Gary Johnson on the State Of The Union speech

Gary Johnson, Libertarian candidate for president, sent this email about Obama's State Of The Election Union speech to Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit:

“If the idea tonight was that the President would fulfill his constitutional duty to give us ‘information of the State of the Union’, we should be able to expect some truth. I didn’t hear much truth. Truth is that the real unemployment rate is probably still above 10%. Truth is that after all the hand-wringing and deals of the past couple of years, instead of cutting spending, the President and Congress are going back to the well for another $1.2 Trillion debt limit increase. And the truth is we are seeing nothing from either the President or the Republicans that will really change any of those unacceptable realities.

“Only in the twilight zone that is Washington could a President who has bailed out and stimulated our economy to death stand in the Capitol and declare there should be ‘no bailouts, no handouts, and no cop-outs’. Can anyone spell GM or TARP or Solyndra?

“The President said we deserve a government that plays by the same rules as millions of hard-working Americans. Perhaps that should begin with the government not borrowing and printing 43 cents of every dollar it spends – something hard-working Americans can’t and don’t do.

“Until we see a real plan – not a Washington smoke and mirrors plan – that puts a stop to deficit spending and really puts America back to work, all of this rhetoric is just wasted breath.”

I didn't watch the speech last night (had to wash my hair instead), but I read a few excerpts.  The business about ‘no bailouts, no handouts, and no cop-outs’ probably was the best laugh line. 

Why Obama would be preferable to Gingrich

From Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek:

Four more years of Obama in the Oval Office would be better, in my view, than four years of Gingrich there: each man is mad for power; each man’s Promethean opinion of himself is quite the opposite of what a realistic self-opinion would be; each man is a font of economic idiocy; and each man’s principles are such that each would – recalling Mencken’s description of FDR – fatten up a crew of missionaries on the White House lawn for slaughter if he thought that endorsing cannibalism would get him more votes. Yet the countless nutty and destructive policies that Pres. Gingrich would likely implement would inevitably be described by our crack mainstream press as “laissez faire” – thus creating more public misunderstanding. (Of course, four more years of Obama in the White House might also be better than four years of Romney there….)

Of course when Mencken made his crack about presidents trying to get the cannibal vote, he had no idea what would happen to the national mindset in another 75 years....  See below. 

From The Occupy Wall Street Protests. 

An Amazing Math Test

Let's get away from political rants for a minute.  Here's a math quiz that one of my cousins sent me this weekend. 

It's a simple mathematical exercise that can predict your favorite movie.
Just humor me and do it!  (And post your results in the comment field.) 

Movie Quiz:

1. Pick a number from 1-9.
2. Multiply by 3.
3. Add 3.
4. Multiply by 3 again.
5. Now add the two digits of your answer together to find your predicted favorite movie in the list of 17 movies listed below this picture

Hey, I had to find a picture to take up space, and most are worse than this one.  Your favorite movie WILL be there. 

Movie List:
1. Gone With the Wind
2. E.T.
3. Blazing Saddles
4. Star Wars
5. Forrest Gump
6. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
7. Jaws
8. Grease
9. The Obama Farewell Speech of 2013
10. Casablanca
11. Jurassic Park
12. Shrek
13. Pirates of the Caribbean
14. Titanic
15. Raiders of the Lost Ark
16. Home Alone
17. Mrs. Doubtfire

I told you it would be there !!!

When you're about to lose an election....POSTPONE IT !!!

A government outfit known as the Trinity River Vision Authority is trying to use Eminent Domain, Earmarks, Extreme Environmentalism, and almost every other vice of this horrific decade to take land and money from taxpayers for a private real estate development. 

The Trinity is beautiful from a distance.  Up close, according to Channel 8, it's still filled with feces, much like the Trinity River Vision Authority.  Here's a picture from one of last summer's TRVA events, featuring people floating around in your old sewage:

The original plan was to turn part of the Trinity into something like San Antonio's "Riverwalk".  That stunk too much of cronyism even for our slumbering citizenry, so now the emphasis is on flood control.  It's now a safety project that just happens to have major real estate developments, theatres, restaurants, etc. along its banks. 

It's had the usual cost overages:

The politically-connected are all in place:

And the usual victims (you) are on the hook for any failures.  Socialize The Cost; Privatize The Profit !!!!

And now, from The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, comes this bit of greatness about the Tarrant Regional Water District Board, the outfit responsible for the necessary thefts, looting and dredging required to build Lake Granger:

In a 3-2 vote, the Tarrant Regional Water District board voted to shift its election date for three board seats from May 2012 to May 2013. Vic Henderson, chair of the water board, said the switch was made to bring the water district's election date in line most of the other Tarrant County governmental entities that have shifted to odd rather than even years. But the water board, which historically has been known for casting unanimous votes, was split on the issue. Board members Hal Sparks and Jim Lane voted against the issue, saying they felt the water code was clear that elections should be held in odd years even though the water district had obtained a letter from the Secretary of State's office saying they could move the date. Sparks, Henderson and board member Jack Stevens were slated to be up for re-election but will now serve for another year. Sparks said he felt like he made an agreement with voters to serve four years when he was elected and voted his conscience on the issue. But he said he plans to serve the remainder of his term.

They are postponing their own elections for a year !!!   They are postponing their own elections for a year !!! 
Unbelievable !!!  And we're probably going to put up with it, like a bunch of compliant sheep !! 

Had this happened to any reasonably alert group of voters, the hardware stores would already be sold out of pitchforks and torches.  Good Lord in heaven.  When are we going to wake up ????

There is an alternative to this madness, called the Trinity River Improvement Partnership.  They're trying to act as a Granger watchdog group, and to present an alternative plan.  Hit the link.  Please help them out any way you can. 

Marvel Variants Turns 50 !!

My ex-boss, who runs the Bronze Age Marvel Variants website, has turned 50. 

We still work for the same company, but Mr. Variants recently hired an Operations Manager to handle his old responsibilities.  Then he promoted himself into the stratosphere so he could do things like go to Brazil and search for new business. 

Here's documentation of his efforts in Brazil. 

For those of you new to my site, Mr. Variants makes a lot of money seeking out rare Marvel comics and selling them for a small fortune.  Every time he does particularly well, I get a snarky email from him about the sale, about how he found the comic at a yard sale for 25 cents, about the overall profit margin, and about how many emails it took to separate some geek from his $459 in exchange for a 1978 Howard The Duck comic with a variant cover. 

Here's a paragraph from one of Mr. Variant's recent posts.  It's about an online comic book auction:

 I think the auction was kind of hit and miss in regards to pricing as some of the books, like the spidey (Spiderman) variants, went for bargain prices, while others did very well.  The auction was competing with the World Series and football.

Trust me, Mr. Variants.....The comic book auctions don't compete with the World Series or football.

Battlestar Galactica, Adventures of Jimmy Neutron - Boy Genius, Doctor Who, or SuperFriends might have been on TV at the same time as the auction though. 

Anyway, Mr. Variants turned 50 today, and we dedicated most of our morning meeting to that milestone.  So many of our employees wore all-black clothing to the party that the room looked like the crowd at an early 90's art gallery. 
Here he is wearing what looks like the Hogwarts sorting hat, holding all his loot.

We had a guest from China in this meeting, BTW.  I bet she thought we'd lost our minds. 

The sorting hat sent Mr. Variants to Slytherin. 

Please hit this link and use the comment fields of his site to wish Marvel Variants a happy 50th. 

Quote of the day

I found it on Samizdata:


"And, make no mistake, Marxists did lose a big argument, one we now know as 'the 20th century'."

- Will Wilkinson

Poster came from here. 

Would you vote for any candidate who promised to do all of this?

There's been a minor media whirlwind for the last few days about the latest Newsweek cover. 
It features a piece by Andrew Sullivan about how freakin' stupid Obama's critics are. 

The funniest part is the little slogan about "the man with a plan".  Heh.  I don't think he could plan a lunch for four at McDonald's, but that's just me. 

Here's the best response I've seen to the Newsweek piece.  It's from Conor Friedersdorf with the Atlantic Monthly.  It hurts.  Go here to read the whole thing. 

How would you have reacted in 2008 if any Republican (or any other resident of this planet) had promised to do the following: 

(1) Codify indefinite detention into law; (2) draw up a secret kill list of people, including American citizens, to assassinate without due process; (3) proceed with warrantless spying on American citizens; (4) prosecute Bush-era whistleblowers for violating state secrets; (5) reinterpret the War Powers Resolution such that entering a war of choice without a Congressional declaration is permissible; (6) enter and prosecute such a war; (7) institutionalize naked scanners and intrusive full body pat-downs in major American airports; (8) oversee a planned expansion of TSA so that its agents are already beginning to patrol American highways, train stations, and bus depots; (9) wage an undeclared drone war on numerous Muslim countries that delegates to the CIA the final call about some strikes that put civilians in jeopardy; (10) invoke the state-secrets privilege to dismiss lawsuits brought by civil-liberties organizations on dubious technicalities rather than litigating them on the merits; (11) preside over federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries; (12) attempt to negotiate an extension of American troops in Iraq beyond 2011 (an effort that thankfully failed); (13) reauthorize the Patriot Act; (14) and select an economic team mostly made up of former and future financial executives from Wall Street firms that played major roles in the financial crisis.

Amazing, isn't it? 
Newsweek magazine, R.I.P. 

Wikipedia and Reddit go Galt.

Go to Wikipedia.  They've shut it down. 
Go to Reddit.  They've shut it down. 
Go to Google.  It's still up, but they have a black "Censored" bar over their logo. 

In protest against Texas Republican Lamar Smith's anti-piracy law, these companies have "Gone Galt".  (If you're not familiar with the Galt concept, look it up on Wikipedia tomorrow.  Not today.  Wikipedia has gone Galt. 

This is what democracy looks like. 

Here's a link to Lamar Smith's website.  He's the author of the now-infamous SOPA bill (Stop Online Piracy Act.)  Piracy being potentially defined as stuff the government doesn't like. 

As of January 18th, there's some hilarious crap on Smith's site about job creation: "We know what will help create jobs in this country –lifting the burden of regulations that is strangling small businesses."   Good work today, Lamar. 

Here's a link to the site of the Libertarian who ran against this Statist last time.  James Strohm. 

Sign came from here. 

A strange endorsement from Don Wildmon

Here's a statement from the Faith Leaders Coalition, penned by Don Wildmon, of the Campaign for Decency:

Atlanta, GA - Gingrich Faith Leaders Coalition National Co-Chair Don Wildmon released this statement today:

Perhaps you have heard a rumor that I have changed my support from Newt Gingrich for President to another candidate. I want you to know that is not true. To suggest that I have switched my support is inaccurate.

Without question, this election is the most important in the history of our nation. Our culture has become saturated with corruption and immorality. I firmly believe the future not only of our nation but all of Western Civilization is at stake. Voters in South Carolina will help decide if we can return our nation to its Judeo-Christian roots, or continue to slide down the slippery slope?

In the past, Christian conservatives have split their votes among three or four candidates. This has allowed the moderate-liberal wing of the Republican Party to capture the nomination. It appears we might do the same thing again.

The only way to prevent this from happening is for evangelical Christians to stick together and vote for the same person. I have decided to support Newt Gingrich and I hope you will rally behind him. I believe that the former Speaker of the House is the best qualified electable conservative candidate to make the changes needed in Washington.

If conservatives split their vote three ways, then liberal-moderate candidate Romney is a cinch to win.

I fully realize there are other very good candidates in this race. But if you have not already made a decision, I hope that you will consider Newt. If we will vote as a bloc, we can defeat the moderate-liberals.

The Obamney Poster

Found it on Libertarian Reddit. 

Lamar Smith, author of SOPA, on being a copyright violator

The SOPA Act is a legal monstrosity supposedly designed to stop online piracy and to protect intellectual property. 

But....

The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who makes the request, the court order could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as PayPal from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for 10 such infringements within six months. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.

In other words, anyone bringing a frivolous lawsuit against, say, a political opponent or an unpopular opinion could get a site shut down for a long, long time. 

The bill was introduced by Texas Congressman Lamar Smith. 

This is where it gets good.  Delicious good.  Juicy good. 

Here's an old screen shot from Lamar Smith's website, compliments of a blog called Vice Beta. 

See the beautiful photo in the far margins?  It was taken by someone named DJ Shulte. 

Lamar Smith didn't credit Shulte for the photo. 

Here's Shulte, once again from Vice Beta:

"I do not see anywhere on the screen capture that you have provided that the image was attributed to the source (me). So my conclusion would be that Lamar Smith's organization did improperly use my image. So according to the SOPA bill, should it pass, maybe I could petition the court to take action against http://www.texansforlamarsmith.com/."

Here's Vice Beta again:

We've contacted the office of Lamar Smith and are waiting on a response.

I was kinda curious myself, went to the Smith website and asked about the copyright violations on the website of the dude sponsoring the Draconian bill against copyright violations.  This is what I got:

“A past iteration of http://www.texansforlamarsmith.com/ was built by an independent contractor for the 2010 election cycle.
“Texans for Lamar Smith relied on that independent contractor to provide a product in keeping with all applicable laws, as the campaign does with all entities providing goods or services.
“Design, development and management of http://www.texansforlamarsmith.com/ was last October placed in the hands of a company that assures all images are being properly used.”

- Mike Asmus, manager
Texans for Lamar Smith

In other words, somebody else did it.  It's not Lamar Smith's fault.  But if you made the same mistake, Smith and Uncle Sam want to shut your ass down. 

Here's a link to the site of James Strohm, the Libertarian who I hope will run again for Smith's seat, just in case you want to send James some money.  

A Fresh Coat Of Whitening to the great Radley Balko for the first link. 

How To Improve The Unemployment Rate - (encourage more people to give up)

I've heard a lot of Lamestream Media members almost pissing their pants for the last few weeks, gushing over the improvements in the U.S. unemployment rate. 

Yes, some people have gone back to work.  But here's why appearances are deceiving. 

The Washington drones who monitor the nation's employment stats don't count people who give up looking for work.  If you haven't applied for a job in several months, you don't count as "unemployed".  You enter the ranks of Obama's Disappeared. 

Nearly ONE MILLION WORKERS have disappeared from the work force under the regime of Barack Obama.  That's ONE MILLION WORKERS who have said "screw it", and moved back in with Mama, decided to work off the books, become a kept man, or go into the drug trade.  ONE MILLION. 

Here's a chart showing the increased number of workers in each post-recession recovery, going back to 1954:

Hey, if you operate from Chicago, where a massive number of dead people still vote, it's just as easy to assume that ONE MILLION WORKERS don't exist.

Everything was clean and green....

...except for their balance sheets. 

Go here to see a list of ELEVEN more Solyndra-like companies to whom Barack Obama gave your money.   

If all of them go under, and it's looking like they will, Obama will have blown 6.5 billion dollars of your money, money that he took from you by force. 

Jimi Hendrix, on who owns Jimi Hendrix

Found it on Reddit. 

The Daily Show on Civility

Either this woman is....

1) In on the joke, or....
2) someone who figured out the joke too late to bail, or...
3) someone who is so smug that she truly believes that her approach to politics is so pure that she is above reproach. 

Since The Daily Show has never been busted for using shills in these interviews, I believe we must go with option #3. 

Enjoy, but feel free to squirm. 

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Econimic Illiteracy as Mental Substitution

From Bryan Caplan, of the Library of Economics And Liberty. 

Go here. 

Your head will explode. 

Brilliant. 

P.S. - the comments on his post are helpful too. 

Another P.S. - I found the "Dificult Questions" picture on a Roman Catholic site.  The specific post was about the Catholic view of birth control. 
The target question raised in that particular post would be "When is it ok for Catholics to use birth control?"
The heuristic question might be "How do I feel about violating traditions?"
Just guessing. 

John Galt has left California

My employer, Jukt Micronics, recently opened a west coast warehouse to serve our customers in that region. 
 
Where did we go - L.A.?  Long Beach?  San Diego?  San Fran? 
Nope. 
We opened our west coast warehouse in Phoenix, Arizona.  That's a long way from the coast, where the shipping containers come in, but it's worth the drive.   

No one in his right mind will open anything in California.  The place is a regulatory hell.  The taxes are ridiculous. 

Here's something from Bloomberg News:

California (STOCA1) Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to balance the state budget in part with higher taxes on the wealthy depends on a group of top earners that shrank by one-third from 2007 to 2009.


Tax returns with adjusted gross incomes topping $500,000 fell to 98,610 in 2009, the latest year available, from a recent peak of 146,221 two years earlier, according to data from the Franchise Tax Board, the state agency that collects income and corporate taxes.

Once again, here's the good part:

California (STOCA1) Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to balance the state budget in part with higher taxes on the wealthy depends on a group of top earners that shrank by one-third from 2007 to 2009.

It's called Going Galt.  May the trend continue until Jerry Brown changes his ways. 

American Glob

I've been trying to figure this guy out for a while. 

His website is called "American Glob" - "Conservative Libertarian News And Views". 

Go here.  It's a good site with good content. 

Mr. Glob used to have banners on his site stating that "Real Libertarians Vote Republican", or words to that effect. 

That's like saying "Real Libertarians support the Defense Of Marriage Act, draconian drug laws, Monsanto, undeclared wars, The Patriot Act, agricultural subsidies, quotas, protective tariffs, RomneyCare, racking up 48% of the world's military expenses, Fannie and Freddie (see: Gingrich, Newt), TARP, bailouts, The Fed printing money, an embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the Vatican with 15,000 soldiers "employees", and a host of other blights on the tree of liberty. 

No longer.  Mr. Glob's "Real Libertarians Vote Republican" banners have been taken down.  I wonder which of the Republican/Statist debates pushed him over the edge? 

In the 2010 election, I voted for the Democrats when there wasn't a Libertarian running for a particular office.  Republicans have given the concept of "small government" a bad name for too long. 

Just because I don't like a month to go by without posting it, here's my favorite video of Newt 'n' Nancy:



Real Libertarians don't tolerate this crap.  They vote for Libertarians first, then for the greater of the two lessers. 

Answers to a few questions

Question:  Why are Libertarian politicians like Gary Johnson and Ron Paul so popular among college students? 

Answer:  Because many years from now, today's college students and their children and their grandchildren are the demographic who will still be stuck paying for all of today's spending. 

Question:  Why are Libertarian politicians like Gary Johnson and Ron Paul so popular among active military, and why do they receive such a large percentage of military political campaign donations? 

Answer:  Because active military members know that it is Demoblicans and Republicrats who are working hardest to get them killed, not Libertarians. 

Question:  In the recent New Hampshire primary, when Romney finished first, Ron Paul finished second, and Rick Santorum finished third, why did Rick Santorum claim that he actually finished second? 

Answer:  Because Santorum knows that Ron Paul is not a Republican, he's a Libertarian. 

Question:  When discussing whether or not Ron Paul will possibly run on a second-party third-party ticket, why don't the members of the Mainstream Media ever say the name of this party?  Why do they fear the "L" word? 

Answer:  Because their sources, their Rolodexes, their cell phones and their earnings potential all come from their access to Republicrats and Demoblicans.  And, as the C-SPAN crews recently recorded by accident, if a Libertarian is ever elected president, 2/3rds of the Pentagon Press Corps will lose their jobs.  Ditto for the rest of the Washington media.  There simply won't be much going on for them to write or talk about, once the initial cutbacks are in place.  Therefore, the Lamestream Media try to de-legitimize any parties except for the Crips and the Bloods.  Or whatever you want to call them. 

I hope this helps. 

Shah of Iran nuclear: Good ! Other Iranian nuclear: bad

Here's some old-school propaganda about the wisdom of allowing Iran to go nuclear. 
Those of you who are at least 40 years old might remember when the Shah was our boy, and Iran, for all practical purposes, was our colony. 
Yes....It was good for Iran to go nuclear.  Not any more.