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photo courtesy of 1D110
The Armored Cars
Column by Paul Hein. Exclusive to STR Decades ago, seated at my desk, writing checks, the thought came, unbidden and unexpected, into my mind: Where are all the armored cars?   I was, at that moment, probably only one of thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands—of individuals writing checks. By means of those written instruments, money was being transferred from one bank to another. If the numbers on those checks represented something--some THING--then where were the armored...
The Constitution: The God That Failed (To Liberate Us From Big Government)
Original article   The Constitution may very well be one of the most clever anti-freedom documents crafted by man in the Western world. As a result of a crafty and thorough propaganda campaign, a document that purports to support limited government and peaceful human activity has done exactly the opposite in such a gargantuan fashion that one is aghast so many people can still be deluded by the premise and continue to be bamboozled by its promise.
If Cops Can't Taze a Pregnant Woman, The Terrorists Will Win
Original article In its brief on behalf of the officers, the Los Angeles County Police Chiefs Association (LACPCA) and the National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA) insist that refusing to allow police to use electro-shock torture against a pregnant woman would fatally undermine the principle of "pain compliance"  on which social order – as they pretend to understand it – depends.
The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher
Original article Teaching means different things in different places, but seven lessons are universally taught from Harlem to Hollywood Hills. They constitute a national curriculum you pay for in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what it is. You are at liberty, of course, to regard these lessons any way you like, but believe me when I say I intend no irony in this presentation. These are the things I teach, these are the things you pay me to teach. Make of them what you will.  
Even Worse Than Democracy
Original article 60% of the population voting to exterminate a small minority would be considered “anti-democratic.” Yet if 60% vote merely to loot the minority, it would be considered undemocratic to stand in the way. Who it is who decides which rights are up for majority vote and which are not is always a difficult question to resolve
Coercive 'Rights'
Original article The term civil rights itself used to mean rights of citizens – the right to marry or own property, for example – which the state was bound to respect. Now it means rights the state should enforce. And some of these “rights” are highly questionable, such as the “right” of access to others’ private property.
Town Fires Police To Save Money
Original article  What a perfect way to end police brutality and tyranny. Fire the enforcers. wonder what would happen if towns from coast to coast did the same thing? Who would they have to enforce their will (laws)?
Friendly Fascism And The Overlords
Original article There is growing interest in simplifying recommendations to vaccinate Americans against influenza. The article discusses interviews with 35 stakeholders from the medical, public health, educational, insurance, and vaccine industry sectors to assess the potential for policy change, and discusses questions posed to the interviewees on current and future influenza vaccination policy and barriers to policy change.
The Idea Of Resistance Against The State
Original article Throughout the course of history people have fought against tyranny and authority of various forms only to be thrown back into subjugation when someone else came along to claim what we call “power”. There have been countless battles to overthrow these established powers, but none of them resulting in freedom for humanity in the long term, because all of these struggles were playing out on the wrong battlefield.
When Government Is The Looter
Original article The government is suing an inanimate object, the motel Caswell’s father built in 1955. The U.S. Department of Justice intends to seize it, sell it for perhaps $1.5 million and give up to 80 percent of that to the Tewksbury Police Department, whose budget is just $5.5 million. The Caswells have not been charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime.
Monsanto Plans Massive Biotech Experiment In US
Original article  Around 300,000 organic farmers are currently awaiting a court decision to see if a US District Court will hear a lawsuit against Monsanto that, if successful, will keep the company from continuing to sue small-time agriculturists. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto tackled 144 organic farms with lawsuits and investigated roughly 500 plantations annually during that span with their so-called “seed police.” Gerritsen and others want to see to it that Monsanto can’t do that...
IL Dept. of Agriculture Secretly Destroys Beekeeper's Bees And 15 Years of Research Proving Monsanto's Roundup Kills Bees
Original article An Illinois beekeeper with more than a decade's worth of expertise about how to successfully raise organic, chemical-free bees is the latest victim of flagrant government tyranny. According to the Prairie Advocate, Terrence "Terry" Ingram of Apple River, Ill., owner of Apple Creek Apiaries, recently had his bees and beehives stolen from him by the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDofA), as well as more than 15 years' worth of research proving Monsanto's Roundup to be the cause of...
Car-sized Turtle Found in Colombian Coal Mine
Original article Remains of an enormous turtle, which was the size of a Smart Car, have been unearthed in a Colombian coal mine.The shell alone of the 60-million-year-old turtle, Carbonemys cofrinii, aka "coal turtle," is large enough to be a small swimming pool. Its skull is roughly the size of a regulation NFL football.
Sweet, Delicious Corn Wins Both Iowa Caucuses
Original article (SATIRE). In a major upset, participants in both the Democratic and Republican primaries have delivered an unexpected victory to write-in candidate, Corn. This marks the first time in history a vegetable has won an Iowa caucus, not counting George W. Bush in 2004.  
A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania
Original article  Photo of the day

Videos: Revolution OS (recommended), House of Cards (highly recommended), Goldman Sachs: Power and Peril (recommended), Waiting for Armageddon (recommended), CNBC: The Scam of the Century (recommended), The War (by Ken Burns; recommended), Red, White, Black and Blue (interesting), Big River (interesting), Inside the Mind of Google (recommended), Dogs Decoded (recommended), The Facebook Obsession (interesting), Ground War (interesting), An Inconvenient Tax (disappointing), Limitless (pretty good), Battlefield Detectives (recommended), Flying Wild Alaska (recommended), Nightmare in Jamestown (recommended), Gold Rush: Alaska (recommended), Erasing David (recommended), Brad Meltzer's Decoded (recommended), Pawn Stars (recommended), Nova: The Spy Factory (recommended), Sherman's March (recommended), Client 9 (recommended), Surfwise (recommended), Moving Midway (recommended), Fat Head (highly recommended), The Trials of Henry Kissinger (recommended), Under Our Skin (recommended), Beer Wars (recommended), The Street Stops Here (recommended), The Cartel (MUST SEE), Freakonomics (recommended), A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (recommended), The Tillman Story (highly recommended), Inside Job (a leftish perspective of the financial crisis), Robin Hood (strongly recommended), Gasland (recommended), Friday Night Lights, Seasons 1-5 (highly recommended), The Power of Nightmares (3 parts, MUST SEE), Frontline: The Wounded Platoon (MUST SEE), Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (highly recommended), Sons of Anarchy, Seasons 1-3 (MUST SEE), Hacking Democracy (MUST SEE), For the Bible Tells Me So (recommended), Green Zone (recommended), Generation Kill (MUST SEE), Shut Up and Sing (recommended), Collapse (recommended), The Singing Revolution (recommended), Jericho, Seasons 1 & 2 (MUST SEE), Frontline: Black Money (recommended), Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa (strongly recommended), Frontline: The Madoff Affair (MUST SEE), Taxi to the Dark Side (MUST-MUST SEE), Frontline: Hand of God (MUST SEE), Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (MUST SEE), Defiance (strongly recommended), Frontline: Ghosts of Rwanda (MUST SEE), The Heart of the Game (highly recommended), Downfall (highly recommended), Frontline: Inside the Meltdown (recommended), White Light, Black Rain (strongly recommended), Rendition (highly recommended), The Ground Truth (highly recommended); see recommended movies 

Books: Getting Things Done, More Money Than God, Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan

Music: Sunshine by Schuyler Fisk

 

The Armored Cars
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Paul Hein 2012-05-21 00:00
Column by Paul Hein. Exclusive to STR Decades ago, seated at my desk, writing checks, the thought came, unbidden and unexpected, into my mind: Where are all the armored cars?   I was, at that moment, probably only one of thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands—of individuals writing checks. By means of those written instruments, money was being transferred from one bank to...
So You Work as an Elections Clerk?
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Jim Davies 2012-05-18 00:00
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR [Author's Note: Readers who know someone who helps operate elections might usefully refer him or her to this article. Should it become widely read before November, it could have an interesting effect. It's adapted from one of a series at the new web site TinyURL.com/QuitGov, which aims to help government employees lead honest lives....
The Comforting Lie
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livefreeretiree 2012-05-16 00:00
Column by Vahram G. Diehl.   I know you often feel alone in this life. I know at times you feel lost and overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable forces stacked against you. I know at times you wish you could just forget all this and fade into nothingness. The temptation can be truly unbearable. But the most important revelation you can have is that it is not the world that needs changing...
Amendment Done
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dubhub9 2012-05-14 00:00
Column by new Root Striker William Hubbard.   Exclusive to STR   I have sullied myself this day, and for no profitable reason. I have stained my soul and made a lopsided deal with the devil. I entered the voting booth this afternoon, for the last time, against my principle, in order that I may fight for other principles. I have not voted in years. This is not out of apathy but out of...
Timeline of a World-Killing Paradigm Shift MUST READ
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Glen Allport 2012-05-14 00:00
Column by Glen Allport. Exclusive to STR   Part 3 of "Could the Non-Aggression Principle Stop the Sixth Great Extinction?"   Part One of this series discussed the Non-Aggression principle, calling it "the libertarian half of the Golden Rule" (compassion being the other half) and describing the function of aggression in creating not only tyranny and war but also...
The Clothes Make the G-Man
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antiox 2012-05-11 00:00
Column by new Root Striker antiox. Exclusive to STR  Who knew that Janet Napolitano was a fashionista? What other conclusion can we come to after finding out that in addition to the war on Islamic fascism, her department is now waging another in favor of idiotic faddism? That’s right, the Department of Homeland Security has taken to setting up surreptitiously in local flea markets and...
What a Time to Be Alive!
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Jim Davies 2012-05-08 00:00
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR   For ten thousand years, governments have polluted the human race by stealing and squandering the products of our labor, repeatedly creating war and destruction, and choking off initiative and invention. Yet now, in this present era, there is serious hope that these parasites will cease to leech. The root of the problem is, at long last, being...
Hey, Hey, We're Dangerous Sociopaths!
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Leonidas 2012-05-07 00:00
Column by Leonidas. Exclusive to STR So, I was listening to the Monkees theme last week, and it suddenly struck me that behind that chirpy upbeat bubblegum rock facade were some seriously disturbing lyrics full of threats and antisocial attitudes. See if you agree:   Here we come, walkin' Down the street.   An assertive group identity proclaiming an aggressive takeover of a public venue...
Theft by Any Other Name Is Still Theft!
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Paul Hein 2012-05-04 00:00
Column by Paul Hein.   Exclusive to STR   You encounter an ominous character on the street who stops you, points his finger at you and declares that he wants your money—all of it---and he wants it now, and you’d better give it to him, or face the consequences.   You reach into your pocket, but instead of pulling forth your wallet, pull forth your .38 caliber automatic...
The Future of Not Voting
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Alex R. Knight III 2012-05-01 00:00
Column by Alex R. Knight III Exclusive to STR  Given that those in government have designated this another election year, we’re going to be hearing a lot about this biennial farcical charade for the next several months. And in truth, one could compile a small library just out of the amount of writing voluntaryists have done on the subject since at least the 19th Century. Thus...

 

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