Every Breath You Take...

We'll be watching you, Ben.

Goals

Timely article by Gary North b/c I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

One of the mental exercises that I recommend that people do is to imagine that they are at their 70^th birthday party. All of their relatives have gathered. They then give a speech – no more than ten minutes – on what they think were their life's greatest successes outside of their family, and why. Half of the speech should be devoted to the what and why, and half to the how.

This exercise is important because it forces people to consider what they have done with their lives so far.

Second, it forces them to assess if they have accomplished what they really want to accomplish.

Third, it forces them to think through the choices they must make in order to bring their dreams to fruition.

Fourth, it forces them to make concrete plans.

People refuse to do this because it is too painful. It reveals to those who have never thought about their goals that they have nothing very specific in mind. With nothing specific in mind, people rarely wind up in the condition that they would have preferred to wind up, had they given it much thought.

Zinc Pennies

It costs the government 1.4 cents to make a penny because the price of zinc has tripled over the last couple of years. Hilarious!

"In the late 90's," Mr. Yardeni added, "my hedge fund friends were all experts in technology. Now all they talk about is zinc, lead and oil. There is a lot of money that has poured into these areas."

Darwinians

They reject the idea of God as an intelligent designer, but they persist in using such expressions and metaphors as intelligent genes, selfish genes, tools, tactics, devices, calculated, organized, goal, and design. By implication, these words transfer the notion of purpose from a benign, superhuman God to subhuman entities like genes and “memes.” Dawkins, who posited (he’d say “discovered”) memes, flatly calls “altruism” “something that does not exist in nature.” After all, altruism would be a fatal handicap in the ruthless struggle for survival.

Well, if altruism doesn’t exist in nature, why does it exist at all? How can it? Aren’t we still in nature? How can we escape it? When did we cease being pitiless competitors and start being cooperators, building hospitals and charities and all the institutions that preserve the people whom Darwinism’s nature, red in tooth and claw, would deem “unfit” for survival? How can we be so utterly unlike the fierce creatures from whom we are allegedly descended?

Living With War

An interview with Neil Young about his new album.

We're Not Leaving Iraq, Ever

The Christian Science Monitor reported in April 2006, "the Pentagon would prefer to keep its bases in Iraq. It has already spent $1 billion or more on them, outfitting some with underground bunkers and other characteristics of long-term bases. Some US bases in Iraq are huge, e.g., Camp Anaconda, north of Baghdad, occupies 15 square miles, boasts two swimming pools, a gym, a miniature-golf course, and a first-run movie theater. The $67.6 billion emergency bill to cover Iraq and Afghanistan military costs includes $348 million for further base construction."

The infrastructure is being put in place for a long-term military presence in Iraq. Unless Americans get tired of footing the growing and expensive bill for occupying Iraq – now at nearly $10 billion per month – or the Iraqis are able to force the United States to leave it looks like Baghdad will be the center of operations for the US presence in the Middle East.

Immigration Revisited

But in any case this population change is simply irreversible, a historical development that demands new ways of thinking. It is bringing some strains, especially in the Southwest, where many immigrants speak of reconquista and want to throw their weight around, and Mexico’s arrogant president, Vicente Fox, seems to delight in making trouble.

It never seems to occur to him that his own chronically irresponsible government is what drives so many of his countrymen north. Checked the peso lately? Inflation, which impoverishes whole populations, isn’t caused by locusts. Now this odious demagogue professes to speak as the champion of the people he has oppressed. They are caught between two lawless bureaucratic behemoths, alias "democracies."

In a few years this is bound to bring our welfare state, already overloaded, to a crisis. To me, this is the most disturbing prospect we face.

But I find it hard to see how any Christian can get indignant about poor men who leave home to take tough, low-paying jobs in order to feed their families. I can’t imagine Jesus standing on the border to turn them back. As for angry talk of an "invasion," it’ s a pretty peaceful one, and the complaint comes oddly from Americans who believe their own country has the right to invade countries around the world, and not necessarily in a pacific manner.

Shaving

The first stage of freedom uses only a razor (double blade is fine) and a bit of baby oil or mineral oil. While in the shower or soon after you get out, put some oil on the skin area you want to shave. Then shave it. The end.

At first, it won't feel right. You might cut yourself. It will be scary. Your skin might hurt a bit. It might swell up. Why? Because you have turned your skin to mush for decades of shaving cream use. It needs time to recover from this. You need to do this for days.

This is your first day of relief from shaving cream hell. Your skin is recovering. Do the same the next day. And the next. And the next. After 5 days, normalcy will be almost returned.

After a week, you can even give up the oil and use only warm water. You will find that you will be able to shave ever more swiftly and with ever more abandon. A man can shave his whole face in 20 seconds without a single abrasion.

My freedom from shaving cream began twenty years ago after a friend uttered to me the great truth that shaving cream is a racket. Ever since I have exulted in my knowledge and felt deep pity on the rest of the world for languishing in unknowingness.

pH

“The doctor of the future will give little medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.” -- Thomas Edison

In Béchamp’s research, he was able to show scientific proof that a proper acid-alkaline balance in the body correlates to a high state of health. In direct opposition to another well known scientist – Louis Pasteur – Béchamp discovered that it wasn’t germs that caused disease, but rather the inner condition of the patient, which is regulated by pH. Béchamp concluded that just as a slight variation in body temperature away from 98.6 degrees makes you sick, a slight variance in your body’s delicate pH balance will also throw your whole system out of balance and negatively impact your health. Béchamp observed under microscopic testing that viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungus and other micro-organisms all flourished and were present in the body when the pH became acidic.

Anyone with a swimming pool who understands pH knows that when pool water becomes acidic and the pH is out of balance algae and mold will form. Farmers know that if the pH of their soil is not properly balanced seeds will not germinate and they will get inferior crop production. The same things also occur in the human body.

One of the leading indicators of a health problem is when the body’s pH has gone from being slightly alkaline to acidic. As Dr. Robert O. Young says so eloquently in his book, Sick and Tired? Reclaim Your Inner Terrain: “There is only one physiological disease – the over-acidification of the body, due primarily to an inverted way of eating and living. This over-acidification leads to the one sickness, or primary symptom – the overgrowth in the body of microorganisms, whose poisons produce the symptoms we call ‘diseases’.”

Silver Update

This is getting ridiculous.

Waco '93

Let's never forget.

Thirteen years ago the federal government of the United States ended its altercation with a group of peaceful religious separatists – a conflict the government had initiated – by driving a tank through the Branch Davidians’ home and church, pumping the interior with poisonous gas, and keeping the fire engines at a distance while the building and the people inside burned.

At Waco, the U.S. government treated the Branch Davidians as any total state might treat its most alienated subjects. It broke into their home aggressively, shot at them recklessly and mockingly defiled their graves. It blocked off their water and their communications with family, counsel and the press. It waged psychological warfare on them. It showed no mercy on the little children that it gassed. It imprisoned the survivors, including one man who wasn’t even in the building during the siege. The Davidians were effectively dehumanized by the central state's lapdog press, and so all too few voices, even on the hyper-sensitive left, came to their defense when Clinton and Reno’s federal police stampeded them under their weight.

Jesus' Government

by Joseph Sobran

Why does corruption in government always surprise us? Why do we expect anything else from it? Government is organized force. It takes our wealth and makes war. And we think honest men would do that work?

Well, honest men have sincerely tried, but look at the results and ask yourself whether honesty has any inherent tendency to prevail in politics. War, taxation, waste, debt, inflation, hatred, hypocrisy, cynicism, social disorder. And also — amazingly enough! — corruption.

As I often say, expecting government to produce good results is like expecting a tiger to pull a plow. After the twentieth century, in which the world’s governments killed hundreds of millions of their own subjects, everyone ought to talk about the state the way Jews talk about Hitler. Yet we still have high hopes for this beast, because, after all, the mighty tiger is certainly strong enough to pull that plow if he wanted to! If only.

Even most Christians believe in the state, though Jesus never urged his followers to take political action...

World Cup

USA Today analysis of Germany 2006.

Badnarik for Congress

Michael Badnarik, LP candidate for Congress in District 10, is takin' it up a notch. The campaign has surpassed $200K in donations and has just (as of April 11) put up its first billboard at Airport Boulevard and Koenig Lane.

Wes Benedict (L) is Running for City Counsil

Being a council candidate is nothing new for Benedict, who received 35 percent of the vote against Council Member Danny Thomas in 2003 and 18 percent against Council Member Betty Dunkerley last year.

He's made a splash by dogging opponents for campaign finance violations; last year, Dunkerley returned $13,000 to out-of-town donors after he complained that she'd accepted too much cash.

Benedict wants to cut taxes and reduce spending on such things as affordable housing and open space, which he says "benefit a few number of people and raise taxes for everyone else."

The council and Capital Metro could ditch commuter rail and discontinue little-used bus routes, he said, and spend the savings on sidewalks and road construction.

The former owner of a 20-employee marble business, Benedict also wants the council to stop offering large tax breaks to a few big firms and give all businesses a tax cut instead.

If You Don't Know What Your Rights Are...

then you don't have any.

A 1987 survey found that 45 percent of adult respondents believed that Karl Marx’s communist principle “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” was in the U.S. Constitution.

The recent poll found that 36 percent of Americans believe the right to a public education is guaranteed by the First Amendment. This widespread notion vivifies the failure of public schools. More years in government schools have done little or nothing to help citizens understand the limits on government power codified by the
Founding Fathers. Politically controlled education cannot be trusted to enlighten people on the perils of political power.

The McCormick Foundation warned, “The less Americans know about freedoms, the more they are likely to erode without our notice.” But it is not a question of freedoms’ eroding: it is a question of their being plowed under at a high rate of speed.

From the proliferation of free speech zones (quarantining anyone who protests against the president’s policies), to the assertion by Justice Department lawyers that the president is above the law (regarding interrogation methods), to the nullification of limits on government searches (the warrantless National Security Agency wiretaps), individual rights are becoming an endangered species. But few Americans recognize the rising danger.

“the Constitution ... is the people’s charter of the powers granted those who govern them.” The Bill of Rights recognized the pre-existing rights of American citizens – it did not bestow those rights on a conquered populace.

Quote of the Day

In 1816 Jefferson wrote that "a right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means by which we are endowed to satisfy those wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the equal rights of other sensible beings."

Tax Day Nears

Could the U.S. survive with no income tax? Yes, we did for 126 years. The following is from Ron Paul.

It's an annual ritual guaranteed to elicit strong feelings of disgust. Thanks to the deception of income tax withholding, however, some people actually look forward to tax time and a much-anticipated refund. Imagine how quickly Americans would demand lower taxes and spending if they had to write the federal government a check each month.

The real enemy of tax reform is the spending culture in Washington. Let me repeat: we will never have tax reform in this country until Congress changes its spending habits. The reform rhetoric, regardless of which party it comes from, never changes the reality that federal spending grows every year.

But could America exist without an income tax? The idea seems radical, yet in truth America did just fine without a federal income tax for the first 126 years of her history. Prior to 1913, the government operated with revenues raised through tariffs, excise taxes, and property taxes, without ever touching a worker's paycheck. Even today, individual income taxes account for only approximately one-third of federal revenue. Eliminating one-third of the proposed 2007 budget would still leave federal spending at roughly $1.8 trillion – a sum greater than the budget just 6 years ago in 2000! Does anyone seriously believe we could not find ways to cut spending back to 2000 levels? Perhaps the idea of an America without an income tax is not so radical after all. It’s something to think about this week as we approach April 15th.

Bush Wants to Nuke Iran

This sounds about par for the course for the Bush Administration.

The Bush administration is planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomic warheads, claims an investigative writer with high-level Pentagon and intelligence contacts.

President George W Bush is said to be so alarmed by the threat of Iran's hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, that privately he refers to him as "the new Hitler", says Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.

Here's the scary part: A senior Pentagon consultant said that Mr Bush believes that..."that saving Iran is going to be his legacy". As if "saving" Afghanistan and Iraq wasn't enough.

Germany 2006

I can't wait.

Immigration

I thought I'd make a post about it, since it's the hot topic of the day. I'm not really worried about it to be honest, but thought I'd share some libertarian ideas.

As long as illegal immigrants know their children born here will be citizens, the perverse incentive to sneak into this country remains strong. Citizenship involves more than the mere location of one’s birth. True citizenship requires cultural connections and an allegiance to the United States. Americans are happy to welcome those who wish to come here and build a better life for themselves, but we rightfully expect immigrants to show loyalty and attempt to assimilate themselves culturally. - Ron Paul

Immigrants will continue to stream into this country, legally or illegally, so long as there's a Welcome Wagon waiting at the border – offering free education, free health care, free welfare and a free lunch. We need to put the Welcome Wagon out of business, so only people looking for freedom will want to come here.

Until then, no law, no policy, no border patrol will stop the flood of illegals.

A free and prosperous society has no fear of anyone entering it. But a welfare state is scared to death of every poor person who tries to get in and every rich person who tries to get out. - Harry Browne

Corporations Don't Pay Taxes

Neither do businesses, just thought you'd like to know. Sure they remit payments to the government, but ultimately it comes out of your pocket, one way or another.

What brought this to mind was Taxachusetts new Universal Health Care Plan, which of course is a terrible idea. "The measure does not call for new taxes but would require businesses that do not offer insurance to pay a $295 annual fee per employee."

So what does your employer do if he finds out that he owes the government $295 on your behalf? He reduces your compensation by that much or doesn't give you the raise you deserve or doesn't hire you at all. That's how all businesses work, they figure out in advance how much in taxes you are going to cost them and then they reduce your salary by that much. Only individuals pay taxes.

UP UP UP!!!

Gold for June delivery rose to $600 an ounce in official trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange, having earlier hit a high of $601.90 in electronic trade. Silver traded at a new 22-year high of $12.01 an ounce, after peaking at $12.08 in electronic trade.

The metal has rallied sharply in recent weeks as excitement has built about the pending launch of a silver exchange-traded fund, that's expected to boost physical demand for the metal.