outcome of the meeting. This was, of course, the agreement to hold yet another conference in yet another nice location (Qatar) about a year from now.

The Durban conference was the seventeenth conference of its kind. They have been held annually since 1995 in places such as Geneva (in July 1996) and Bali (in December 2007). Don’t hold your breath for one to be held in Newark, New Jersey, or Fargo, North Dakota.

Good one !  Even better...."I might believe that humans cause global warming when the next UN Climate Change Conference is held via SKYPE." 

The meeting in Durban provided an opportunity for Progressives to make their latest argument that ordinary people should surrender their freedom and hand all money and power over to unelected, unaccountable “experts” like, well, the people at the conference. This is, of course, in order to “save the planet” from “climate change”. (The issue that had for years been called “global warming” was rebranded as “climate change” when the most recent decade’s worth of data proved uncooperative.)

I'm glad other people are starting to Beat The Dead Horse of "warming" vs. "change".  It's been so lonely here, fighting that linguistics battle all alone for so many years....

First, let’s get the known and knowable facts out of the way. Is the climate changing? Yes. One feature of the manifested universe is the impermanence of all things. The climate has changed over time and will continue to change. Is the change good or bad? Like all change, it is both good and bad.

But, overall, is it good or bad? We can’t say. We don’t even have a conceptual framework that would allow us to answer that question, or even to adequately describe how the climate is changing. “Climate” is an abstraction, and all abstractions are untrue (or at least incomplete).

Is human activity causing the climate to change? We don’t know, and there is no way, even in principle, that we can know. It is difficult enough to determine the “what” of climate change. To determine the “why”, we would need to do controlled experiments. And, for this, we would need another planet, identical in every way to our own earth, which we could use as a “control”.

But wait! Isn’t the science “settled”, thus making anyone who questions the climate change “consensus” an anti-intellectual Luddite? No. Nothing in science is ever settled.

This statement is pure, undiluted greatness:  Nothing in science is ever settled.  That's why it is called science and not theology.  "Settled Science" is a phrase created by someone's marketing department. 

“Science” consists of nothing but theories that have not yet been disproved by evidence, but which, in principle, could be so disproved. Even Einstein’s theory of relativity, which has been validated by thousands of experiments and measurements over almost a century, was recently called into question by experiments involving neutrinos that appeared to travel faster than light.

If something is “settled”, it is not science. It is religious dogma, and an assault upon freedom of thought and inquiry.

Yeah.  What he said.  And one of the signs of religious dogma is an effort to prevent people from looking into the origins and fundamental truth of the dogma.  Another is a casting out of heretics, say, shit-canning any editor willing to publish something skeptical of the dogma in a peer-reviewed journal.   Or being willing to accept his resignation when he is shown the tools of the Inquisition. 

But don’t the climate scientists’ computer models prove that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are causing climate change? No. First, no computer model can ever prove anything (see the definition of “science” given above). Second, we do not have the capability to model a system as complex as the earth.

The most any computer model can be is a useful tool. As it happens, all of the computer models that have been developed over the years by climate change proponents have already been invalidated by events that they did not accurately predict. For example, given the fast rising CO2 concentration in the earth’s atmosphere, global temperatures should have gone up much faster than they have over the past ten years. (And, it is not even clear that they have risen at all,)

But...but...but....THE EARTH IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE A FEVER !!!!

So, we don’t know what is really happening to the earth’s “climate”. Even if we did, we could not be sure why it was happening. And, we have no way of knowing whether the change was good or bad for mankind as a whole.

But what of the Progressives’ argument that, because the effects of climate change are potentially so disastrous, we should surrender our freedom and move to a centrally planned world economy managed by experts, “just in case”?

This is known in Voodo Circles as the "Precautionary Principle".  Just in case the planet really is warming, we should buy lots of carbon credits from Al Gore's companies, we should buy indulgences purchase the right to emit carbon through a cap and trade system, we should be required to purchase lots of machinery painted green, and insist that diesel tractors get 15 miles per gallon.  All of which would enrich the Warmists and their donors.  But still, we should be safe, right?  Just in case? 

Two points about this: first, it’s not going to happen. The Progressives will have to content themselves with extracting a few billion dollars per year from taxpayers to fund cushy “research” and “advocacy” jobs, and to hold climate change conferences like the one that just concluded in Durban. Second, the climate change advocates obviously don’t believe in climate change themselves.

My favorite proof is that the Warmists still drive cars, fly in planes, plug in computers, travel about from place to place, and use electricity.  This guy apparently has some other evidence:

You can’t necessarily tell what people are truly committed to from what they say. However, you can always tell what they are truly committed to by how they negotiate. If someone really wants to do something, they will react to a suggestion by engaging it. They will “work with” the suggestion, trying to see how it can help them do what they say they want to do. If someone says that they want to do something but they really have some other agenda, they will respond to a suggestion with an instant, “Yes, but…”

Like, when an employee asks to hop in his car and drive to another factory to pick up a wicket or a sprocket that he must have to prevent a shipment from being late.  I point out that he can rob a wicket or a sprocket from another unit.  Then he mentions some paperwork that need to go to the other factory.  I point out the scanner on my desk which is capable of sending the paperwork over.  Then he leaves in a huff and goes back to work.   
He just wanted to drive to the other factory.  Listen to the radio on the way.  Get out of the heat.  Flirt with the ladies at the other shop.  The wickets, sprockets, and paperwork were an excuse. 

The climate change crowd has been frantically “yes, butting” geoengineering, which involves using technology to control the climate directly. Their efforts in this regard would be hilarious if the stakes in terms of money and freedom were not so high.

It is obvious that even if “climate change” is happening, and even if it is a bad thing, it is not going to be reversed by reducing CO2 emissions. Despite decades of climate change conferences, protocols, and agreements, fossil fuel use has been rising rapidly as people all over the world have adopted free market economics as a way of escaping poverty. So, if anything at all is going to be done about climate change, it will have to be done by “geoengineering”.

Geoengineering is a far more logical response to “global warming” than are efforts to curb CO2 emissions. First of all, geoengineering does not require that our assumption that it is man-made CO2 emissions that are causing the problem be correct. It would work regardless of what was “really” causing global temperatures to rise. Second, there are geoengineering approaches that could cool the earth at a cost of a few billion dollars per year, rather than tens of trillions of dollars per year. And, third, geoengineering does not require that the people of the world surrender their personal and economic freedom.

You can hear them in the background now, can't you?  If we can change the earth's temperature at all, using nothing more than some water and a few miles of Wal-Mart water hose, how will we ever properly punish the capitalists?  How will we make money off non-warming scam?  And most important, how will we retain our incredibly annoying air of self-righteousness? 

Given that geoengineering has the potential to actually do something about the climate change “problem”, the reaction of the climate change crowd to it has been illuminating. They have gone all-out to stop geoengineering experiments from being conducted, and they are doing everything they can to prevent geoengineering from even being discussed.

You're damn right they're going to try to prevent it from being discussed.  Wouldn't you?  Especially if it meant no more trips to Copenhagen, Kyoto, Durban, Bali or even Newark, New Jersey?  They won't even have the money to go to the Motel 6 in Yazoo City.  Think of the downfall....

Climate change proponents recently mounted a desperate effort to stop an experiment in Britain designed to spray 40 gallons of pure water into the upper atmosphere (the so-called SPICE project). Thus far, they have managed to delay the test, and they are arguing that even if the experiment goes ahead, the results should not be made public.

We've been down this road before, with the "Hide the decline" emails from East Anglia U.  There are certain things that the peasants and serfs shouldn't be allowed to see.  Science gets rather unsettled afterwards. 

The Progressives are well aware that their opposition to geoengineering experiments exposes their entire game, which is all about money, power, and central-planning control of people’s lives, and has nothing to do with concern about the earth. Unfortunately (for them), they have no choice. Geoengineering solutions might actually work, but they do not require that Progressives be given taxpayer money to hold lavish conferences in lovely places like Durban, South Africa.

They really do fly to South Africa to discuss how to reduce carbon emissions.  I don't care who you are, you've gotta admit it.  That's funny. 

Gary Johnson is now seeking the Libertarian nomination for President of The United States !!!!

Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, has announced that he will seek the Libertarian Party's nomination for President of these United States !!

Heck yeah !!


The Republicrats only allowed Johnson to participate in only one or two of their debates this year, despite having polling numbers similar to establishment darling Jon Huntsman. 


Johnson is the only governor running who admits that he didn't create a single job as governor.  Why?  Because the government can't be a net-creator of jobs.  They don't produce things that people voluntarily purchase.  The government's funding is taken by force, from people who had rather use the money to create a job elsewhere. 


Lord have mercy, I'm pumped about this.  Gary Johnson gets it !!!


Here are Reason magazine's excerpts from Johnson's "coming out" speech:

"Libertarians talk about all the things they’re not going to do in office. I think my 750 vetoes as governor of New Mexico really gives me a unique voice as to all the things government should not do."

"As a libertarian president--as the candidate for the libertarian nomination--I’m going to talk ALL the time about balancing the federal budget. That means cutting 43% from the federal budget."

"Let’s enact the fair tax. When I talk about taxes, libertarians are anti-tax all the way across the board, and so am I. The fair tax is the best of the worst."

"Let’s reduce welfare. Let’s reduce warfare in this country. Let’s end corporate welfare now. Let’s have a constitutional affinity to gay rights, let’s have a constitutional affinity to gun rights, let's have constitutional affinity to property rights, let's have constitutional affinity to womens rights."

"We need a strong U.S. dollar, not a weak U.S. dollar. We need to end the war on tens of millions of American who happen to use drugs. As president of the united states I would end the war on marijuana. I would remove marijuana from schedule I. As president of the United States, I would pardon nonviolent drug offenders."

"We can secure the border without building a fence. What a waste of money. Let’s make it as easy as possible to come into this country and get a work visa--not a green card or citizenship--I just bang my head when I hear candidates complain about border violence without saying what the root is, which is the prohibition of drugs."

"I’m doing this today because I think this is an agenda that resonates with most Americans, and it's not being represented by either political party. I want to thank all of you for being here. You have no idea how much it means for me to have you here in support of this."

[On health care] "The solution to all our problems is free market approaches. In a free market system for health care, it would be competititve. I would have pay-as-you-go in a very competitive market. Health care in this country is about as removed from a free market system as you possibly could be, and we can thank both political parties for that."

[On Afghanistan] "I would withdraw from Afghanistan immediately. I initially thought it was warranted. After six months, I thought we had whiped out al Qaeda. That was 10 years ago."

"Meth and crack are the two biggest examples of prohibition drugs. Without prohibition, we wouldn't have meth and crack. Cheaper highs. It's cheap and easier to make, so consequences fall disparately on the poor."

"The only drug I'm advocating legalizing is marijuana." [On other drugs, decriminalization.]

I've been drifting away from church lately.  I'm now repenting of that decision.  I'm going to get Born Again so I can vote for Gary Johnson twice. 

People who didn't get what they wanted for Christmas

To see the complete list, go here.

I see dead people. But not many from marijuana use.

I found this link on Samizdata. 

In the year 2010 in the U.K., there were 81,400 tobacco-related deaths and 8,644 alcohol-related deaths. 

Take out the big two (that have been subsidized by the U.S. government), and you're left with these, the drugs that are produced or distributed by the Mexican Drug Lords:

The numbers drop even further if you eliminate Poly-Drug deaths, (snorting coke while drinking Jim Beam, mixing any two in an unwise combination, etc.)  Call it 900 people. 

Here's a handy chart:

Please go here and read the whole thing, and to gather zingers like this one: 

According to the ONS data, in 2010 there were more helium deaths than cannabis, ecstasy, mephedrone and GHB related deaths combined. Helium is an inert gas which kills when people use helium to deprive themselves of oxygen. The recent explosion in helium deaths from under two per year until 2008 to 32 last year appears to be due to it’s recent promotion as a form of suicide.

In the meantime, here's how many Mexicans (most of them innocent civilians) have been slaughtered in the four years since Mexican President Felipe Calderon decided to participate in the War On Drugs four years ago:

34,612

Here's how many Mexicans died in the Drug War in 2010, the year in which 900 died from drug abuse in the U.K.:

15,273

When we decided to end prohibition of alcohol, the violence on the U.S./Canadian border ended. Alcholism didn't increase.  Corruption decreased. 
Yeah, people still died from alcohol abuse, just like they were already dying from alcohol abuse.
We could do the same thing tomorrow, and save thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
We could reduce the pain and suffering of cancer patients. 
But thanks to the Narc lobby, the prison lobby, and yes, the alcohol lobby, we won't do it. 

   
Mr. Obama, please end your dirty little war. 

The pic of the float from El Salvador's Anti Obama Drug War protest came from here. 
The conclusions about the massive waste of resources in the UK Drug War are terrifying, and the UK Drug War ain't nothing like our Drug War in the U.S. 

Words to live by

The Whited Mama sent me these in an email this weekend.  Most of them relate to the difficulty of holding unpopular opinions. 

This last one wasn't in the email, but was on a little pedestal frame that she put on my dresser when I was a kid. 

I do love my Amam.  (Amam = "Mama" backwards.  Long, convoluted Patterson story.) 

The Libertarian Night Before Christmas

I found this on Libertarian Reddit.  (I'm finding LOTS of stuff this morning, waiting on the family to wake up!)
Ten years ago, I wouldn't have understood half of it.  It's funny what blind panic and fear for your country will make you learn ! 
Once again, Merry Christmas !!!

Twas the night before Christmas, and all over the net

Libertarian infighting, as good as it gets.

The young cats and rookies, the intellectual debtors

watch left and right scrum over racist news letters.


Should anarchists vote? Or is it a crock?

'Wendy's a statist!' Exclaimed Walter Block.

Anarchists, minarchists, a matter of degrees?

You min-mins are fascists! Awaiting kings decrees!


Atheist, Christian, Muslim or Jew

We don't fight over faith, like statists do.

We prefer to fight over who should be ruling.

And private vs public vs un-or-homeschooling.


Taxation is theft, and all war is murder.

Further consensus? Good luck, cat herder.

Even semantics are points for a schism,

Call it free-markets, or capitalism?


Austria or Chicago? Friedman or Mises?

Is Peikoff the pope, if Ayn Rand is Jesus?

Konkin or Rothbard? What's on your shelves?

Ah hell, what's the difference, Ron Paul twenty-twelve!


So on Hayek and Murray, on Ron and on Ayn.

On Ludwig and Milton! on Bastiat and Heinlein.

Let's call a truce, friends, for just this one night.

Then on the 26th... libertarians.... FIGHT!

The Rand Album Cover came from here. 

Jesus born in a manger? Why didn't they get Caesar involved?

This bit o' greatness came from these guys, who I suspected I'll be ripping off until they die. 

Now THAT is a Flash Mob !!!

Merry Christmas !!!  Enjoy !!!