“Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium.” — Murray N. Rothbard
“The history of fiat money is little more than a register of monetary follies and inflations. Our present age merely affords another entry in this dismal register.” — Hans F. Sennholz
“My reading
of history convinces me that most bad government results from too
much government.” — Thomas Jefferson
“Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without
government interference.” — Rep. Ron Paul
“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to
persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” — Carl
Sagan
Is George Orwell's 1984 Here in America?
Chemtrails...why in the world are they spraying?
An Inconvenient Tooth...
Marijuana...the truth part I...
Marijuana...the truth part II...
Amazing
kite choreography...
2012...the
year in photos...
Dogs like to
drive...
Economic history of the past 2000 years...
Sacred
psychedelics maaan...
Bike parts into art...
A
missing chapter in human history?
The Japanese Atlantis...
Amazing
Tron choreography...
13
weird words added to the dictionary...
Use
70-20-10 to manage your career...
26 things that
aren't so healthy...
The Yum!onster...KFC + Taco Bell + Pizza Hut...
Hollow be thy Earth...
Mass grave
beneath Fort Greene park...
Super Mario made from 7000 post it notes...
Our 2012
transition?
10
tiny mammals...
Danger of
economic collapse...
Don't mean to
burst your bubble...
9/11
view from space...
Polar bear
cubs at play...
Happy Holidays
cooking...
The many types of
salt and their uses...
Terminator bionic hand...
For the
DJ in you...
Typewriter iPad...
World's
oldest book...
3-D print yourself a gun...
Beautiful Noise...
How to build a
mud oven...
8
ingredients you never want to see...
Mmmm...
chocolate macaroons and the recipe!
Elephant rocks the
harmonica...
Agenda 21...the road to the New World Order...
Speaking of which...see how the Bilderberg group
encompasses...
How your bank account can
disappear...
Restoring
my faith in our youth...
Sacrificing our
children to vaccines...
Extreme domino toppling...
Recovery
reality check...
50 greatest
sandwiches of all time...
Kale...it's what's for dinner...
Sacred geometry taught to Donald Duck...
Creating
gasoline out of thin air...
'Mazing Matchsticks Masterpieces...
The
end of cheap everything...
Do bears really
hibernate?
Bear cam for the salmon hunt...
Minority Report like software...
Make your own Hostess treats...
5 year old piano prodigy...
Living
like a Hobbit...
Introducing artist
George Redreev...
Wall of films...
It's the
real live Muppets...YAAAAYYY!
25
behind the scenes photos to mess with your minds...
Crack the code...find
secret society...
Amalgam...what not to do with your teeth...
Prescription drugs
kill...
Korea from different perspectives...
75 mysteries of science illustrated...
Things we
can't see...
Dog likes deer...
deer likes dog...
Skywalker type arm...
Which is more...grains of sand on Earth or stars in the sky?
Destroying my
faith in youth...
192 wheel monster...
Election
fraud is rampant...
Healthy diet = heathy teeth...
Milk
does not do a body good...
Human
corpse trade...
Boost your
immune system naturally...
The
US economy made easy...
Boat slamming in the Ozarks...
Fluoride-free
pineal gland is more important than ever...
Penguins
chilling in Antartica...
Buy
silver now!
Fjögur Píanó...monarch mind control?
Introducing artist
Andy Gillmore...
Amalgam...what not to do with your teeth
part II...
Miniature Wonderland...
Dog gets new legs...
Why you should know about
FEMA camps...
Was
Allah originally a Babylonian god of violence?
Be
vigilant with your online presence...
GE seeds = more pesticides...
Ahhh...breathe in that fresh smell of
Febreze...
How to
scare the shit out of your wife...
The
real unemployment number...
Space junk!
Tesla on how to control
gravity...
Election fraud is rampant
part II...
Dancing around the world...
Masquerading
fellatio...
Introducing painter
John Brosio...
Weird
words added to the dictionary...
Hurricane Sandy
prelude to Camp FEMA?
Why Obama
didn't attend Columbia...
Obamacare making us a nation of part timers...
Food stampers now equal more than 24 states combined population...
Beware the fiscal cliff!
Top 14 Reasons to Buy Silver Part I...
Top 14 Reasons to Buy Silver Part II...
Top 14 Reasons to Buy Silver Part III...
Geothermal Heat Pumps: Letting The Earth Provide
Man’s
ability to harvest the earth’s immense bounty has been the key to human
prosperity and societal development over the past several thousand
years. Even when once-mighty empires have crumbled and formerly dominant
cultures and peoples have fallen into obscurity, new societies have
always risen from the ashes to achieve unique and remarkable things.
Unquestionably, this pattern of irrepressible accomplishment has its
foundation in the ability of human beings to come up with increasingly
more clever and inventive ways of efficiently capturing and using the
limitless resources that creation so generously provides.
In the past, much propaganda was generated in praise of man’s supposed
ability to “conquer” nature through science and technology. But this
sort of metaphor has now gone out of fashion, as thoughtful people have
come to recognize that our species’ incredible record of success is
based more on our ability to work
with the forces of nature
rather than against them. Cooperation, not exploitation, has fueled the
furnaces of human achievement, and when formerly great societies have
forgotten this truth, they have inevitably lost their innovative edge
and begun a long gradual descent into extinction.
Read more...
MIT's
Milli-Motein: Things Just Got a Lot More Interesting
|
|
| If the idea that matter can be organized
in a way that's similar to binary code seems implausible, get ready for
a shock: It can. An MIT team has created a milli-motein -- a tiny device
made of millimeter- sized components with a motorized design inspired by
proteins. Milli- moteins can naturally fold themselves into almost any
shape imaginable.
[See
Full Story] |
The AquaJelly Robotic Jellyfish from Festo
Lee Teschler of Machine Design magazine talks to Frank Langro of Festo
about the AquaJelly, a robotic jellyfish that shows off their technology
in a creative way inspired by nature.
A Visual Treat Awaits Visitors at Stony Brook University's New Reality Deck
Project director Dr. Arie Kaufman explains the purpose and engineering
work that went into building the four-walled surround view theater at
the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology (CEWIT).
How to Teach Simple-Minded People about Economics
Teaching
economics is not difficult. You don’t need charts or graphs. All you
need are a few good illustrations. One way to teach is with some humor.
The Parable of the Two Cows is one way.
Bill Sherk mentions that a
list has circulated throughout the United States since around 1936
under the title “Parable of the Isms.” A column in
The Chicago Daily Tribune
in 1938 attributes a version involving socialism, communism, fascism
and New Dealism to an address by Silas Strawn to the Economic Club of
Chicago on November 29, 1935.
Here are some of the better Two Cow Isms. I’ve tinkered with some of them:
BUREAUCRACY: You
have two cows. The government takes both cows, loses one while giving
the cow to people who don’t know anything about cows because that’s what
the regulations told them to do.
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
COMMUNISM (1): You have two cows. The government takes both of them and gives you some of the milk.
COMMUNISM (2): You
have two cows. The government takes both cows. The government sells the
milk in government stores. You can’t afford the milk. You starve to
death.
COMMUNISM (3): You have two cows. The State takes both, and gives you a little milk . . . once.
COMMUNISM (4): You have two cows. The government takes both and gives you spoiled milk.
CUBAN COMMUNISM: You no longer have any cows. You risk your life by escaping from Cuba so you can buy some cows and a bull in Miami.
DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both cows and drafts you to make sure he stays in power.
FASCISM: You have two cows. You give the milk to the government and the government sells it.
FREE ENTERPRISE:
You have two cows. They get jobs working for Chick-fil-A for the
company’s “Eat Mor Chikin” campaign. The chickens get upset and call for
a boycott.
LIBERALISM: You have two cows. You
sell both of them to the rich. The government then taxes the rich the
price of one cow and gives it to the poor who slaughter it. When they
finish eating it, they demand the other cow.
NEW DEAL LIBERALISM: You
have two cows. The government takes both, shoots one, milks the other,
and pours the milk down the drain insisting there is a giant storage
tank where all the milk goes. Think Social Security.
POLITICAL CORRECTISM: The
idea of “ownership’ is a holdover from the pre-Enlightenment era.
Humans and cows are equal. The use of the word “cow” is demeaning. Cows
should be allowed to vote.
We Can Tell the Government What to Do
The
First Amendment to the Constitution states as clearly as it can that
the people have the right to “petition the government for a redress of
grievances.” Wrapped up in this Constitutional right are additional
rights regarding speech, press, and assembly. It’s a package deal. We
can petition in several ways without hindrance: signs (press), speaking
(speech), marches (assembly). Any attempt to “infringe” on these rights,
including religion, is blatantly unconstitutional and un-American.
As
a side note, for Christians who claim they must remain silent when
government acts, keep in mind that the Constitution — our “Caesar”
(Matt. 22:21) — gives us the right and
duty to question its
decisions and authority. The President of the United States took an oath
before God to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the
United States.” At the start of each new Congressional year, those newly
elected or re-elected Congressmen — the entire House of Representatives
and one-third of the Senate — must recite an oath:
I
do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and
domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I
take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose
of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of
the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
There
is no violation of Romans 13:1–7 to petition any elected official
because what is “due them” (v. 7) is found in the Constitution, a
Constitution they took an oath to “support and defend.” The Constitution
was designed by “We the People.” The Constitution is not designed for
their protection but for
ours.
The powers of the President, Congress, and the Courts are limited
according to the Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,
are reserved to the States respectively,
or to the people.”
In Book 1, Chapter 1 of Blackstone’s
Commentaries
the point is made that “every individual” has “the right of petitioning
the king, or either house of parliament, for the redress of grievance.”
Eleven years later, the
Declaration of Independence listed King George’s failure to respond to the grievances listed in colonial petitions, such as the
Olive Branch Petition of 1775, as a legal justification to declare independence:
In
every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the
most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
As far back as Magna Carta (1215) and the later
Bill of Rights 1689,
which explicitly declared the “right of the subjects to petition the
king,” the people had a fundamental right to make their grievances known
to those holding civil office.
Protests, tea parties, putting
politicians and their policies on electoral notice, and packing Town
Hall meetings to ask questions and voice grievances about legislative
policies are fundamental freedoms that go back nearly 800 years. The
Constitution codifies these freedoms. Of course, if our elected
officials don’t read the bills they vote on, what makes us think they’ve
read the Constitution? And even if they have read the Constitution,
what makes us think they care what it says? The Constitution is a prop
to keep the people in check — until they read it. I’m surprised that
almost nothing has been said about the First Amendment in this debate
over the Tea Party movement. It’s time that we read the Constitution and
throw it back in their faces, metaphorically speaking, of course.
We are not a Democracy, but you wouldn’t know it
It
continually amazes me that this subject continues to crop up, yet upon
further consideration of where it does pop up, and among whom, perhaps
it is not so amazing after all. Yet I am still struck by supposedly
educated people who think or claim this – an indictment of the public
educational system no doubt. I usually decry belaboring the obvious, yet
it seems that once again well founded history requires enumeration.
I
begin my opus with a simple proclamation: We are not a Democracy, nor
were we ever, nor was it intended that we be so. Our Founding Fathers
decried democracy ( mob rule as they called it ), and not one of them
ever argued for democracy in this country. The prevailing objections of
our founding fathers against Democracy can be surmised as follows and it
contains 5 key elements:
1. It is impossible for the
people as a whole to intelligently make public policy over a wide range
of issues. Most people lack the time, energy, and interest to give such a
high level of ongoing personal attention to politics and public
affairs. Also, they are inarguably without the necessary education,
information, and political skills. This is even more true today – just
look at the losers on YouTube declaring their support for Obama because
“he’s gonna give me free stuff…”. These losers typify the Obama support
base – people living off welfare, persons who know nothing what-so-ever
about politics, sociology, or history, but instead vote with their
gonads and their “me me me” mentality, or worse yet, they are the
epitome of the very racism that they accuse Conservatives of – voting
for a man because of his color.
2. Direct democracy is an
impractical system of government. When legislative authority is
exercised by the masses, they frequently make hasty and unwise decisions
on public policy, arriving at such decisions on the basis of momentary
popular wishes and passions, through ignorance or lack of education into
the multifaceted nuances that attend matters of State.
3. Direct
democracy makes it virtually impossible to negotiate political bargains
and compromises among opposing groups with conflicting views and
interests. In every political controversy, one side emerges the total
victor and the other side the total loser, leaving the losing side
dissatisfied, alienated, and determined to reverse the decision,
regardless of the costs and consequences. Political conflict over the
issue continues, even though negotiation and bargaining might have
discovered a middle ground acceptable to both sides. This makes for a
high level of social tension and tends to destabilize the society and
its government.
4. In a direct democracy, there is the
ever-present danger of tyranny of the majority. In a political community
where all adult citizens are members of the legislature, it is
virtually impossible to limit the power of the majority. There are no
institutional safeguards to moderate and restrain the exercise of
governmental power and prevent the majority from riding roughshod over
the rights and vital interests of members of the minority.
5.
In a large population, the logistics and realities of Mass Assembly and
a Popular vote become too problematic. An example is the election
screw-ups in Florida – imagine that on a national level! And Florida’s
election snafu’s culpability I lay entirely at the feet of the bozos
that were too stupid to read a ballot; I had no trouble reading it. This
is a PRIME example of why ignorant people should not vote – they cannot
even read and decipher a ballot correctly, yet they are to be trusted
with choosing the next leader of our planet? Hardly…..
So
to sum up our founding fathers objections to Democracy: the masses
cannot be trusted with political authority. The masses lack the wisdom,
education, morals, and plain good judgment needed to provide good
government, i.e., to govern effectively and, at the same time, preserve
liberty and ensure justice, and that the people lack the capacity to
govern society effectively, wisely and justly, but are quite capable of
choosing a small group of highly educated experienced leaders who are to
govern society in their stead. While it is impractical to expect the
people to directly govern society, it is quite practical to expect them
to choose society’s rulers from among and the highly educated and
informed few who shall rule until after the next election, when their
terms of office expire.
James Madison was among those who decried
and lobbied against direct democracy and in favor of representative
government. Madison was influential in the convening of the Federal
Constitutional Convention of 1787 and played an important role in the
drafting of the United States Constitution and in securing its
ratification and adoption. In Federalist 10, Madison maintained that, of
the different types of government, direct democracy was the least
likely to effectively limit governmental power, safeguard liberty and
ensure justice, that tyrannical rule by a self-interested and
overbearing majority was bound to be the consequence of government by a
common mass of impassioned and ill-informed electorate ( boy was he
right ).
Yet the Electoral College is not full proof against the
folly of riding the wave of mass popularity, instead of attending to
reason, experience, and ‘resume’s, the Electoral college has abandon its
original charter. Witness our current President and the election that
surrounded his quite scary rise to power. At the risk of being called a
racist again, this President was elected for no reason OTHER than he was
black. He received 90% of the Black vote, which is in itself racist.
Samuel L. Jackson and many other left wing Blacks have come out publicly
and stated, on live TV, that they voted for Obama because he was black.
This is the epitome of racism, the most basic definition of the word.
The
Electoral College was designed to prevent the popular hysteria of the
excitable, ignorant masses from unduly influencing the election, yet
even this is not sufficient, as The Electoral College no longer
functions as it was intended – it was intended to prevent a popular
vote, yet fallible and corrupt men have suborned its original intent; a
discussion for another article. Just ask anyone WHY they voted for Obama
if not for his race or out of political correctness ( white guilt );
what credentials did he have that swayed them to vote for him, what
experience did he have that convinced them that he was qualified to run
the United States of America?
The man had NO resume, no experience
of any sort in business, never had to make a payroll, never had to work
80 hrs a week at two jobs to feed his family, never owned a business or
had any experience in the business sector, never been in the military
or had any military experience, had zero foreign policy experience, zero
intelligence community experience, zero economic experience or
credentials, zero scientific knowledge….I could go on, but my point
being made I take it. No one can point to ANY experience or credentials
that qualified this man to be President.
Functioning as our
forefathers intended, the Electoral College would have seen to it that
Obama was not elected, as their original charter did not bind them to
their party vote, nor the popular vote, but to cast their electoral vote
for the candidate that the Elector felt best served his constituency.
That
said, it is clear our system no longer works. But this is not to
disparage our Founding Fathers – the simple fact is the face of America,
and the World, has changed beyond anything that our Founding Fathers
could ever have imagined or foreseen. Vast technological advances,
population explosions, exponential industrialization advances,
unimaginable military might, along with a vastly different and complex
national and global economy, are not things our original governmental
framework was designed to handle. It’s like expecting to run current
software on Windows XP – you can keep patching it to try and make it
keep up, but in the end the operating system needs to be re-written.
So, how would we tweak things to insure that we do not become a democracy as our forefathers intended?
We
can start with the body of the electorate – the rank and file voters.
As the reasons why should be abundantly clear and I shan’t revisit them
here, suffice it to say that this should be changed, at a minimum, to
only an educated electorate, which everyone from Washington, to
Jefferson to Hamilton to Madison supported.
Additionally no one on
welfare or public assistance should be allowed to vote; to allow this
would be a conflict of interest. When those who do nothing & exist
off the fruits of the industrious, just like a wild animal, they will
lose the desire and skills to feed themselves, and will always vote for
that party whose politics will keep them at the public feeding trough
for the longest time. Soon the industrious will grow weary of working,
only to have that which they worked for given to those who do not pull
their own weight, and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see where
that will end up. This is one of many examples why persons on welfare
should not vote, but it is a good example. If my logic is in error, I
invite your comments.
Next, the qualifications for Presidency
should be overhauled, vastly. If a person is not qualified to make
change at a 7-11 ( Obama ), then how is it that he is qualified to run
the largest economy on earth? If a person does not have the credentials
and experience to be hired at a Fortune 500 company as its CFO, how is
it that this same person is qualified to run the world’s largest
economy? If a person has no experience in the military, how is it he is
qualified to be Commander-in-Chief of something he knows nothing about?
When you apply for a position at a corporation or business, you must show that you are
qualified for
that position; you have to produce a resume and proofs showing
experience and education in the area(s) that you are applying for, and
demonstrating a history of success in your previous positions. Certainly
no lesser standards should be applied to the Presidency, members of
Congress, and the Senate, and the Judiciary. These positions, at a
minimum, should be restricted to well-educated persons with very
impressive resumes, including a minimum experience requirement.
The
President should be required to have had many years of military
service, hold multi-disciplinary degrees in economics, politics,
military strategy, history, sociology, international disciplines, be
educated or have great experience in matters of State, and international
politics. A Presidential Candidate should have a resume that would get
him hired as CEO/CFO/COO of any Fortune 500 company – why would a person
accept less? Similar requirements should be paced on members of
Congress, the Senate, Cabinet, and all appointed Federal posts.
As
to the mechanics of the election process itself, I see no reason to
abolish the Electoral College, just tweak it a bit. Only three time
since the Civil War has a candidate won the popular vote but not the
Electoral vote. But this is a red herring anyway, as the President is
not
supposed to be elected by popular vote ( ignorant populace,
myriad other reasons, remember? ). The “Electoral College Members”
should be similarly endowed with impressive educational and experience
credentials. The winner-take-all system of the States should be revised
to a 2/3 majority, upon which all Electoral Votes must go to the winning
candidate, however, less than a 2/3 popular state majority vote, and
the Electors are free to vote for their conscious, party candidate, the
candidate that won in their district, or that the Elector feels would
best serve the interests of the people.
The mechanisms described should make it abundantly clear that we are
not
a democracy. Our history and the words of our Founding Fathers are
quite clear on this subject, but the Constitution is the last word, and
conveniently is the clearest, to wit;
“SECTION 4. The
United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican
Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and
on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the
Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence”.
If one’s education has ill-equipped one to comprehend the above, or to understand what a
republic
is, and if one was not paying attention in junior high and high school
where it was explained that we are NOT a democracy and that our founding
fathers decried democracy, then I suggest that such a person enroll in
some remedial classes in American Government and American History.
But
please, let us have an end to this nonsense about us being a democracy;
we most certainly are not, nor did any of our forefathers intend that
we be so.
And that’s just the way it is.
I'll bet most people have a positive response to the phrase, "newly approved drug."
There's a promise of hope in those three words. And if a drug is new, well then it's the cutting edge of modern medicine. Right?
Wrong.
In fact, a new drug is a mystery. And it's probably more of a mystery than your doctor even realizes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
What you don't know CAN hurt you
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Nobody knows how effective or safe a new drug is. Only time will tell.
And you know what that means. The first million users are guinea pigs.
Most pre-approval clinical trials last only a few months. So nobody has any idea how patients will react over the long term.
The perfect example is Lipitor, the best selling drug in history. Just
this year -- 16 YEARS after approval -- the FDA admitted that the drug
increases risk of cognitive dysfunction and type 2 diabetes.
Think of that. A full decade and a half after FDA approval, your doctor STILL might not have an accurate safety profile.
Recent British Medical Journal studies reveal why doctors are in the dark.
UK researchers examined the reporting of clinical trial results. They
discovered "haphazard publication and incomplete data disclosure."
In one BMJ study, researchers looked at trials funded by the NIH.
Less than half of the trials received peer-reviewed publication 30
months after the trials were completed.
The UK team says that this situation "is a disservice to research
participants, patients, health systems, and the whole endeavour of
clinical medicine."
The researchers also note that the problem of inadequate data disclosure
is so bad that it's "almost impossible" to accurately judge a drug's
benefits and harms.
Almost impossible! And yet, FDA officials take pride in improving their quick rate of new drug approvals.
If your doctor wants to prescribe a new drug, tell him you'll consider it in 10 years.
Better yet, make it 20.
Peace, love, and happiness...until next time...
“Where
an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No
man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his
possessions.”
— James Madison