NASA sets the bar higher:
Take a closer look. The Emperor greets surviving pagan sacrifices:
The Empire is bleeding blood and treasure:
Live in Zimbabwe and pretend you’re rich (See how much it will buy)
We have the end of habeas corpus and DNA samples in the street. The next step-express executions:
Forget the upside-down-flag-distress signal- burn the bastard:
He has heart- the battery replacment proves it. Still no sign of a soul:
Health insurance is a mess. Indeed. I’m watching Michael Moore (and moore and moore) on Leno. Interesting mention of the bonus plan in England: Doctors get bonuses at the end of the year, based off of how well their patients improve. Also, Moore made some interesting admissions that Hillary and the Democrats are just as complicit in the health care debacle as are the Republicans.
Wonderful. An excuse for socialized medicine? No doubt. Never mind that there are so many other aspects to the problem: deliberate limited competition among doctors (causing price increases), ludicrous lawsuits and awards based on sympathy (creating ludicrous doctor insurance costs), costs signed off by a consumer that never sees them, and excessive government bureaucracy, to name a few. The government itself created many, if not most, of the problems in health care today.
It all leads to cries again for socialized medicine (aka “universal health care”). The government should handle it, says Moore. It’s a “human right.”
Here’s one simple argument against: I work hard to live a healthy lifestyle. I resent the notion that I should be helping pay for someone who does not—for example, an X-games motocross competitor, or, say, an unhealthy tub like Moore.
Ahh, the arrogance, to try and force one’s moral system onto the rest of us.
Has anyone considered what kind of individuals Iraqi children will become- children who have known nothing but war?:
Apparently, the state wants more than your heart and soul:
Rudy gives encouragement to a future state assassin:
John McCain consults with his closest advisor:
Greenburg, Kansas is wiped off the map by a tornado. The first priority of the Kansas National Guard? Why, raise up the Yankee War Flag, of course:
Killling civilians in Iraq by men in uniform?……..GOOD!
Killing civilians in Blacksburg by civilians?………..BAAAAD!
The Myth of the noble Lincoln lives on:
The police, late and ineffective as usual, doing only what they can do- cleaning up the mess:
The video hat; the newest weapon against the people:
The Emperor is stumped and solicits advice:
Congratulations to the brave Mennonites in Missouri who would rather move than betray their religious beliefs. The state of Missouri now requires a photo on all driver’s licenses, no exceptions. This requirement does not sit well with the Mennonite community, some who are selling their properties and businesses and moving to Arkansas which offers a religious exemption.
These are peaceful, skilled individuals that are being pushed away from their homes by useless, bureaucratic nonsense that offers no useful purpose, outside of maintaining control over the lives of the collective. If only more of us had the guts to take such principled action. .
Tyrone Brown was a 17 year old on probation for a $2 robbery when marijuana was found in his blood stream. The punishment? Life in prison. It took 17 years before the bloody state of Texas would release him. How many others are suffering the same injustice?
Good morning, Strikers. On today’s edition of STR, I linked to an Infowars.net story about Senate Bill S-1 (that’s a temporary link to Section 220 of the bill), touted by the Washington Post as an “ethics and lobbying reform bill,” but notably hiding frightening political speech control provisions within its bulk.
I also mentioned in my comment that Dr. Gary North, a former Congressional staffer, had written a fierce warning against this piece of legislation in his Reality Check e-newsletter, but I didn’t have a web link to provide.
Well, his missive is published on LewRockwell.com today, and it’s a damned good read. Here’s a taste:
I can tell you what the highest priority of Democrats in the United States Senate is. How do I know? Because the Senate has labeled the following piece of proposed legislation, Senate Bill S1. That’s numero uno. The bill’s title: “To provide greater transparency in the legislative process.”
When you see a high-falutin title like this, you can be certain of one thing: Its promoters intend the opposite.
After writing my prior blog post (on the nursing license bureaucratic runaround), I remembered that I had written some time ago about a bar named Dewey’s on Centennial Avenue in Colorado Springs (see http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/langr/langr1.html). I had predicted that they’d probably go out of business for their poor customer service.
Well, not quite–in a trip back to Colorado Springs, I found out that they were seized by the Colorado department of revenue, presumably for not paying their taxes. Arrogance toward customers or the government, one way or another, will put you out of business. I find it unfortunate that a government has that kind of power in the first place, but every other business plays by the same rules (I wonder what would happen if they all refused simultaneously). In any case, good riddance, bad trash.
My wife Kathy, a registered nurse, recently landed a new nursing job in Texas. As part of the proceedings, she was required to secure a nursing license from the State of Texas. In dealing with the government, however, nothing is as simple as it should be. Texas had to request background history on her license from other states in which she has worked, which includes Colorado (the prior 12 years) and Maryland (1994 and earlier).
After a couple of weeks, it was apparent that Maryland wasn’t coming through with the goods. The hiring hospital dumped the problem on Kathy, to have her somehow secure the license history. Kathy got through to a woman in the state offices of Maryland last week. The “public servant” indicated that she had been out of the office for the past couple of weeks. And of course, she was the only one in the entire state of Maryland who could process the out-of-state request. No worries, she indicated that she was going to take of the request.
Problem resolved… not. A week later, Kathy called the state of Maryland to ensure that the woman had indeed processed the request, since Kathy’s temporary license expires on Friday. Initial attempts to call the state of Maryland were met with busy signal after busy signal. Kathy attempted calling what I’ll presume is the sole woman that represents the entire state of Texas, but she similarly replied with a busy signal.
After hours of attempts, Kathy finally got hold of the woman in Maryland. The same woman.
“I recognize your voice,” she said.
“I don’t know even know who you are. what you’re talking about,” replied the civil servant, “I wasn’t even here [when you called]. I don’t know who you talked to, no one left me a message that you called. I don’t even have an email from the state of Texas.”
My wife protested:
“But you’re the only one who does this, right?”
“Yes I am.”
“That’s what you told me last week.”
“I wasn’t the one you talked to, I wasn’t here.”
“I talked to someone, and I need this to be taken care of immediately, because my license expires on Friday.”
“Well, I will email them right now.”
One would think that the problem is now resolved, three weeks after it should have been resolved. I wouldn’t bet on it.
Kathy was forced to deal with someone who doesn’t care whether or not they satisfy their customer. What recourse is there? Figuring out who to complain to would take hours or days, and would provide little satisfaction. It’s not as if a complaint would get this woman, presumably untouchable, fired. Most companies would terminate an employee in an instant for this sort of customer abuse.
It’s no skin off the back of Maryland if Kathy isn’t able to secure a license and thus be able to work. I’m confident that there are few or no avenues for recourse. Never mind that a filthy government worker isn’t responsible enough to ensure her responsibilities get done in her absence, or that she lied outright to one of her “customers.”
I’ve mentioned in earlier STR articles about how you’re at the mercy of government. Most laws are put in place with good intentions. But invariably, laws become a basis of power, a way in which government employees can boost their self importance by pushing people around.
[Note: the Playboy article linked to in the following post might be NSFW, depending on what random ads are being displayed; let’s just say that when I visited, all the “interesting bits” were covered. I’m pretty sure that the .pdf file should be safe for work.]
First off, hello from the “new guy.” Second, I thought I’d start off with a link to one of the best articles I’ve read in a couple of weeks.
Murray Rothbard pointed out that the “military-industrial complex” really came into its own around WWI. Since then, it’s been profit after profit for American arms dealers, bankers (think House of Morgan), and government officials. The Iraq occupation has presented new opportunities for American business favorites to earn a bit of blood money. Note the Halliburton scandal, for example. The waters run a bit deeper than Halliburton, though. And here is Playboy doing what Playboy does second-best - publishing a great article: Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
For the war companies, things have worked out perfectly. Whatever the rationale for the invasion of Iraq, business is booming. Not long after Bush took office, Lockheed Martin’s revenues soared by more than 30 percent, as it was awarded $17 billion in contracts from the Department of Defense, a far cry from the lean years of the Clinton administration.
That’s not even to mention, say, Boeing and various arms manufacturers that provide weapons for the US government. (And the Israelis.) The article continues:
If the names and organizations connected to the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq seem to blur together, it’s no coincidence. Many of the people involved had been in and out of that set of revolving doors connecting government, conservative think tanks, lobbying firms and the defense industry. And many shared another common bond, as well: a link to Lockheed Martin.
When it really comes down to it, the connections are despicable and staggering, but not all that surprising.
See also: Merchants of Death Revisited (.pdf), “War is a Racket“
