Ok, let's sell the Egyptian military dictators some more jets and tanks

From the New York Holy Times.  I've inserted ONE paragraph into this ridiculous story that is not authentic.  Most of this story is genuine State Department / Military Industrial Complex bullshit excuses for making money at the world's expense.  

Only one paragraph was inserted to ridicule these war profiteers.  Can you find it? 

U.S. Restores Aid to Egypt in Move Favoring American Industry


By STEVEN LEE MYERS

Published: March 24, 2012

WASHINGTON - An intense debate within the Obama administration over resuming military assistance to Egypt, which in the end was approved Friday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, turned in part on a question that had nothing to do with democratic progress in Egypt but rather with American jobs at home.

A delay or a cut in $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt risked breaking existing contracts with American arms manufacturers that could have shut down production lines in the middle of President Obama's re-election campaign and involved significant financial penalties, according to officials involved in the debate.

Since the Pentagon buys weapons for foreign armed forces like Egypt's, the cost of those penalties - which one senior official said could have reached $2 billion if all sales had been halted - would have been borne by the American taxpayer, not Egypt's ruling generals.

The companies involved include Lockheed Martin, which is scheduled to ship the first of a batch of 20 new F-16 fighter jets next month, and General Dynamics, which last year signed a $395 million contract to deliver component parts for 125 Abrams M1A1 tanks that are being assembled at a plant in Egypt.

"In large part, there are U.S. jobs that are reliant on the U.S.-Egypt strong military-to-military relationship," a senior State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under rules set by the department. In deciding how to proceed, the official said, Mrs. Clinton and her colleagues "were looking at our overall national security goals, as well as any domestic issues."

Mrs. Clinton's decision to resume military assistance, which has been a foundation of United States-Egyptian relations for over three decades, sidestepped a new Congressional requirement that for the first time directly links arms sales to Egypt's protection of basic freedoms. No new military aid had been delivered since the fiscal year began last October, and Egypt's military has all but exhausted funds approved in previous years.

Mrs. Clinton's decision provoked sharp criticism from lawmakers across the political spectrum, as well as human rights organizations. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, criticized it as "beyond the pale."

Referring to Egypt's recent decision to prosecute four American-financed international advocacy organizations, Mr. Paul added, "It sets a precedent that America will not punish its aggressors but instead give them billions of our taxpayers' dollars."

Mrs. Clinton used her authority under the new law to waive a requirement that she certify Egypt's protection of human rights. That she would not certify that the military had complied was in itself a rebuke to Egypt's transitional military leaders, who have moved slowly to yield power and to lift a decades-old state of emergency, but it nonetheless allows the Egyptian military to continue to arm and equip its forces.

"The secretary's decision to waive is also designed to demonstrate our strong support for Egypt's enduring role as a security partner and leader in promoting regional stability and peace," the State Department's spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said in a statement. Both the military assistance and an additional $250 million in economic and political assistance also required Mrs. Clinton to certify that Egypt was upholding the Camp David peace accords with Israel, which she did on Friday.

The statement and continuing military and other assistance to Egypt, senior administration officials said, rewarded the extraordinary progress the country has made since the overthrow last year of its autocratic president, Hosni Mubarak. Egypt has elected a new Parliament in a vote widely seen as free and fair, and it has scheduled a presidential election in May, with a runoff to follow in June.

"We've seen more progress in 16 months than we've seen in 60 years," the senior State Department official said.

Even so, the debate within the administration was unusually fraught, officials said, especially after Egypt had imposed a travel ban on seven Americans who were charged as part of the case against the American organizations.

Some in the State Department, echoing the concerns from Capitol Hill and human rights advocates, argued that the administration should have withheld new military aid until the case was fully resolved and the presidential election held.

Mrs. Clinton, officials said, favored a partial waiver, allowing some, but not all, of the assistance to begin. That would maintain leverage over Egypt's generals to transfer political power to a newly elected government without jeopardizing existing military contracts.

A looming deadline for payments, however, forced the issue before then, and the White House and Pentagon pressed for a waiver, officials said. A White House spokesman referred questions to the State Department, and the Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment.

The military assistance to Egypt underscores a point Mrs. Clinton and other officials have made when it comes to foreign aid in general: much of it comes back to American corporations and organizations for equipment or services.

"Lockheed Martin values the relationship established between our company and the Egyptian customer since the first F-16s were delivered in the early 1980s," said Laura F. Siebert, a spokeswoman for the company, which is based in Fort Worth.

The M1A1 components are built in factories in Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, several of them battleground states in an election that has largely focused on jobs. Because the United States Army plans to stop buying new tanks by 2014, continued production relies on foreign contracts, often paid for by American taxpayers as military assistance.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who added the certification requirements to legislation authorizing military aid to Egypt, called the decision to waive them regrettable, and the resumption of aid "business as usual."

Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.

Here's Eddie Vedder and PearlJam doing Bob Dylan's "Masters Of War". 

Why Markets Are Miraculous

I'm browsing through a new hardback called "Why Good People Are Divided By Politics And Religion", by Jonathan Haidt.  Haidt is a psychology professor at the University of Virginia.  He also teaches Business Ethics at New York University. 

This is good stuff.  Here's a snippet called "Markets Are Miraculous", where he looks at the Libertarian mindset on a few issues:

"In 2007, David Goldhill's father was killed by an infection he caught while in the hospital.  In trying to make sense of this unnecessary death, Goldhill began to read about the American health care system, which kills about 100,000 people annually buy such accidental infections.  He learned that the death rate can be cut by two-thirds when hospitals follow a simple checklist of sanitary procedures, but most hospitals don't adopt the checklist. 

Goldhill, a businessman (and Democrat), wondered how it was possible for any organization to pass up a simple measure that yielded such massive payoffs.  In the business world, such inefficiency would soon lead to bankruptcy.  As he learned more and more about the healthcare system, he discovered just how bad things get when goods and services are provided without a properly functioning market. 

In 2009, Goldhill published a provocative essay in The Atlantic Monthly titled "How American Health Care Killed My Father".  One of his main points was the absurdity of using insurance to pay for routine purchases.  Normally we buy insurance to cover the risk of a catastrophic loss.  We enter an insurance pool with other people to spread the risk around, and we hope never to collect a penny.  We handle routine expenses ourselves, seeking out the highest quality for the lowest price.  We would never file a claim on our car insurance to pay for an oil change. 

The next time you go to the supermarket, look closely at a can of peas.  Think about all the work that went into it - the farmers, truckers, and supermarket employees, the miners and metalworkers who made the can - and think how miraculous it is that you can buy this can for under a dollar.  At every step of the way, competition among suppliers rewarded those whose innovations shaved a penny off the cost of getting that can to you.  If God is commonly thought to have created the world and then arranged it for our benefit, then the free market (and its invisible hand) is a pretty good candidate for being a god.  You can begin to understand why libertarians sometimes have a quasi-religious faith in free markets. 

Now let's do the devil's work and spread chaos throughout the marketplace.  Suppose that one day all prices are removed from all products in the supermarket.  All labels too, beyond a simple description of the contents, so you can't compare products from different companies.  You just take whatever you want, as much as you want, and you bring it up to the register.  The checkout clerk scans in your food insurance card and helps you fill out your itemized claim.  You pay a flat fee of $10.00 and go home with your groceries.  A month later you get a bill informing you that your food insurance company will pay the supermarket for most of the remaining cost, but you'll have to send in a check for an additional $15.00.  It might sound like a bargain to get a cartload of food for $25.00, but you're really paying your grocery bill every month when you fork over $2,000.00 for your food insurance premium. 

Under such a system, there is little incentive for anyone to find innovative ways to reduce the cost of food or increase its quality.  The supermarkets get paid by the insurers, and the insurers get their premiums from you.  The cost of food insurance begins to rise as supermarkets stock only the foods that net them the highest insurance payments, not the foods that deliver value to you. 

As the cost of food insurance rises, many people can no longer afford it.  Liberals (motivated by Care - you'll have to read the entire book to get that part - TWS) push for a new government program to buy food insurance for the poor and the elderly.  But once the government becomes the major purchaser of food, then success in the supermarket and food insurance industries depends primarily on maximizing yield from government payouts.  Before you know it, that can of peas costs the government $30.00, and all of us are paying 25 percent of our paychecks in taxes just to cover the cost of buying groceries for each other at hugely inflated costs. 

That, says Goldhill, is what we've done to ourselves.  as long as consumers are spared from taking price into account - that is, as long as someone else is always paying for your choices - things will get worse. 

In the U.S., 84% of our healthcare checks are written by someone else - Uncle Sam or an insurance company - TWS

We can't fix the problem by convening panels of experts to set the maximum allowable price for a can of peas.  Only a working market can bring supply, demand, and ingenuity together to provide health care at the lowest possible price.  For example, there is an open market for LASIK surgery (a kind of laser eye surgery that removes the need to wear contact lenses).  Doctors compete with one another to attract customers, and because the procedure is rarely covered by insurance, patients take price into account. 

Have you ever heard a radio ad about a doctor who will fix a broken arm better and cheaper than anyone else?  I haven't.  How about LASIK surgeons?  They advertise as much as McDonald's.  - TWS. 

Competition and innovation have driven down the price of the surgery by nearly 80 percent since it was first introduced.  (Other developed nations have had more success controlling costs, but they too face rapidly rising costs that may become fiscally ruinous.  Like America, they often lack the political will to raise taxes or cut services.) 

When libertarians talk about the miracle of "spontaneous order" that emerges when people are allowed to make their own choices (and take on the costs and benefits of those choices), the rest of us should listen.  Care and compassion sometimes motivate liberals to interfere in the working of markets, but the results can be extraordinary harm on a vast scale.  (Of course, as I said above, governments often need to intervene to correct market distortions, thereby making markets work properly. - I believe he's talking about externalities, etc. - TWS)    Liberals want to use government for so many purposes, but health care expenses are crowding out all other possibilities.  If you think your local, state, and federal governments are broke now, just wait until the baby boom generation is fully retired. 

I find it ironic that liberals generally embrace Darwin and reject "intelligent design" as the explanation for design and adaptation  in the natural world, but they don't embrace Adam Smith as the explanation for design and adaptation in the economic world.  They sometimes prefer the "intelligent design" of socialist economics, which often ends in a disaster from a utilitarian point of view. 

I can't wait to read the rest of this book. Greatness. 

World's Easiest Economics Quiz

Shirley Rubaloff - R.I.P.

Shirley Rubaloff, a co-worker of mine and one of our long-time purchasing agents, passed away a few weeks ago.  Our company owner asked us to write down our memories of Shirley and any funny stories we had so that he could give them to Shirley's family. 

Here's mine. 

When I first met Shirley Rubaloff, Brent Shaver and I were running the Jukt Micronics metal shop. Shirley was the dispatcher for Jukt’s single box truck driver. Since all of the Jukt shops were within a few blocks of each other, that one driver and a flatbed trailer towed by a pickup were usually enough to get any job done.

Sometime during one of our first major Wal-Mart rollouts, the metal shop ran low on some casters. I called Shirley in a panic, begging her to get more casters to us before we ran out.  Otherwise, the world would end. She said she’d try. Thirty minutes later, she called and said that Casters Of Fort Worth didn’t have any, their competitors didn’t have any, and that we had drained the supply in all of the west coast warehouses. She said she was working on getting a shipment to the metal shop in THREE WEEKS.

It took three Serbian welders to scrape me off the ceiling. THREE WEEKS? SHIRLEY, I’LL BE DEAD IN THREE WEEKS !!!! WHAT CAN WE DO? CAN WE GET SOME ONTO A PLANE IN CHINA ??? THREE WEEKS???

Shirley started laughing. “I’m just messing with you, Allen,” she said. “Jimmy is already on the way to your shop with them. “

When my heart rate returned to normal, I told her that I was going to get her back. I would have my revenge. Shirley was laughing like I’d never heard her laugh. I said “Shirley Rubaloff, I WILL get even with you.” She hung up the phone, still laughing.

And just like Shirley promised, Jimmy The Driver (I forget his real name) arrived at the metal shop with my casters in 30 minutes.

Jimmy was a good guy, but unfortunately for him, he worked for Shirley The Enemy. Therefore he was fair game. Jimmy made the mistake of asking me if I needed anything from Home Depot. “Yeah,” I said. “Get me 12 cans of Dehydrated Water.” Jimmy pulled his notepad out of his pocket and wrote down “12 cans of Dehydrated Water”.

Jeff Gearhardt walked by the office. I said “Hey, I’m sending Jimmy to Home Depot for some cans of Dehydrated Water. Do you need anything?”

“Yeah,” Jeff said, not missing a lick. “I need a can of grinder sparks.” (Blacksmiths and metalworkers have been sending rookies, journeymen and apprentices after containers of sparks since the Middle Ages. And we still think it’s funny.)

Jimmy dutifully wrote down “One can of grinder sparks.” Jimmy was a great driver, but he wasn’t the brightest light in the Jukt Bakery Case.

Then Fane came along. Fane is a veteran of 40 years of trucking, shipping and cussing. I asked Fane if she needed anything from Home Depot besides grinder sparks and dehydrated water- Wink-Wink, Nudge-Nudge.

Fane decided that she needed things like Rainbow Paint, Rubber Nails, a Skyhook, a glass hammer, and a metric crescent wrench. Jimmy wrote down all of it, the entire catalog of non-existent manufacturing products, and went to Home Depot. This was going to be one of the greatest Snipe Hunts of all time.

Two hours later, yes, two hours later, I got a call from Shirley. “Allen, what in the world have you done to my driver? He’s wandering around Home Depot looking for Dehydrated Water and Grinder Sparks.” We both laughed until we cried.

Shirley vowed to get back at me. Occasionally I would tease her about it, and she always promised she would get even.

A few years passed. I forgot about Shirley’s vow of revenge. Then the purchasing department got extremely busy. Shirley didn’t have time to dispatch drivers any more. She met with the owners about who should take her place supervising the drivers, taking care of maintenance and keeping up with all of their stops. The owners met with me afterwards and told me that the drivers were now mine.

I left that meeting to go work out some details with Shirley. When I went into her office, and I’ll never, ever, ever forget this, Shirley smiled at me and said “Allen, I told you I’d get even.”

Yeah. She won.

Shirley, we miss you very, very much.

On gasoline speculators driving up prices

This is BRILLIANT.  Don Boudreaux at his best:

Here’s a letter to the Programming Director at Washington, DC’s, WTOP Radio:

During this morning’s 8 o’clock hour I heard one of the most ironic lines that I’ve heard in some time. That this irony was unintentional makes it all the more telling.

Asked by your “pump patrol” reporter about rising gasoline prices, a motorist at a gasoline station noted that “My tank is actually way more than half full now. I’m topping it off because I’m sure the price will be even higher this weekend.” When your reporter then asked her “What do you think explains these rising prices?” she replied “Speculators.” Your reporter followed up with “Do you think they should be stopped?” The motorist responded immediately: “Of course! They’re criminal.”

Speculating that the price of gasoline will rise, this motorist took action today – buying gasoline that she otherwise wouldn’t have bought today – that puts upward pressure on the price of gasoline today.

Had your reporter pointed out that this motorist herself is speculating in gasoline, I wonder if this motorist would have persisted in regarding speculation as being criminal. I wonder, too, how she would react if government – heeding her advice to stop speculation – were to forcibly prevent motorists from topping off their tanks.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

And that is why I want to somehow make a lot of money and retire and go study economics at George Mason University with Don Boudreaux, Russ Roberts, Tyler Cowen and Walter Williams while they all still live and breathe and walk among us. 

The "Make The Speculators Pay" logo came from this unrelated article about the European Union trying to blame their troubles on people other than themselves.

The Democrat Party's War On Women !!!

The Democrats are promoting a Republican War On Women meme, when they should be pumping out a Republican War On Freedom, Fiscal Sanity, and Stability meme.   
From Rand Simberg:

It should be shocking, by the conventional narrative, that the White House of a “liberal” president would be a hostile work environment for women, but it is not at all a surprise to anyone familiar with the history of the Democrats and the Left, going back at least to the 1960s, when a prominent Democrat politician got a pass from the media for abandoning a young woman (possibly pregnant by him) to drown in his car. The same man went on to later fame as the top slice of bread in a “waitress sandwich,” and yet was so lionized by the Left that not that long ago, at the time of his death, a woman(!) wrote that Mary Jo Kopechne might have been happy to undergo the terror as her lungs filled with the brackish water of Martha’s Vineyard had she only known what a great legislator he would turn out to be.

To see similar hypocritical Leftist misogyny, we need only go back to the last time a Democrat was in the White House. Whenever a woman came forward with allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct by Bill Clinton, the response of the Clinton defenders, both in and out of the media, was to attack her credibility, character, and virtue. Advisor James Carville famously said of Paula Jones (the young Arkansas state employee whom Clinton as governor had his state police guard procure to his hotel room for the purpose of orally pleasuring him), “Drag $100 bills through trailer parks, there’s no telling what you’ll find.”

Evan Thomas of Newsweek dutifully complemented the slander by declaring her on national television “just some sleazy woman with big hair coming out of the trailer parks,” though he later was compelled to apologize in print. (One wonders how residents of trailer parks felt about that, but I guess empathy for them is for the little people.) When Kathleen Willey accused the president of groping her in the White House, and was physically threatened for her trouble, feminist icon and (former) scourge of sexual harassers Gloria Steinem said that it was no problem — he was entitled to a freebie, after which Cathy Young of Reason magazine reported on “the death of sexual harassment.”

Remember the outrage from NOW in response to all of this?  That's funny.  I don't either. 

It got worse. As the Paula Jones lawsuit progressed, and the president committed acts of obstruction of justice (federal felonies) by perjury and subornation of perjury through threats and bribes, the White House was prepared to go after Monica Lewinsky, the woman about whom he engaged in such obstruction. She was bribed with jobs, and urged to in turn suborn perjury from her confidante Linda Tripp, by implying threats against her family. If the incriminating blue dress hadn’t turned up, their plan was to continue to cover up and lie, and accuse Lewinsky of being a crazy stalker. The White House orchestrated the leak of the personnel files of Pentagon employee Linda Tripp, the only person in the entire fiasco who told the truth, in an attempt (sadly quite successful) to discredit her. This included a mistaken felony arrest record that had been sealed since she was a teenager. She was vilified and maligned in the media, with late-night comedians mocking her physical appearance. It’s unlikely that many of these people were either conservatives or Republicans.

Or Libertarians. 
I don't think that Lee Wrights or Gary Johnson will kill any women if elected. 

War Is A Racket, by General Smedley Butler

People have sent me snippets from Smedley Butler for years, but I've never gotten around to posting it or linking to anything he said or wrote. 

I can remember seeing a few old Baptist hymnals from the 1920's and 1930's that included responsive readings under the following header:  "Against War As An Instrument Of Foreign Policy".  At the time I read those things, it seemed strange.  The Viet Nam war was going on, and most god-fearing Baptists supported JFK, LBJ, RMN, or whoever was in charge at the time.  Almost all of the anti-war people were filthy hippies. 

There really was a fierce anti-war movement in the U.S. in the 20's and 30's, mostly as a response to the senseless slaughter of World War One.  One of the participants in that idiotic slaughter was U.S. General Smedley Butler.  Here's his Wikipedia intro:

Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps, an outspoken critic of U.S. military adventurism, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.


During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. By the end of his career, he had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to twice receive the Medal of Honor, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only man to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.

In his 1935 book War is a Racket, he described the workings of the military-industrial complex and, after retiring from service, became a popular speaker at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists and church groups in the 1930s.

In 1934, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt. The purported plot would have had Butler leading a mass of armed veterans in a march on Washington. The individuals identified denied the existence of a plot, and the media ridiculed the allegations. The final report of the committee stated that there was evidence that such a plot existed, but no charges were ever filed. The opinion of most historians is that while planning for a coup was not very advanced, wild schemes were discussed.

Butler continued his speaking engagements in an extended tour, but in June 1940 checked himself into a naval hospital, dying a few weeks later from what was believed to be cancer. He was buried at Oaklands Cemetery in West Chester, Pennsylvania; his home has been maintained as a memorial and contains memorabilia collected during his various careers.

Here's General Butler's famous speech, the one that seems to have made his speaking career.  All I can say is....Wow.  Do things ever change? 

************

CHAPTER ONE WAR IS A RACKET

WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.

The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.

There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.

Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?

Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:

"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."

Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war – anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.

Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.

Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.

Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war – a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.

Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.

But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?

What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?

Yes, and what does it profit the nation?

Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.

It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not profit.

CHAPTER TWO WHO MAKES THE PROFITS?

The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some $52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every American man, woman, and child. And we haven't paid the debt yet. We are paying it, our children will pay it, and our children's children probably still will be paying the cost of that war.

The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits – ah! that is another matter – twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent – the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it.

Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket – and are safely pocketed. Let's just take a few examples:

Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people – didn't one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.

Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump – or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!

Or, let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad. Then along came the war and up went the profits. The average yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not bad.

There you have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let's look at something else. A little copper, perhaps. That always does well in war times.

Anaconda, for instance. Average yearly earnings during the pre-war years 1910-1914 of $10,000,000. During the war years 1914-1918 profits leaped to $34,000,000 per year.

Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the 1910-1914 period. Jumped to an average of $21,000,000 yearly profits for the war period.

Let's group these five, with three smaller companies. The total yearly average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000. Then along came the war. The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed to $408,300,000.

A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent.

Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren't the only ones. There are still others. Let's take leather.

For the three-year period before the war the total profits of Central Leather Company were $3,500,000. That was approximately $1,167,000 a year. Well, in 1916 Central Leather returned a profit of $15,000,000, a small increase of 1,100 per cent. That's all. The General Chemical Company averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a little over $800,000 a year. Came the war, and the profits jumped to $12,000,000. a leap of 1,400 per cent.

International Nickel Company – and you can't have a war without nickel – showed an increase in profits from a mere average of $4,000,000 a year to $73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than 1,700 per cent.

American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the three years before the war. In 1916 a profit of $6,000,000 was recorded.

Listen to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues. Considering the profits of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25 per cent were exceptional. For instance the coal companies made between 100 per cent and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during the war. The Chicago packers doubled and tripled their earnings.

And let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone had the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to stockholders. And their profits were as secret as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know, because those little secrets never become public – even before a Senate investigatory body.

But here's how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their way into war profits.

Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride in automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback. One has probably seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buckboard. Well, some 6,000 buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels! Not one of them was used. But the buckboard manufacturer got his war profit.

The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They built a lot of ships that made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships were all right. But $635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldn't float! The seams opened up – and they sank. We paid for them, though. And somebody pocketed the profits.

It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.

The Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the surface.

Even so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been studying "for some time" methods of keeping out of war. The War Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The Administration names a committee – with the War and Navy Departments ably represented under the chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator – to limit profits in war time. To what extent isn't suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600 per cent of those who turned blood into gold in the World War would be limited to some smaller figure.

Apparently, however, the plan does not call for any limitation of losses – that is, the losses of those who fight the war. As far as I have been able to ascertain there is nothing in the scheme to limit a soldier to the loss of but one eye, or one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or two or three. Or to limit the loss of life.

There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more than 12 per cent of a regiment shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than 7 per cent in a division shall be killed.

Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.

You can go here to read the rest.  If this piece didn't remind you of at least a dozen parallel instances in the last twenty years, perhaps you should read more.  Sheesh. 
I wish I could've met this guy. 

Barack Obama - Most Effective President Ever !!!

The man says he wants to make something happen, and by golly, it happens. 
Here's The Teleprompter Jesus, in the flesh, talking about how he's going to make you pay more at the pump so you'll stop buying SUV's and become more fuel-efficient. 




Go here to read a summary of the mindset.  Back in the day, someone would come out with a new product, and if it was any good it would catch on, and the old way would slowly die. 

Contrast that approach with the one used in the Year Of Our Lord 2012, where new product-makers lobby Washington for subsidies, Washington mandates their use, Washington punishes their competitors (see LightSquared), and Obama then forces you to use the new product made by people who owe their very existence to Obama.  

It's like watching that wasp on Animal planet, the one that stings and paralyzes a caterpillar and drags it into its nest so the baby wasps can feast until they're grown.  In a way, it's beautiful. 

Operation Fast And Furious

I can't believe I haven't written anything on "Operation Fast And Furious" yet. 
There's been too much insane competition for subject matter.  That's my only excuse. 

Here's the story as I understand it.....

The Obama administration wanted to prove that American guns were going across our border with Mexico.  They wanted to show that it was guns, rather than our insane Prohibition laws, that were causing the violence along the border. 

As usual, the crowdsourced explanation from Wikipedia is the best one:

The ATF gunwalking scandal came to national attention in the United States in 2011 after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ran a series of “gunwalking” sting operations between 2006 and 2011.  This was done under the umbrella of Project Gunrunner, a project intended to stem the flow of firearms into Mexico by interdicting straw purchasers and gun traffickers within the U.S. “Gunwalking” or “letting guns walk” was a tactic whereby the ATF knowingly allowed thousands of guns to be bought by suspected arms traffickers ("gunrunners") working through straw purchasers on behalf of Mexican drug cartels.

The stated goal of allowing these purchases was to continue to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher−level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels, in theory leading to their arrests and the dismantling of the cartels.  The tactic was questioned during the operations by a number of people, including ATF field agents and cooperating licensed gun dealers.  Operation Fast and Furious, by far the largest "gunwalking" probe, led to the sale of over 2,000 firearms, of which fewer than 700 were recovered as of October 20, 2011 (2011 -10-20).  A number of straw purchasers have been arrested and indicted; however, as of October 2011, none of the targeted high−level cartel figures have been arrested. 

Firearms "walked" by the ATF have been found at violent crime scenes on both sides of the US−Mexico border, and have been found at the crime scenes involving deaths of many Mexicans and at least one US federal agent, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The “gunwalking” operations became public in the aftermath of Agent Terry's murder.  As a result, dissident ATF agents came forward to Congress.  As investigations have continued, the operations have become increasingly controversial in both countries, and diplomatic relations have been damaged as a result.

These weapons have been found at more than 170 crime scenes in Mexico.  Another of our Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Jaime Zapata was murdered with one of the guns.  Eric Holder has been trotted in front of Congress to lie about what emails he did and didn't receive about the operation. 
Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, is in a little trouble because of this mess, but not at the level you would expect.  The White House is circling the wagons, and is putting on the Full-Nixon. 

Let me repeat what happened here....

There are two explanations for the violence in Mexico - 1) American Prohibition Laws, or 2) American Guns Crossing The Border. 

In an effort to sway public opinion, the ATF purchased a bunch of guns and knowingly sold them to the reps of Mexican Drug Lords. 

In an effort to sway public opinion, the ATF purchased a bunch of guns and knowingly sold them to the reps of Mexican Drug Lords.


In an effort to sway public opinion, the ATF purchased a bunch of guns and knowingly sold them to the reps of Mexican Drug Lords.


I know that a lot of people love Barack Obama, and he's thrown a lot of taxpayer money to his supporters (more than any other president) and he makes good speeches that make Statists nod along with a warm damp glow of contentment.  There's a competing school of thought that claims he's the dumbest human to ever step foot in the Oval Office, much less work there. 

Here's CNN's Anderson Cooper on the anguish of the Zapata family. They're not letting Holder or Obama off the hook, no matter who was programming The Teleprompter during the operation:



The solution to this mess? Stop voting for Fascists.
I don't speak for every Libertarian running for office in 2012, but I don't think we'll ever, ever, ever purchase guns, sell them to the reps of Mexican Drug Lords, WATCH as they cross the border, and then lose track of them.
We will never, ever do that.
Hell, the slowest students in a Special Ed class would never, ever do that. 

Pics came from here and here. 

Stop Adjusting For Inflation

Statists and their apologists often claim that government spending isn't out of control if you adjust for inflation. 

Bullshit. 

Inflation is nothing more than government spending without legislation. 

Every penny lost from these 1947 dollars was lost because of government-sponsored inflation.  They printed more and more money.  Flood the market with dollars, and dollars will purchase less and less. 
In an honest accounting system, any record of government spending would include the amount stolen from these dollars. 

Go here to see the source for the chart.  Interesting post. 

The linking genius of Matt Drudge

The genius of Matt Drudge....the man knows how to put together an appropriate collection of links. 

A fresh coat of Whitening goes to Instapundit for the link.
Let's bring everybody back home, ok?  All the soldiers, sailors, pilots, marines.  And Hillary. 

On Judge Roy Moore's statue of The Ten Commandments

We need to talk theology for a few minutes. 

Judge Roy Moore, an Alabama Republican, is back in the news.  Here's the Montgomery Advertiser:

Roy Moore said about 2 a.m. Wednesday that even though he had not been declared the winner of the Republican primary for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court that he expected to win without a runoff.

“Statistically, there is just no way we’re going to have a runoff in this race,” the former chief justice said to reporters just before leaving his election night headquarters.

Moore, the former chief justice who was removed from office refusing a federal judge’s order, said about two hours earlier that, with him well ahead of his two competitors in the Republican primary, “the people have spoken.”

Moore was eventually removed from office during his previous judgeship because he wouldn't remove his Ten Commandments statue from his courtroom.  Later on he built this large statue of the Ten Commandments and had it placed in the courthouse yard. 

The man does love his statues. You could safely call him the Raymond Nasher of Montgomery, if not all of Etowah County. 

Moore is well known for two legal fights over the 10 Commandments.

As a judge in Etowah County, he placed a small plaque with the commandments in his courtroom. The American Civil Liberties Union sued unsuccessfully to try to have the plaque removed.

As chief justice, Moore had a more than two-ton granite monument that included the 10 Commandments placed in the rotunda of the state’s judicial building. Several organizations including the ACLU sued over the monument and a federal judge ordered Moore to remove it. Believing the order was illegal, Moore refused and was removed from office.

As a devout, foot-washing, snake-handling Libertarian, I should be objecting to Moore's statue of the Ten Commandments because of separation of church and state.  Yeah, I shouldn't support my courthouses being decorated with statues of The Big Ten, scrolls from the Torah, plaques from the Kabbalah, needlepoint samplers from the Koran, or paint-by-numbers quotes from the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Bless His Noodly Appendage).

But I have to object to Moore's statue on theological grounds.

Here's why.  Here's Commandment number three in its entirety:

Exodus 20:4....Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Moore's statue doesn't feature the entire verse.  (It's kind of wordy, and would take too long to chisel.) 

With his 10 Commandments statue, Judge Roy Moore has created a graven image of a law that outlaws all graven images.  We aren't supposed to create any likenesses of any thing on heaven, earth, or in the water. 

Read it again, folks. 

Exodus 20:4....Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Commandment #3, which Moses supposedly brought down from the mountain, outlaws statues, paintings, pencil sketches, needlepoint samplers, that old photo of your grandparents, carvings of Christ on the cross, Michelangelo's Pieta, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, your senior portrait, your baby pictures, half of the internet, most stained glass windows, all art that isn't totally abstract, and the cover of Roy Moore's book. 

I repeat:  This crazed Alabama Republican has made a statue of a set of laws that outlaw statues. 

I don't care who you are, that's funny. 

Ordinarily I would link to the sources for all of these pictures graven images, but I don't want to spread sin. 

Corrupt Insurance Company DOUBLES Bills After Signing Up Customers !!!

From The Washington Examiner comes an expose of unscrupulous healthcare providers quoting a low price for medical treatment and then DOUBLING the amount charged to the customer. 
I look forward to breathless editorials from the New York Times, the Washington Post and 60 Minutes condemning this practice and those who oversee it. 

President Obama's national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.

Raise your hand if you are shocked.  Anyone?  Anybody?  I didn't think so. 

Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation, the most egregious of which was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014, so it would appear cheaper under the CBO's standard ten-year budget window and, at least on paper, meet Obama's pledge that the legislation would cost "around $900 billion over 10 years." When the final CBO score came out before passage, critics noted that the true 10 year cost would be far higher than advertised once projections accounted for full implementation.

The 2014 date also got Obama past the 2012 elections and also gets some distance between the 2008 Congress and the inevitable consequences of this mess. 
This graph is old and out of date, but it's the most recent one I could find.  Like the Democrats, I like to post eye-popping charts of disastrous consequences.  In this case the chart isn't horrible enough, and I apologize. 

Today, the CBO released new projections from 2013 extending through 2022, and the results are as critics expected: the ten-year cost of the law's core provisions to expand health insurance coverage has now ballooned to $1.76 trillion. That's because we now have estimates for Obamacare's first nine years of full implementation, rather than the mere six when it was signed into law. Only next year will we get a true ten-year cost estimate, if the law isn't overturned by the Supreme Court or repealed by then.

Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn has said that ObamaCare will never be repealed.  That's why you need to start voting for Libertarians. 
Mitt Romney was the John The Baptist for ObamaCare.  He will be the Republican nominee for president.  That's why you need to start voting for Libertarians. 
Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Authority has had similar cost overruns without accomplishing much of anything but marketing.  They're trying to build a massive lake downtown that will be known to your granchildren debtors as "Lake Granger", after the family of Republican Congresswoman Kay Granger.  That's why you need to start voting for Libertarians. 

Given that in 2022, the last year available, the gross cost of the coverage expansions are $265 billion, we're likely looking at about $2 trillion over the first decade, or more than double what Obama advertised.
UPDATE: I've done another post with additional details from the CBO report.

These are the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office.  I don't think the Congressional Budget Office could properly predict the winner of a New York Giants vs. Little Sisters Of The Blind wager in the Super Bowl. Their predicted cost is very, very low.  Hide and watch. 

Noah Webster on Censorship

What is a Libertarian?

Please explain Libertarianism.

What do Libertarians believe? 

What is the Libertarian position on the Federal Reserve, government involvement in the housing market, ObamaCare, the Drug War, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Uganda, the Vatican, public schools, gay marriage, marijuana laws, the Keystone Pipeline, gun laws, gun ownership, licensing requirements, monopolies, the stimulus package, Cash For Clunkers, the minimum wage, and cat-declawing?

What is the Libertarian Party trying to accomplish?


Why am I putting in lots of key words that will attract Google hits?  Do I have no shame? 


The best answer to most of these questions can be found on the Libertarian Party of Texas website. 

It's very simple: Let people live their own lives as they want and get the government out of our business. The Libertarian Party of Texas bases its philosophy on these core principles:

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. You, as stated by our nation's Founding Fathers, have the inalienable right to live, be free and prosper to your fullest potential without hindrance from any person or entity. You have the freedom to pursue your happiness as long as you respect others' rights to pursue theirs.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. You are responsible for your personal choices, able to take care of yourself and capable to do for others as you expect them to do unto you. Conversely, others are free to live their lives as they see fit and are responsible for their choices. We believe in tolerance toward others and respect for self-sovereignty.

LIMITED GOVERNMENT. Your government's principal function is to protect your freedom, your unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and Property, all crucial rights for building a free and prosperous society. Government should be of the necessary size and scope, as outlined in the United States Constitution, to efficiently support its constitutional duties and effectively maintain the rule of law. The Libertarian vision of government is of a government strictly confined to its constitutional role, a government that respects civil liberties, recognizes that the individual is more important than the State, exercises fiscal restraint and understands that each generation must pay its own debts, believes in free markets and practices a non-interventionist foreign policy of "peace toward all, entangling alliances with none."

The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest-growing political party in Texas and in the United States. It is also the only political party to advocate truly limited government, especially as established in the U.S. Constitution by our Founders.

For a more in-depth explanation of the philosophy of liberty, view this video. To learn where the Libertarian Party of Texas stands on specific issues, please read our platform.

Are you a Libertarian? Take the quiz and find out!

You are 16 trillion dollars in debt.  You have undeclared wars going on all over the place.  China is going to kick your ass if you don't stop borrowing money from them.  Jefferson Davis didn't have as many black men living in cages as you do. 
There is no "moderate" or "inside the mainstream" way out of this mess.  Republicrats or Demoblicans won't shut down any part of the machine. 
We will. 

Government Explained

This will take up nine precious minutes of your life, but it is worth the sacrifice. 



We've lost track of the idea that Obama, Boehner and Company are our employees.

Thanks to Samizdata for the link. 

National Death Service - Rodent Edition

I always enjoy the horrifying updates from this dude's blog.  It's called National Death Service, and it displays the daily, weekly and monthly outrages that take place in Britain's National Health Service hospitals and clinics.  The National Health Service supposedly inspired the makers of RomneyCare and ObamaCare. 

One of the current disagreements in the Land O' Limey O'BamaCare is whether or not a NHS patient was attacked by a rat or a field mouse: 

Are You Sure It Wasn’t A Siberian Filigree Hamster?


Staff spotted Mr Ketley stumbling around a corridor with the rat hanging from his neck by its teeth and nurses knocked it off and killed it. Hospital officials said it was a field mouse.

Ah, yes, the well-known man-eating field mouse…

But his mother Pat Boardman told the Mirror: "That's an outrageous claim. He had large, open bite marks.

"I'm appalled that this sort of thing could happen to my son in an NHS hospital in this day and age.

"He was completely helpless and terrified. It's a disgrace. He was very scared and the staff had to show him they had killed the rat to prove it could no longer hurt him."

The field mouse, I guess you mean? If you know what's good for you....

I love that guy. 

In related news, here's something from Walter Russell Mead stating that 50% of all UK nursing home patients are being denied basic services because of bureaucratic ineptitude:

Fans of government health care keep telling us that government can do the job, and they point to countries like the UK as examples where single payer, government run health care systems deliver high quality, compassionate care.


They are either grossly ignorant or they are lying through their teeth.

A recent study by a British healthcare regulator finds that half of all elderly people in Britain’s nursing homes are being denied basic health services.

Half.

Some older people were forced to wait months for a doctor or nurse to treat simple health problems. No doubt they were waiting for the Bureau of Bedsore Management to review the proper procedures before issuing a bandage-changing permit.

Over the polite grumbling of many advocacy groups, the British Parliament can be faintly heard tinkering away at some far overdue legislation. No doubt the grannies will get some relief just as soon as the House of Commons passes some new laws, the House of Lords (whoever they have there now that they have chased the actual, you know, Lords out of it) sagaciously tinkers with it, the Queen signs it, the bureaucrats get all the regulations nicely written, and the memos and administrative procedures get delivered to the proper offices.

You've now been warned.  The path is well-marked. 

Mitt Romney advocated this crap in Massachusetts, and no one twisted his arm to make him do so. 
Mitt Romney wrote USA Today editorials promoting a US version of the National Death Service in 2009.  No one twisted his arm to make him do so. 
This is what the leading Republican candidate wants for you. 

The Teleprompter Jesus has already gotten us on the road to having what the U.K. has.  Rodents chewing on retirees.  May his monitors go blank, may his programmers go on strike, may his battery back-ups die, and may he be required to go to a U.S. Department of Transportation maintenance facility for repairs.   

You don't trust the government to deliver an important overnight package. 
For some reason, a large number of us trust them to delivery healthcare when their Department Of Motor Vehicles fills us with existential dread. 
Our government is notorious for spending $600 on screwdrivers and $1200 for toilet seats. 

The only way to decrease the cost of something is to lower demand or increase supply.  That's why we need a Free Market Healthcare system.  (Please don't ever confuse the current U.S. mess with a free market system.  84% of our medical bills are paid indirectly, either through the government or through insurance programs.)
My pick for the person most likeley to lower the cost of medical care is former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson.  He is running for the Libertarian Party nomination for President.  The Libertarian Party supports a rat-free medical environment. 

The picture of the NHS rodent-activated blood transfusion system came from here.    The gravedigger poster came from The People's Cube.  Hit the National Health Service tag below to read more about the ridiculously low standards that British medical teams fail to achieve. 

Cough Drops - The Mandate

I hope everyone has enjoyed the media firestorm about whether the government should be able to force the Catholic Church to provide birth control pills to its employees. 

I also hope that you'll take just a few minutes from your busy day to enjoy this bit o' brilliance from Reason magazine:



Here's a modest proposal from the great Virginia Postrel about selling birth control pills over-the-counter:

Making the pill available over the counter could reduce the amount of outrage and invective available for entertaining radio audiences, spurring political fundraising and otherwise amusing the American public. But the medical risks are quite low....

Birth-control pills can have side effects, of course, but so can such over-the-counter drugs as antihistamines, ibuprofen or the Aleve that once turned me into a scary, hive-covered monster. That’s why even the most common over-the-counter drugs, including aspirin, carry warning labels. Most women aren’t at risk from oral contraceptives, however, just as most patients aren’t at risk from aspirin or Benadryl, and studies suggest that a patient checklist can catch most potential problems....

Aside from safety, the biggest argument for keeping birth- control pills prescription-only is, to put it bluntly, extortion. The current arrangement forces women to go to the doctor at least once a year, usually submitting to a pelvic exam, if they want this extremely reliable form of contraception. That demand may suit doctors’ paternalist instincts and financial interests, but it doesn’t serve patients’ needs. As [a 1993 editorial in the American Journal of Public Health] noted, the exam requirement “assumes that it would be worse for a woman’s health to miss out on routine care than it would be to miss out on taking oral contraceptives.”

Hit this link to read the whole thing. 
From Nick Gillespie:

Can't legislators agree that those of us who are, say, over 18 years old, are adults and if we can buy condoms without a prescription, we should be able to shop for birth-control pills on our lonesome too? And a host of other drugs?

And this young woman, Sandra Fluke, claims that birth control for her three years of law school is an intolerable burden, and that other people should be forced to pay for it.  She claims that it will cost her $3,000.00 for three years. 
Bullshit. 
Can we not do the charitable thing, and put a damn condom machine in her dorm room? 

Ron Paul's Racist Past

Schadenfreude from Perry de Havilland

One of my libertarian heroes from England has made some sharp comments about the Republican party. 
Here's Perry de Havilland of Samizdata:

I see that Mitt Romney, a big government Republican statist who partially nationalised healthcare in his state and gave Obama the opening for more grandiose Federal healthcare nationalisation, is closing in on the Republican nomination.

Well so much for the influence of the Tea Party. If Romney wins, I can only hope Obama wipes the floor with him for exactly the same reasons I was delighted McCain was defeated... and do not see Romney as any less loathsome than McCain, so I am all for the Greater Evil winning again.

And I hope a large number of Tea Party figures make it clear they will be staying home next election day if Romney gets the nod.

No, no, no, no, no.  There is no need for anyone to stay home, Mr. de Havilland.  The Libertarian Party will be on the ballot, running someone as an alternative to the Obamneys.

I hope that candidate will be former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson !!!!
Please remember, the only way you can "waste" your vote is to support the political status quo, and we've got 16 trillion dollars worth of status quo to dig our way out of.  Unless you folks start supporting 2nd-party candidates, it ain't gonna happen.   

If Obama's Drug War has lost Pat Robertson....

From Hot Air....

Quick: What do Pat Robertson and Ron Paul have in common? Yep, that’s right — they both think marijuana should be as legal as alcohol. Robertson made waves on the issue in the past when he said he thought marijuana-possession convictions shouldn’t end in mandatory prison sentences. He’s making waves again with the outright call to legalize the controlled substance.

Mr. Robertson’s support for legalizing pot appeared in a New York Times article published Thursday. His spokesman confirmed to the Associated Press that Mr. Robertson supports legalization with regulation. Mr. Robertson was not made available for an interview.
“I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol,” Mr. Robertson was quoted by the newspaper as saying. “If people can go into a liquor store and buy a bottle of alcohol and drink it at home legally, then why do we say that the use of this other substance is somehow criminal?”
Mr. Robertson said he “absolutely” supports ballot measures in Colorado and Washington state that would allow people older than 21 to possess a small amount of marijuana and allow for commercial pot sales. Both measures, if passed by voters, would place the states at odds with federal law, which bans marijuana use of all kinds.

This debate seems to have no direction to go but in the direction of legalization; as Robertson said elsewhere in the article, “This war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded.”

The picture of Robertson having a psychedelic experience came from here. 

Ben Bernanke now has another competitor

This kid has done something illegal that Ben Bernanke is paid to do. 

Hit This Link !!!

Poster came from here. 

Tarrant County Libertarian Meetup Tonight !!!!!

Hello Tarrant County Libertarians !

We’ll be having another Tarrant County Libertarian Meetup on Thursday, March 8th, at 7:00 p.m. in the Zio Carlo Brewpub – 1001 West Magnolia, Fort Worth.
We have a lot of things to discuss – Ben Bernanke is wanting to print another batch of money, President Obama vetoed the Keystone Pipeline project, gold and silver prices are fluctuating daily, Iran and Israel are squaring off at each other, and the Republicans seem to think that their best chance of defeating Barack Obama is by nominating…..another Barack Obama.

... So how can a bunch of Libertarians sitting around a brewpub have an impact on all of this?

Tarrant County is playing host to the Libertarian Party Presidential Debates on April 7th. (Our eventual nominee will be chosen at the Las Vegas Libertarian Party convention in May.)
Because of the well-publicized discontent with President Obama and the Republican field of candidates, there is an excellent chance that the winning LP candidate will be polling high enough to participate in the September and October multi-party debates against the President and his Republican challenger. The Libertarian Party has never had a better chance to win.

At Thursday night’s meetup you will have a chance to submit questions for our April 7th Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Debate! The best questions will be submitted to our debate moderator. You can influence the direction of the Libertarian Party with your questions and concerns. (Remember Rick Perry’s “Whoop’s” moment in the Republican debate? Think of the impact of that one question….)

Please show up Thursday night with questions that will help us narrow the field !

See you there,

Allen Patterson
Tarrant County Libertarian Party Chair

P.S. – We’d also like to start a monthly book discussion group. Bring your suggestions for those events also.

Republican primary preferences by age group

The Mainstream Media often seems perplexed by the college kids voting for Ron Paul. 
Why do they vote for Ron Paul?
Because he as always advocated a smaller government and a stable money supply. 
Why is that attractive to college students? 
Because they will be the true "producers" who will have to work overtime to clean up their parents' mess. 

It really is that simple. 

Governmental Irony

Since 4 people have forwarded this to me already, I'm going to post it.