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June 30, 2005

It's All God's Fault

Religion is a very useful tool for demagogues, as Doug Thompson points out.


Just about anytime somebody in a position of power does something incredibly stupid, unbelievably arrogant or outrageously illegal they usually claim it was “God’s will.”

And it works just about every time.

Posted by George F. Smith at 04:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Welfare Reform for Iraq

William Saletan of Slate says it's time for welfare reform in Iraq. By that he means that until the U.S. pulls out, the Iraqis will refuse to stand on their own two feet, so let's get out of there.

As Saletan writes:

Tonight President Bush explained how he plans to get our troops out of Iraq. "Our strategy can be summed up this way," he said. "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."

I've heard politicians say this sort of thing before. But the politicians were liberals, and the downtrodden people they talked about were needy Americans. As these folks learned to support themselves, government would no longer need to support them, the liberals promised. As the poor stood up, we would stand down.

For 40 years, the central argument of the Republican Party—George W. Bush's party—was that liberals had it backward: If you prop people up, they'll never stand up, and you'll never stand down. You have to let go. As you stand down, they'll stand up.

Which brings us to the occupation of Iraq. In blood and money, it's fast becoming the most expensive welfare program in the history of the world. Like other welfare programs, it was a good idea when it started. Like other welfare programs, it has begun to overtax the treasury and the public. Like other welfare programs, it warps the behavior of its beneficiaries. But in one respect, it's unique. It's the one welfare program conservatives can't criticize or even recognize, because they're the ones running it.

Read the whole thing. Even though Saletan is kinder toward the war than most Root Strikers would be, his points are all well taken.

(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:23 PM | Comments (0)

"Stay the Course!" Cries GWB--er, LBJ

This is uncanny. Change a few words here and there in this speech, given by LBJ on April 7, 1965, and you have every speech Bush has ever given on Iraq, but especially those given since the alleged threat of WMDs has been completely disproved.

Here are some samples:

Viet-Nam is far away from this quiet campus. We have no territory there, nor do we seek any. The war is dirty and brutal and difficult. And some 400 young men, born into an America that is bursting with opportunity and promise, have ended their lives on Viet-Nam’s steaming soil.

Why must we take this painful road? Why must this nation hazard its ease, its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away?

We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny, and only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure. . . .

To dishonour that pledge, to abandon this small and brave nation to its enemies, and to the terror that must follow, would be an unforgivable wrong. . . .

We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think for a minute that retreat from Viet-Nam would bring an end to the conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next. . . .

Our objective is the independence of South Viet-Nam, and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves-only that the people of South Viet-Nam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way.

(Thanks to Antiwar.com for the link.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)

June 29, 2005

The Power to Destroy

Here is an excellent piece by Michael S. Rozeff on the destructive power of taxation. Rozeff describes nine incentives, every one of them perverse, that rulers have when they possess the power to tax their subjects.

One interesting subject discussed is asset forfeiture, as follows:

Consider, for example, the Crown's provision of justice in medieval England. Convicted felons were typically hanged and their goods forfeited to the Crown, although the King might pardon a felon who agreed to serve in the Royal army. This incentive structure motivated the Crown to convict felons, because for each conviction the payment was either the felon's property or use of the felon as a soldier (the incentives). The Crown faced disincentives too, not only out-of-pocket costs but also disloyalty, disaffection, loss of reputation and resentment, if it wrongly convicted innocent people of felonies.

Under this incentive structure, the Crown likely displays a marked enthusiasm for arresting and convicting felons (and perhaps non-felons). The incentive structure also induces the Crown to change the laws so as to define more crimes as felonies. If this dynamic sounds similar to the case of police and municipalities in the United States benefiting from the seizure and forfeiture of goods and the resulting expansion of crimes subject to seizure and forfeiture, that is because it is.

Rozeff concludes:

Purposeful choice in the realm of voluntary behavior among ordinary people tends to improve life. Purposeful choice among rulers tends to destroy life, because rulers act on their wants, not those of taxpayers.

John Marshall in 1819 wrote that "The power to tax involves the power to destroy". Even if we ignore the moral argument that taxes are theft and ignore the consequentialist arguments that taxes hamper the pursuit of happiness and lower economic efficiency, the power to tax has numerous harmful incentives that indeed encourage destruction in many ways.

The bottom line is this. Place no hope of betterment in changing the party or man in office, for so long as rulers possess the power to tax, they will use that mechanism of state to the detriment of its subjects. The power to tax provides the serpent of state with its victims, us. Taxes feed the monster whose growth spreads venom everywhere. Taxes with or without representation are evil, ever fostering harm and destruction. If we are wise, we will defang the beast by ending its power to tax.

That, of course, would not just defang but kill the beast, which is A-OK by me.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2005

Economics in One Paragraph

From Sheldon Richman's article "Trade Wars: The Empire Strikes Back":

Has it occurred to our (mis)leaders that Chinese entrepreneurs have done more to raise the living standards of low-income Americans than all the welfare-state bureaucrats, anti-poverty workers, and their trillions of dollars combined? Speeches about the minimum wage, Medicaid, and food stamps amount to nothing compared to the mass production of low-priced goods. Worse than nothing — because the welfare state stunts economic growth, hurting low-income people far more than the middle and upper classes.

Posted by George F. Smith at 06:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Education

Here's a fascinating piece found via a link on LewRockwell.com. It concerns private schooling versus "free" schooling (supported by taxpayers in foreign countries via the World Bank) in Africa and finds, not surprisingly, that the private schools not only outperform the "free" schools academically but that they also serve more children for free than do the so-called "free" schools. In fact, the "free" schools actually force parents to buy expensive uniforms in order to keep the poor kids out.

Naturally, the bureaucrats in charge of doling out the money to run the "free" schools are completely contemptuous of the private schools. For example, "Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa concedes that mushrooming private schools exist, but reports that they 'are without adequate state regulation and are of a low quality'." One education commissioner's representative sniffed that the parents sending their kids to private schools only do so for the status symbol value, "saying this, without irony, standing by her brand new silver Mercedes," the author adds parenthetically.

Asks the author:

But why would parents be foolish enough to pay for schools of such low quality? Exploring further, I spoke to parents, some of whom had taken their children to the “free” government schools, but had been disillusioned and returned to the private schools. Their reasons were straightforward: in government schools, class sizes had increased dramatically and teachers couldn’t cope with 100 or more pupils, five times the number in the private school classes.

Parents compared notes when their children came home from school, and saw that in the state schools, notebooks remained untouched for weeks; in contrast, in the private schools children’s work was always marked. One summed up the situation succinctly: “If you go to a market and are offered free fruit and vegetables, they will be rotten. If you want fresh fruit and veg, you have to pay for them.”

How about that? Poor Africans understand the workings of the free market better than rich bureaucrats who spend other people's money for a living. If the bureaucrats have anything to say about it, though, everyone in Africa will be forced to send kids to the "free" schools. That, of course, will help keep the Dark Continent in its place.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)

June 27, 2005

Rumsfeld: Insurgency Could Last 12 More Years

Remember how the invasion of Iraq was going to be a "cakewalk" and U.S. soldiers were going to be greeted with flowers? Remember how anyone who questioned that was considered an anti-American leftist who was "with the terrorists"?

Well, it seems these days that our Secretary of Defense has turned into just such an anti-American leftist, at least according to this report.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday he is bracing for even more violence in Iraq and acknowledged that the insurgency "could go on for any number of years."

Defeating the insurgency may take as long as 12 years, he said, with Iraqi security forces, not U.S. and foreign troops, taking the lead and finishing the job.

Ah, yes, those phantom "Iraqi security forces" will do the trick! Face it, Rummy: the U.S. is going to be there for years and years, and our troops will be the ones battling--and creating--the insurgency.

Still, it's nice of you to admit now what some of us have known since well before the war officially began.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)

Does He Read This Stuff Before Delivering It?

This is unbelievable and funny in an ironic way.

President George W Bush, whose administration has been hit by accusations of prisoner abuse, said that the United States was committed to the elimination of torture worldwide.

In a statement to mark United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, Mr Bush said: "Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right, and we are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law."

Uh-huh. I'll just bet most of the people who heard that believed every word of it.

If you're serious about this, Mr. President, I can recommend some places to start working on it: Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and all those countries where "enemies of the state" have been sent to be tortured for information. You'd better clean up your own house before you start lecturing other people on how they need to clean up theirs.

(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2005

Raimondo vs. the Neocons, Part 3,792

Here is yet another knockout column from Justin Raimondo, entitled "Iraq: What Price 'Victory'?"

Raimondo once again takes on the neocons (specifically, David Brooks and Max Boot) who continue to insist that the Iraq war is, if not winnable, then not necessarily losable either. We must "stay the course," they say--no matter what the cost.

Here's a sample of Raimondo's polemic, complete with a nice back-to-basics dig at the evil State:

As the battle-hardened veterans of the Iraq war gather in the shadows, piercing our pathetically porous borders and seeping into the multicultural fabric of American society, your tax dollars will have paid for their training. The sheer irony of it could prove lethal. As new 9/11s confirm the CIA's warning – will it be New York again, San Francisco, Chicago, or some suburban mall? – a renewed American militarism will be unleashed to wreak havoc on the world. So the cycle of new wars and new provocations continues unabated, and the future is a vista of mass murder and retaliation as far as the eye can see. Like some giant death machine, pumping and expelling its poisonous breath, breathing in human lives and spitting out fire.

That murderous contraption, as libertarians are well aware, is the State: fueled by looted wealth and the illusions of its citizens, it runs over lives and crushes all that dare stand in its way. Yet it needs constant infusions of legitimacy as it wreaks havoc and devastation, and that is the role of the War Party and its intellectual spokesmen, laptop bombardiers of the Brooks-Boots persuasion. Even as the blowback from an ill-conceived and morally baseless war hits us full in the face, they urge us to soldier on: that's what they get paid for, and these days they're really earning every dime. While the rebels are exacting a huge toll on the nascent Iraqi government and the American casualty rate is on the rise, General Boot informs us that the insurgents are really "weak." After all, they have no Mao, no Ho Chi Minh, no "unifying ideology."

Yet the insurgents don't need any of these things, they don't even need to win a single pitched battle: all they have to do is keep their opponents off balance and avoid losing, while picking up political support from anti-occupation groups in the general population. The Iraqi security forces are thoroughly infiltrated, and that's because there is a "unifying ideology" that transcends religious and political divisions, not limited to the insurgent ranks, and that is opposition to a foreign presence.

Preach it, Justin!

Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2005

Theft Isn't Theft If It Leads to More Theft

In an ideal world, no one would have the right to take someone else's property by force, regardless of the reason for taking it.

In the real world, of course, that is not the case. Nevertheless, the Fifth Amendment tries to limit government's takings by restricting them to "public use," which would seem to mean such things as government buildings, roads, etc.--i.e., things used by the general public.

The Supreme Court, not surprisingly, does not see things that way. It ruled--as usual, 5-4--today that the city of New London, CT, (and by extension other cities) has the right to take the property of its residents and give it to private developers to build "a riverfront hotel, health club and offices."

The majority opinion is expressed thus: "The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including--but by no means limited to--new jobs and increased tax revenue." In short, if the government thinks it can squeeze more money out of new development than it can out of existing properties, it has every right to dispossess the current landowners in favor of the prospective ones.

Here's yet another reason to get rid of government.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)

June 22, 2005

Where is the "public" in public broadcasting?

One of the most egregious wastes of money by the government (and the competition is indeed stiff) is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This quasi-government chartered entity pays for 80% of the funding for PBS and NPR. Fat cat donors, corporations, foundations, and "contributors like you" pay the rest.

This government radio and television empire was started in the hubris following LBJ's landslide election victory in 1964. LBJ and the rest of that crowd may be dead and gone, but their programs live on.

I firmly believe that both NPR and PBS are hopelessly biased toward the socialist left and their agenda. The snobs, twits, and assholes that host and produce the programs are zealots for the whole left-wing program. Don't even try to tell me that there is any balance, cultural, political, or even racial . The news programs may have on a token spokesperson for the "opposing view" but they don't amount to much. So is Fox News you say? Yes it is biased too, but no tax payer monies go toward its production. In my humble opinion CPB should be defunded and sold off to the highest bidder.

This isn't to say that many of their radio and TV programs aren't educational, informative, or entertaining, because some are. My alma mater has WEMU-FM (89.1) which is one of the coolest radio stations in metro-Detroit. It plays jazz and other good stuff 24/7. It has one or two nationally syndicated talk show programs and NPR News on the hour, but hey, nobody is perfect. I gave WEMU a small contribution during their last fund drive and I have a whole collection of their coffee mugs to prove my long time financial support.

WUOM-FM based at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and WDET-FM based in Detroit are both lousy. The whole broadcast day is left wing talk shows. Ewwww. They get nada. Taking my tax money and giving it to Diane Rehm, Terry Gross, Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered, Tavis Smiley, and the rest of those ass clowns is criminal. PBS television ditto.

People aren't forced to pay tax to support Fox News, Howard Stern, MSNBC, Rhapsody, ESPN, or any other news or entertainment enterprises. So why PBS and NPR then? Why indeed.

Posted by Ali Massoud at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

June 21, 2005

Bye-Bye, "Private" Social Security Accounts

Gee, but that George W. Bush is a man of firm convictions, as all his supporters tell us. After all, only a man of firm convictions would support passage of a Social Security "reform" bill that doesn't include the centerpiece of his own proposal, namely, pseudo-private accounts.

If the account idea is killed, it's a good thing, although I doubt whatever is in this bill is any improvement.

Do you suppose Bush voters will finally recognize that they've been had? Not likely. As long as Bush keeps killing foreigners to make the world safe for democracy and Israel, he can betray his base in every other way, as he has done and continues to do, and still retain their loyalty. What a shame.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:07 PM | Comments (0)

"I Recant!" Cries Senator Durbin

As in the glorious days of Josef Stalin, the public recantation is alive and well.

Today's victim is Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, whose truthful remarks about U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were beyond the pale as far as the War Party (made up of both Republicans and Democrats) was concerned. Thus he was forced to recant publicly, which he did with great aplomb, even throwing in some tears to show he's really, really sorry. To top it off, Durbin also made a point of how sorry he was that he had dared to refer to the Nazis and that most sacred of all historical evils, the Holocaust, to which no evil in history can ever measure up (despite the fact that "our old Uncle Joe" Stalin and other commies killed far more than Hitler).

Only one line is permitted in today's America: The war is wonderful, the president is a god, and the U.S. of A. can do no wrong. You can be sure Dick Durbin won't forget it. Red-state fascism, as Lew Rockwell has termed it, is alive and well.

(See Butler Shaffer's column on Durbin's sin, too.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 08:52 PM | Comments (3)

Kyoto = Energy Rationing

Let's give George W. Bush credit for one good thing he's done, namely, keeping us out of the horrific Kyoto Protocol. Otherwise, this might be in the offing for us, too:

British residents could face a form of energy rationing within the next decade under proposals currently being studied to reduce the U.K.'s carbon dioxide emissions to comply with the Kyoto Protocol.

Under the proposals, known as Domestic Tradable Quotas (DTQs), every individual would be issued a "carbon card," from which points would be deducted every time the cardholder purchased fossil fuel, for example, by filling up a car or taking a flight.

Over time, the number of points allotted to each card would decline. High-energy users would be able to purchase points from low-energy users, with the end result being a trading market in carbon similar to the one already in place in the U.K. for industrial users.

Yikes!

Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2005

Al-Jazeera, Mouthpiece of the Enemy

Referring to al-Jazeera, Donald Rumsfeld said: "You claim that your motto is to open the floor for all opinions ... so why is your channel a mouthpiece for the terrorists?" Your station should stick to reporting the news of the liberation actions "as it is" and not attempt to harm the image and reputation of US-led forces in Iraq.

Actually, that's not quite accurate. Replace "terrorists" in the first quoted sentence with "Americans"; replace "liberation" with "mujahadin"; and insert "groups fighting" after "reputation of," and you'll have the words of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Yes, folks, al-Zarqawi thinks al-Jazeera is a U.S. propaganda outlet.

Apparently al-Jazeera is doing something right if both sides are accusing them of carrying the enemy's water.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:14 PM | Comments (0)

Bush's Browbeating of Iran Backfires--or Does It?

Reports the AP:

Iran's spy chief used just two words to respond to White House ridicule of last week's presidential election: "Thank you."

His sarcasm was barely hidden. The backfire on Washington was more evident.

The sharp barbs from President Bush were widely seen in Iran as damaging to pro-reform groups because the comments appeared to have boosted turnout among hard-liners in Friday's election — with the result being that an ultraconservative now is in a two-way showdown for the presidency.

"I say to Bush: `Thank you,'" quipped Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi. "He motivated people to vote in retaliation."

Oops.

On the other hand, perhaps Bush's comments are part of the plan: Drive the Iranians to elect hardliners so you can portray their government as the new embodiment of Evil; then the sheeple will be ready to invade yet another country that hasn't harmed us.

(Thanks to Antiwar.com for the link.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)

Reed Fred and See This Gem

Here's a great quote from Fred Reed's column today:

"[W]ars are the hobbies of half-informed children who have somehow come into possession of the levers of power."

Amen, Brother Fred!

Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)

Bill Gates, Robber Baron

When the sleaze factor of government gets so high even its sheep start to frown, a team of DOJ prosecutors will go on the warpath against some market celebrity. It gives us a warm feeling and rekindles our faith to see government go after hugely successful market entrepreneurs. It also serves to keep us restrained, for if government can shake down the big guys what chance do we working stiffs have? We've seen what the DOJ did to Martha Stewart, a cunning predator who resorted to all kinds of underhandedness to get us to buy her products or watch her TV shows, then used her position of power to cheat us out of insider stock market information. She even had the gall to stand up to DOJ interrogators, we were told. Years earlier Bill Gates felt the wrath of the DOJ crusade squad.

Last month Joseph Sobran republished an article he originally wrote in 1998 about the Microsoft antitrust prosecution. It is timeless in its analysis. Examples:

"Does anyone notice something a little bit odd here? The institution that gave us the atomic bomb is offering to protect us from a company that gives us personal computers.

"I must be stupid. I’ve never understood why concentrations of private property are more dangerous than concentrations of coercive power."

"Personally, I don’t feel threatened by Bill Gates. Bill Gates can’t take a penny of my earnings if I don’t want him to have it. I don’t have to work for him for the first four months of the year. He can’t put me in prison for refusing to pay him or for disobeying his orders. He can’t break into my house and search for drugs. He can’t send my sons to war. He hasn’t incinerated any religious sects, and none of his agents has shot a mother in the head while she was holding her baby. He doesn’t even seem interested in doing any of these things."

Posted by George F. Smith at 09:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

More Gitmo Gear From the Compassionate Conservatives

If you thought the "I [Heart] Gitmo" stuff from Cafe Press (linked on today's STR home page) was outrageous, get a load of the stuff America's leading "conservative" talk show host is offering. Here we have "Club G'itmo" T-shirts featuring such slogans as "I got my free Koran and prayer rug at G'itmo," "Your tropical retreat from the stress of Jihad," "What happens in G'itmo stays in G'itmo," and "My mullah went to Club G'itmo and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." (Yeah, I had to laugh at that last one; at least Limbaugh has a sense of humor.) There's also a coffee mug, a cap, and a "brochure" for "Club G'itmo" complete with five-day forecasts for both G'itmo and Baghdad.

Remember, folks: It's not a gulag if our government does it.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:42 AM | Comments (0)

June 17, 2005

The Hidden Cost of War by Rep. Ron Paul

"Being the issuer of the world’s premier currency allows for a lot more abuse than a country would have otherwise. World businesses, governments, and central banks accept our dollars as if they are as good as gold. This is a remnant of a time when the dollar was as good as gold. That is no longer the case. The trust is still there, but it’s a misplaced trust. Since the dollar is simply a paper currency without real value, someday confidence will be lost and our goose will no longer be able to lay the golden egg. That’s when reality will set in and the real cost of our extravagance, both domestic and foreign, will be felt by all Americans. We will no longer be able to finance our war machine through willing foreigners, who now gladly take our newly printed dollars for their newly produced goods and then loan them back to us at below market interest rates to support our standard of living and our war effort."

Read Paul's complete June 14 speech before the U.S. House.

Posted by George F. Smith at 05:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Permanent War for Permanent War

Here's more evidence that the United States is on a permanent crusade to remake the world. William Pfaff, in a fine column called "Disconnected from Reality," tells us about

a new Bureau of Reconstruction and Stabilization in the State Department, charged with organizing the reconstruction of countries where the United States has deemed it necessary to intervene in order to make them into market democracies.

The Bureau currently has 25 countries under surveillance as possible candidates for U.S. Defense Department deconstruction and U.S. State Department reconstruction.

The bureau’s director is recruiting “rapid reaction forces” of official, non-governmental and corporate business specialists. He hopes to develop the capacity for three full-scale, simultaneous reconstruction operations in different countries.

He told a recent conference on this subject (according to Naomi Klein in The Nation magazine [April 16]) that some of these American corporations will be given “pre-completed” contracts for reconstruction work in countries currently unaware that they are candidates for destruction/reconstruction. Getting the paperwork done beforehand, he said, could “cut off 3 to 6 months in your response time.” Reconstruction is a profitable new market sector.

This occurs at the same time American military forces still are unable to pacify Iraq or Afghanistan, agricultural societies of less than 25 million people each, both largely in ruins. The billions Washington already has spent on reconstruction have yet to produce reliable electric power, clean water or a functioning sewer system in Baghdad itself.

The creation of an official capability for reconstructing 25 countries, at a time when anonymous senior army officers are quoted as saying that the United States could be defeated in Iraq, is the most egregious Washington example of a pathological disconnection from reality.

However it is a logical bureaucratic response to the announced administration intention to overturn tyrants and spread liberty throughout the world. It serves also as its reductio ad absurdum.

Here's the website for the office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. If that website doesn't prove that our government wants to run the whole world, nothing does.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)

When Welfare Was Considered Shameful

In a review of the movie Cinderella Man in the July 4 edition of The American Conservative, Steve Sailer writes of the hero of the movie:

In 1934, Braddock's faithful manager . . . signed him up on only a day's notice to play human punching bag to a heavyweight contender. Despite having gone without food so his kids could eat, Braddock knocked out the big galoot. He then upset two more prominent names. Braddock's purses allowed him to reimburse the government for his family's welfare payments, a gesture Joe Louis later emulated.

Imagine that! Two men actually felt obligated to pay back the welfare money they had received, probably out of a sense of shame and embarrassment that they had been reduced to accepting it in the first place.

Can you envision anyone doing this today? No, instead we are treated to Americans whose sole purpose in life, it seems, is to extract ever more money from their fellow man via the long arm of government. Those who suggest that maybe they shouldn't be doing this--or even that they should simply be satisfied with the amount of stolen money they're already getting--are the ones who are shamed and embarrassed into shutting up. How the mighty have fallen.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)

When Is a Democracy Not a Democracy? When a Foreign Leader Says So

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less." So wrote Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass.

So also speaks President Bush when he uses the word democracy, as witness his comments on the election in Iran, which featured seven candidates--would that we had so many choices!--two of whom have promised to improve relations with the U.S. As the AP reports it:

On the eve of Iran's presidential election, President Bush said the voting has been designed to keep power in the hands of a few rulers "through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy."

"The Iranian people deserve a genuinely democratic system in which elections are honest - and in which their leaders answer to them instead of the other way around," Bush said in a statement released by the White House Thursday.

Sounds great, Mr. President. When do we get that here at home?

Apparently Bush is worried that the wrong candidate--if the U.S. even has a candidate in this election--is going to win, so he's making it clear that democracy means exactly what he chooses it to mean, namely, an election in which the outcome favors the U.S. government. An election rife with intimidation and fraud in, say, Iraq or Afghanistan is perfectly legitimate, but one that is likely no worse in Iran is illegitimate.

Actually, the most likely reason for Bush's denouncing the Iranian elections even before they happen is to keep preparing the American people for an attack on Iran. After all, if the goal is to bring democracy to Iran, and that country already has democracy, then why invade? Iran has to be made out to be thoroughly evil so that an invasion is justified in the minds of the American people.

As Rush Limbaugh said today about the prisoners at Gitmo, "We're good, and they're evil." That pretty well sums up the neocon mentality.

(Thanks to Antiwar.com for the link.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:20 PM | Comments (0)

How to Descend Into Fascism

Want to know how the warmongers among us view the prisoners at Gitmo? You can't do better than this column by Frank Salvato at CNSNews.com. Writes Salvato:

The people being held at Camp X-Ray are very bad people.

How do we know they're "very bad people"? Our government says so--you know, the same government that told us Iraq was overflowing with WMD and was intimately connected with al-Qaeda.

They were caught shooting at members of the most powerful and potent fighting force on the face of the planet, a fighting force that originates from the most generous and humanitarian nation in the history of said planet.

In other words, our government and its military are pure as the driven snow, and therefore anyone who opposes them--even when said military is invading that person's home country--is ispo facto a very bad person.

It takes overwhelming conviction, one based in absolute stupidity, to oppose a military that consistently garners overwhelming odds of success. So, the idea that innocents were scooped up from the battlefields along with hardened terrorists and militants while on their way to the local 7-Eleven, just doesn't hold water.

Never mind the fact that our military was paying Afghans, for example, to bring in supposed Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. No one would ever turn in an old enemy or just someone from a neighboring village in exchange for more money than he normally sees in an entire year.

These people - and I use the term only [in] its biological definition - deserve to be held in the most serious and God forsaken place that humanity can conceive. Judging from the reading material at Camp X-Ray -- and I'm not talking about Newsweek magazine -- I believe we have found just such a place.

In short, the prisoners at Gitmo aren't human. They're lower than animals, and our government can do whatever it wants to them.

And people wonder how the Germans could support Hitler's policies.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2005

Shooting the Messenger

Here's what has the official right in a tizzy today.

Senator Dick Durbin, D-IL, had the following to say on the floor of the Senate yesterday:

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Of course, Durbin is right, which is what really infuriates the neocons and their media enablers. (To his credit, he's not backing down from what he said.) Sure, Gitmo doesn't (yet) equate to a Nazi concentration camp or a Soviet gulag in degree, but it most definitely equates to it in kind. People are captured and thrown into the prison simply because the U.S. government doesn't like them; they're kept there indefinitely, perhaps forever; and they are subjected to inhumane treatment, perhaps in the hope of obtaining "useful" information.

Rush Limbaugh implied today that Durbin ought to be executed for daring to exercise his freedom of speech. Oddly enough, he thought Jane Fonda's far more damaging exercise of freedom of speech in Vietnam was not worthy of punishment. As far as he and most of his listeners and copycats are concerned, everyone in Gitmo is a terrorist--an enemy (because the government says so)--and therefore deserving of far worse treatment than that which Durbin described (since these people are our enemies and out to get us).

Jews, the German people were told, were their enemies and out to get them, and thus anything the Nazi regime did to protect them from the Jews was warranted, no matter how horrific it was. Many of our countrymen aren't far from that same mentality.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2005

Close Gitmo? Here is what will happen.



There is a big push by some anti-war types these days to have Gitmo closed because of all the abuses that have gone on there. The real solution is to end this war.


Until they do however, the USG should allow these people hearings before judges, and Amnesty Intl and the Red Crescent/Cross should be allowed the run of the place.


Close it and the infantry grunts (and I used to be one) will see no further need to take captives if they are simply gonna be given a six month rest & spa treatment at Camp Fed. The EC's get three squares, medical and dental treatment, and a chance to relax. Then they are released to again kill and injure soldiers and Marines. They have had a least ten EC's who were released from Gitmo who have ended up back on the battlefield shooting and bombing them all over again. Catch & release is fine for fishing, but not for EC's.


Once the grunts figger this out they'll simply shoot 'em rather than take them captive. To a grunt, a good EC is a dead one. Solves the Gitmo problem for them too.


 


Posted by Ali Massoud at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)

Pay No Attention to That Data Behind the Curtain

According to Agence France Presse:

Iraq is "statistically" no safer today than it was after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was overthrown, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.

Asked on BBC television whether Iraq was safer since the US-led invasion ended with the ouster of Saddam in April 2003, Rumsfeld replied: "Well, statistically no. But clearly it has been getting better as we've gone along."

Ah, so all the data indicates things aren't any better than they were two years ago, but "clearly" they are. I guess we're just supposed to take Rummy's word for it.

Anyway, if things look bad now, just remember Rummy's optimistic outlook: "A lot of bad things that could have happened have not happened."

(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)

June 12, 2005

Fun and Games on (Government-owned) Toll Roads

thesmokinggun.com is doing a vacation traveling series on toll roads and the problems that weary and harassed drivers have had with the toll takers. In a great article TSG used the FOIA requests to examine letters of complaint from pissed off drivers and they make sad but hilariously funny reading, (even if they are redacted).

Such as this one:

"2 men in booth- Changing shifts patron told collector please take my money I have to go. Collector grabbed patron by shirt and scratched his face, and told him to pull over and see how much of man he is.
Additional Comments:
Patron claims to have contacted his lawyer."

This is but one, and there many, many more. About 20 or so actually. A dozen or so folks from the Garden State recently bitched about an article I linked to when I was STR Guest Editor a few days ago Giving the (State of New Jersey) the Finger and so this is my reply to those people.

In all fairness though, when I worked as an agricultural chemicals salesman and sales manager after I got out of the US Army I traveled all over the Great Lakes area of the Mid-west and I can tell you for a fact that the complaints and stories about rude, nutty, and clueless toll takers from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio are about the same. Michigan does not have tolls except at (privately owned or managed) bridges and tunnels.

My own $0.02 worth is that if all these operations were privatized or better still, privately owned, you would see an amazing change of attitude from these people and the drivers as well. If Mr. Toll Taker is consistently complained against he can be fired. (What a concept eh?) If Mr. Motorist is acting like a jackass, he can be banned from using the road. (Terms of service: You gotta behave yourself asshole or we deny you service).

Free market ownership would be flexible and creative enough to hire, retain, and promote better people. In Ann Arbor, the parking structures are city owned but privately operated (that is to say non-union, and no "civil service" protection for assholes and slackers) and everything runs very smoothly. In Dearborn and Detroit, the parking attendants are city employees and between their civil service protection, union contract work rules, and $18 dollars an hour pay scales are safe to do, act, or say, whatever they fookin' want since they cannot be fired very easily. So there.

Posted by Ali Massoud at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)

June 11, 2005

License? I Don't Need No Stinkin' License!

As this is written (06/11/05 08:15 PM EDT), Rob has a poll on the front page asking what activities one should have to have (need?) a license for. The choices run from plausible to ridiculous.
When I lived in Washington State in the late 1990's, they had a controversy over high school diplomas and graduation testing requirements. It seems Olympia's chief educrat had a scheme in mind that would require high school seniors to take and pass a test in order to graduate. Even if their grades, attendance, necessary credits and other requirements were already met too.
To add to the insult Mr. Education wanted these test results printed on the front of the diploma too! Whether Mr. Education wanted this in order to give the little bastards incentive to study or to scar them for life was not made clear. Given Washington's progressive populist tradition and history it was no surprise to me that a ballot initiative was immediately launched to make all Washington state office holders and candidates for same, (appointed or elected), take this test as well and have their scores next to their names on any subsequent election ballots.
The uproar amongst the ruling political classes of both parties and the media pundits was worse than the forest fires they have in Washington every summer. It makes me laugh out loud to this day when I think about the discussions that occurred over this issue.
.
The whole business flared up into quite a firestorm on Washington's editorial pages and talk radio shows. In an anti-climatic pre-emptive move, the legislature rejected the idea and so it went away to the great relief of the political classes. Mr. Education moved to California and was never heard from again.

Posted by Ali Massoud at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)

June 10, 2005

Iraqi War: Stage 2 Insurgency

I for one seek alternative views on US/UK military operations in Iraq. I have found this one to be especially accurate.

The_War_Nerd:
"Now comes stage two of the insurgency: the flag-waving fools are gone, and it's the survivors in control -- guerrilla evolution, survival of the practical guys who want to win instead of dying gloriously. You see the same pattern with insurgencies in Algeria, Chechnya, Colombia: the martyrs get killed off, and the cold-blooded guerrilla operatives take over."

Tell it brother!

They learn and adapt. Rumsfeld and that NBA-tall Air Force factotum that follows him around and looms over his dinky ass at PR events and such, have no clue at all. Those two idiots still think they can win this thing.

The US Army a few years from now will prolly have to do a Dunkirk style fighting withdrawal or be stuck in a series of Stalingrad/Alamo type encirclements and sieges which as military history has shown, usually leads to a Dein Bein Phu mass surrender or physical force destruction (i.e.-an Alamo type wipe-out). This is what military history shows us usually happens. Never mind what Victor Davis Hanson and the rest of the neo-Con or National Review published military historians say.

" Armies in peacetime", War_Nerd goes on to say, "never learn anything. They're the slowest, dumbest organisms since the Stegosaurus. Or maybe even the Democratic Party. Whereas armies in combat learn incredibly fast."

Yes they do. They either get good fast or die fast.

Posted by Ali Massoud at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)

General Knowledge

This guy had better watch his back.

A senior US military chief has admitted "good, honest" Iraqis are fighting American forces.

Major General Joseph Taluto said he could understand why some ordinary people would take up arms against the US military because "they're offended by our presence".

In an interview with Gulf News, he said: "If a good, honest person feels having all these Humvees driving on the road, having us moving people out of the way, having us patrol the streets, having car bombs going off, you can understand how they could [want to fight us]."

(Thanks to Antiwar.com for the link.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)

Democracy and its Discontents

Writes Justin Raimondo in a fabulous column on democracy and the Bushies' attempts to force it on the rest of the world:

Asked why the Ethiopian government arrested 14 opposition leaders in the wake of postelection unrest – in which government troops, firing into unarmed crowds, killed 26 and wounded dozens – Ethiopia's Information Minister Bereket Simon would not confirm the arrests, but told Reuters:

"Anyone who incites violence, other than those elected, will have to face the law."

This ought to be carved in stone above the entrance to every legislative chamber, every courthouse, every government building on the face of the earth, because it pretty much summarizes, with admirable succinctness and brazen verve, the central operating principle of all governments everywhere, including democracies. The elites – whether elected or self-selected – are above the law, and act accordingly. Crimes for which ordinary citizens would be incarcerated, and perhaps even executed, are legalized and even considered admirable when carried out under the color of state authority. Sociopathic behavior, such as murder and robbery, are simply repackaged as "war" and "taxation" and touted as our collective moral duty, or, at worst, unfortunate necessities.

Amen, Brother Justin! Read the whole column; it's very much worth it.

Also check out Butler Shaffer's recent column on the same subject.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

Kidnapped!

Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!

The state of Texas has kidnapped a girl and her three brothers from their parents because the parents are hesitant to subject their cancer-stricken daughter to radiation therapy when she has just completed chemotherapy. Worse yet, they kidnapped the kids on the basis of a single "anonymous tip about possible neglect."

The girl's mother has been charged with "interfering with child custody" for the crime of trying to keep her own daughter out of the hands of the crooks in Austin.

The benevolent state, however, has allowed the girl's father and brothers, who are now in foster homes (because the parents didn't want a dangerous treatment for their daughter's illness?), to visit her today, the day before her birthday.

This is what will happen to all those who fail to genuflect before the government-medical-therapeutic axis of evil as it tightens its grip on us. The state of Texas is nothing but a common kidnapper, except that the parents can't even get their kids back by paying a ransom.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)

June 09, 2005

Harbinger of the Times

As a free and responsible individual, are you preparing for the future? Is there a monetary cataclysm looming on the horizon?

Monday, May 30 2005
by Sina Woolcott
Los Angeles Times)

Mortgage Issued to Corpse
Dead Man Owes $650K

A review of court filings in Los Angeles' Second Circuit Court highlights the mania that has taken hold of the real estate market. An Inland Empire two bedroom bungalow was sold to a deceased man last month and nobody, from the real estate agent to the bank to the title company seemed to notice.

Apparently the time honored practice of having the sellers and buyers sign paperwork at the closing has been bypassed in many cases to speed the deals. While the case of the dead man buying the home is extreme, the Times uncovered many other cases where closings proceeded without the seller, the buyer or both present.

In February of this year, William Hobolt made an offer a two bedroom bungalow in a L.A. suburb. He died soon after, but the transaction took on a life of its own. Neither his realtor, Jeff King Realty, nor the bank, Van Nuys Capital ever met with Hobolt but his agent, Shawn King, was able to push the deal through to closure without Hobolt's participation. King is being sued by Van Nuys Capital and California Executive Title for unspecified losses. King declined to comment for this story, but King Realty issued a statement indicating that they were unaware of Mr. Hobolt's demise and were acting in good faith to "close the deal before it was too late."

Said Professer Jane Sendle of UCLA's School of Business, "It is highly unusual for a real estate transaction to proceed without the seller being involved. However, the pace of sales has overloaded the system and prudent safeguards are going by the board. People feel like they must rush through the closing before it gets derailed and then the next similar house will cost them $50,000 more to buy next month."

Posted by Robert Jackson at 03:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Is Wal-Mart a Business or a Cult?

Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott blamed the mega-retailer's problems on the lowest level employee's failure to "do the right thing" and "to do things right", at the company's annual Nuremberg-style rally. Wal-Mart is so wacky any more, it almost qualifies as a cult.

The Nation magazine's blogger Liz Featherstone's take on the Moonie cult retailer's annual meeting was strangely funny to me. Speaking of Lee Scott, she said:
"Did he promise to unveil a compensation plan that would keep workers and their families off welfare? No, Scott, who last week denied reports that his job was in danger, did something even more astonishing: he blamed the workers themselves for the recent spate of public relations disasters. "You better be ready to be better," he told them. In another gem of sage advice, Scott offered that "associates" should be "doing the right things and doing things right."

Sheesh. Moreover, it only gets weirder too.

"In other news, Wal-Mart is hoping to win back the good will of the American people by...sponsoring a reality show. Admittedly, the strategy has worked for Anna Nicole Smith and Kirstie Alley, both of whom did have some image problems, albeit mild ones: they were has-beens of less-than-svelte girth. Wal-Mart has far more to overcome."

Definitely more, I would say.

I shop at Wal-Mart. In fact with the heat wave Michigan in having right now I bought an air conditioner for my father there yesterday for only $84.99. Such a deal. However I am under no illusions about what kind of company they are.

Posted by Ali Massoud at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2005

A Guilty Pleasure

A couple of decades ago, I remember watching Ebert and (Siskel) praise the marketing genius of the "Dirty Harry" movie franchise. Paraphrasing Ebert's comments from memory, "Harry shot people for all audiences. He shot up a gang of black armed robbers and a sadistic killer who ‘escaped justice on technicalities’ in his first picture - then turned around and shot up a conspiracy of white fascist cops in his next picture." In later pictures, he went on to partner with vengeful victimized feminists. He carried out equal opportunity killing for an evolving emotionally beleaguered audience in need of some cathartic relief.

That critique comes to mind as I read Vin Suprynowicz's The Black Arrow. In this novel, the protagonist sticks black feathered shafts in tyrants big and small, whether they are thuggish DEA agents, rapist cops, lying tax assessors or conniving property-stealing politicos. Modeling his criminal perpetrators from news we read today, the reader is treated to an alternative scenario where the scions of the state are held responsible (in vivid anatomical detail) when they destroy the lives and property of their victims. This book hits the spot when you're taking a time-out from forgiving your enemies.

Posted by Robert Jackson at 08:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Supremely Idiotic Court Rulings

The U.S. Supreme Court is on a roll, with two ridiculous rulings today.

First the court ruled 5-4, with the usual suspects on the side of expanded federal power, "that international cruise lines sailing in U.S. waters must provide better access for passengers in wheelchairs, expanding the scope of a landmark federal disabilities law." In short, the horrible Americans With Disabilities Act (signed into law by President George H. W. Bush) now applies to cruise ships from other countries that enter into U.S. waters.

Then it ruled 6-3 that "the Bush administration can block the backyard cultivation of pot for personal use, because such use has broader social and financial implications."

"Congress' power to regulate purely activities that are part of an economic 'class of activities' that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce is firmly established," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens for the majority.

Concurring with the usual suspects was that champion of original intent and strict constructionism, Antonin Scalia, supporting that champion of conservatism and federalism, George W. Bush.

Rush Limbaugh deserves credit for coming down on the right side of both of these decisions today, asking for each to be considered on a constitutional basis rather than on individuals' approval or disapproval of the specific policy, and excoriating the court for applying the interstate commerce clause to the issue of medical marijuana. (I do think his own experience with the anti-drug regime in the U.S. has softened his drug warrior stance considerably, although he declined to discuss the issue of marijuana legalization on today's show.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:05 PM | Comments (1)

"The God That Failed" Fails Again

Remember all the crowing about how the U.S. invasion of Iraq had unleashed the wonderful forces of democracy in the region? Remember how the democratic revolution in Lebanon was supposed to be one of the outstanding examples of U.S. success? Well, then, get a load of this:

Hezbollah and its allies have won all the parliament seats for South Lebanon, where elections were held on Sunday.
Interior Minister Hassan Sabei said the alliance - which included Amal, another armed Shia Muslim movement - won by a wide margin all 17 contested seats.

Hezbollah's victory sends a message of defiance to the US and Israel, which view it as a terrorist group.

The alliance won all 17 contested seats, in addition to six seats where there had been no challengers.

The two anti-Israeli, pro-Syrian groups won more than 80% of the votes. Turnout was 45%, officials said.

Let's hear from the pro-war crowd now!

(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:57 PM | Comments (0)

June 05, 2005

The Case of the Missing Column

As per my routine, Saturday morning I saved to my hard drive all articles I wish to read from the weekend (6/4&5/05) edition of LewRockwell.com. This afternoon I read the latest from Charley Reese- "Christopher Hitchens." In it he makes a good point that I may wish to quote him on later in a future column of mine. I go to the website to copy the column's URL for future reference. I go to the index page but the column is no longer posted.
I do a Google news search and find the LRC link for the column is dead. Was the column pulled? If so, could it possibly have to do with what he says about the free market ?:

“Today, the selfish materialists have trotted out another god – the free market. The market, these people claim, if left free will always make rational economic decisions. Once again, reality contradicts theory. Unregulated capitalism will make the rich extremely rich and the poor extremely poor. "Rational" and "moral" are two different and unrelated things. In the unregulated early days of capitalism, industrialism created hellish conditions for the working men and women. The capitalist, unless constrained by religious faith or, in the absence of that, government regulation, can be as ruthless and brutal as any commissar. It may be rational to close a factory in America and move it to a country where desperate people will work for pennies, but it darn sure isn't moral.”

No, this is not the comment I wished to quote him on. If fact, I disagree vehemently with the above opinion. Mr. Reese’s fears about “unregulated capitalism” seem to mirror previous statements he’s made against NAFTA and other trade agreements which can accurately be considered regulated capitalism. So, which is it? I think Mr. Reese is confusing “government regulation” with property rights and the rule of law, the foundation of the free market. Since when are reason and morality exclusive of each other?

Lew let a big one slide by, if only briefly.

Posted by Roger Young at 03:48 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Holy Books Indeed.








There has been much ballyhoo in the media lately about the desecration of the Qur’an by US military interrogators and jailers. A dubious and now rescinded story in Newsweek a few weeks ago was attributed as the cause of riots throughout the Muslim world. One such riot in Afghanistan was responsible for many injuries and 17 deaths.

Big friggin’ deal. I myself was raised as a Muslim and still belong to a mosque and the Muslim community where I live, but even so, Allah’s words or not, it in the end is just paper pages with ink printed on them. The Qur’an is not "God", it is a book. I have seen Muslims who I know for a fact are devout throw the Qur’an across the room in anger. Anger at God, anger at life, anger at their wife, kids, Isra’el, in grief, while drunk, or because of a generalized existential anger.

The modern Muslim community fully understands what the Qur’an is and what it isn’t. This is not to say it is not a profound insult to Muslims, a blasphemous outrage, and a grave provocation. All that said though, the average Muslim would not kill someone for doing it though. Punch them out and or scream at them prolly, but only that.

It continually amazes me how the US Army MP EPW Command, G-2 staffs, CIA, PsyOps, and the rest don’t realize what happens when you give the zealots, Islamists, and violence oriented fedayeen groups such propaganda to work with. Criminally stupid, really.


 


Posted by Ali Massoud at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)

I've Been Tagged

Matthew Bryan tagged me. Thanks for asking.

I read a lot of books when I was a young Army officer with a lot of time on my hands.

# of books I own: about 200

last I bought: Off the Beaten Path - Georgia

last I read: one of a number of books about digital photography

5 that mean a lot to me: Watership Down, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Thorn Birds, About Face, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

5 people I'd like to tag: Larry Reed, Roger Young, Anthony Gregory, Jim Davies and John deLaubenfels.

Posted by Rob at 12:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 03, 2005

When the bubble goes "pop".


As people who know me or my work already know, my main goal right now (beside the usual stuff of daily life) is to acquire enough capital to build a condo development/enclave/intentional community somewhere so liberty-minded folks can live safely, securely, and free..

Toward that end, everything that I don’t plan to take with me when I go (other than what is needed for daily living) I view as either expendable or an as an investment. One such item that would fit both categories is my house. I bought it in 2000 for $47k and have put around 10k more into it in improvements. My house is currently assessed by the town as being “sellable” for $79k. (Oh really? Write me a check for that amount and it is yours Mr. Town Assessor! However, I digress.) Not a bad return on investment eh?

I am dubious though about all these pundits and writers of variable expertise and credibility who are keeping this housing market stoked to the max. I have a seemingly atavistic psychological need to “own” the home I live in and the ground it stands on. I am just that way. It is also an asset I can use to house my family and myself, and sell for a profit later.

However, I do seriously worry about what the value of that asset will be when I go to sell it though. This insane frenzy of real estate speculation, artificially low interest rates, artificially high land and home prices, ( which provides more tax dollars for the local and state governments too!) are all warning signs. I have this sinking feeling that a good many people are being caught up in real estate bubble similar to the stock market bubble of the late 1990’s.

“Ali you worry about everything man”, I am told quite often. This is of course true. Nevertheless, as Woody Allen noted, "Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you”.

At some point sooner or later the OPEC nations, Japan, and China are going to have enough US dollars in their vaults and portfolios that are steadily dropping in value, and whoever Bush appoints to replace Alan Greenspan as Fed Chairman is simply going to have to raise interest rates. He’ll have to my friends or allow a ruinous inflation to set in. Raise them substancially too.

When this happens, the results won’t be pretty either. People with ARMs are going to see their payments double. Default and delinquency rates on housing loans are going to surge. Many houses and much land is going to come onto the market at fire sale prices. So just when I go to sell, my (allegedly) $79k home will get no offers above $50k and so I am screwed. WTF is a person to do?

Posted by Ali Massoud at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)

June 01, 2005

Iraq Turned Out So Well; Let's Invade Iran, Too!

Good old Joe Farah. If there's one thing you can count on him to do, it's support war against Muslim countries, at least as long as a Republican president is in charge of the war.

WorldNetDaily led the charge for war on both Afghanistan and Iraq, and despite the less-than-stellar results of both wars, Farah now says that invading Iran is a must.

Farah's sick of the second-guessers--you know, the people who said Iraq wasn't a threat and wouldn't be a threat for years to come and who turned out to be right. How dare these people tell us "that warmongers in the United States are making a case against Iran based on the same arguments they used with respect to Iraq"! Farah then goes on to make a case against Iran based on the same arguments he used with respect to Iraq. Among his ridiculous assertions:

Concludes Farah:

The second-guessers tell us there is no threat to the United States posed by Iran.

I don't know how anyone could reasonably come to such a conclusion.

There is an imminent threat.

Second-guessing appeasers of this tyrannical regime will only place our country in graver danger in the future. They always do.

Don't listen to those who are still debating as to whether or not we were right to fight Adolph Hitler and imperial Japan.

Don't listen to those who are still wringing their hands about Vietnam – those who brought shame on our country and a predictable holocaust to Southeast Asia.

Don't listen to those who look at victory in Iraq and see defeat.

Remember Sept. 11.

Defend America.

Defeat the terrorists.

Destroy Islamo-fascism.

Free Iran.

Yikes!

Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)