Thus knowledge flows like water

It is official: Brazil’s GDP growth was 2.7% in 2011. The official consumer inflation rate (IPCA) was 6.5% for the same year (see attachment). This means Brazil had negative growth in 2011 of -3.8%.

Observation: Inflation in Brazil is much greater than the government says (official value from 2007 until 2011 is 30%). Look at some of the impressive price rises from 2007 until 2011 of some of the goods and services produced in the country (Sources: Globo 29/01/2012):

Meat (Filet Mignon): 117.18%
Moving services 85.97%
Rental: 42.01%
Car Oil Change and Cleaning: 65.98%
Parking: 58.04%

Iceland puts former PM on trial over crisis

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/05/uk-iceland-trial-idUKTRE8240WJ20120305

Being invaded by barbarians, raped and murdered, is better than defending yourself.

2012-03-06T11:48:00.001-08:00

http://gunssavelives.net/blog/dcs-deputy-mayor-says-being-robbed-and-injured-is-better-than-using-gun-to-defend-yourself/

Oh...and are you a Republican? Then you are really stupid.

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/46635044#46635044

School lunch anyone?

2012-03-06T02:33:00.001-08:00

Pink slime -- that ammonia-treated meat in a bright Pepto-bismol shade -- may have been rejected by fast food joints like McDonald's, Taco Bell and Burger King, but is being brought in by the tons for the nation's school lunch program.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is purchasing 7 million pounds of the "slime" for school lunches, The Daily reports. Officially termed "Lean Beef Trimmings," the product is a ground-up combination of beef scraps, cow connective tissues and other beef trimmings that are treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens like salmonella and E. coli. It's then blended into traditional meat products like ground beef and hamburger patties.

"We originally called it soylent pink," microbiologist Carl Custer, who worked at the Food Safety Inspection Service for 35 years, told The Daily. "We looked at the product and we objected to it because it used connective tissues instead of muscle. It was simply not nutritionally equivalent [to ground beef]. My main objection was that it was not meat."

Custer and microbiologist Gerald Zernstein concluded in a study that the trimmings are a "high risk product," but Zernstein tells The Daily that "scientists in D.C. were pressured to approve this stuff with minimal safety approval" under President George H.W. Bush's administration. The USDA asserts that its ground beef purchases "meet the highest standard for food safety."

Controversy surrounding "pink slime" stems from various safety concerns, particularly dangers associated with ammonium hydroxide, which can both be harmful to eat and has potential to turn into ammonium nitrate -- a common component in homemade bombs, according to MSNBC. It's also used in household cleaners and fertilizers.

In 2009, The New York Times reported that despite the added ammonia, tests of Lean Beef Trimmings of schools across the country revealed dozens of instances of E. coli and salmonella pathogens.

Between 2005 and 2009, E. coli was found three times and salmonella 48 times, according to theTimes, including two contaminated batches of 27,000 pounds of meat.

A public outcry against the "slime" is led perhaps most prominently by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver,
who had also successfully waged war against flavored milk in Los Angeles schools and continues a crusade for healthier school lunches.

News of the USDA's plan to bring 7 million pounds of "pink slime" to school cafeterias nationwide comes just weeks after the government announced new guidelines to ensure students are given healthier options for school meals. The new standards call for more whole grains and produce as well as less sodium and fat in school meals. While the measures mark a step forward from previous years, they still compromise amid push-back from Congress to keep pizza and french fries on the menu -- counting both the tomato paste on pizza and the potatoes that make fries as vegetables.

Still, some schools -- like several in California -- have taken the matter into their own hands, and have found ways to profit from those efforts. Umpteen school districts have taken part in a decade-long initiative, supported by a philanthropic organization, that provides schools with equipments and chefs who teach cafeteria workers to cook from scratch and produce fresh meals.

A recent eport by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that more than a third of high school students were eating vegetables less than once a day -- "considerably below" recommended levels of intake for a healthy lifestyle that supports weight management and could reduce risks for chronic diseases and some cancers.

Sharia in America: No, I will not 'submit'.

2012-03-06T01:49:00.001-08:00

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/03/pamela-geller-media-muslim-brotherhood-groups-whitewashing-sharia-in-america.html

Here comes the sun: Spain's sovereign thunderclap and the end of Merkel's Europe

2012-03-06T01:19:00.001-08:00

H/T Patty Golden

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100015432/spains-sovereign-thunderclap-and-the-end-of-merkels-europe/

Homeland security begins at HOME!

-T

I'll believe corporations are people when owning one is considered slavery.

-T

90% of success is showing up. Getting the math right is the other 50%.

-T

I am proudly retired from the

Oh...remember last year?

2012-03-06T01:15:00.001-08:00

When I said Iran had nukes - and the US said they didn't? And again last week....when I said Iran HAS nukes and the US said they didn't? Funny thing.
Report: Iran and North Korea collaborated on nuclear tests in 2010

The great irony here continues to be that their mutually exclusive ideologies would be duty-bound to attempt to annihilate one another if they came into competition. But for now, North Korea needs cash, and Iran wants the bomb.

They have collaborated both on computer technology that could help design nuclear weapons, and on missile technology, so there is no reason to believe they would stop there.

"Report: Iran held nuclear test in N. Korea," from YNet News, March 5:

Germany's Die Welt newspaper reported Sunday that Iran held at least one nuclear weapons test in North Korea in 2010.
The paper's report is based on "Western intelligence agencies sources," and says that the test, in fact, refutes US intelligence assessments suggesting there is no "hard evidence" that Iran is building nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has recently declared that its nuclear negotiations with Iran have failed.
The statement followed Tehran's decision the bar IAEA inspectors from what is believed to be key military sites in the Islamic Republic.
Iran vehemently claims that its nuclear program is meant to serve civil, peaceful purposes only.
The Die Welt noted that evidence of the 2010 nuclear tests in North Korea was published in early February in Nature Magazine.
According to the report, Swedish nuclear physicist Lars-Erik de Geer analyzed data "showing the presence of radioisotopes that betrayed a uranium bomb explosion."
"After a year of work, (de Geer) concluded that North Korea carried out two small nuclear tests in April and May 2010 that caused explosions in the range of 50–200 tons of TNT equivalent.
"The types and ratios of isotopes detected… suggest that North Korea was testing materials and techniques intended to boost the yield of its weapons," the report said.

The Second Amendment is the only right you need.

2012-03-06T01:10:00.001-08:00

Federal judge says gun owners need not provide 'good reason,' rules Maryland law unconstitutional

Published March 05, 2012
| FoxNews.com

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AP
BALTIMORE – Maryland residents do not have to provide a "good and substantial reason" to legally own a handgun, a federal judge ruled Monday, striking down as unconstitutional the state's requirements for getting a permit.

U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote that states are allowed some leeway in deciding the way residents exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms, but Maryland's objective was to limit the number of firearms that individuals could carry, effectively creating a rationing system that rewarded those who provided the right answer for wanting to own a gun.

"A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and substantial reason' why he should be permitted to exercise his rights," Legg wrote. "The right's existence is all the reason he needs."

But state Assistant Attorney General Matthew Fader vowed to appeal the ruling.
“We disagree with this ruling," Fader said in a written statement that noted the "very important implications of the ruling for public safety."
Plaintiff Raymond Woollard obtained a handgun permit after fighting with an intruder in his Hampstead home in 2002, but was denied a renewal in 2009 because he could not show he had been subject to "threats occurring beyond his residence."

Woollard appealed, but his appeal was rejected by the review board, which found he hadn't demonstrated a "good and substantial reason" to carry a handgun as a reasonable precaution. The suit filed in 2010 claimed that Maryland didn't have a reason to deny the renewal and wrongly put the burden on Woollard to show why he still needed to carry a gun.

"People have the right to carry a gun for self-defense and don't have to prove that there's a special reason for them to seek the permit," said his attorney Alan Gura, who has challenged handgun bans in the District of Columbia and Chicago as an attorney with the Second Amendment Foundation. "We're not against the idea of a permit process, but the licensing system has to acknowledge that there's a right to bear arms."

In his ruling, Legg wrote that Second Amendment protections aren't limited to the household.
"In addition to self-defense, the (Second Amendment) right was also understood to allow for militia membership and hunting. To secure these rights, the Second Amendment's protections must extend beyond the home: neither hunting nor militia training is a household activity, and 'self-defense has to take place wherever (a) person happens to be,'" Legg wrote.

"Judge Legg's ruling takes a substantial step toward restoring the Second Amendment to its rightful place in the Bill of Rights and provides gun owners with another significant victory," said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. "The federal district court has carefully spelled out the obvious, that the Second Amendment does not stop at one's doorstep, but protects us wherever we have a right to be."

The lawsuit names the state police superintendent and members of the Handgun Permit Review Board as defendants.
Many states require gun permits, but six states, including Maryland, issue permits on a discretionary basis, Gura said. In most of those states, these challenges have not succeeded in U.S. District Courts, but they are being appealed, he said.

"Most states that choose to regulate the right to bear arms have licensing systems that are objective and straightforward," Gura said. "That's all that we want for Maryland."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/05/federal-judge-rules-maryland-gun-permit-law-unconstitutional/#ixzz1oKGxa1aG

H/T Patty Golden

2012-03-05T14:17:00.001-08:00

youtube.com/embed/iKqpvriKZuA

FNHerstal. Stranger in a strange land.

2012-03-02T23:01:00.001-08:00

I bought an FN P-90 carbine in December. It had a bad optic out of the box. I sent it back on 12/28, attn: the rep I talked to, and then I called him again on 2/2. He said he got it and that he was sending it to another department for replacement.
OK. Today I called to check status. He didn't remember the part. He didn't remember my two prior calls - and he didn't have any record of the part being received - which would make me S.O.L. for getting a replacement - except for a couple of minor things.

(1) I sent it on 12/28/2011 with a tracking number and they signed for it on 12/31/2011. Proof, yeah, I got proof. Wanna see?

Home | Sign Out

Print Shipping Labels FAQs Address Book Shipping History Cart Empty    My Account

  THOMAS C BURNETT - Account # 7895543


   Summary of Label # 9405 5036 9930 0355 2748 89

SCAN Form #

12/28/2011 218592604 9405 5036 9930 0355 2748 89
Track & Confirm n/a Credit Card Charged

THOMAS C BURNETT
PO BOX 2051
PAHOA, HI 96778-2051 ATTN: VAL
FN SERVICE
1 BROWNING PL
ARNOLD, MO 63010-3156
Weight: 0 lbs. 10 oz.
Shipping Date: 12/28/2011
ZIP Code™: 96778

Order Type: Single Label
Service Option: Priority Mail Small Flat Rate Box Price: $5.00
Delivery Confirmation $0.00

What my 'bring it' friends don't seem to understand.

2012-03-02T09:05:00.001-08:00

Chinese hackers gained control over NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in November, which could have allowed them delete sensitive files, add user accounts to mission-critical systems, upload hacking tools, and more -- all at a central repository of U.S. space technology, according to a report released Wednesday afternoon by the Office of the Inspector General.

That report revealed scant details of an ongoing investigation into the incident against the Pasadena, Calif., lab, noting only that cyberattacks against the JPL involved Chinese-based Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

Paul K. Martin, NASA's inspector general, put his conclusions bluntly.
"The attackers had full functional control over these networks," he wrote.
Yeah. And they have had AND MAY STILL HAVE FULL FUNCTIONAL CONTROL over almost - if not ALL - of our defense and intelligence networks, IN ADDITION TO having their hands on the 'kill' switch for our entire economy, YOU DUMBASSES!

Doesn't everyone?

2012-03-02T08:49:00.001-08:00

Newt Gingrich Leaves 30-Year Trail Of Debts, Lawsuits And Bankruptcies In His Wake
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/newt-gingrich-2012-nonprofits-debts-bankruptcies_n_1311858.html

Society's Five Stages of Economic Collapse

2012-03-02T08:27:00.001-08:00

Wait a bit...there is a logical disconnect here.
Stages 2 and 3: "Precious metal - gold and silver coins". But it never explains how those can be deployed - and by stage 4, they are no longer mentioned at all. FIREARMS AND FOOD have become important. The secret is that they CANNOT BE USED IN AN AGRARIAN/BARTER SOCIETY.

Everyone who squanders the ability to acquire firearms and food and buys precious metal instead will be stuck at stage 3 and will never survive to stage 4.

http://www.shtfplan.com/emergency-preparedness/societys-five-stages-of-economic-collapse_02282012

Kepler Orrery II

2012-03-02T08:16:00.001-08:00

H/T Patricia Golden
About a year ago, Daniel Fabrycky from the Kepler spacecraft science team put together a terrific orrery-type visualizationof all the multiple-planet systems discovered by the Kepler spacecraft as of February of 2011. With a new round of exoplanets just announced, here’s part two. This one is a visualization of the planetary systems discovered by Kepler that have more than one transiting object. There are 885 planet candidates in 361 systems, doubling the number of systems in the original Kepler Orrery. In the description of this video, Fabrycky says the the orbits are to scale with respect to each other, and planets are to scale with respect to each other. The colors are in order of semi-major axis, and two-planet systems (242 in all) have a yellow outer planet; 3-planet (85) green, 4-planet (25) light blue, 5-planet (8) dark blue, 6-planet (1, Kepler-11) purple.

Watch and enjoy!

From Dr. Paul Craig Roberts - a REAGAN REPUBLICAN.

2012-03-02T08:12:00.001-08:00

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/03/02/why-cant-americans-have-democracy/

Homeland security.

2012-03-01T18:28:00.001-08:00

Homeland Security begins at home, not at the airport. My property line is my border. The rest of you can occupy Wall Street or march in Oakland if you want to. You can complain that the government is screwing you - and they are - because you are letting them. You can worry about whales or Obama or any of the other nonsense people can think of to distract you from the world - but you need to keep focused.

You can be whiners, like my rich acquaintances who have nothing to whine about or you can be victims. You can snivel and complain that the world is going to shit, and you're right. Complaining about it accomplishes nothing, zip, zero, nada.

Get a gun, get a plan, get self-sufficient. Do it now.
I'll believe corporations are people when owning one is considered slavery.
-T
90% of success is showing up. Getting the math right is the other 50%.

-T

OH, NO, Sheriff Joe!

2012-03-01T17:40:00.001-08:00

Sheriff Joe thinks Obama is not only black, but a fake, too. Not that we can do much about it, but it shows the general quality of the candidates on BOTH sides. The revolution is coming.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57388911-503544/sheriff-joe-arpaio-suggests-obamas-birth-certificate-is-a-forgery/

Welcome to America. My Repugnican friends can eat this and die.

2012-02-29T21:40:00.001-08:00

http://rt.com/usa/news/348-act-tresspass-buildings-437/

Korea's Yomi Kim Hunter

2012-02-29T20:29:00.001-08:00

Yomi Kim Hunter.   This beauty is half Korean half American.

YOMI KIM WAS VOTED THE PRETTIEST MAN IN ASIA.

Our F-22s kill their pilots.

2012-02-29T09:29:00.001-08:00

We have 80 of these chunks of shit, all of which are now completely obsolete - even if they didn't kill their pilots. The Russian PAKs can beat them - AND the F35.

This article is a bit outdated. The PAK FA is now flying and in production. The initial run will be for a thousand of them. We no longer have air-superiority, and won't for the foreseeable future. We have a submarine force and carriers - but air superiority over the battlefield or ocean wins wars. As an aside, we no longer have tank superiority either.

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/02/28/f-22-raptor-smoking-gun-not-found/

As I said months ago, Iran CAN close the Straits of Hormuz.

2012-02-29T09:16:00.001-08:00

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Gulf-Chokepoint-Seafox-Saves-the-Day-07318/?utm_medium=textlink&utm_term=continuereading&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=did&utm_content=EVMS+Withholdings+%7C+Mine+Counter-Measures+%7C+nEUROn+%7C+CH-53K+%7C+UK+FSTA+%7C+M1117&date_sent=2012-02-29+14%3A35%3A02

Our new rail gun.

2012-02-29T09:11:00.001-08:00

Coming soon to a rifle near you.
http://www.gizmag.com/em-railgun-commences-firing/21644/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=e3ab4a473c-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

Catching pigs.

2012-02-29T09:05:00.001-08:00

H/T Patty Golden
I am posting this because I have started putting corn in the pig run in my back yard - I know it works.

CATCHING PIGS

"You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and

putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday
to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a
fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming.
When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and
you put up another side of the fence.
They get used to that and start to eat again.
You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate
in the last side.
The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the
gate to eat that free corn again.
You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.
Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom.
They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught.
Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that
they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they
accept their captivity."
That is exactly what we see happening in America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to
plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually
lose our freedoms, just a little at a time. BOTH Republicans and Democrats do it.

One should always remember two truths:
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone is paying for it
2) And when you begin to think that having your government
provide for you and make your decisions is OK, realize that you've
also given up the freedom that goes with making your own choices.
'There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation.
One is by the sword, the other is by debt.'
-John Adams 1826

Monsanto contaminates the justice system

2012-02-29T08:52:00.001-08:00

H/T Joeseppi

(Reuters) - A federal judge has ruled in favor of global seed giant Monsanto Co, dismissing a lawsuit brought by a consortium of U.S. organic farmers and seed dealers who said their industry is at risk from Monsanto's growing market strength.
The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) filed the suit last March on behalf of more than 50 organizations challenging the agricultural giant's patents on its genetically modified seeds. The group wanted a ruling that would prohibit Monsanto from suing the farmers or dealers if their organic seed becomes contaminated with Monsanto's patented biotech seed germplasm.
Monsanto has filed 144 patent infringement lawsuits against farmers between 1997 and April 2010, and won judgments against farmers they claimed made use of their seed without paying required royalties.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/28/us-monsanto-lawsuit-idUSTRE81Q1PN20120228

A bit of the economy.

2012-02-28T08:18:00.001-08:00

in a phone.

2012-02-28T08:08:00.001-08:00

Nokia 808 PureView packs a 41-megapixel camera

At this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia announced the 808 PureView, a smartphone with an astounding 41-megapixel image sensor. The Nokia 808 will be the first smartphone by Nokia to include its new PureView imaging technology, which combines a high-resolution sensor with Carl Zeiss optics and Nokia-developed algorithms.

Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile

My email in on a time-delay.

2012-02-28T07:07:00.001-08:00

When someone other than me sends me an email, there is a time delay. There is an obvious explanation, but I discount it. If anyone else is experiencing this, I'd like to know.

More from the Daily Caller

2012-02-28T06:51:00.001-08:00

Team Smith & Wesson Teen Molly Smith Argues For The Second Amendment

Published: 10:14 AM 02/22/2012

in
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Courtesy of Molly, photo by Yamil Sued
Hello Gunners! Molly Smith is the youngest member of Team Smith & Wesson, an award winning shooter, and she is a high school student. Molly provided a superb argument in favor of our Second Amendment rights and it’s something I really wanted to show you. It’s great kids like Molly that will preserve our Right to Keep and Bear Arms. ~Mike P. Daily Caller Guns & Gear Editor

Article:
Often I find myself involved in activities that lead me to experiences that I never expected. I don’t plan for these intersections to occur, but they seem to always find a way! High schools have an event called Mock Trial. Basically, a criminal case is created in which the students play the various parts of the court and are judged on their performance by actual attorneys and judges. I figured this might be an interesting after-school activity, something that would widen my experiences, teach me about our judicial system, give me the opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and try something new.

When I signed up I had no idea about what the case would be or any of the details. Imagine my surprise when I found out that this year the case was about a person accused of murder, and a pretrial motion regarding the legality of the woman having possession of a concealed weapon. Concealed weapon? Sounds like a Second Amendment case!

You can picture my astonishment when the coach announced that I would be assigned to and in charge of preparing to be the pretrial prosecution attorney. The prosecution was arguing that the concealed-carry statute was constitutional, despite preventing many people from having concealed weapons. I actually looked forward to this because I never thought about defending the other side. But as with most things in my life, I was headed toward something I never expected. The coach changed my role to the pretrial defense attorney just a few weeks before the competition! As the pretrial defense attorney, I was presenting a more open view to the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment, of course, is very important to me! When I heard I would be arguing in court for the Second Amendment, I was ecstatic. I was able to present my understanding of the Second Amendment in a courtroom and would be judged on my ability to present my case, my thoughts and my defense of the Second Amendment!

It’s common for people take for granted the Second Amendment, or interpret it to mean something else. It also is common for people to take for granted the people and organizations that fight to keep our right intact – such as the NRA and attorneys like Alan Gura, who took the D.C. v. Heller case clear to the Supreme Court. There have been many court cases to preserve these rights, and one of the most well-known cases is D.C. v. Heller. Part of my job as pretrial attorney was to read through past court cases regarding similar issues, such as Heller. It was amazing to read about those cases, like McDonald v. Chicago and Heller – two Supreme Court cases that successfully outlined the importance of the Second Amendment in modern-day America.

Simplified, my task was to defend the Second Amendment as our right to keep and bear arms and explain who is adequate to receive a concealed-carry permit. I had to learn about the process of getting these permits.

Heller was an amazing case, which defended the right to bear arms; it marked the right to bear arms as an individual right, while McDonald held this right to be fundamental, much like the First Amendment right of free speech. I have a true admiration for attorneys such as Alan Gura, who fought the D.C. v. Heller case clear to the Supreme Court, not just for Heller but for all of us!

There are three types of states when it comes to the distribution of concealed-carry permits. No-Issue states do not issue permits at all; Shall-Issue states give permits to all who meet the requirements; and May-Issue states reserve the right to reject people applying, even if they meet the requirements. Heller, by marking the right as individual, raised this problem and deemed No-Issue States completely unconstitutional! This also brought problems with Shall-Issue states. Both individual and fundamental rights mean that anyone who meets requirements should be able to receive a permit, not leaving too much discretion to the government authority filtering the rights. In this case, it was the sheriff’s department’s job to choose who received a permit, opening doors for prejudice such as racism, sexism, or even just awarding permits to those who were high-power positions!

In the multiple mock trial competitions I presented at over the past few weeks, I felt great. Although it was not an actual court hearing, there were heated debates and discussions about the Second Amendment. I was comfortable and confident in all I have learned. I was so happy that I “won” all my pretrial motions, meaning the concealed-weapon charge was tossed out! At the end of the competitions, I was also awarded “Top Pretrial Defense Attorney” for the county.

This experience has been one that I will never forget! I learned so much about the judicial system and the Second Amendment, as well as gaining an even greater knowledge of the first ten Amendments that make up the Bill of Rights and understanding of why it is so important to defend them.

Here is Molly defending the Second Amendment on YouTube

One last note from Mike P. – Let’s get more women shooting and a great resource for you to know is http://www.womensoutdoornews.com/

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/22/team-smith-wesson-teen-molly-smith-argues-for-the-second-amendment/#ixzz1ngi833U7

Attack on the Second Amendment.

2012-02-28T06:45:00.001-08:00

H/T Patty Golden.
Check out TheDC’s new Guns and Gear section for Second Amendment news, gun policy and reviews of the latest guns and gear.

Over the last few years, the Second Amendment has experienced somewhat of a rebirth, thanks largely to a pair of Supreme Court decisions: District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago.

In these seminal decisions, the Supreme Court affirmed the understanding of the Founding Fathers that there is indeed an individual right to keep and bear arms, a God-given right to protect oneself that is guaranteed to us in the Second Amendment to our Constitution. Cities with oppressive restrictions on guns, including the District of Columbia and Chicago, have been forced to at least recognize that they cannot simply deny citizens their right to possess firearms. At the same time, however, these cities continue to erect barriers to citizens seeking to exercise their rights.

In other words, despite the victories in the Supreme Court, the battle for Second Amendment rights in America is far from over. There is perhaps no better reminder of this unfortunate state of affairs than a recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Sue Myerscough, an appointee of President Barack Obama.

Two pro-Second Amendment groups — the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and Illinois Carry — filed a lawsuit last May challenging the ban on carrying concealed guns in the Land of Lincoln, which is the only state with a complete ban on the books. The common-sense basis for the lawsuit is that Illinois’ ban on concealed carry deprives citizens of the fundamental right of self-defense, simply because they are in public.

While Judge Myerscough conceded the Second Amendment protects a “general right to carry guns that include a right to carry operable guns in public,” she tossed out the lawsuit, claiming that the “Supreme Court has not recognized a right to bear firearms outside the home.”

As absurd as this federal judge’s ruling appears on the surface, it unfortunately finds some basis in the inchoate opinion issued four years ago by the nation’s high court in Heller. While the five-member majority in that case importantly recognized the fundamental right of an individual to keep and bear arms — and in so finding, invalidated the District’s restrictive gun control ordinance — the actual language of the opinion has been interpreted now to recognize the right to possess a firearm only inside one’s home.

SAF and Illinois Carry are taking their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. But the lower court’s ruling does drive home a couple of important points.
Common sense, and a fair reading of the history of the Second Amendment, leads to the obvious conclusion that its guarantee of the “right to keep and bear arms” was never intended to be limited to intra-home firearms. Unfortunately, the uncertainty created by the pinched opinion in Heller — which may have been necessary to secure the fifth vote (Justice Anthony Kennedy) — is now causing serious damage to firearms rights, as is manifest in Judge Myerscough’s recent ruling.

First, the U.S. Senate needs to stop sitting on its hands, and pass the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 822), which received overwhelming support in the House last November (passing 272 to 154). This legislation would treat concealed carry licenses much like driver’s licenses, through the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution, and require states to recognize concealed carry permits from other states.

Perhaps even more important, however, this ruling by a lifetime-tenured federal judge reminds us of the importance of presidential appointments to the federal bench — and the severe damage to our Second Amendment rights that can be expected from a second term for President Barack Obama.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He provides regular commentary to Daily Caller readers.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/24/federal-judge-severely-limits-second-amendment-rights/#ixzz1nggYBmPo

Taking the country back.

2012-02-27T19:59:00.001-08:00

http://politicalvelcraft.org/2012/02/08/new-mexico-sheriffs-threaten-to-arrest-obama-federal-agents-if-they-continue-to-violate-the-u-s-constitution/

Nobel Prize in Medicine: "Drugs that cure are not profitable"

2012-02-26T18:55:00.001-08:00

For some reason the Israeli embassy is following this blog and my twitter. It's not likely they find me interesting, or a threat, or want to hire me to bust caps in Muslims - at least not in the US. So I cannot imagine the interest. If, however, it DOES involve capping some bad guys, or my plans to block the entrances to Natanz and pour enough gasoline down the vents to make a confined fuel-air weapon sufficient to take out the entire mountain, call me. Hydrazine might be better, but you can't hijack a few trucks full of it on-site.

If it's something pedantic like wondering how I know Iran has nukes, forget it - it's just logic.

H/T Francisco González

Interesting interview with the Noble laureate in Medicine, Dr Richard J Roberts.
"...drug companies often are not as interested in healing you as in getting your money, so that investigation is diverted to the discovery of drugs that do not heal completely, but chronify the disease and make you experience an improvement that disappears when you stop taking the drug."
“The drug that completely cures is not profitable” (Interview with the Nobel Prize for Medicine Richard J. Roberts). Lluís Amiguet – La Vanguardia.

Richard J.Roberts
I’m 63 years old: the worst about getting older is that you consider many “truths” as holy: that’s when you need new questions. I was born in Derby, my mechanic father gave me a chemistry set … And I still enjoy playing. Married, four children, one quadriplegic by an accident, who keep me encouraged to continue investigating. I participate in the Campus for Excellence.
- Can research be planned?:
If I were Minister of Science, I would seek enthusiastic people with interesting projects, just give them money so they wouldn’t need to do anything else than investigate and let them work ten years to surprise us.

- It seems like a good policy.
It is generally believed that to go very far, you have to support basic research, but if you want more immediate and profitable results, you must bet on the applied research …

- And is it not like this?
Often the most profitable discoveries have been made from very basic questions. So was created the giant U.S. biotech billion dollar industry where I work.

- How was it created?
Biotechnology appeared when passionate people started to wonder if they could clone genes and began to study and try to purify them.

- An adventure by itself!
Yes, but nobody expected to get rich with these questions. It was difficult to get funding to research the answers until Nixon launched the war against cancer in 1971.

- Was it scientifically productive?
It allowed much research (like mine), with an enormous amount of public funds, that didn’t work directly against cancer, but was useful for understanding the mechanisms that allow life.

- What did you discover?
Phillip Allen Sharp and I were rewarded by the discovery of introns in eukaryotic DNA and gene splicing mechanism.

- For what was it useful?
That discovery led to understand how DNA works, however, has only an indirect link with cancer.

- Which model seems more effective research for you, the American or the European?
It’s obvious that the U.S., where private capital has an active role, is much more efficient. Take for example the spectacular progress of the computer industry, where private money financed basic and applied research, but for the health industry … I have my reservations.

- I listen
Research on human health can not depend only on its profitability. What’s good for the corporate dividends is not always good for people.

- Could you explain?
Pharmaceutical industry wants to serve the capital markets …

- As any other industry
It’s just not any other industry, we are talking about our health and our lives and our children and millions of human beings.

- But if they are profitable, they will research better.
If you only think about benefits, you stop worrying about serving people.

- For instance?
I’ve seen that in some cases researchers dependent on private funds would have discovered a very effective medicine that would have completely eliminated a disease …

- And why do they stop investigating?
Because drug companies often are not as interested in healing you as in getting your money, so that investigation, suddenly, is diverted to the discovery of drugs that do not heal completely, but chronify the disease and make you experience an improvement that disappears when you stop taking the drug.

- It’s a serious accusation.
It is usual that pharmaceutical companies are interested in research that doesn’t cure but only make illnesses chronic with more profitable drugs that the ones that would completely cure once and forever. You just need to follow the financial analysis of the pharmaceutical industry and verify what I say.

- There are killing dividends.
That’s why we say that health can not be a market and can not be understood merely as a means of earning money. And I think that the European model of mixed private and public capital is less likely to encourage such abuses.

- An example of such abuse?
Investigations with antibiotics have been stopped because they were too effective and completely cured. As no new antibiotics have been developed, infectious organisms have become resistant and today tuberculosis, which in my childhood had been defeated, reappears and has killed this past year a million people.

- Are you talking about the Third World?
That is another sad chapter: Third World diseases are hardly investigated, because the drugs that would fight them are unprofitable. But I’m talking about our First World: the medicine that completely heals is not profitable and therefore is not researched.

Ridiculous.

2012-02-26T07:05:00.001-08:00

With 20% of the party vote pledged to him, Barack Obama is now the presidential frontrunner for the REPUBLICAN party. It seems that no one likes Romulan, Sanitorium or Newt. This year another party could emerge. The Republicans aren't going to be around much longer.

Jeanne Sparrow. Calm. poised, loves animals.

2012-02-26T06:09:00.001-08:00

This lady rocks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/23/snake-enters-wciu-morning_n_1297615.html?ref=mostpopular

Where we were. Why aren't we still there?

2012-02-26T05:51:00.001-08:00

HT Patty Golden










I'll believe corporations are people when owning one is considered slavery.
-T
90% of success is showing up. Getting the math right is the other 50%.

-T
Aut viam inveniam aut faciamaut viam inveniam aut faciam.
-Hannibal

See the full gallery on Posterous

See the full gallery on Posterous

The long and winding road.

2012-02-26T04:52:00.001-08:00

This predates the previous post but I don't remember putting it up. Ed sent this in a different form, so H/T to him as well.
From Joseppi:

I'm a thinkin'.......Let's see...We have an International floating currency regime with no tither to prevent any central bank to print credit/money to create financial bubbles, which is nothing but credit expansion based on debt - with all/most countries engaging in a currency war, whereby each country tries to depreciate their currencies for a export trade advantage.

OK, the stage is set - All self-interested actors printing debt certificates called dollars, Euro's, Yuan, Yen, Pound and doing this with a poker face. This poker game is now in the throes of breaking up in a nasty fight. Each player is throwing massive amounts of fake chips on the table to keep the fraudulent game going a little longer. The game depends on the chips on the table, but all players have a stash of gold behind them that they are trying to keep from linking to their fake chips on the table.
Will they introduce a new fake colored chip to replace the old ones and can they agree on how many new chips for old chips for each country counterfeiting chips? Will the trump card of tying chips to gold, like in the barbarous olden days, to give a responsible order to the currency game be reinstated?

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

Who cares what they do? Mathematically the economy must fail. Math is the only REAL connection we have to our universe and it doesn't lie. The government is telling us that everything is fine and pretty soon everyone will have medical insurance and Social Security and free champagne and a chicken in every pot and all we have to do is bomb Iran.
Brilliant. Iran got it's nuclear technology... where? Pakistan. It is not totally unreasonable to expect that Iran could borrow a few nukes from Pakistan which, with Afghanistan and EVERY OTHER MUSLIM COUNTRY, would join Iran in a war against the US. Iran is strongly supported both militarily and in the UN by whom? China and Russia. Shall we fight them all at the same time? Not if we want to keep borrowing a couple BILLION dollars a day from China - which is holding up about 40% of our national budget. The US and Israel can't fight the whole world. We can't even protect our own borders. And our 180 F-22 Raptors are out of production and completely obsoleted by the Russian PAK-FA which is in production. A thousand of them. Want to talk submarines? If we send our attack boats to fight in the middle east, we can't defend our coastline.
Yes, Israel MIGHT be able to slow down Iran's nuclear capability for a few years, during which time the US will go bankrupt. THEN WHAT?!?!?!? Shall we keep bombing them forever? CAN WE keep bombing every emerging country every few years and expect to pacify the world that way? I don't think so. No one thinks so. Because it is simply insane to believe it's possible to do that.   We have wasted our national treasure and our national will fighting in Iraq, which was never a danger, and invading Afghanistan - which will be formally taken over AGAIN by the Taliban an hour after we leave. What, exactly have we accomplished? The creation of the TSA? The destruction of our Constitutional rights? Is America safer? I guess it is for people who are out of touch and expect Big Brother to protect them. The kind of people who think they are safe because they are living in prison because no one can come in to get them. It's false security based on bad logic.

Here is what actually WILL happen. Israel will eventually be overwhelmed. They will be nuked at Haifa and Tel Aviv. Egypt, which gets 1.5 BILLION a year in military aid from us as a payment NOT to attack Israel, will attack Israel. So will Syria. So will everyone else in the area. As an aside, Har Megiddo is between Haifa and Tel Aviv. Jerusalem probably won't be nuked. It's everyone's holy spot.

The concept of destroying Israel is stupid. Not because it can't be done - but because it will cause the entire middle east to fall back into poverty. Ahh, the wonders of religious fanaticism.

We are also told that the climate change we feel isn't really happening; that gas is plentiful forever and cheap...even though when I was a youngster PREMIUM gas was 17 cents a gallon and now it's around $5...and it isn't 'premium'. It's the old 'regular'. And the price is headed north along with my health insurance costs. I can't afford my prescriptions anymore - but since I ain't dead, I probably didn't need them in the first place.

Now then...if we believe math over rhetoric, the economy of the world is gonna crash. Since we know that, or at least I do, I care less what color paper or what kind of metal the governments are going to try to circulate. I care that I have most of the things I need to survive on my farm without ANY outside help. Firearms.. water and filter technology for removing anything over 1 micron in size and all radionuclides.. wood for charcoal.. snares.. chickens.. vegetables.. more firearms.. hand tools.. sanitation facilities.. off-grid energy.. a two-holer.. a smokehouse..cast iron cookware...solar, wood, charcoal and ethanol stoves.. soapmaking stuffs.. worldwide communications ability..

I give a shit what the economy does because I know it's going to tank no matter what anyone says. And I know that no one is going to be walking around or riding their horse-drawn cart with a sack of gold or 100 pounds of silver. No one will trade for it. People will live just like they did up until about a hundred years ago - like my father did - he would be almost 120 years old now...and he taught me how.

I have a Jeep and I'm going to trade in my like-new truck for a new one big enough to double as a tractor for the farm. (A 2012 5.7 liter Full-sized Tundra fets better mileage than an '08 V-6 Tacoma.)

Let's do a thought experiment. Let us imagine that the stores are empty next week. No rice, toilet paper, bottled water, canned food. No more fuel or propane. The grid fails. Someone comes to you with a sack full of gold and wants to trade for your food. You gonna do it?

Only if I acquired so much surplus that I could not keep it from rotting would I ever consider trading for a placemaker like precious metal and even then I'd rather trade for useful, barter-able items. But that's impossible in an agrarian community because people who have nothing else still have each other for mutual aid and support. Giving and kindness are required. Storing up huge amounts of surplus wealth can't happen.

Houston, we have a problem. Houston? Hello? Anyone? Oh, shit.

2012-02-25T22:14:00.001-08:00

Wyoming lawmakers pushed forward legislation to explore how the state would respond if the country fell into economic and political turmoil.

The so-called doomsday bill, passed in the Wyoming House on Friday, would create a special task force to study ways the state would handle such crises as a food shortage to a government shutdown. Some provisions that will be explored include Wyoming forming its own army and issuing its own currency.

The task force formed by the bill would include state lawmakers, the head of Wyoming's Department of Homeland Security and the state attorney general.
The bill must pass two more House votes before it reaches the Senate, according to the Casper Star-Tribune.

WTF?!?!?!?

2012-02-25T20:17:00.001-08:00

Pakistan receives 2 upgraded P-3C sea control & surveillance planes from the USA. That makes 2 now. It would be 4, but jihadists destroyed the first 2 during an attack on their base at PNS Mehran.
They keep destroying them and we keep giving them new ones. Way to decrease the national debt!

And here it comes.

2012-02-25T20:16:00.001-08:00

H/T Jane McNeil and Joseppi
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/divided-we-stand-20120223

http://www.thrivemovement.com/thrive-movie-foster-gamble-why-greece-affects-everyone-follow-the-money.blog

Maybe they aren't that funny.

2012-02-25T17:10:00.001-08:00

Best Joke in the world

A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator: “My friend is dead! What can I do?”

The operator, in a calm soothing voice says: “Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard.

The guy's voice comes back on the line. He says: “OK, now what?“
Second Place
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go on a camping trip. After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they retire for the night, and go to sleep.

Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend. “Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”
“I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes” replies Watson.

“And what do you deduce from that?”
Watson ponders for a minute. “Well,

Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets.

Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo.

Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three.

Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.

Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe.

But what does it tell you, Holmes?”
Holmes is silent for a moment.

“Watson, you idiot!” he says. “Someone has stolen our tent!”
Top joke in USA
A man and a friend are playing golf one day at their local golf course. One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course. He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer.

His friend says: “Wow, that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man.”
The man then replies: “Yeah, well we were married 35 years.”

Top joke in Canada
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300°C.

The Russians used a pencil.
Top joke in Australia
This woman rushed to see her doctor, looking very much worried and all strung out. She rattles off: “Doctor, take a look at me. When I woke up this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair all wiry and frazzled up, my skin was all wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were bloodshot and bugging out, and I had this corpse-like look on my face! What's WRONG with me, Doctor!?”

The doctor looks her over for a couple of minutes, then calmly says: “Well, I can tell you that there ain't nothing wrong with your eyesight....”

Top joke in Belgium
Why do ducks have webbed feet?

To stamp out fires.

Why do elephants have flat feet?

To stamp out burning ducks

Top joke in Germany
A general noticed one of his soldiers behaving oddly. The soldier would pick up any piece of paper he found, frown and say: “That's not it” and put it down again. This went on for some time, until the general arranged to have the soldier psychologically tested. The psychologist concluded that the soldier was deranged, and wrote out his discharge from the army.

The soldier picked it up, smiled and said: “That's it.”
Top joke in UK

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!”

The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you.”
Top Joke in England
Two guys are sitting on a bar stool. One starts to insult the other one. He screams, “I slept with your mother!” The bar gets quiet as everyone listens to see what the other weasel will do. The first again yells, “I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER!”

The other says, “Go home dad you’re drunk.”
Top Joke in Wales
A turtle was walking down an alley in New York when he was mugged by a gang of snails. A police detective came to investigate and asked the turtle if he could explain what happened.

The turtle looked at the detective with a confused look on his face and replied “I don't know, it all happened so fast.”
Top Joke in Northern Ireland
A doctor says to his patient, “I have bad news and worse news”.

“Oh dear, what's the bad news?” asks the patient.
The doctor replies, “You only have 24 hours to live.”

“That's terrible”, said the patient. “How can the news possibly be worse?”
The doctor replies, “I've been trying to contact you since yesterday.”

Also Rans

Texan: “Where are you from?”
Harvard grad: “I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with prepositions.”
Texan: “Okay – where are you from, jackass?”

An Alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote, “Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.”
The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There are only nine words here. You could send another ‘Woof’ for the same price.”

“But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.”

Two fish in a tank.

One turns to the other and says “Do you know how to drive this?”

What do you call a monkey in a minefield ?

A Baboom !

A scientist and a philosopher were being chased by a hungry lion. The scientist made some quick calculations, he said “it's no good trying to outrun it, its catching up”.

The philosopher kept a little ahead and replied “I am not trying to outrun the lion, I am trying to outrun you !”

Which day of the week do fish hate?.......

Fry-Day

And, saved till last, my own favourite .
Top Joke in Scotland

I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather.
Not screaming in terror like his passengers.
Remember! There's no slaughter without laughter!

Fukushima: The gift that keeps on giving.

2012-02-25T05:38:00.001-08:00

A year ago March I stated explicitly that Fukushima was the worst man-made disaster the world had ever seen; that it would get worse; that it could bever be placed in 'cold' shutdown; and that when the reactor cores hit groundwater, an ecological disaster many times worse than Chernobyl would ensue.
I stated that there wasn't any wiggle room. It was happening; it would continue to happen; and no one could stop it. A bunch of idiots argued that I was being premature and that the Japanese government was saying something different - and who had more credibility: me or the Japanese Government? Since I had no fiduciary interest in the disaster and the Japanese government did, I thought the answer was obvious.

Not only can TEPCO and the Japanese government NEVER bring any of the now ~20 or so nuclear piles which are happily bubbling away and poisoning the earth under control, but as yet they won't even admit that it is happening. But it is. It's getting worse and the radioactive debris and airborne radionuclides ater affecting the entire Pacific rim including America. This problem cannot be 'repaired'. It will last for tens of thousands of years.

I strongly recommend that everyone who is still in Honshu should leave the area. You are going to die.

--
I'll believe corporations are people when owning one is considered slavery.
-T
90% of success is showing up. Getting the math right is the other 50%.

-T
Aut viam inveniam aut faciamaut viam inveniam aut faciam.
-Hannibal

Common sense.

2012-02-24T07:35:00.001-08:00

The US wants to be the 'FIRST' in everything - but it is failing miserably. We have the best nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines because we have almost the ONLY nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines. But we don't make the best military equipment - not even close. We probably make better jet engines, but the Russians make better jet fighters. We can't put anything in the air that will match a Suhhoi PAK FA. Buy 'em. Same with small arms. Our M-60 light Machine gun is a modified WWII German machine gun. Russia makes better ones. Buy 'em. Want to save money? Buy the best products on the market whenever they are demonstrably superior and a tenth the price of what we can make.
The best trucks in the world aren't Kenworth/Peterbilt (now the same company). They are MAN, KAMAZ, Mercedes and Volvo. Jeep has a nice retro concept vehicle called a Nukizer 715. It's geared a bit low, but I'd take one.

The Post Office is going away. EVERYTHING will be next. Welcome to Western Greece.

2012-02-24T06:32:00.001-08:00

Feb 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Postal Service announced plans on Thursday to close or consolidate 223 mail processing centers and eliminate up to 35,000 jobs as part of its strategy to cut costs by reducing its network of facilities.
The Postal Service has been losing billions of dollars each year as email chips away at mail volumes and as it faces massive annual payments to the federal government.
Postal officials said in September they would study more than 250 of the 461 processing sites for possible consolidation with other facilities as part of a series of cost-cutting steps. They also announced plans to end next-day delivery to cut back on overnight work.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has said the agency needs to reduce $20 billion in annual costs by 2015. Moving processing away from the 223 centers would reduce operating costs by $2.6 billion annually, according to the Postal Service's website.
That includes eliminating as many as 30,000 full-time jobs and 5,000 non-career positions, USPS spokesman Sue Brennan said. The agency has gotten rid of about 140,000 jobs in the last five years, mainly through attrition, but still had about 650,000 workers at the end of 2011, according to its first-quarter financial statement.
None of the facilities would close before mid-May due to a temporary moratorium announced in December that is intended to give Congress time to pass legislation to help overhaul the mail agency.
The Postal Service, which does not receive taxpayer funds, wants Congress to eliminate an annual payment to prefund retiree health benefits and let it end Saturday mail delivery.
The agency also wants to take over its health benefits from the federal government and to close thousands of post offices.
Lawmakers have been deeply divided on whether to allow facility closures, end the prefunding payment and other measures. Some lawmakers have praised the Postal Service for "rightsizing" its network, while others say the planned closings will hurt the agency's business model.
"At a time when the Postal Service is competing against the instantaneous delivery of information from email and the Internet, slowing down mail delivery service will result in less business and less revenue," said Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in a statement on Thursday.
Donahoe told lawmakers last week, in a letter announcing the agency's five-year turnaround plan, that failing to take all of its planned cost-cutting actions could lead to annual losses of $18.2 billion by 2015.

Watch these clips.

2012-02-23T17:10:00.001-08:00

http://www.newson6.com/story/16661085/oklahomas-maverick-us-senator-dr-tom-coburn

http://www.firstbusinessnews.com/videos.php?video=fbc680d72f3148eb91170ab6b011a52a

Want some financial advice? SHORT TESLA MOTORS!

I'll believe corporations are people when owning one is considered slavery.

-T
90% of success is showing up. Getting the math right is the other 50%.
-T
Aut viam inveniam aut faciamaut viam inveniam aut faciam.

-Hannibal

The Physics Research Center and Iran’s Parallel Military Nuclear Program

2012-02-23T10:49:00.001-08:00

I have known this since the early 90s and so has everyone else. That pimp professor Juan Cole has been pooh-poohing the idea all these years, but he's an idiot. Even the US government, as recently as YESTERDAY still says that Iran hasn't decided whether or not to make nuclear weapons. They are lying - but that's what they do.
We have nor reached a crossroads. We are making war noise at Iran BECAUSE someone finally discovered they have a stockpile of nuclear weapons just like Pakistan, India, Israel and, potentially, Syria.

February 23, 2012
The Washington Post has published an article on the unanswered nuclear weaponization issues of the Iranian nuclear program. The summary below is part of a major ISIS report referenced by the Washington Post looking into the possibility of an Iranian military nuclear program parallel to the civilian one conducted by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
The Physics Research Center and Iran’s Parallel Military Nuclear Program
A key issue for the International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA) is whether Iran has a parallel military nuclear program that can provide nuclear weapons if the regime decides to build them. Understanding that issue depends critically on what Iran’s military nuclear entities have achieved already. Newly aquired information sheds light on one of Iran’s most important and least understood military nuclear organizations, the Physics Research Center, which operated in the 1990s and was later consolidated into successive military nuclear organizations. The new information also demonstrates the incompleteness and inadequacy of Iran’s declarations to the IAEA about its past and possibly on-going military nuclear efforts
By David Albright, Paul Brannan, and Andrea Stricker
Summary
Evidence obtained by the IAEA indicates that the Iranian revolutionary regime probably first made a decision to build nuclear weapons in the mid-to-late 1980s. According to information received by the IAEA and included in its November 2011 report, the Physics Research Center (PHRC) appears to have been created in 1989 as part of an effort to create an undeclared nuclear program, likely aimed at the development of a nuclear weapon. PHRC in turn may have evolved from a project at Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHIG) in the late 1980s that may have sought to research a nuclear warhead for a ballistic missile. In 2003, under intense international pressure, Iran agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment programs. Based on the IAEA’s findings, Iran sought to keep its nuclear weaponization programs secret from the inspectors and took steps to better hide this program’s existence. The razing of the Lavisan Shian in 2004 site that formerly housed the PHRC was likely an attempt to prevent the IAEA from carrying out environmental sampling, a technique that had uncovered other secret Iranian nuclear activities in 2003.
Although Iran has admitted that the PHRC was related to the military and had a nuclear purpose in the area of defense preparedness and radiation detection, its actual nuclear role appears much more extensive. ISIS has accumulated from multiple sources a range of procurement information related to the PHRC. ISIS has obtained supplier companies’ information, a set of over 1,600 telexes between PHRC or Sharif University and overseas suppliers, and other information obtained from governments, IAEA reports, and the media. The information provides an extensive picture of PHRC’s wide-ranging procurement efforts in the early 1990s. Several experts retained by ISIS have assessed the information in the telexes. About 50 telexes referenced in the report’s text are found in a supplement.
The information and documents assembled by ISIS suggest that the PHRC had departments focused on a wide range of nuclear technology, including gas centrifuges and laser enrichment, radiation protection, uranium conversion, uranium exploration and possibly mining, and heavy water production. This finding supports the allegation that Iran’s Ministry of Defense was involved in many aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle and the research and development of nuclear weapons.
In the early 1990s, the Physics Research Center engaged in an extensive procurement effort that included using Sharif University of Technology and other entities to assist in outfitting a nuclear program. In many cases, Sharif University appears to have been used as a front for purchases made by PHRC. Some goods could have gone to Sharif University, but the bulk of the procurements appear destined for the PHRC or its sponsors. Sharif University also housed significant relevant expertise on nuclear technology, and there may have been cooperation between Sharif University and PHRC on undeclared nuclear activities that went beyond procurement.
Iran has failed to declare all of PHRC’s activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran has stated to the IAEA that the PHRC procurements were not related to a nuclear program. The information assembled in this ISIS report, however, contradicts this claim. Iran has created a cover story for the PHRC involving Sharif University that attempts to hide its true activities, including a vast number of both successful and attempted procurements for ostensibly undeclared nuclear programs.
Whatever nuclear activities PHRC pursued in the early 1990s, they appear independent of those of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) in the area of gas centrifuges, uranium exploration and possibly mining, and uranium conversion. Iran should explain to the IAEA why there appears to have been a parallel, organized nuclear program.
The telexes, which mainly date to 1990-1993, do not reveal an extensive effort to research or develop nuclear weapons, commonly called nuclear weaponization. However, some procurements or attempted procurements appear aimed at equipment or technology that would be a prerequisite for such work.
What did the PHRC accomplish and was it closed in 1998, as Iran declared to the IAEA? The IAEA has suggested in its November 2011 report that PHRC instead was consolidated under the AMAD Plan. Where are the goods procured by the PHRC, and where are all the hundreds of engineers, scientists, and administrators who worked there?
Prior to Iran’s suspension of its centrifuge program in late 2003, military contractors at the 7th of Tir Facility made the most sensitive centrifuge components, namely the rotating ones, for the P1 centrifuges. In about 2001, the AEOI had ordered enough of these parts from 7th of Tir for 10,000 P1 centrifuges, slated for eventual installation at the then secret Natanz enrichment site, according to the IAEA. Perhaps, Iran’s Ministry of Defense originally intended to use this same manufacturing site and others to make 3,000 P1 centrifuges for a parallel military centrifuge plant that would use uranium hexafluoride produced by another project of this parallel effort. Many questions remain about the origin and purpose of the Gchine mine and the original intended function of the deeply buried Qom centrifuge plant discovered in 2009 by Western intelligence. Was the Qom site, now called the Fordow site, to be a military-controlled site dedicated to the production of weapon-grade uranium? With the end of the suspension in 2006, did the Ministry of Defense also resume its centrifuge plans as well and plan to install centrifuges at the Qom plant?
PHRC may have aimed to ensure that the military had a strong hand and competence in the nuclear fuel cycle and weaponization. Although the bulk of the nuclear fuel cycle competence would remain in the AEOI, the military would have gained enough to ensure that it could build a highly secretive parallel program aimed at obtaining both weapon-grade uranium and the weapon itself.
Despite all the new information, the PHRC remains difficult to fully understand. Iran should clarify PHRC’s exact purpose and accomplishments and its relationship to the IAEA’s broader question of the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear effort.

Read the full report at: The Physics Research Center and Iran’s Parallel Military Nuclear Program
The supplemental appendix of the telexes mentioned in the report can be found at: Appendix of PHRC telexes
*****************************************************************************************************************************
The NSN seems to agree.

NSN Daily Update: Rhetoric vs. Reality on Iran Policy

2/23/12

Amid a web of misstatements, GOP presidential candidates made several surprising assertions on Iran policy last night - offering interpretations and policy choices that were not merely factually wrong but run counter to the assessments of the military leaders the candidates have said time and again they would listen to in forming national security policy. The heated rhetoric on an issue that calls for cool thinking fails to capture what experts from across different across disciplines and political lines have said: diplomacy remains the most effective way to end Iran's nuclear program.

Conservative politicians: Iran is a madman, war is the best option; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Iran is a rational actor, current path is most prudent. Just this weekend, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former CENTCOM Commander General Martin Dempsey was asked by CNN's Fareed Zakaria whether Iran behaves irrationally or pursues its national interests. Dempsey responded, "That is a great question, and I'll tell you that I've been confronting that question since I commanded Central Command in 2008. And we are of the opinion that the Iranian regime is a rational actor. And it's for that reason, I think, that we think the current path we're on is the most prudent path at this point." Regarding a military strike, General Dempsey said, "that a strike at this time would be destabilizing and wouldn't achieve their [Israel's] long-term objectives." As Clyde Prestowitz, a senior Commerce Department official in the Reagan administration and President of the Economic Strategy Institute, simply said: "A strike is a really dumb idea."

Yet last night Newt Gingrich explicitly, and Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney implicitly, questioned Dempsey's judgment - surprising statements from men who have repeatedly advocated "listening to the commanders in the field" on national security. Santorum said, "When they are going up against a dangerous theocratic regime that wants to wipe out the state of Israel, that wants to dominate the radical Islamic world and take on the 'Great Satan', the United States, we do nothing. That is a president who must go and you want a leader who will take them on. I will do that." Meanwhile, Gingrich said, "If you think a madman is about to have nuclear weapons and you think that madman is going to use those nuclear weapons, then you have an absolute moral obligation to defend the lives of your people by eliminating the capacity to get nuclear weapons." [VOA, 2/22/12. Martin Dempsey, 2/19/12. Clyde Prestowitz, 2/21/12]

"The choice between 'war now' or 'containment later' is a false one." Colin Kahl, of Georgetown University and the Center for a New American Security, and formerly the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, explains, "paradoxically, the most likely road to containment is the very course war proponents advocate: a near-term preventive strike on Iran's nuclear program. There are two pathways to containment. The one administration critics emphasize-that president Obama would somehow choose to 'live with' a nuclear-armed Iran-is actually the least likely. Obama has made clear that an Iranian nuclear weapon is 'unacceptable,' his Secretary of Defense has described an Iranian nuclear weapon as a 'red line,' and the administration has put in place unprecedented sanctions to pressure the regime to accept a diplomatic solution... In short, the least likely road to containment is the one being pursued by the administration."

Kahl further explains, "A second, and far more likely, path to containment is to rush into war before all other options have been exhausted. A near-term U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program would knock it back, at most, a few years. Meanwhile it would motivate Iran's hardliners to kick out International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, incentivize the regime to rapidly rebuild a clandestine nuclear program, and rally the Iranian people around that cause to deter future attacks. Consequently, in the aftermath of an Israeli or American strike, Washington would have to encircle Iran with a costly containment regime-much like twelve-year effort to bottle up Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War-and be prepared to re-attack at a moment's notice to prevent Iran from reconstituting its program. And with inspectors gone, it would be much more difficult to detect and prevent Iran's clandestine rebuilding efforts. The net result would be a decades-long requirement to contain an even more implacable nuclear foe... The result would be the worst of all worlds: an Iran emboldened to go for a bomb and a requirement for post-war containment without the international cooperation required to actually implement such a policy."

He concludes: "In short, the choice between 'war now' or 'containment later' is a false one. The war hawks want would likely be a prelude to failed containment, not a substitute for it. Fortunately, there are other options and we still have time to pursue them." [Colin Kahl, 2/22/12]

Diplomacy is the key to ending Iran's nuclear program. In a recent piece discussing the anniversary of President Nixon's historic trip to China, Les Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Winston Lord, Henry Kissinger's closest aide and former ambassador to China, explain, "One can imagine present applications of this diplomatic tour de force, most usefully with Iran." Similarly, Hans Blix, former IAEA director general and chief weapons inspector for the UN, said this week the priority must be "to diffuse the most acute things and prepare the road for further talks," and that the international community must convey "all our offers are on the table, not just the threats."

As Gelb has previously written, "As Western leaders back Iran into a corner and as they are locking themselves into a war policy they haven't seriously contemplated and don't really want, now is the time to offer a deal. The peace package is simple: Iran keeps its uranium facilities but with capabilities to enrich reduced to levels fit only for civilian use. Tehran also agrees to the tightest international verification procedures. The West lifts sanctions gradually as Iran complies with both reconfiguring its nuclear plants and accepts the necessary verification. For sure, President Obama has tried similar proposals before. This time, however, Iran may find that the biting economic pressures make the deal more palatable. For sure, neither I nor anyone else knows whether Iran will accept this time. But I do know this: if we don't at least try the negotiating track, a war of untold uncertainties and dangers can come upon us." [Les Gelb and Winston Lord, 2/20/12. Hans Blix, 2/22/12. Les Gelb, 1/30/12]

What We're Reading

The U.S. and North Korea resumed talks regarding the country's nuclear weapons program.

Blasts in predominantly Shiite areas killed more than 50 in Baghdad.

The UN released a report that accuses Syria of crimes against humanity.

An Afghan soldier killed two NATO soldiers amid growing protests over the burning of Korans.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said that global security hinges on Somalia's future.

Gunmen killed four policemen in the northern Nigerian city of Kano.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spoke to a crowd of about 100,000 supporters ahead of the March 4 presidential election.

Former Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo pleaded not guilty to election fraud charges.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard called a leadership ballot as she finds her party engulfed in an internal battle.

U.S. military prosecutors reached a tentative plea deal with a Pakistani man accused of having worked with Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

Commentary of the Day

Luke Hunt sees Asia as the battleground between Iran and Western powers.

Clive Cook thinks Europe is on the road to disaster.

The popular Syrian blogger BSyria asks whether Aleppo, Syria's economic capital, will rise up as the bloodbath continues around other parts of the country.

The National Security Network's (NSN) mission is to revitalize America's national security policy, and bring cohesion and strategic focus to the progressive national security community. NSN works with a broad network of experts to identify, develop and communicate progressive national security policy solutions.



The greatest gun salesman in America for a reason.

2012-02-22T04:38:00.001-08:00

Americans aren't stupid - and we aren't helpless. If there is food in the stores and we feel safe, firearm ownership goes down. As soon as we realize that we will have to defend our homes and families from the TSA thugs and, in many cases hunt our own food, we prepare to do that. It isn't a difficult transition.

I don't like ANY of the Presidential candidates except Ron Paul and I don't think America ought to be in the business of making every sovereign nation in the world do what we tell them. Every country that has EVER tried that has eventually fallen out of their leadership position and we are no different. People just get tired of it. We didn't 'Win' in Korea, Viet-Nam, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else since WWII. We merely wasted our national treasure, our national will, and our most patriotic and brave people in various meat-grinders for no reason but politicians' egos. I'm tired of that and so ids everyone else that doesn't make billions from the waste of our lives.

I am prepared, insofar as possible, to be self-sufficient and not rely on the largesse of a government which doesn't care about me or my Constitutional rights. I am, in fact, prepared to actively resist mandatory military imprisonment for suggesting that those rights even exist. The people who believe in 'peace at the price of liberty' are enslaving themselves voluntarily. Go ahead. While you are being herded off to the camps, I will slip through the cracks. The low-hanging fruit is always picked first.

The Necessity of Revisionism - how we are being led into another war.

2012-02-22T04:17:00.001-08:00

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Necessity of Revisionism
John Denson on WWI and WWII.

Ron Paul: 'The US Is Slipping into a Fascist System'
Lew talks to RT about why Ron is right.

Pat Buchanan, Crusader?
John Derbyshire on Pat's life and tumultuous times.

The Truth About James Madison
And the making of the American State. Article by Tom Woods.

Paranoid Police
Will Grigg on a very strange case in modern copland.

End Government's Aggressive Violence
Eric Peters on getting to peaceful anarchy in a voluntarist society.

Social Collapse
Bob Wenzel on the chains the banksters are forging for the Greeks, and you.

Terrorism Lesson #1
Governments are the terrorists. Article by Gary Kinghorn.

All You Need To G.O.O.D.
You can carry on your back.

The Functional Illiteracy Boom
Sam Blumenfeld on a massive public educational disaster.

How Much Gold Remains in Ft. Knox?
Like Houdini's elephant, is this now the world's greatest vanishing act? Article by Kal Kotecha.

Try These for 90 Days and See the Difference
Margaret Durst on basic nutritional supplements for everyone.

The Great Salman Khan on the Phillips Curve

Life in the TSA-USA

Die, Foreigners

Father of Murderer Protests Whitney Houston Tribute

The Fascist USA

C-SPAN Callers Smack Down Homeland Security Stooge

A Modest Proposal for IP

The Thomas Jefferson of Our Time

The Best Ticket for America and the World

Ron's Billionaire

From Greece with love.

2012-02-20T22:31:00.001-08:00

http://9gag.com/gag/2681884

You are doing it wrong...+ 2013 Tacoma LOOOOngbed.

2012-02-20T21:53:00.001-08:00

http://jalopnik.com/5866981/10-wheel-custom-buick-must-be-seen-to-be-believed/gallery/2

Big Island car dealership Asshats and Good Guys.

2012-02-20T18:58:00.001-08:00

Asshats:
This fool: http://jalopnik.com/5886160/this-is-why-you-dont-drive-your-porsche-into-wet-cement
The Big Island Ford dealers: Asshats. They will sell you a 2011 demo (that means USED) for the full 2012 retail price minus incentives - about $4,000 over what it was worth in 2010 and about $22,000 over what it will be worth the SECOND you drive it off the lot. And the '13s are coming out. Who is kidding whom?

The Big Island Honda dealers. Asshats: They kept me there for THREE hours and then offered to sell me a car for ONLY $500 OVER FULL RETAIL!

The Big Island Chrysler dealers. Asshats: I don't even want to talk about it.
The salesman at Kia was so tweaked on ice, I had to walk off the lot.
I WENT TO EVERY ONE OF THEM, JUST TO CHECK. IF YOUR RELATIVE WORKS AT ANY OF THE ASSHAT dealerships, he is going to rip you off even more because you trust him. Then YOU are an asshat too.

*********************************************************
Not asshats, but gone to hell in a handbasket: Aiona car sales. Still really nice people, but the cars aren't that great. Look at them closely. VERY closely.

********************************************************
GOOD GUYS:
Where to buy cars and trucks on the Big Island, get treated well, and not get ripped off:

Deluz Toyota, Chevrolet or Mazda.
SERIOUSLY. Go to Big Island Toyota and ask for Kurt or Deluz Chevrolet and ask for Albert Watanabe.

Otherwise, you have more money than brains.

The end of freedom begins with the end of free information.

2012-02-20T07:21:00.001-08:00

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/02/20/silencing-the-critics/

Down With the Presidency

2012-02-19T20:58:00.001-08:00

Read ALL of these!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Down With the Presidency
(How we need Ron Paul to take it apart.) Article by Lew Rockwell.

Hard-Boiled Self-Publishing
Fred Reed on how to circumvent – easily – the dying dinosaurs of books.

A Nutcase History of Libertarianism
Invented by a Greenbacker. Article by Gary North.

Pay Up or Die
Laurence Vance on taxes and the laughable excuses for them.

Jim Rogers: Pay No Attention to Governments
They're your deadly enemies as an investor (and otherwise). Article by Bob Wenzel.

Chained and Naked
Bill Rounds on how taking out a loan exposes you to pecuniary predators.

Cricket Scampi?
Justin Rohrlich of the future of bug-eating.

Don't Look at These Ads
They're too politically incorrect.

From Riches to Rags
Lessons learned from surviving the real estate boom, bust, foreclosures, and bankruptcy.

Know What You Believe and Have the Guts To Live It
How and why every man should write a personal manifesto. Article by Zack Sumner.

The Imminent Neocon War
And it's not Iran. Article by Taki.

Lost Fat, Avoided Knee Surgery, Wore a Bikini Again
That and so much more happened when Pamela Matthews and family went primal.

Without the State, Disorder Would Prevail

REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY ... REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY

Do You Know How To Walk on a Sidewalk?

USDA Puts Your Money Where Its Pyramid Is

Government Clarity

Statement of Sgt. Sam Provance Reveals Much About Senator Lindsey Graham

Iran Propaganda Campaign Ramps Up Again

Want To Read a Fairy Tale?

On Drudge

Ron Has a Good Point, Of Course

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But that was yesterday - and yesterdays gone.

2012-02-19T20:56:00.001-08:00

http://www.lewrockwell.com/spl4/un-pc-ads.html

Musta lost his belt.

2012-02-19T16:39:00.001-08:00

POLICE FIND CRACK IN SUSPECT'S BUTT.
Do tell.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/17/police-find-crack-in-butt_n_1285604.html?ref=crime&ir=Crime

I dare anyone to eat this and live.

2012-02-19T15:12:00.001-08:00

Grilled cheese on a donut. From the famous kitchen of Joseppi Roma the gastronomic mass murderer.

The 99% in action

2012-02-19T10:42:00.001-08:00

H/T Joseppi-the-gypsie

Very clever ad/commercial - rare as that is!

Click on the pictures





It's a rainy Sunday. What shall we do?

2012-02-19T09:23:00.001-08:00

"Oh, I dunno. What about crucifying Jesus? Sort of 'lift His Spirit' so to speak."
--
I'll believe corporations are people when owning one is considered slavery.
-T

90% of success is showing up. Getting the math right is the other 50%.
-T
Aut viam inveniam aut faciamaut viam inveniam aut faciam.

-Hannibal
"The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."
— George Washington

Untitled

2012-02-19T08:47:00.001-08:00

"Virginia has passed a law requiring women to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound before having an abortion. Don't get me wrong. I love Trans-Vaginal. It's my favorite airline. I have so many miles on Trans-Vaginal that I always get upgraded to lady-business."
-Amy Poehler
SNL

I shall now make some more friends.

2012-02-19T08:17:00.001-08:00

When the going gets tough, the tough get going and solve problems. Weak, cowardly and ineffective people don't. Instead, they beg their invisible pal in the sky to nullify all of the physical laws of the universe and help them at the expense of every other entity. Naturally, it never happens. WHY doesn't it happen?

(1) No one is listening.

(2) Your puny life isn't more important than anyone else's and certainly not worth stopping the universe.

(3) If God existed at all, His own rules say He can't have your soul until you are dead. He wouldn't be very interested in saving your life if you were one of His flock, because you might change you mind later. He'd grab you while he had the chance. He'd only have a motive to save you if you were a Satanic twit - and then only if there was a chance of converting you at some future date - at which point he'd kill you immediately for your soul - unless you have a tattoo.

No one bothers to think about it but Satan, if He (or She) existed would have the only motive to SAVE you if you were a good, God-fearing person - so He (or She) could try to convert you - at which point you'd be a goner.

Going to church every week and telling God how much you love Him is just asking for it. Or it would be - but I think most people are screwed no matter what they do. See, Jesus wasn't a Christian. He was a Jew. And what HE said was that Jews and ONLY JEWS who followed Him could go to Heaven and, of those, only 144,000 virgin boys would make it. No women or dogs allowed. No gentiles. No one but Jews. Are you still a virgin boy if your Catholic Priest pokes you in the butt? Maybe Rick Santorum knows.

That's why Muslims and Latter Day Saints and whatnot had to make up saints who supposedly came after Jesus and changed HIS rules. But Jesus didn't make a covenant with any of these people. He SPECIFICALLY EXCLUDED THEM ALL! So either Jesus was a liar, or your Christian beliefs are bullshit and you are a dumbass for believing any of it.

All I can tell you is that if God exists and you are a good, God-fearing person, all your prayers are being answered by Satan.
Have a nice day!

Las Vegas is your Big Brother, too!

2012-02-18T21:26:00.001-08:00

I have to mention this. In the distant past you could walk into a casino in Las Vegas and play a mechanical slot machine - and get paid in money if you won. Same with table games. You could just pick up and walk away at any time with your winnings - if you won. Not anymore. Now you don't play for money except on the tables. ALL the slots in ALL the casinos are connected to a databank. You put money in and play for POINTS - which are paid out on a printed slip you can redeem for cash in another machine or use to get 40% off your meals. Basically, you are playing video games, not gambling. The house can change the odds on any machine at any time, electronically. And the odds aren't posted anymore.
But here is the kicker. In order to play, you have to register at the casino and get a card - which you then put in the machine while you are playing - or hand to the dealer at the card table, who checks you in and out. Meals, too. So the casino knows where you are. ALL the casinos know where you are and exactly how much you have lost or won, at which table or which slot machine at which casino, at what time on what day. When you go into a casino and insert your card, the machine greets you by name. Sometimes it takes a second or two to identify you in the database. When that happens, the machine tells you to re-insert your card a few times. It SEEMS as though the machine simply isn't reading the card, but it's actually connecting you into the database. It knows who you are. Just like a gas station. And, just like a gas station, the databases are connected. Your Vegas card will work in Atlantic City. You are PWNED.

What's next? I can guess. Very soon, your card will also unlock your hotel room door - so they will know when you enter and leave your room.

Also, all of the airlines charge for baggage. Hawaiian charges $17 per checked item, or $100 for any item over 40 pounds. Omni charges $20 per item or $100 over 40 pounds. The airfare which should be cheap since the casinos subsidize it - or in the case of Omni, Boys gaming OWNS the airline, are about $1,500 round trip Honolulu - Las Vegas. Figure another $1,000 per person to fly first class, plus at least $80 round trip if everyone has one checked item. Then you have to tip everyone in Vegas. Foodservers, bus drivers, dealers, everyone.

Hawaiian charges about $200 round trip from the outer islands. So by the time you GET to Vegas, if two of you go and you expect to come home, you are already down $3,600. Let's see how that works: It costs Omni ~$82,000 in fuel alone to fly round-trio Vegas/Honolulu. They get $14,500 for baggage if each passenger checks one bag. They get another $282,000 in airfare. That puts them around $296,000. 3 times what it costs them in fuel. Twice what it costs them if you add salaries, maintenance, freebies and insurance. They are already making money - even if they give away half the seats.

Since your meal coupons are only good at Boyd properties (Main Street, The California and the Fremont downtown - and Sam's, wherever that is), people are going to be there at least a couple hours a day and maybe more. I met one person who played the slots in one casino for twelve hours straight. If you figure that everyone drops $108 a day for their 108 hour trip, that's $540 per person or ~98,000 per plane load. Sure, one person won a $3,000 jackpot while I was there, but most people lost - and a LOT of people lost a lot more than $540. A LOT more. I lost $200 over the five days and I'm not much of a gambler at all. $40 a day was my limit. I spent another $100 on food, a couple of drinks and tips.

So even if you happen to win a free trip, they are STILL making money on you. If you never gamble at all, you still have to eat.

"Oh, you are just grumbling because you didn't win". No. I'm grumbling because it isn't fun anymore. It's mechanical. The people who work there aren't having fun. They smile but they aren't having fun. The streets are full of panhandlers. The casinos turned off half their ventilation systems to save electricity, so all the casinos smell of stale smoke. The cleaning crews are not working very hard either. The desks, bars, restaurants, cashiers and service areas are staffed at a third capacity - so either they are reading magazines or there are long lines. There are CCTV cameras over every seat at table games and every four or five slot machines.

I think Las Vegas is done-for. It is for me, if for no other reason than the bullshit TSA nazis.

He's Baaaaaaaaaaack!

2012-02-17T21:27:00.001-08:00

Aloha All!
My blog gets between 250 and 14,000 hits per-post. I hope this is one of the 14,000 ones.

Overall it was fun and the food was generally good. The casinos are WAY different than I remember them - not for the better. I don't remember them being all smoked out. There is no such thing as a non-smoking section in any casino and it's hard enough to get a non-smoking room. I got stuck in a 'smoking' room the first night and couldn't sleep. But here's the thing. Everyone who is smoking is, for the most part 60+ years old - and the ones who aren't are walking around with O2 tubes in their noses. So in ten years there won't be a customer base and Vegas will tank unless they wake up. The nuvo professionals aren't going to tolerate all that second-hand smoke or the smell.

Apparently no one in Vegas has figured out that they could get a fresh crop of affluent players by the simple expedient of opening a non-smoking section in their casinos and loosening the slots a little as an opening promotion. Everyone would go in to play and outside to smoke and a new generation of players might keep the city going. Unless someone does that it's not worth going in my opinion, unless you want to hit the casinos between 3am and 8am. It's still bad, but not AS bad. When I was younger, everyone there was my age. They still are. But they are all going to die within ten years - then what, Vegas?

Let's do the bad stuff first. There isn't much of it. One night in a smoking room, the TSA nazis and the Advantage personnel and cars and automated gambling. It isn't personal anymore and it isn't fun. Here goes:

The counter-person at Advantage rent-a-car was rude and surly. It wasn't a one-off deal. I went to her FIVE times hoping to catch her in a good mood. Never happened. She clearly hates her job, although most of the work I saw her doing was reading a novel. That's probably why she doesn't work at TSA. She might have to get off her duff. Anyway, I can suggest that if you want a rental car, Advantage wouldn't be the place to get it. If anyone from Advantage reads this, and I doubt they care, my rental number was RR179166536. I'll never rent from them again anyway, and if ~you~ do, you won't be pleased.

Sam Boyd must be dead. I didn't check, but no one still breathing would allow their properties to go to hell like that. When you get too rich and don't see to your own business establishments now and then, that's what happens. I guess they don't check too closely about employee qualifications, either. One of the ARMED female security guards at the Main Street Hotel was about 5'5" and 350 pounds. She isn't going to be giving anyone CPR or breaking up a fight. She'd probably have a heart attack from the exertion of going up the escalator. Another security guard was swaggering around the casino wearing a thigh rig. Musta thought he was Wyatt Earp.

OK, so much for Boyd's casinos. There ARE actually a couple of nice casinos in Vegas. The South Point was nice.  And then there was...well, after that none of the other places were the least bit impressive. There aren't any big names off the strip except, I suppose, people that own part of the casino. David Copperfield, Louie Anderson, Penn and Teller.

In five days and four nights in seven or eight casinos - looking for one that had ANY winners and didn't smell TOO bad, I heard ONE announcement of a jackpot winner. Some lady won $3,000. That was supposed to be a freakin' HUGE event. I just rolled my eyes and walked away. That was it. No one won shit.

Want to shoot a grease gun or an M249 or a Thompson...or any of about twelve other full autos? I didn't. I've been there and done that in the Marine Corps and my department and the guys who cycle through here. But if you don't deal with special forces and get to play with their toys, let me tell you about The Gun Store at 2900 E. Tropicana in Las Vegas, 89121. (702) 454-1110.

They were nice and they give the Nevada CCW course FREE. I wanted to get the ticket, but they wouldn't let me go the half-day course, even though I had just re-certed HR-218 (439 out of 440 - I tossed one into the '9' ring, but it's still DX) and am a Utah (now expired) and Florida CCW instructor...and Hawaii County Instructor...and an NRA Instructor...and the other ten certs I have, including my federal instructor contract for special forces.

I have a police CCW for their state anyway and it should have been a simple courtesy for this reason: The course they teach ALSO COVERS UTAH AND FLORIDA. Let me repeat that I am a Utah and Florida CCW instructor. And a Hawaii County Instructor...and an NRA Instructor...and a bunch of other things including a federal instructor under contract for special forces. They shouldn't have been asses about it. A half-day course covering Nevada law would have been sufficient - considering that I live in a non-reciprocal state anyway, so it wouldn't have hurt them and it might have helped the Second Amendment Foundation with our lawsuit to require Hawaii to issue CCWs. But they wanted to be anal and they will get the same courtesy if they ever want a firearms course in Hawaii.

But if you go to Las Vegas, stop in if you want the three CCWs. Of course you already Have Utah and Florida from me, but you'll still have to sit through 8 hours of firearms 101 and then go on another day with a money order to the LVMPD for prints. I couldn't. I was leaving at 6am the next morning so I had to walk out of the class and call my friend to get it done.

It's like anything else. Cops take care of cops. Civilians cover their asses. These are civilians.
Apart from that, the people in the STORE are really nice and the ladies are prettier than show girls. Don't expect to get any discounted merchandise, though. Buy from Brownells if you want price.


Now let's get to the casinos. Don't bother. They suck. Half the dealers are computer generated screens and the rest don't deal. They put the cards in a machine which deals. They don't use coins in slots anymore. You put in a bill between $1 and $100 and you get to play and listen to bells ring until it's gone. The secret is that in every single game, the odds can be computer controlled (changed) from one hour to the next and the odds aren't posted. Further, the game is decided the second you push a button. The lights and bells are just frosting - and the slots don't actually turn. they just generate the cards or bells or whatever on a computer screen. It's not gambling. It's all show and no go except for the craps tables and I saw an idiot drop $2,000 on a crap table in the Mains Street Casino in ten minutes. The food and drinks used to be free, but no longer. Sure, SOME of it is free, but not the drinks and not MOST of the food.

Vegas used to have a feeling to it. It was fun. The machines and dealers were real, the girls brought you REAL drinks if you were playing, and it was fun enough that you didn't mind dropping some money just to be part of it - and you COULD actually win a million dollars. Now you can't. Now you can play for hours and you'll be lucky to get a watered-down drink. "Real" gamblers aren't down on the floor wandering from penny slot to penny slot. They are up in special rooms being catered to. If you are on the floor, you are a chump - and that's how you are treated.

Boyd Gaming, which owns 18 gaming properties, also owns Vacations Hawaii. They fly six round-trip flights a week to Vegas on Omni Airlines - which they also own. Their 767s fly 181 passengers and probably burn about a pound of fuel per hour for every 35 pounds of weight at optimum altitude and mach .8. A round-trip between Honolulu and Las Vegas probably costs about $82,000 in fuel. Boyd Gaming makes that run 20 times a month. Hawaiian Airlines does it twice a day. Someone is still dropping money in Vegas.

The TSA: Clowns in federal uniforms. Worse than that. They are the embodiment of the Insane Clown Posse with federal powers. They are still being trained to view every passenger as a potential terrorist and that's just how everyone is treated. Unless, of course, you own your own airplane or can bum a ride on a friend's business jet. There is no TSA for anyone except the public who have to fly commercially.

There is a difference between treating Americans like cattle or, if you prefer, prisoners preparing to board CON-Air for a trip to federal prison. They are incompetent; they aren't well educated; they aren't police officers and don't know what to look for, even though they think they do. Their field trainers are incompetent. I saw one fat, ratty looking slob who couldn't train my dog taking a group of TSA people off to a 'training' session'. I actually laughed. The TSA hierarchy of political appointments is incompetent, led by an incompetent President, and it shows.

During 'Happy Hour', when there are heavy passenger loads, any semblance of security breaks down - it's an act to begin with - and anyone can slide anything through. But they won't. Terrorists are smart enough not to go right to where someone is specifically looking for them. I and everyone I know could beat the TSA security at any airport on any day through the simple expedient of looking for a softer target. If I wanted to take down an airplane, that would be just as easy. They still make you take off your shoes and walk through a disease-laden filth-encrusted entryway to the body scanner.

It's a good thing I'm a counter-terrorist. I could ruins someone's world if I were a bad guy, simply by realizing that the TSA and now the FBI are jokes.

Do I believe this? Yes.

2012-02-17T21:26:00.001-08:00

http://lewrockwell.com/orig13/haskell2.1.1.html

This isn't good.

2012-02-10T20:55:00.001-08:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/09/ramen-digestion_n_1263825.html?ref=mostpopular

The Federation of Greek Police says they will refuse to fight protesters

2012-02-10T14:54:00.001-08:00

Greek police give the government the finger. MAYBE IT CAN HAPPEN HERE!

Below is an outline of the latest developments in Greece. Notice this part: UPDATE (9:02 AM): Reuters reports that Greece's police union wants to arrest EU and IMF officials for their austerity demands. It obtained a copy of a letter from the Federation of Greek Police outlining this anger:
"Since you are continuing this destructive policy, we warn you that you cannot make us fight against our brothers. We refuse to stand against our parents, our brothers, our children or any citizen who protests and demands a change of policy...We warn you that as legal representatives of Greek policemen, we will issue arrest warrants for a series of legal violations ... such as blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty."
http://www.businessinsider.com/live-latest-from-greece-2012-2

The on again - off again Greek bailout is off again.

2012-02-10T08:04:00.001-08:00

It doesn't matter. It's money down the drain. As I, and every real economist in the world continue to say, there is more sovereign debt in every country than there is potential money so the debt can't be paid except by everyone borrowing more money from everyone else until that no longer works. Then the sky will fall on people who are not food and energy self-sufficient.
I'll bet you'd like an example. OK. The Hawaii Electric Power Company and the State and County of Hawaii were all offering incentives for people to put up solar panels so HELCO didn't have to build new diesel and coal-fired plants. When everyone did that, HELCO suddenly wasn't making enough money to pay their overpaid staff - so they raised their rates by about $10 a month. Now everyone who isn't on solar is having to pay extra to make up for the incentives HELCO paid to get people to switch to solar. But BECAUSE HELCO is raising rates, even more people are installing solar. So HELCO will have to raise their rates again. That will incentivize even MORE people to go solar. How stupid is that?

"But wait", you say. "Why doesn't HELCO just start cutting their costs and buying back solar power from the grid"? Well, because in Hawaii, land of beautiful seas and stupid politicians, HELCO is required by law to buy back power from private sources (including the geothermal plant) at the same price it costs them to buy diesel and coal. And since they aren't reselling solar power because solar cut the demand, EXACTLY AS IT WAS INTENDED TO DO, it also cut HELCO's bottom line. So the 'Green' revolution just got run over by our 'no child left behind' politicians who cannot think an hour ahead about the ridiculous rules they make.

OK, so the bottom line is that everyone except renters are now thinking of ways to finance solar because it's obvious that grid power will continue to become more expensive - and ours is already the most expensive in the country. Wait, there's more. A LOT of the renters are on the dole. That means the County and State pay their rent and medical and food costs, and give them spending money, and pay for their car insurance and gas their kids' babysitters and their prescriptions and refill their Electronic Bank Cards every month so these mopes will have spending money - which they spend on 'natural, organic, healthy' food and the health food stores and 'natural, organic, healthy' dope. So when HELCO raises their rates, the County and State have to raise their tax rate so they can keep handing out money.

THAT means that more and more businesses have to cut back on employees and employee benefits. THAT means fewer public services, like police, fire and ambulance, and more people applying for welfare, and more crime and a reduced overall standard of living. When people start complaining, the only thing the government can do is raise taxes and borrow more money. But almost no state in the US can pay it's own obligations without federal aide - which is borrowed - and almost no sovereign nation can pay IT's debts. So it's pretty obvious that almost no PERSON can pay their own debts either, and that doesn't include the debt load the government has tossed on everyone's back without their permission. 40% of the people in the US live below the poverty level and the number goes up every year. It's a downward spiral and we are in it.

Let's follow that logic one more decimal place. If only 1% of the people in the world can pay their own debts, and the county can't pay it's obligations, and the states can't pay theirs and sovereign nations can't pay theirs and taxing everyone in the world at 100% of their gross income still won't stop the spiral, why does it require a genius to understand that this is going to blow up? "Austerity" is a fine word, but if one is already unemployed and living below the poverty level without medical insurance, the only 'austerity' measure left is starvation and death. Except that 40% of the US population isn't going to go willingly and having the police strong-arm protesters won't make them go away because it doesn't solve the rampant underlying problems of dishonesty and government waste.

We are literally at that point. It makes more sense to keep jobs here so people have the money to pay taxes - and it makes more sense to keep people in their homes instead of repossessing them - because at some point that strategy will come to a screeching halt, too. Because the counties and states still want taxes paid on those homes. Banks which repo have to keep paying the taxes, but there is a scam there, too. If a lender robo-signed a false statement and illegally repssessed a home, they may not be able to get clear title. So they just post signsthat the home is bank-owned and stop paying taxes on it. Three years later, the city or county sells it at a tax sale and the bank buys it from themselves, using the tax money they didn't spend to pay the overdue taxes and they get a clear title. Cute, eh?

So.....why isn't it going to get any better? Human nature. People think from inside themselves and see through their own eyes. People tend to believe that they deserve whatever they have regardless of what anyone else has. That's why fences exist and walls and gated communities. I know people who are millionaires. That was their lifelong ambition. I know people who have spent thirty years in professions they hated to make that money. I know others who cash their Social Security check every month but don't need a penny of it. They say they deserve it - after all, they paid into the system and it's their money. OK, no argument. But these same people think that I, and people like me, are suckers on the tit of society because we paid into it too and we NEED it to live on. We don't deserve it because we aren't paying income tax - because we have no income - because there aren't any living-wage jobs for people past retirement age. But we ALREADY paid our fair share, IN ADVANCE and we DO pay tax. On everything we buy. On our homes, on food on medicine, and on the Social Security benefits we get - although we already paid tax on them when we earned them - and now we have to pay again to get our own money back - and the government calls it an 'entitlement' and wants to keep it. Of course it does, It stole the money and left us with IOUs which aren't worth anything.

So the government took our money without our consent by promising us enough to eat in our old ages. And it taxed us on the money. Then it stole that money and spent it on foreign wars and prisons to put us in if we complained. And the wars turned out badly, so we are bailing out of them so we can start ANOTHER war. Because if we can kill enough Americans, we don't owe them any money. And the 1%...the rich people...think they deserve all that and more and the rest of us are lazy bums who should be dispersed with tear gas and rubber bullets. One millionaire I know has collected ~$250,000.00 in Social Security over the past twenty years. He didn't pay that much in, but he deserves it anyway because that's human nature - and that's the social contract the government made with us when they started stealing out money for their ponzi. I will never collect what I paid in - I either won't live that long or the system will tank. But I'm not bitter, nor do I object to Social Security or Medicare for old people. I object to open-ended entitlement programs - like welfare - and The War on Americans our government is waging. And undeclared wars fought for profit that someone gets but that we pay for.

And the very CONCEPT that congress could pass, and the President could sign, the NDAA - which removes the last vestiges of any civil rights you might once have had is an appalling and blatant attempt to destroy the Constitution. Now the Homeland is legally a battlefield. That is the law. It is codified. We wouldn't be living on a battlefield unless we had a battle to fight. I am pretty sure that making the homeland a battlefield automatically invokes a REQUIREMENT for every American over twelve years old to own a rifle.

Arm up. It's the price of living on the battlefield.

Sign at Mad Capper Saloon & Eatery in Stillwater, MN

2012-02-10T07:30:00.001-08:00

And they are wearing Aloha Shirts!

Sign at Mad Capper Saloon & Eatery in Stillwater, MN

From theautomaticearth.org

2012-02-10T05:38:00.001-08:00

FacebookTweet

By A Web Design

The psychology of expansion and the psychology of contraction are complete opposites. Expansions occur against a backdrop of increasing trust and social inclusiveness. At least initially, people are industrious and seek to build enterprises and larger social structures. The value of the goals they are working towards outweigh the potential risks, so people try, and succeed, to innovate.

Political aggregations form and grow in both reach and effectiveness as the trust horizon expands and a sense of common humanity trumps xenophobia. Over time, a positive outlook develops into a self-fulfiling prophecy and times typically become relatively stable and peaceful. Unfortunately, in losing sight of risk and hollowing out the substance of society in their latter phase of over-reach, expansions sow the seeds of their own destruction.

The self-fulfilling prophecy in the opposite direction that follows unfolds much more quickly, as trust takes a long time to build and very little time to destroy. The perception of risk makes a major comeback, and as it does so, people become much more cautious, and also much more suspicious of the motives of others. This psychological shift away from innovation, building and longer term goals is a major factor in precipitating economic contraction. Xenophobia returns as the resulting losses must be shared out. This is much more difficult than sharing out gains during good times when there is plenty to go around.

The psychology of contraction is a major negative force undermining the achievements of the previous era. It is corrosive of the fabric of society - emphasizing fear, anger, and jealousy. Time horizons shorten with increasing instability, so that constructive planning becomes much more difficult. Far fewer people have enough of a cushion to permit them the luxury of the longer term view, hence short-term crisis management comes to dominate, to the cost of all.

We need to understand the major movements of human herding behaviour that give us expansion and contraction. To understand is to be able to resist being caught up in movements of unfocused anger and fear that can rapidly come to dominate a society in hard times. As circumstances deteriorate, we need to short circuit the progression towards increasing isolationism and tribalism that will only make matters worse.

This can be done by maintaining a focus on that which can genuinely be done where trust still exists. Maintaining communication between likeminded people is crucial. In this way the good ideas and constructive attitudes can propagate, albeit against a significant headwind, and more of the fabric of society may be preserved.

Occupy Movements of Mutual Knowledge

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 07, 2012 12:57 PM

John Vachon Watchers October 1938 Cincinnati, Ohio. "Watching the sesquicentennial parade go by"

In the fields of economics and logic, there are basically two types of knowledge that can be communicated between people. The first one is usually through the use of indirect speech:
1) Individual Knowledge - X knows fact A and Y knows fact A, but neither necessarily know anything about the state of each others' knowledge.
e.g., X asks her dinner date, Y, if he would like to come upstairs to her apartment for a drink. Y is pretty sure he knows what’s really going on, but he doesn’t feel like having a drink and it’s possible that X is just being nice. X is pretty sure Y gets it, but it’s possible that Y is taking her offer at face value. The only thing they both know for sure is that X asked Y if he wanted to come up for a drink!

The second type is typically communicated through the use of very direct language:

2) Mutual Knowledge - X knows A, Y knows A, X knows that Y knows A and Y knows that X knows A (and X knows that Y knows X knows A, etc., etc.)

Mutual knowledge obviously has a huge influence on collective psychology and behavior in complex human systems, depending on the time and place in which this knowledge exerts itself. The Santa Fe Institute for Complexity Studies has recently made availble a video lecture by Alex Bentley, who has scientifically studied the role of "social influence and drift" in collective behavior. I highly recommend readers take a look at Bentley's lecture, which can be found here, but a brief summary will also suffice for the purposes of this article.

"Many explanations of human behavior – even among the 'social' sciences – start with people as isolated individuals, maximizing benefits versus costs. Panics or 'herding' events are often seen as anomalous departures from this norm. I would like to suggest that humans, whose very brains have evolved to handle social relations, are 'herding' much more often than commonly assumed
For a variety of modern phenomena,simple evolutionary models of social influence – or even just random copying – do remarkably well at capturing the large-scale dynamics of popular culture change

Such models offer an explanation for the often unpredictable flux of collective trends, especially in a modern society of unprecedented amount of choice and 'decision fatigue'. By then comparing to traditional societies, where both individual choice and social influence are often better informed, we can better understand how population scale data inform us about human decision-making and the dynamics of behavior change."

In the modern world of capital markets, this type of social influence and imitation provides the basis for mutual knowledge that can endogenously drive share prices higher or lower, as opposed to independent knowledge of a company’s “fundamentals” being the most significant factor in investment decisions.

e.g., Big-time Trader X tells big-time Trader Y that he and a few other big-time traders are fully invested in a certain stock with vast amounts of leverage, and big-time Trader Y imitates the leveraged investment.

So, while mutual knowledge can be a force that helps blow speculative bubbles amongst the herd, it can also be a force that incites mass resistance to oppression or even some form of revolution. Take the parable of The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen, for example. In that story, the child who pointed out that The Emperor "isn’t wearing anything at all" was not telling anyone a fact that they didn't already know.

Instead, hi

Chump change.

2012-02-10T04:54:00.001-08:00

youtube.com/watch?v=u24nH03NccI&feature=player_embedded

Stupid.

2012-02-09T20:12:00.001-08:00

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=336268213050627

Superbowl commercial winners and luzers.

2012-02-09T17:50:00.001-08:00

WINNERS:

http://www.5min.com/Video/Doritos---Missing-Cat---Super-Bowl-Commercial-517263631
!

Easy on the eyes. Sexist? Yup. Problems with that? Nope. If you think poor Adriana Lima is being exploited, watch her make a million dollars selling it.

Easy on the eyes, yup. Sexist? You betcha.

LUZERS:
Coke. Just flat sucks.

Honda.

Madonna. M.I.A.
Wins AND luzes:

The pre-released version was funny. The one they actually showed sucked: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/05/super-bowl-commercials-2012-jerry-seinfeld-acura_n_1255236.html

Raw food is just plain healthy.

2012-02-09T17:49:00.001-08:00

Seriously. I can't think of many foods that need to be cooked, and the ones that do are probably not human food at all. Smoking, drying and freezing are simply methods of preservation. There's a simple test. It shouldn't have to be pre-digested by another species and then processed. If it isn't edible raw, dried, fermented or pickled, it probably isn't good for you cooked. Like lettuce. I want to make a very short list of good, wholesome food that can be eaten raw.
lettuce
honey
corn on the cob
beef
flowers

cheese (cheese doesn't some in spray cans)
milk, buttermilk, butter
bananas
eggs

tomatoes
lamb
onions
spinach
horse meat
carrots

fish
papaya
pineapple
cabbage
eggs
poultry

cabbage
pork
garlic
salt/pepper/spices
sugar from cane or maple trees

ants
broccoli
nuts
seeds
eggplant
broccoli

apples, peaches
ice cream
grapes
beer
most plants that don't have a waxy leaf or milky sap.

sea turtles
frog legs
all illegal plants
tea (you can make tea in the sun - it doesn't have to be boiled)

women

And a quick list of stuff that has to be cooked or 'processed' to be edible:
Brussels sprouts

most dogs and cats
asparagus
tofu
snails
bats
many marsupials

chocolate
rats/mice
grasshoppers
coffee
Did I mention Brussels sprouts?

And even a few things that just flat aren't edible:
beetles
Anything that walks, crawls, flies or swims and has red, yellow and black coloration. Let it go.

skunks
toads
people who look sick, starving or bloated, or who have pustules or open sores or are bleeding from any orifice you didn't create.

-or are already dead when you find them.
Roadkill. Even fresh roadkill.
Anything that is preceded by the phrase "Try this".

peach pits, potato eyes, rhubarb greens. Just say "NO".
Anything a smiling person tries to serve you.
--

90% of success is showing up. Getting the math right is the other 50%.
-T
Aut viam inveniam aut faciamaut viam inveniam aut faciam.

-Hannibal

Eighteen years old and already in Sports Illustrated. What an athlete!

2012-02-09T13:18:00.001-08:00

Body paint. Blueberry and whipped cream flavored body paint.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011_swimsuit/painting/kate-upton/11_kate-upton_1.html

Senior Test

2012-02-09T10:08:00.001-08:00

Senior Test

How government works.

2012-02-08T12:54:00.001-08:00

How Government Works

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House. One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Minnesota. All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. "Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.
"The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me."
The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the WhiteHouse official and whispers, "$2,700." The government official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys!
How did you come up with such a high figure? "The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence.
""Done!" replies the government official.

The only reason this can be happening is that the economy is collapsing.

2012-02-07T20:23:00.001-08:00

“We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications
whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years.”
“It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of
publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world
government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the
national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.” -David Rockefeller -
http://theintelhub.com/2012/02/07/new-york-times-publishes-hit-piece-against-us-constitution-as-fbi-demonizes-everyday-americans-as-possible-terrorists/

Obama invokes NDAA - declares national emergency on Iran.

2012-02-07T20:19:00.001-08:00

We are apparently at war. Our Constitutional rights no longer exist.
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f23uQr7TIMo#!

Why I need a container.

2012-02-07T12:05:00.001-08:00

My store room is full.




Print Shipping Labels	FAQs	Address Book	Shipping History	Cart Empty	My Account

Thus knowledge flows like water

Godzilla the killa.

Joseppi...is this you?

Here's what it looks like to me.

Model on food prices and social unrest predicts crisis in 2013

Forecasting Increases in Political Violence: 2011-2015

TSA: USELESS!

The beginning of the end?

The dominoes are starting to fall faster. Judge clears way for record bankruptcy in Alabama

Illinois state ‘on brink of collapse’

Spain's lost generation: youth unemployment surges above 50 per cent

Fitch Says Greece Will Default By March 20 Bond Payment

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/05/uk-iceland-trial-idUKTRE8240WJ20120305

Being invaded by barbarians, raped and murdered, is better than defending yourself.

School lunch anyone?

Sharia in America: No, I will not 'submit'.

Here comes the sun: Spain's sovereign thunderclap and the end of Merkel's Europe

Oh...remember last year?

Report: Iran and North Korea collaborated on nuclear tests in 2010

The Second Amendment is the only right you need.

Federal judge says gun owners need not provide 'good reason,' rules Maryland law unconstitutional

H/T Patty Golden

FNHerstal. Stranger in a strange land.

What my 'bring it' friends don't seem to understand.

Doesn't everyone?

Newt Gingrich Leaves 30-Year Trail Of Debts, Lawsuits And Bankruptcies In His Wake

Society's Five Stages of Economic Collapse

Kepler Orrery II

From Dr. Paul Craig Roberts - a REAGAN REPUBLICAN.

Homeland security.

OH, NO, Sheriff Joe!

Welcome to America. My Repugnican friends can eat this and die.

Korea's Yomi Kim Hunter

Our F-22s kill their pilots.

As I said months ago, Iran CAN close the Straits of Hormuz.

Our new rail gun.

Catching pigs.

Monsanto contaminates the justice system

A bit of the economy.

in a phone.

My email in on a time-delay.

More from the Daily Caller

Team Smith & Wesson Teen Molly Smith Argues For The Second Amendment

Attack on the Second Amendment.

Taking the country back.

Nobel Prize in Medicine: "Drugs that cure are not profitable"

Ridiculous.

Jeanne Sparrow. Calm. poised, loves animals.

Where we were. Why aren't we still there?

The long and winding road.

Houston, we have a problem. Houston? Hello? Anyone? Oh, shit.

WTF?!?!?!?

And here it comes.

Maybe they aren't that funny.

Fukushima: The gift that keeps on giving.

Common sense.

The Post Office is going away. EVERYTHING will be next. Welcome to Western Greece.

Watch these clips.

The Physics Research Center and Iran’s Parallel Military Nuclear Program

The greatest gun salesman in America for a reason.

The Necessity of Revisionism - how we are being led into another war.

From Greece with love.

You are doing it wrong...+ 2013 Tacoma LOOOOngbed.

Big Island car dealership Asshats and Good Guys.

The end of freedom begins with the end of free information.

Down With the Presidency

But that was yesterday - and yesterdays gone.

Musta lost his belt.

I dare anyone to eat this and live.

The 99% in action

Very clever ad/commercial - rare as that is!

It's a rainy Sunday. What shall we do?

Untitled

I shall now make some more friends.

Las Vegas is your Big Brother, too!

He's Baaaaaaaaaaack!

Do I believe this? Yes.

This isn't good.

The Federation of Greek Police says they will refuse to fight protesters

The on again - off again Greek bailout is off again.

The dominoes are starting to fall faster.
Judge clears way for record bankruptcy in Alabama