Remote Desktop Lockup/Freeze on Login

A couple days ago (mid-November 2009) there was an update from Microsoft. After applying this update I was unable to remote desktop to the machine to which the update was applied.

Actually I was able start the remote desktop session, but after typing in my login and password the remote desktop session would freeze. Not only that, but the machine that I was making the connection to froze-up as well. It wasn’t even responsive to a three finger salute at the console. Hard reset was the only way to restart it.

I searched around trying to figure out what the problem was. Later I talked to a friend of mine, also the sys-admin where I work and he was able to help me.

Since the solution to this was hard to find I thought I’d post it. Note that there was nothing in the event log to suggest what the problem was.

Anyway, we edited a registry key in:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]

and added:

“SessionImageSize”=dword:00000020

Note, this is in HEX and corresponds to 32MB.

After applying this I was able to connect to the machine via remote desktop again. I’m not sure WHY this worked, but it did. That’s good enough for me right now for this problem.

For what it’s worth this fix also appears to work when the system is unable to load rdpdd.dll. My friend had that problem on another machine.

Week in review

Quote of the week

“If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave.” – John Adams

Americans Deserve a Transparent Fed

by Congressman Ron Paul and Senator Jim DeMint

“For nearly a century the Federal Reserve has operated in the shadows, away from the prying eyes of Congress, journalists and the American people. Created in 1913, the Fed was given enormous responsibility to protect the value of our currency. Yet in the last 96 years the U.S. dollar has lost more than 95% of its purchasing power. The Fed’s unprecedented actions over the past year in attempting to stabilize the financial system have now forced it into the spotlight, and caused millions of people around the country to question the opacity of the Fed’s financial transactions.” more…

Global Warfare USA: The World Is the Pentagon’s Oyster

by Rick Rozoff

“Not only does one country account for the overwhelming plurality of world military expenditures, but that nation also has troops and bases on all six habitable continents (as well as a 54-year military mission in Antarctica, Operation Deep Freeze) and eleven aircraft carrier strike groups and six navy fleets that roam the world’s oceans and seas at will. It is also expanding a global interceptor missile system on land, on sea, in the air and into space that will leave it invulnerable to retaliation.

“Reports from the first twelve days of November indicate the global scope of the first attempt in history by one nation to achieve uncontested worldwide military power.

“A survey of that period will trace recent trends across the globe with the alphabet as a compass.” more…

Where in the Constitution?

by Downsize DC

“Some members of the media, CNSNews in particular, are asking members of Congress to cite the part of the Constitution that gives them authority to impose an individual health insurance mandate. So far, supporters of the mandate – many of them well-known Congressional leaders – have been stumped.

“We chronicle some of the embarrassing or aggravating answers here…“

What If They Stop Buying Our Debt?

by Doug Hornig

“[A] big chunk of our prosperity during the past twenty years was due to a trade deficit that put billions of dollars into the hands of foreigners, who then turned around and bought Treasuries with them, helping the U.S. government finance its massive deficit spending. That’s over — and the unwinding process has just begun.” more…

Ganging Up On Switzerland

by Michael S. Rozeff

“Capital flight is a significant method of eluding the reach of the state and its oppressive regulations and taxes. Money can go anywhere on earth. The U.S. and other states want to close down this escape hatch. If one or a few states that operate tax havens or respect financial privacy do not cooperate, then the U.S. and other states look for ways to break them down.

“This event should not be construed as a victory for those who pay taxes, or thought of narrowly as a defeat for those who evade taxes. This is a defeat for all of us who are unnecessarily shackled by the intrusive powers of the state in areas of our person where it has no right trespassing.” more…

Regulars

• Comics
• We’re at 123 failed banks on the year. Here’s the FDIC’s report.
• Financial Sense Editorial from Casey Research.
• Bare Branches, Bill Bonner’s weekly. If you have not read The Empire of Debt or seen I.O.USA you are missing out.

News and Stuff

• Government loses $98 billion. This is not the kind of loss that comes from a bad invesment, but rather the “oh crap, I seemed to have misplaced $98 billion and don’t know where to find it,” kind of loss.
• Obama says climate deal must have “immediate effect.”
• Presidential poll numbers: 27% strongly approve, 41% strong disapprove, 47% total approval.
• Learn about Freedom Force International.
• First US marijuana cafe opens up in Portland.
• Audit the Fed news coverage. It passed committee and it’s moving!!!

Videos

• Leopard Seals. Cool stuff!

And now the numbers…

DOW Jones Industrials – 10,318.16 (+47.69/0.46%)
S&P 500 – 1,091.38 (-2.10/-0.19%)
VIX – 22.19 (-1.17/-5.01%)
CSI 300 (China) – 3,631.013 (+112.291/3.19%)
BSE 500 (India) – 6,606.00 (+67.75/1.04%)
MICEX (Russia) – 1,334.15 (+23.88/1.82%)
BOVESPA (Brazil) – 66,327.281 (+1,001.652/1.53%)
RICI – 3,214.96 (+68.54/2.18%)
Gold/oz – 1,146.80 (+30.10/2.70%)
Silver/oz – 18.44 (+1.06/6.10%)
Copper/lb – 313.40 (+13.45/4.48%)
Oil/bbl (Brent) – 77.20 (+0.89/1.17%)
Wheat/bu (CBT) – 580.75 (+21.00/3.75%)
Corn/bu – 407.00 (+1.25/0.31%)
EUR-USD – 1.4862 (-0.0041/-0.28%)
USD-JPY – 88.885 (-0.772/-0.86%)
USD-BRL – 1.7314 (+0.0089/0.52%)
3 Month Treasury – 0.01 (-0.04/-80.00%)
2 Year Treasury – 0.72 (-0.09/-11.11%)
10 Year Treasury – 3.37 (-0.05/-1.46%)
30 Year Treasury – 4.29 (-0.07/-1.61%)
U.S. Public Debt (official) – 12,011,787,382,266.60 (+20,567,846,368.70/0.17%)
Baltic Dry Index (BDIY:IND) – 4,507.00 (+396.00/9.63%)

I ran into some guy this week who were trying to get others to write letters to support some clean energy spending in Lansing. Me being me, I engaged the guy in a long unproductive conversation so as to keep him from getting any work done. In any case it turns out that he was being paid to collect these letters. It also turns out he was being paid by money that came from a government grant. So we have a guy being paid by a government grant circulating petitions for more government. Brilliant!

Of course all kinds of hoopla has been made over the decision to try a group of terrorists in New York. Aside from me not liking the word terrorist, here are a few things to consider. First, if we didn’t have this massively arrogant imperial presence all over the globe, we probably wouldn’t have this problem to begin with. Osama bin Laden has said as much himself.

Sun Tzu said know yourself and know your enemy. Arguably we know neither, but I digress…

Second, in criminal court you are supposed to be tried by an impartial jury. How is that really going to happen? It almost makes a mockery of the legal system to think that this is possible. Of course that point has been harped on elsewhere, but there’s also this concept of being tried by a jury of one’s peers. However if you buy that notion, then you do have to ask, who are the peers of these men? And, will you find them in Manhattan? Perhaps the Bronx? Methinks not. Maybe in the Hamptons…

Third, and this has been mentioned as well, at least one side of it. If these men were water boarded, will this evidence be used in court? If such evidence is inadmissible it could prevent a conviction. That’s the part that has been covered. The part that has not been covered is, if said evidence is admissible, what kind of precedent would that set?

Moving on…

In the article above “Where in the Constitution”, there is a quote from some nitwit Senator equating the mandate to buy health insurance with the draft. Something like, “we forced people into the army, we can force them to buy health insurance too.” To wit many a commentator has said that the draft is specifically provided for by the power granted to Congress for raising an army.

Both lines of reasoning are garbage. The draft is slavery pure and simple. But wait slavery is prohibited by the 15th Amendment to the Constitution you say. It’s not slavery you say? No? Then explain how the state can command you to die on its behalf without your consent? I ask you, who owns whom?

We’ll not broach the income tax nor the central bank, but consider this the draft implies you don’t own yourself and the income tax implies you don’t own the fruits of your labor. Again, who owns whom?

Breakfast is tomorrow at the Classic Cup Cafe on Jackson Road in Ann Arbor at 8AM. Our third Saturday breakfast is probably moving there. The first Saturday breakfast will continue to be in Saline at the City Limits Diner. Of course all of this is up for discussion. I’m impartial to the whole thing myself. Hope to see some of you there tomorrow.

Otherwise, have a great weekend!

Week in review

Quote of the week

“Who are these arrogant people, these Pelosi’s, these Franks, these Bainard’s, these McConnell’s, these Dodd’s? Who are they to stand in front of us with all of their arrogance to say that they know what’s best for us? … These Congressmen these Senators, I don’t know how any adult could look up to any of them. They are not my leaders. They couldn’t lead me across the street. They’re political hacks.” – Gerald Celente

How the Fed Helped Pay for World War I

by John Paul Koning

“In this article, I will look under the hood of the Federal Reserve during World War I to explain the actual tools and levers used by monetary authorities to reduce the value of the public’s money in order to fund government war spending. This example will help readers better understand the more general idea of an “inflation tax,” and how such a tax might be used in the future to fund the state’s wars.” more…

Pfizer and Kelo’s Ghost Town

by Wall St. Journal

“The Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London stands as one of the worst in recent years, handing local governments carte blanche to seize private property in the name of economic development. Now, four years after that decision gave Susette Kelo’s land to private developers for a project including a hotel and offices intended to enhance Pfizer Inc.’s nearby corporate facility, the pharmaceutical giant has announced it will close its research and development headquarters in New London, Connecticut.” more…

Congress to Healthcare Market: Drop Dead

by Mark J. Perry

“Given the momentum in Congress for some kind of government healthcare overhaul, the media attention is understandable. But at the same time that Congress debates different versions of Obamacare and considers various public options, some market-based healthcare solutions have gone largely unnoticed, despite the fact that they have successfully lowered medical costs and improved both access and quality of service.

“Here are seven such examples of market-based healthcare alternatives:” more…

The “Lorenzo Jones” Case Emerges

by Lyle Denniston

“It took less than two minutes Monday for the high-stakes patent case in the Supreme Court to descend to the level of questioning whether ‘Lorenzo Jones’ could get a patent on one of his hare-brained inventions, if Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw could get one on their theory about managing business risk. ‘Jones,’ an old-time radio figure who thought his creations in a garage would bring him fame and fortune, made an appearance in the first question, by Justice Antonin Scalia.” more…

Regulars

• Failed bank report. We’re at 120 on the year.
• CNN’s News Pulse. See what’s hot… (no comics this week, this will have to be a poor substitute).

Politics and Econmy

• Ft. Hood killer linked with 9/11 hijackers, tried to contact Al Qaeda. Here’s a totally different take on all of that.
• Here’s the final vote results for the healthcare bill with information about how each (un)representative voted.
• In any case, as Bloomberg points out, the healthcare overhaul is far from over.
• Key oil figures distorted. Peak oil may have come and gone.
• Senator DeMint introduces a term limits amendment to the Constitution.
• A bit on Senator Dodd’s financial regulation overhaul. Note that it does not include the language of HR1207. That is, under this bill, the Fed will not get its audit.
• Treasury auctions off a record $81 billion worth of debt this week.
• Kentucky joins the 10th Amendment movement.
• Asian leaders urge Obama to back free trade.
• CNN asks the question: “How much would you be willing to give to help pay down the national debt?”

Technology

• Google has a new computer language, Go.
• Software could replace sports writers.

Videos

• Interview with Gerald Celente. Good stuff.
• Reason Magazine on the “Package Delivery Czar“.
• Our “leaders” use us as collateral for the debts they take on. Also good stuff.

And now the numbers…

DOW Jones Industrials – 10,270.47 (+247.05/2.46%)
S&P 500 – 1,093.48 (+24.18/2.26%)
VIX – 23.36 (-0.83/-3.43%)
CSI 300 (China) – 3,518.722 (+35.701/1.03%)
BSE 500 (India) – 6,538.25 (+243.75/3.87%)
MICEX (Russia) – 1,310.27 (+68.35/5.50%)
BOVESPA (Brazil) – 65,325.629 (+859.50/1.33%)
RICI – 3,146.42 (+25.68/0.82%)
Gold/oz – 1,116.70 (+21.00/1.92%)
Silver/oz – 17.38 (+0.005/0.03%)
Copper/lb – 299.95 (+4.70/1.59%)
Oil/bbl (Brent) – 76.31 (+0.44/0.58%)
Wheat/bu (CBT) – 559.75 (+62.50/12.57%)
Corn/bu – 405.75 (+38.75/10.56%)
EUR-USD – 1.4903 (+0.0055/0.37%)
USD-JPY – 89.657 (-0.219/-0.24%)
USD-BRL – 1.7225 (+0.0023/0.13%)
3 Month Treasury – 0.05 (+0.01/25.00%)
2 Year Treasury – 0.81 (-0.03/-3.57%)
10 Year Treasury – 3.42 (-0.08/-2.29%)
30 Year Treasury – 4.36 (-0.04/-0.91%)
U.S. Public Debt (official) – 11,991,219,535,897.90 (+658,091,068.40/0.01%)
Baltic Dry Index (BDIY:IND) – 4,111.00 (+718.00/21.16%)

So despite the healthcare “reform” monstrosity having passed the House, it still has not passed the Senate. Plus it is so obviously unconstitutional (the mandate) that even the despots in robes would have to see fit to overturn it. Plus it doesn’t take immediate effect, so there’s time… Still, it’s bad news.

In terms of strategy it seems that the “no tax payer funds for abortion amendment” should have been opposed by the Republicans, in which case more Democrats would have voted against the final bill. It is said that this amendment is what brought on enough support from wavering Democrats to pass the full bill. Methinks the Republicans made a strategic blunder, which admittedly I see only in hindsight… Or…

Anyway, that’s my assessment of the bare majority vote that was taken last weekend. It’s a total overhaul of 1/6 of our economy with a bare majority. The climate scam bill passed in exactly the same way.

Major changes with bare majorities… It’s all a power grab. Nothing more. In my opinion any hope we have of restoring sanity rests in the various state governments pushing back on the Feds.

Finally, watch out for the climate change treaty that will surely be coming out of Copenhagen. That’s bound to have some provisions for some poop flavored international bureaucratic control over your life.

On a positive note, I’m very happy to see Kentucky take a step toward nullification.

Alright, well no more for tonight. Have a good weekend!

The Constitution has 27 amendments, and 12 of those amendments came within the last century. One of those 12 amendments (#18) was repealed by a later amendment (#21). If we once thought that we had to amend the Constitution to ban “intoxicating liquors” and later had to again amend the Constitution to re-legalize the stuff, wouldn’t we need an amendment to allow the government to intrude even more intimately into our lives?

Week in review

Quote of the week

“Progressives have brought America to the brink of destruction with their unconscionable bullying and the never-ending demands of Fabian Socialism.” – Linda Schrock Taylor

Can the 10th Amendment save us?

by Cal Thomas

“Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?” more…

It is Japan we should be worrying about, not America

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

“Japan is drifting helplessly towards a dramatic fiscal crisis. For 20 years the world’s second-largest economy has been able to borrow cheaply from a captive bond market, feeding its addiction to Keynesian deficit spending – and allowing it to push public debt beyond the point of no return.” more…

Urban Farming in Detroit and Big Cities Back to Small Towns and Agriculture

by Mark Dowie

“Were I an aspiring farmer in search of fertile land to buy and plow, I would seriously consider moving to Detroit. There is open land, fertile soil, ample water, willing labor, and a desperate demand for decent food. And there is plenty of community will behind the idea of turning the capital of American industry into an agrarian paradise. In fact, of all the cities in the world, Detroit may be best positioned to become the world’s first one hundred percent food self-sufficient city.” more… [ed. very interesting read]

DVR is TV’s New BFF

by Tim Jones

“[I]t’s mind-boggling that the entertainment industry’s schemes to ‘fight piracy’ retain any credibility whatsoever. Unfortunately, thanks in large part to the industry’s deep coffers, many in government continue to take their claims seriously. As a result, the UK is close to implementing a ‘three-strikes’ policy of disconnecting illegal file-sharers from the Internet — even as a new poll reveals that those same file-sharers are the industry’s best customers. Here in the USA, Hollywood is once again lobbying the FCC to introduce ‘Selectable Output Control’ — a scheme which would grant the industry veto-power over new technologies.” more…

Regulars

• Comics.

News and stuff…

• Tthe commerce clause and how it applies to mandatory health insurance.
• India buys 200 metric tons of gold from the IMF.
• A bit on the collapse of the Nazca, a Peruvian civilization that flourished about 1500 years ago.
• Pollution in China: in pictures. Wow…
• Audit the Fed is being gutted by the bankster sponsored Congress.
• Chechen separatism turns into a regional Islamist revolt.
• Operation Health Freedom launches.
• PATRIOT Act and State Secrets reforms pass House committee.
• Officially unemployment tops 10%.
• Cap’n Trade is slithering through the Senate.
• Robots need…. breasts!

Videos

• Rand Paul on healthcare. Part of Operation Health Freedom. Note that Rand Paul is running for Senate in Kentucky.
• Peter Schiff on healthcare. Also part of Operation Health Freedom. He’s also running for Senate, but in Connecticut.

And now the numbers…

DOW Jones Industrials – 10,023.42 (+310.69/3.20%)
S&P 500 – 1,069.30 (+33.11/3.20%)
VIX – 24.19 (-6.50/-21.18%)
CSI 300 (China) – 3,483.021 (+202.649/6.18%)
BSE 500 (India) – 6,294.50 (+152.07/2.48%)
MICEX (Russia) – 1,241.92 (+4.74/0.38%)
BOVESPA (Brazil) – 64,466.129 (+2,920.629/4.75%)
RICI – 3,120.74 (+2.88/0.09%)
Gold/oz – 1,095.70 (+55.30/5.32%)
Silver/oz – 17.375 (+1.12/6.89%)
Copper/lb – 295.25 (-0.30/-0.10%)
Oil/bbl (Brent) – 75.87 (+0.67/0.89%)
Wheat/bu (CBT) – 497.25 (+3.00/0.61%)
Corn/bu – 367.00 (+1.00/0.27%)
EUR-USD – 1.4848 (+0.0129/0.88%)
USD-JPY – 89.876 (-0.214/-0.24%)
USD-BRL – 1.7202 (-0.041/-2.33%)
3 Month Treasury – 0.04 (UNCHG)
2 Year Treasury – 0.84 (-0.05/-5.62%)
10 Year Treasury – 3.50 (+0.12/3.55%)
30 Year Treasury – 4.40 (+0.17/4.02%)
U.S. Public Debt (official) – 11,990,561,444,829.50 (+122,103,966,917.60/1.03%)
Baltic Dry Index (BDIY:IND) – 3,393.00 (+290.00/9.35%)

First the people in charge of our country are charlatans. Case in point: remember back last January where they were like without stimulus unemployment will go up like crazy, but with it it’ll go up less. Remember that? Well, unemployment is higher than any of their scenarios predicted. Plus the widely reported number doesn’t even count discouraged and part-time workers that are looking for full-time work. This number is over 17%.

Of course these folks maintain that without stimulus, TARP, or whatever the boondoggle of the day was, yes without any of that everything would be much worse. They will not admit an argument to the contrary. This is the essence of a non-falsifiable belief.

A non-falsifiable belief is just what the word implies, a belief to which a person will cling regardless of what evidence might be offered to the contrary. For example, people who cling to creationism or intelligent design can often be described as having a non-falsifiable belief. That is, regardless of how much information there is that supports Darwin’s theories these beliefs continued to be held.

Anyway, if folks want to reject evolution fine. What others believe is really of no consequence if they are not using those beliefs to write policy. And of course that’s where we find ourselves with the stimulus crowd. No matter what happens, no matter any amount of proof, no matter any amount of logic that might undermine their position, they continue to support it.

Just one bit of common sense explodes all of this crap they continue to foist upon us. To wit: no one has ever borrowed their way to prosperity. It’s that simple folks.

Tomorrow the House of (un)Representatives will vote on the healthcare boondoggle. This bill is bad for freedom, bad for our fiscal health, and bad for the future of this country. And they are holding a special Saturday session to vote. Uggg… In any case you can call them to let them know they should reject the bill. Or maybe you’re reading this and you support the bill!

Last thing. We’re having breakfast tomorrow in Saline at the City Limits Diner from 8-10AM. Pete Hoekstra’s gubernatorial campaign manager will be there for a discussion. That should be interesting. Hope to see some of you there.

Have a great weekend!

Week in review

Quote of the week

“Congress has done it again… yet another unreadable, trillion-dollar piece of legislation is slithering its way through the House of Representatives. The House’s new health care reform bill, championed by Speaker Pelosi, emerged yesterday at 1,990 pages, with a CBO estimated cost of $1.05 trillion.” – Addison Wiggin & Ian Mathias

Has Anyone Read the Copenhagen Agreement?

by Janet Albrechtsen

“We can only hope that world leaders will do nothing more than enjoy a pleasant bicycle ride around the charming streets of Copenhagen come December. For if they actually manage to wring out an agreement based on the current draft text of the Copenhagen climate-change treaty, the world is in for some nasty surprises. Draft text, you say? If you haven’t heard about it, that’s because none of our otherwise talkative political leaders have bothered to tell us what the drafters have already cobbled together for leaders to consider. And neither have the media.” more… [Yikes!]

China, India Cancel Out Copenhagen

by Investor’s Business Daily

“With less than two months to go before the big Copenhagen Conference on global warming, two major nations have said ‘no thanks’ to the no-growth agenda. For that reason alone, so should we.” more…

Let the Dollar Prove Itself

by Ron Paul

“It is imperative that the American people know what the Fed is up to, how much money it loans to banks and what types of agreements it enters into with foreign banks and governments. Just about all of this information is exempt from audit or oversight. The Fed’s actions directly affect the value of the dollar, which is coming under increasing pressure from our foreign creditors. If we do not wish to see a complete collapse of the dollar, the Fed needs to be subject to a strict audit of its actions, if not an outright abolition of its charter.” more…

Mandated health insurance threatens freedom, privacy

by Sue A. Blevins

“When it comes to health care legislation, the devil is in the details. Despite what politicians and interest groups are saying, details in current bills compromise both patient choice and medical privacy.” more…

Individualism vs Collectivism

by Jeff Wright

“Many (if not most) people are fooled by the false comparisons of efficient and harmonious colonies operating analogous to ant and bee colonies. The analogy is completely false. Just a short study of ant or bee colonies reveals that they do not operate as top-down imposed organizations. Instead, they operate as distributive, cooperative arrangements between the individuals in the colony. They are successful because the individuals act in mutually cooperative ways with the other members, not in some top-down abstract order.” more…

An Open Letter from the Tennessee Legislature to the other 49

by State Representative Susan Lynn

“There are clear limits to the power of the federal government and clear realms of power for the states. However, the simple and clear expression of purpose, to secure our natural rights, has evolved into the modern expectation that the national government has an obligation to ensure our life, to create our liberty, and fund our pursuit of happiness.

“The national government has become a complex system of programs whose purposes lie outside of the responsibilities of the enumerated powers and of securing our natural rights; programs that benefit some while others must pay.” more…

Regulars

• Comics.
• Doug Casey.

News and what not…

• Mandatory H1N1 vaccines for  New York healthcare workers suspended, but not on principle.
• Indian/US military on joint training exercise.
• Everyone should know about the Bricker Amendment.
• The government will buy you a cell phone.
• NPR on the Faux News/White House tiff.
• Doctors on strike – maybe.
• EFF’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act  take down Wall of Shame.
• Sequoia voting systems will release the source code for its new optical scan voting system.
• Report on bank(st)er protest in Chicago.
• Schwarzenegger vetoes in style.
• Would be Honduran dictator returned to power. Here’s some useful background on all of that.
• Here’s a version of the Bill of Rights that they are teaching at one government school. Wow!
• Here’s the obligatory “GDP expands 3.5%” article.
• US creating new military bases in Romania and Bulgaria.

Videos

• Doug Casey and Tom Woods on PBS. Nice…
• Watch the corrupt hack John Murtha in action.

And now the numbers…

DOW Jones Industrials – 9,712.73 (-259.45/-2.60%)
S&P 500 – 1,036.19 (-43.41/-4.02%)
VIX – 30.69 (+8.42/37.81%)
CSI 300 (China) – 3,280.372 (-132.88/-3.89%)
BSE 500 (India) – 6,142.43 (-404.32/-6.18%)
MICEX (Russia) – 1,237.18 (-127.91/-9.37%)
BOVESPA (Brazil) – 61,545.50 (-3,513.34/-5.40%)
RICI – 3,117.86 (-129.83/-4.00%)
Gold/oz – 1,040.40 (-16.00/-1.51%)
Silver/oz – 16.255 (-1.468/-8.28%)
Copper/lb – 295.55 (-7.90/-2.60%)
Oil/bbl (Brent) – 75.20 (-3.72/-4.71%)
Wheat/bu (CBT) – 494.25 (-53.50/-9.77%)
Corn/bu – 366.00 (-31.75/-7.98%)
EUR-USD – 1.4719 (-0.0289/-1.93%)
USD-JPY – 90.09 (-1.97/-2.14%)
USD-BRL – 1.7612 (+0.0439/2.56%)
3 Month Treasury – 0.04 (-0.01/-20.00%)
2 Year Treasury – 0.89 (-0.11/-11.00%)
10 Year Treasury – 3.38 (-0.11/-3.15%)
30 Year Treasury – 4.23 (-0.06/-1.40%)
U.S. Public Debt (official) – 11,868,457,477,911.90 (-28,350,766,658.40/-0.24%)
Baltic Dry Index (BDIY:IND) – 3,103.00 (+60.00/1.97%)

 

I have been thinking about including a new section, something like “The March of Folly”. Basically the section would be dedicated to highlighting the folly of our so-called leaders. Would anyone be interested? Have any suggestions as to the name of said section? Any feedback would be appreciated. In fact feedback is always appreciated.

Got a note tonight about how we may be seeing some inflation in agricultural products. Given all of the counterfeiting the Fed has been doing in the last year or so it makes sense.

Mainly because there was a Ron Paul editorial there (see above), I was looking at CNN this week. Anyway I saw this feature on their site. It’s called CNN News Pulse. It shows the most popular stories of the day. Wow! I just don’t know what to say. If those are really the most popular stories then we are surrounded by idiots, or rather we are idiots. How sad. People care more about balloon boy than the crooks who are turning them into serfs.

Okay, but remember what Samuel Adams said? “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” That puts things in perspective a bit. Still I am embarrassed for my fellow Amerikans when I see that list of top stories. Of course you have to ask yourself what the rogues in CNN’s marketing department might be doing to drive people to these stories. Ahh, but that sounds conspiratorial so we’ll leave it at that.

Adam Kokesh is still running for Congress in New Mexico’s northern district. I’m not sure what the race looks like, whether he has a primary challenger, whether the first-term incumbent is vulnerable. Maybe someone out there knows… Anyway he could use your help – financial or otherwise.

The GDP number was put out this week. We grew 3.5% in Q3. Funny thing, on Wednesday the day before the GDP number printed there was a story on CNBC that said that Goldman Sach’s had revised its estimate down from 3.0% to 2.7%. The CNBC staff then said how good of a track record GS had on prediction recently. Wednesday stocks closed down. Then Thursday the number prints at 3.5%. Hmmmm. Goldman Sachs wouldn’t manipulate the market would it? Ahh, more conspiracy. Or, is it just a trivial application of logic to the real world? Poor old logic, too bad more people don’t call you their friend.

That’s it for tonight. Happy Halloween! It’s my daughter’s first Halloween! She’s going to be a scarecrow. How cool is that?

Individualism vs Collectivism

by Jeff Wright

We are closing to perigee of the ongoing struggle to find out if the one system can dominate the non-system. The 20th century was a warm-up. Marxist/Leninism will not die. Like a chameleon, it just changes its color from Red to Green to blend into the background. There is a willful part of the human race that always seek to dominate in one form or another. So many “conservatives” accept the paradigm without even realizing the fundamental differences with their supposed principles. So-called “liberals” don’t even realize how much of what they think is so at odds with their own innate nature. To Wit:

“The basic issue in the world today is between two principles: Individualism and Collectivism.

“Individualism holds that man has inalienable rights which cannot be taken away from him by any other man, nor by any number, group or collective of other men. Therefore, each man exists by his own right and for his own sake, not for the sake of the group.

“Collectivism holds that man has no rights; that his work, his body and his personality belong to the group; that the group can do with him as it pleases, in any manner it pleases, for the sake of whatever it decides to be its own welfare. Therefore, each man exists only by the permission of the group and for the sake of the group.

“These two principles are the roots of two opposite social systems. The basic issue of the world today is between these two systems.”

Ayan Rand, 1946

The apotheosis of the green movement into the religion of the times is but one more false paradigm that humans are apparently going to be driven through, as so many cattle, once again. It seems the human collectivists (always and eventually revealed to be some form of insane, meglomaniacal cabal with a single public head) can’t stop creating new forms which attempt to take control over the individual.

From your local HOA, school board, special district, city council, etc., through every level of human abstract political thinking, the forced collectivists that join those bodies always try to wind up at the Big/World Government; the Big Kahuna for their fantasies, the Giant Global Tribe. They are trying it once again through environmentalism and the dissipating remnants of Marxist experimentation of the last century. Fortunately, it will fail again. If not through active opposition, then through its own inevitable, dead-weight collapse. However, they won’t stop trying. No matter how self-evident the individual nature of true human existence, even of those would-be collectivists.

The involuntary collectivists will fail because forced human collectivism is ultimately so comprehensively un-natural. It is against the nature of humans and it is against nature itself. Strangely, it is even against the true fundamental spiritual philosophy of most of mankind, though not against most religious teaching. Much of religious teaching is of collective thinking (an interesting but very explainable phenomena when one thinks of why) that supports the church, not the spiritual nature of humans. Beings that are unalienably created equal are, by definition, individuals who must then be free to practice liberty without imposition of any collective except through voluntary contract.

Many (if not most) people are fooled by the false comparisons of efficient and harmonious colonies operating analogous to ant and bee colonies. The analogy is completely false. Just a short study of ant or bee colonies reveals that they do not operate as top-down imposed organizations. Instead, they operate as distributive, cooperative arrangements between the individuals in the colony. They are successful because the individuals act in mutually cooperative ways with the other members, not in some top-down abstract order.

Unlike human monarchial-, dictatorial-, or even democratic-collectivist regimes, there is no abstract order and organization passed down from above. Instead, each individual in the colony is born with a small set of instinctive instructions that they repeat, based on varying feedback, with other members in order to successfully operate the colony. The small set of 7-10 simple rules allow them to properly react and communicate amongst themselves with no centralized instructions ever generated. And unlike human collectives the insect Kings (drones) and Queens actually perform a vital function for the colony. In human collectives the rulers are parasites and many times generate violence and death for many members of the collective. In the natural world ‘kings’ and ‘queens’ generate life and effectively are actually subservient to the colony in their natural role. They are also not indispensable. If a queen dies, the other members of a colony can create their own queen simply through special feeding of any one of the available remaining larvae.

The natural distributed, cooperative model is very similar to the operation of the global internet (which has millions of distributed, independent switching nodes). It is the reason distributed desktop/internet computing became so successful, so quickly over the centralized-hierarchical mainframe model. As in human collectives the mainframe technological along with the industrial model are subject to single-point-catastrophic-failure (SPCF). Because of that irrefutable fact and its operation, more evident with each passing day, the current industrial and post-industrial model of organization is in fact a dead-model walking and has been obsolete for decades. As in the case of the technological-mainframe model, centralized-hierarchical management and organization models only appear to be successful techniques in their early development and operation. Once they mature, only then does the inherent weakness of the SPCF become readily apparent and demonstrate the need for replacement. However, the power structure is attempting to hold on to that legacy, even as it so clearly and comprehensively is failing right in front of our eyes everyday, every way and in every form. It is also the reason they hate the internet, as it does not allow them to control the distribution of information. The Genie accidentally got out of the bottle and they can’t put it back.

The centralized-hierarchical model is not only fully opposed to our nature, but also antithetical to our Constitutions and law. The Republic was organized and founded based on individual liberty and a distributed, cooperative organization of states, each independent and sovereign in relation to the Republic as is true for each individual in relation to the states and the Republic. Ultimately, the sovereign is the individual and which again is supposed to be self-evident. The extremely limited amount of power that was centralized in the founding was also distributed among seperate branches of the state and federal governments in order for them to remain weak and never be in control of the individuals or states respectively; only to arbitrate and regulate among them for controversy and dispute.

That model has been nationalized in subtle, steady progression since the latter half of the 19th century right along with the industrial model of economy and society. Nationalization is another false paradigm. It has been achieved via illegal operation, political manipulation and the acquiescence of the population and states. These are not only false paradigms, but have “become destructive of these ends” and thus, our nature. Only active awareness and constant focus on their dismantlement will insure their demise in this cycle. However, as others have so clearly stated, it is only through “eternal vigilance” that we can avoid their return, yet again. As Thomas Jefferson so forcefully put it, “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

As well, “Give me Liberty or give me death,” is not an abstract political rant. It is the nature of our existence, however cloaked by the current operation of the power structure.

JW

Week in review

Quote of the week

“[Monetary inflation] may be described as a tool of antidemocratic policy. By deceiving public opinion, it permits a system of government to continue which would have no hope of receiving the approval of the people if conditions were frankly explained to them.” – Ludwig von Mises

American Idea

by Walter E. Williams

“We Americans, as human beings, are no different from any other people, including Germans, Russians, Chinese, Africans and other people who have produced tyrannical regimes such as those of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Idi Amin. As such we are just as capable of committing acts of gross evil that have been a part of mankind throughout his history. We’ve not been a perfect nation but we’ve never approached the level of hideousness seen in other nations. That’s despite the fact that our population consists of people who have for centuries been trying to slaughter one another in their home countries, whether it’s between the French and Germans, English and Irish, Japanese and Chinese, or Palestinians and Jews, Igbos and the Hausa of Nigeria. Thrown into the American mosaic are religions that have been in conflict for centuries such as Catholic and Protestant, and Christian and Muslim. The question is: Why is the United States an exception and will it remain so?” more…

Macro for Dummies

by Bill Bonner

“It is safe to assume that no one working at the Federal Reserve or at the White House has a picture of Warren Gamaliel Harding over his desk. Yet, if American presidents were ranked on the basis of how well they faced up to financial disaster, Warren G. Harding might be somebody. His handsome face would be carved on Rushmore. His likeness would grace the $100 bill. Harding was the last American president to deal honestly with a major financial crisis. Every president since has tried to scam his way out of it.” more…

An Update on Peak Oil from ASPO

by Byron King

“Marcio Mello, the former explorationist from Petrobras (PBR: NYSE) and now independent petroleum consultant, electrified the Denver meeting of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO).” more…

Could an independent Texas survive economically? The facts say ‘Yes’

by Dave Mundy

“Many of those who scoff at the notion of Texas independence do so by trying to paint a portrait of a trailer-park redneck republic which slides rapidly into Third World status without the many intricate connections to its sister states fostered by the benevolent government in Washington, D.C.” more…

Is Adulation of the Military Really Patriotic?

by Ivan Eland

“A recent article in the New York Times reported that the military has become frustrated with President Barack Obama because he hasn’t quickly decided to risk more of their lives in an Afghan war that is likely to be unwinnable. In a post-World War II world that has featured a non-traditional militarized foreign policy of profligate interventions into the affairs of other nations, the U.S. military and its opinion have acquired great prestige and are accorded hushed reverence in American society. The military and flag are worshiped as never before. But is this really patriotism?” more…

Regulars

• Comics
• Interview with Doug Casey.

News and stuff

• Here’s a nice graphical summary of the outmoded overly-simplistic left-right political paradigm.
• Feds back down on medical marijuana. Will respect local/state laws regarding it.
• Who is Anita Dunn? An admirer of Mao Zedong and a top-Obama advisor. Yikes.
• Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas
• 49% say no healthcare reform would be better than what is being considered. 39% disagree.
• Nancy Pelosi responds with “are you serious?” to the question: “Where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” An aide later remarks: “That is not a serious question.”
• Maker of Russia’s #1 virus software is calling for the end of online anonymity, promotes the notion of “online passports” for all.
• Senate to seek increase in debt limit in a “defense” (read war) appropriations bill.
• US spies buy stake in company that monitors blogs, tweets.
• Senate healthcare bill uses the word tax 124 times.
• Some Senators are trying to water down the Audit the Fed bill.
• Patient’s own stem cells used to grow facial bones.
• An inflation calculator. Fun times!
• Ayn Rand gains traction in India.
• George Soros says that Wall St. profits are a gift from the state.

Videos

• Peter Schiff on CNBC.

And now the numbers…

DOW Jones Industrials – 9,972.18 (-23.73/-0.24%)
S&P 500 – 1,079.60 (-8.08/-0.74%)
VIX – 22.27 (+0.84/3.92%)
CSI 300 (China) – 3,413.252 (+171.543/5.29%)
BSE 500 (India) – 6,546.75 (-163.86/-2.44%)
MICEX (Russia) – 1,365.09 (+48.02/3.65%)
BOVESPA (Brazil) – 65,058.84 (-1,141.652/-1.72%)
RICI – 3,247.69 (+86.37/2.73%)
Gold/oz – 1,056.40 (+4.90/0.47%)
Silver/oz – 17.723 (+0.303/1.74%)
Copper/lb – 303.45 (+18.90/6.64%)
Oil/bbl (Brent) – 78.92 (+1.93/2.51%)
Wheat/bu (CBT) – 547.75 (+49.00/9.82%)
Corn/bu – 397.75 (+25.75/6.92%)
EUR-USD – 1.5008 (+0.0102/0.68%)
USD-JPY – 92.06 (+1.169/1.29%)
USD-BRL – 1.7173 (+0.0073/0.43%)
3 Month Treasury – 0.05 (-0.01/-16.67%)
2 Year Treasury – 1.00 (+0.05/5.26%)
10 Year Treasury – 3.49 (+0.08/2.35%)
30 Year Treasury – 4.29 (+0.05/1.18%)
U.S. Public Debt (official) – 11,896,808,244,570.30 (-49,894,888,237.00/-0.42%)
Baltic Dry Index (BDIY:IND) – 3,043.00 (+315.00/11.55%)

I was walking on campus Wednesday and there were some kids trying to get passers by to write letters to Michigan’s two United States Senators – the venerable hack Carl Levin and the hack in training Debbie Stabenow. Well I didn’t know exactly what they were doing at first, so I asked. Not surprisingly they were trying to support some hare-brained big government bull crap. You know, it’s the University of Michigan. What else would you expect?

In fact, they were supporting “Cap n’ Trade”. They had their talking points on a clip board and would just ask for a moment of your time to transcribe said talking points into a letter. Then at some future date they would deliver those letters to Levin and Stabenow. I have to admit that’s a pretty damn good tactic. One that we could use to our benefit.

Anyway I struck up a conversation with one of the scumbags in training and asked him where the money was going to come from to fund this monstrosity. “Well you know,” he said, “alternative energy sources will bring thousands of jobs to Michigan and besides we import so much coal into this state anyway.” So I asked again, “where is the money for this going to come from? You know we ran like a two trillion dollar budget deficit this year, it’s not getting any better, and well our currency could be destroyed.” “Well you know, we’re all just here on this rock in the middle of space and money doesn’t matter too much in the big scheme of things.” Seriously, that’s what he said. People this freaking stupid and shallow shouldn’t be involved in politics. Uggg…

Since my ride was not due for another fifteen minutes or so, and since I was just going to sit around anyway, I thought I’d try to keep the idiot’s attention for a while longer. So we talked in circles. Finally he says, “you know, I really can’t talk to you because if I stand here and debate you I won’t get any letters written.” But I kept talking. Finally he become adamant about getting back to his “job”. I asked who was paying him. He didn’t say, but he didn’t say he was a volunteer either. But in any case he had to “get back to work”. He wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything just talking to me. I smiled at him and said, “exactly”, and then walked off.

I think that’s another tactic we can use. If you’ve got a bit of time to kill, or just for fun anytime, hijack an activist.

And that brings me to my larger point, which is inline with what Walter Williams said above. Basically there is no conception in this society about the limits of government power. It is assumed that government may do anything it wishes, if only a majority supports it. That is a prescription for despotism indeed.

Can you believe Nancy “are you serious” Pelosi? Shallow and stupid, or malevolent? I keep asking that question… On the other hand does the answer really matter if the destination is the same?

Focus on the states… That’s what I need to keep reminding myself of.

Have a nice weekend.

Week in review

Quote of the week

“Ignoring popular opinion takes courage. Admitting that what you thought you knew may be wrong and acquiring the ability to consider views, analyses and facts that run counter to personal convictions takes even more courage.” – Trends Research Journal

Warren Harding and the Forgotten Depression of 1920

by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

“It is a cliché that if we do not study the past we are condemned to repeat it. Almost equally certain, however, is that if there are lessons to be learned from an historical episode, the political class will draw all the wrong ones – and often deliberately so. Far from viewing the past as a potential source of wisdom and insight, political regimes have a habit of employing history as an ideological weapon, to be distorted and manipulated in the service of present-day ambitions. That’s what Winston Churchill meant when he described the history of the Soviet Union as ‘unpredictable.’” more… [I highly recommend this article. Buried in it is a good discussion of the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle and why current Keynesian policies are doomed to fail. If you are not familiar with these terms definitely read on!]

Wall Street’s Naked Swindle

by Matt Taibbi

“The counterfeit nature of our economy is troubling enough, given that financial power is concentrated in the hands of a few key players — ‘300 white guys in Manhattan,’ as a former high-placed executive puts it. But over the course of the past year, that group of insiders has also proved itself brilliantly capable of enlisting the power of the state to help along the process of concentrating economic might — making it less and less likely that the financial markets will ever be policed, since the state is increasingly the captive of these interests.” more…

Who Needs a Central Bank?

by Bill Jenkins

“[W]e all should be well aware by now, central banks exist for one purpose and one purpose only: to bailout their banker buddies who, in the pursuit of greater profit, have made risky loans… to bail out large industries in order to preserve the job base… and to make sure that the taxpayers foot the bill. They will masquerade it in the best of terms, but at the end of the day, we are paying for their foolish business practices.” more…

Pro-Obamacare Republicans in the pay of the health industry

by Timothy P. Carney

“As the White House dismissed the insurance lobby’s critiques of the Senate health care bill as self-serving corporate disinformation, President Obama used his weekly radio address to laud four former Republican officials for supporting the push for ‘reform.’ But Obama failed to mention that these pro-’reform’ Republicans — whom he lauded for ‘ris[ing] above the politics of the moment’ — are all in the pay of the health care industry and could personally profit from ‘reform.’” more…

100 years of Big Content fearing technology—in its own words

by Nate Anderson

“For the last hundred years, rightsholders have fretted about everything from the player piano to the VCR to digital TV to Napster. Here are those objections, in Big Content’s own words.” more…

In the news…

• Comics
• 3D finger printing is on the way.
• Budget deficits, slow growth, and low interest rates – signs of the dollar’s troubles.
• Global warming or global cooling? There are more reasons to be skeptical of the academic-media-government climate change complex.
• China’s foreign exchange reserves rise to over $2.2 trillion.
• George Soros will put his money where his mouth is and fund clean technology to the tune of $1 billion. He’s also “investing” $100 million in a climate change pressure group.
• Florida teen set on fire by his peers.
• ACORN immortalized in the latest episode of South Park.
• 12 million digit prime number discovered.
• Augmented contact lenses are on the horizon.
• Government moves to delay the release of telecom lobbying documents.
• Current political events quiz by Pew Research. Twelve questions ranging from healthcare to Afghanistan.
• UN Human Rights Council lambastes Israel.
• End the Fed picture on GOP.com.
• What the CBO and the rest of the thugocracy are not telling you about the cost of the new and improved healthcare legislation.
• Ireland may need IMF aid.
• GOP 2012 – Huckabee 29%, Romney 24%, Palin 18%.

Videos

• Jim Rogers on the dollar, commodities, and how to protect yourself.

And now the numbers…

DOW Jones Industrials – 9,995.91 (+130.97/1.33%)
S&P 500 – 1,087.68 (+16.19/1.51%)
VIX – 21.43 (-1.69/-7.31%)
CSI 300 (China) – 3,241.709 (+78.001/2.47%)
BSE 500 (India) – 6,710.61 (+274.54/4.27%)
MICEX (Russia) – 1,317.07 (+8.93/0.68%)
BOVESPA (Brazil) – 66,200.492 (+2,129.48/3.32%)
RICI – 3,161.32 (+164.11/5.48%)
Gold/oz – 1,051.50 (+2.90/0.28%)
Silver/oz – 17.42 (-0.27/-1.53%)
Copper/lb – 284.55 (+0.75/0.26%)
Oil/bbl (Brent) – 76.99 (+6.99/9.99%)
Wheat/bu (CBT) – 498.75 (+30.75/6.57%)
Corn/bu – 372.00 (+9.75/2.69%)
EUR-USD – 1.4906 (+0.0174/1.18%)
USD-JPY – 90.891 (+1.106/1.23%)
USD-BRL – 1.71 (-0.031/-1.78%)
3 Month Treasury – 0.06 (UNCHG)
2 Year Treasury – 0.95 (-0.01/-1.04%)
10 Year Treasury – 3.41 (+0.03/0.89%)
30 Year Treasury – 4.24 (+0.02/0.47%)
U.S. Public Debt (official) – 11,946,703,132,807.30 (+47,750,381,862.80/0.40%)
Baltic Dry Index (BDIY:IND) – 2,728.00 (+33.00/1.22%)

I read a bit about how the healthcare reform plan that is being considered won’t work unless young people are involved. Of course young people have the least incentive to get insurance because they are generally healthy. And therein lies the insight. If you mandate (i.e. the state uses violence or threat of violence) that they have coverage then their contribution will essentially prop up everyone else. They (as a group) will be net losers on their insurance plan as they will pay for more services than they use. Of course the system will “work”. A new Amerikan value: steal from the young and give to the old. Fantastic!

The climate change/global warming/whatever-catch-phrase-we’re-using-today crowd has a very fundamental conflict of interest that continues to keep me quite skeptical of them. These scientists are funded by governments. Their results indicate a problem that only government can solve. Government grows. They get more funding. We must always ask one question: “cui bono?”  Or put another way, follow the money.

In general I have found scientists, and most especially social “scientists”, (most of them are probably better termed wannabe-social-engineers) to be quite sycophantic. But that’s a story for another day.

The story about the kid who got set on fire in Florida is really sad. What kind of person would do that? What kind of teenager would do that to another person? What kind of parent raises that kind of teenager? It boggles my mind that we do not execute these kinds of people out of hand. They are not children, but rather monsters. A public hanging or two would stifle this kind of behavior methinks.

Finally back to healthcare… It turns out that the price tag over the next ten years is quite misleading. You can read more about that elsewhere, but suffice to say that 4 of the 10 years the cost is estimated at zero because it doesn’t kick-in right away. So basically they are quoting the price tag 40% short, and seriously, that’s a best case scenario. On top of that they suppose that medicare will see spending decreases. And I’m gonna grow wings out of my ass, fly to New Mexico and hug my mom tonight.

Anyway if this whole thing passes you can bet that ten years from now they’ll be braying about how the system is bankrupt and only a full government take over will save it. Well that’s working under the assumption that things continue on the trajectory that 95% of the people assume they will. That the dollar doesn’t collapse… The next 10 years will probably surprise the hell out of all of us.

If you’re in the area the bi-monthly liberty breakfast is at the City Limits Diner in Saline starting at 8AM tomorrow morning. Hope to see some of you there.

Have a nice weekend!

Week in review

Quote of the week

“All you have to do win the Nobel Peace Prize is prolong/escalate a couple of wars?!? Seriously? The award is now officially meaningless.” – Adams Kokesh

“[W]e are dead sure that the people running America’s financial policies are jackasses.” – Bill Bonner

Senate Vacancies Raise Questions of Framers’ Intentions

by Joh W. Truslow III

“Prior to 1913, Members of the Senate were chosen by state legislatures to be the agents of those governments in Washington, D.C., much like ambassadors today at the United Nations. The framers’ legislative design was subtle, but ingenious: While a Member of the House would represent the interests of the people as citizens, a Senator would represent the very different interests of the people’s sovereign state governments. This structure embodied the original meaning of the term ’separation of powers.’ The legislature would domicile two distinct powers (the people and the states) to compete bill by bill for the direction and scope of the federal government.” more…

Iran Fidgets in the Middle East: World War III Anybody?

by James Howard Kunstler

“Something’s got to give in the remaining three months of 2009. My guess is that attention will shift overseas for a while. This will not be due, as many probably think, to a cynical effort by the government to divert attention from the financial fiasco, but because the intrinsic tensions in the Middle East are reaching the snapping point. Iran is being called out on its nuclear program. If, from the start, it had just maintained the need for electric generating power in the face of dwindling fossil fuel reserves, they might have gone unchallenged. As it happened, though, the elected leader of Iran made too many intemperate remarks about wiping other nations off the face of the earth, and this has only prompted the leaders of other nations to take his remarks at face value and presume that Iran’s nuclear program was devoted to armaments, not electric power generation.” more…

Snickers: A basic human right

by Larken Rose

“Sorry for stating the bleeding obvious, but you can’t violate someone’s ‘rights’ unless you DO something to them. If you torture them, rob them, assault them, or murder them, you may very well be violating their ‘rights.’ In other words, a ‘right’ is a purely NEGATIVE concept: something that should NOT be forcibly interfered with by anyone else. ‘Rights’ aren’t a bunch of goodies that someone has to provide for you; they’re the things that no one should STOP you from doing yourself.” more…

The Drugs of John Gray

by Laurence M. Vance

“The government’s War on Drugs, like its War on Poverty and its War on Terror, is a failure. It has clogged the judicial system, unnecessarily swelled prison populations, fostered violence, corrupted law enforcement, eroded civil liberties, and destroyed financial privacy. It has encouraged illegal searches and seizures, ruined countless lives, wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, hindered legitimate pain treatment, and had no impact on the use or availability of most drugs in the United States.” more…

In the news…

• Comics.
• Montana Firearms law will go to court.
• Russia, China, France and the Arab world may (will?) buck the dollar for oil sales.
• 11% of Amerikans believe that the federal government should regulate the content of blogs.
• Obama is taking some heat over the weak and increasingly threatened status of the dollar.
• Gold is seeing new highs.
• After a rejection last year, Irish vote to back EU Lisbon Treaty.
• ACORN throws out Republican voter registrations.
• GOP takes Albuquerque.
• Have a look at recovery.org and find out about the boondoggles coming to your neighborhood!
• A post-mortem on “Cash 4 Clunkers”.
• Cyborg beetles.
• PATRIOT Act renewal bill passes Senate Judiciary Committee.
• Court rules that “first sale doctrine” applies to “licensed” software.
• Worldwide currency manipulation ensues over weakening dollar.
• California scales back its bond deal and raises rates.
• Geithner says its important for us to have a “strong dollar”, but talk is cheap.
• Al Gore says Obama’s Nobel Prize was well-deserved. Here’s some measured commentary on all of that.
• FTC imposes rules to regulate online speech. Newspapers and “traditional” journalists exempt.
• An 18th century definition of “general welfare”. You might be amazed.

Videos

• Stick to acting Mr. Ferrell. A response to this piece of trash.

And now the numbers…

DOW Jones Industrials – 9,864.94 (+377.27/3.98%)
S&P 500 – 1,071.49 (+46.28/4.51%)
VIX – 23.12 (-5.56/-19.39%)
CSI 300 (China) – 3,163.708 (+158.903/5.29%)
BSE 500 (India) – 6,436.07 (-120.22/-1.83%)
MICEX (Russia) – 1,308.14 (+132.31/11.25%)
BOVESPA (Brazil) – 6,4071.012 (+2,899.024/4.74%)
RICI – 2,997.21 (+118.17/4.10%)
Gold/oz – 1,048.60 (+44.30/4.41%)
Silver/oz – 17.69 (+1.46/9.00%)
Copper/lb – 283.80 (+15.65/5.84%)
Oil/bbl (Brent) – 70.00 (+1.93/2.84%)
Wheat/bu (CBT) – 468.00 (+26.75/6.06%)
Corn/bu – 362.25 (+28.75/8.62%)
EUR-USD – 1.4732 (+0.0156/1.07%)
USD-JPY – 89.785 (-0.02/-0.02%)
USD-BRL – 1.741 (-0.041/-2.30%)
3 Month Treasury – 0.06 (-0.03/-33.33%)
2 Year Treasury – 0.96 (+0.10/11.63%)
10 Year Treasury – 3.38 (+0.16/4.97%)
30 Year Treasury – 4.22 (+0.22/5.50%)
U.S. Public Debt (official) – 11,898,952,750,944.50 (-21,566,413,374.90/-0.18%)
Baltic Dry Index (BDIY:IND) – 2,695.00 (+338.00/14.34%)
Not much tonight. It’s sort of late actually.

I’ll say this though, TV season is back in full swing and I have fallen somewhat of a victim to it. I watch a few shows: Heroes, House, South Park, Smallville, Bleach, Broncos Football, and NFL Game Day Final. In any case this weeks South Park was absolutely freaking hilarious. Less commercials I suppose that’s about 6 or  7 hours or so a week.

Busy weekend on tap. Lots of reading to do. Looks like New England at Denver is going to be on CBS in the Detriot area. That’s nice… That’s Broncos two weeks in a row. My daughter and I are making a date of hanging out and watching Broncos football.

Definitely go back and read click on the last link of “in the news”. It’s short article. You’ll probably be surprised. It’s sort of scary to watch the meanings of words change over time. It allows for wild interpretations of historical documents. Those interpretations never seem to favor liberty though… Strange.

Like I said, not too much going on tonight and it’s late… Have a good weekend!

Week in review

Quote of the week

“Things change… As far as I’m concerned, America has disappeared. America was an idea, not a place, and it’s been replaced with the United (by force) States.” – Doug Casey

“[T]he United States staggers under the weight of its eternal wars…its imperial illusions…and its everlasting efforts to provide bread and circuses. If it kept its books like a private enterprise, it would be broke. If it were a public corporation, it would be de-listed.” – Bill Bonner

Hold On to Your Assets

by Radley Balko

“This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Alvarez v. Smith, a challenge to the state of Illinois’ Drug Asset Forfeiture Procedure Act (DAFPA). The six petitioners in Alvarez each had property seized by police who suspected the property had been involved in a drug crime. Three had their cars seized, three had cash taken. None of the six were served with a warrant, none of the six were charged with the crime. All perfectly legal, at least until now.” more…

America’s Military Empire

by Jake Towne

“As I wrote earlier this year, one of the sticking points I encounter in conversation is when someone challenges me that America does not have, as I allege, a military empire. However, they never seem to be able to rattle off any facts or statistics to the contrary. This updated article is my attempt to document those facts. The Department of Defense last issued information on troop deployment in March 2009.” more…

A Free-Market Guide to Fixing Healthcare

by Mises.org

“It’s a near-universal assumption of the healthcare debate that the current system is a market system and it is broken, and hence we should try a government system. The people who assume this aren’t considering the last 100 years of healthcare policy. Government is deeply involved at all levels, from medical licensure and patents, to direct subsidies and provision, to employee mandates and insurance-pooling controls, at all levels.” more…

Why Is Plaxico Burress in Jail?

by Wilton D. Alston

“There are consequences for behavior. All people, be they professional athletes, politicians, or run-of-the-mill citizens should realize this. However, this event is not about bad behavior – not in the slightest. From the libertarian and more importantly, from the moral standpoint, Plaxico Burress did nothing wrong. He injured himself with his own property. Let that sink in for a moment.

…

“An acquaintance of mine remarked that ‘Burress deserves to be punished for being stupid. People could have been injured!’ Really? That anyone would cheer this outcome is proof that Queen Amidala was right when she noted, ‘So this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause.’ If people can be put in cages for what might have happened, and frankly the U.S. is well along that course, it’s just a matter of time before the erstwhile mistakes you made become offenses punishable with jail time.” more…

In the news…

• Comics.
• HR1207 (Audit the Fed) will make it out of committee.
• Healthcare workers in New York, and in Albany in particular, are fighting against forced vaccination. Here’s another article on that.
• Federal Judge rules that video games are expressive works covered by First Amendment.
• More on the sound cannons that the Pittsburgh police turned on United States citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.
• Bingaman and Udall and trying to turn more of New Mexico over to the Federal Government.
• PATRIOT Act has been used for drug cases.
• Massive voter fraud in New York linked to ACORN.
• British intelligence shows that Iran has a secret nuclear arms program.
• Some states seek to opt-out of any national healthcare scheme.
• The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution not withstanding, civil asset forfeiture is being used to combat online gambling.
• Chart of Federal education spending and test scores over the last 40 years or so.
• Interim Michigan State budget passed in Lansing.
• Chicago will *not* get the Olympics in 2016.

Videos

• Bloomberg interviews Ron Paul about the Federal Reserve Bank’s complicity in the destruction of our money and economy.

And now the numbers…

DOW Jones Industrials – 9,487.67 (-177.52/-1.84%)
S&P 500 – 1,025.21 (-19.17/-1.84%)
VIX – 28.68 (+3.07/11.99%)
CSI 300 (China) – 3,004.805 (-53.723/-1.76%)
BSE 500 (India) – 6,556.29 (+137.33/2.14%)
MICEX (Russia) – 1,175.83 (-12.03/-1.01%)
BOVESPA (Brazil) – 61,171.988 (+816.258/1.35%)
RICI – 2,879.04 (+41.16/1.45%)
Gold/oz – 1,004.30 (+12.70/1.28%)
Silver/oz – 16.23 (+0.17/1.06%)
Copper/lb – 268.15 (-5.90/-2.15%)
Oil/bbl (Brent) – 68.07 (+2.96/4.55%)
Wheat/bu (CBT) – 441.25 (-8.50/-1.89%)
Corn/bu – 333.50 (-0.50/-0.15%)
EUR-USD – 1.4576 (-0.0113/-0.77%)
USD-JPY – 89.805 (+0.17/0.19%)
USD-BRL – 1.782 (-0.0082/-0.46%)
3 Month Treasury – 0.09 (-0.01/-10.00%)
2 Year Treasury – 0.86 (-0.12/-12.24%)
10 Year Treasury – 3.22 (-0.10/-3.01%)
30 Year Treasury – 4.00 (-0.09/-2.20%)
U.S. Public Debt (official) – 11,920,519,164,319.40 (+149,839,348,513.30/1.27%)
Baltic Dry Index (BDIY:IND) – 2357.00 (+174.00/7.97%)

This whole business of civil asset forfeiture is ugly and another (if not the prime reason) to oppose the “drug war”. Depriving a person of their property without having been duly convicted by a jury is just wrong. Ironically police departments generally have a financial incentive to partake in this manner of looting. That despite the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which for what it’s worth (increasingly less methinks) reads:  ”The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Ahh but what is reasonable you say?

The official national debt number is nearing $12 trillion. Just a year ago it was a little over $10 trillion… Yikes!

Not a whole lot else to tell this week. Breakfast tomorrow in Saline at 8AM at the City Limits Diner…

The Broncos are playing the Cowboys this weekend and it’s on my local Fox station! Yay! Michigan and Michigan State are playing tomorrow… Go Blue!

As for me, I’ve got a pile of reading, which will probably fill most of the next two days or so.

Have a great weekend!