Happy Birthday, Eliana . . . !

Eliana (?? her parents are still discussing final spelling) ______ (her parents are still discussing her middle name) Lilly was born this morning sometime a bit before 11 Denver time. 7 lbs 8 oz; 19 3/4 inches long. She was having some difficulties breathing, so they put her in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) where they expect her to stay a few days.

Momma is doing fine, though quite exhausted from lack of sleep last night/this morning, and the surgery to bring Eliana out.

I feel privileged to have been able to take a few photos of our little granddaughter.

"The guy's cracked" . . . until you listen to him

Another one of those mind-bending interviews with Ron Paul.

He was banned by the Republican Jewish Coalition from a debate on Jewish issues in Washington this week because of his “misguided and extreme views,” according to the group’s executive director, Matt Brooks.



But Newsmax interviewed him specifically about Israel. I read his statements and was astonished at his balanced, cogent, wise and gracious replies to the no-holds-barred questions:

Newsmax: What should our relationship be with Israel?

Ron Paul: We should be their friend and their trading partner. They are a democracy and we share many values with them. But we should not be their master. We should not dictate where their borders will be nor should we have veto power over their foreign policy.

This is not just about Israel, by the way, this is about how we should conduct ourselves with other countries around the world.

Newsmax: But Israel is not like other countries. We have a large Jewish population in America. What do you say to those who criticize your policy toward Israel?

Ron Paul: I think that some not only misunderstand the American Constitution and the role we should have in the world, they also misunderstand Zionism. Part of the original idea of Zionism, as I understand it, was that there should be Jewish independence and Jewish self-reliance. Today, America doesn’t want anyone to be self-reliant. We want to rule the world and be the saviors of the world and we are going broke in the process.

Newsmax: Some object to your policy of cutting foreign aid to Israel.

Ron Paul: I have objected to all foreign aid. I define foreign aid as taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries. We just can’t keep doing this. We don’t have the money anymore.

Stop and consider America’s policy: We give $3 billion a year to Israel in loans; and we give $12 billion or more in assistance to Israel’s self-declared enemies. Some of these are countries that say they will drive Israel into the sea.

Newsmax: What do you say to evangelical Christians who want that aid to continue?

Ron Paul: I say to them that our aid in the region is out of balance and it is wrong. Foreign aid does not help Israel. It is a net disadvantage. I say to them that “the borrower is servant to the lender” and America should never be the master of Israel and its fate. We should be her friend.

In October, 1981, most of the world and most of the Congress voiced outrage over Israel’s attack on Iraq and their nuclear development. I was one of the few who defended her right to make her own decisions on foreign policy and to act in her own self-interest.

Newsmax: What then, if anything, should we do for Israel?

Ron Paul: We should share intelligence for mutually agreed-upon goals. We should honor our pledge to refuse any arms sales that would undermine Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region.

But we should stop interfering with them. We should not announce bargaining positions even before she begins her negotiations. We should not dictate what she can and cannot do. We should stop trying to buy her allegiance. And Israel should stop sacrificing their sovereignty as an independent state to us or anybody else, no matter how well-intentioned.

He's the first presidential candidate I can think of who is obviously willing to be "friends with all" but refuses to pander to anyone. And, as his campaign manager wrote Wednesday evening (and as I've been discovering; watch his 2008 interviews; he hasn't wavered on any of the issues; they are as good today as they were four years ago), he's a candidate who "doesn't have to run from his record or explain away inconsistencies."

What's this about 'insider trading'?!? Who? Me worry?

Remember Alfred E. Newman of Mad Magazine fame?

That should be the epigram of our congresspeople. After all, they are above it all. No equality under the law for them!

Shah Gillani writes in today's Wall Street Insights & Indictments,

There's a ton of "insight" to be meted out about what's going on in the market. You've heard most of it from me, and everybody else. But today and tomorrow will be all about being an insider at the meetings going on over in Europe.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at those meetings...

What we couldn't do with a little "inside information!"

But we can't be there, and besides, that would be insider trading, wouldn't it?

So, we'll all just have to stay glued to CNBC and Bloomberg to see what the future holds for us all.

Speaking of trading on inside information...

Have you heard about the hearings up on Capitol Hill?

Oh yeah, there's been serious discussions in Congress - by Congressmen and women -about reports of insider trading being conducted by privilege insiders, namely, some of their own.

It seems our always honest, always on-top-of-it, always looking-out-for-themselves Congressional leaders and their rank (and I do mean rank) and file are at it again, proving that although their net worth to the public may be zero, their access to non-public information is priceless.

While privately expressing indignation that their day trading jobs (conducted simultaneously with their legislative duties, so as not to distract them from either pursuit) should ever be subject to public scrutiny, lawmakers nonetheless held hearings about their access to inside information.

I guess to let Americans know that they are not crooks.

Last week, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs convened a get-together to ask each other if they knew anything about it and what to do about it, if it was true.

Nothing really happened.

Kind of like the deficit reduction talks, they decided to talk more about it in the future, although they weren't sure there was anything that needed fixing.

After all, one witness, Indiana University law professor Donna Nagy, told the Committee that Congressional insider trading was subject to anti-fraud provisions in federal securities laws, as well as federal mail and wire fraud statutes. In that case, they don't need to change anything; the Securities and Exchange Commission is on the case.

And thank goodness for that. I mean, thank goodness the Senate has no power over the SEC, other than to vote on their budget and on their chairman.

Not that they would ever threaten to withhold money from the powerless, oops, I mean powerful, regulatory body to subjugate them to their will again... because they just threatened that recently (more on that one another time). But then again, that was probably just part of their deficit reduction talks...

No, there's no undue influence to worry about in our government, with all its checks (and I'm not talking about payoff checks) and balances.

Thankfully, because we have such a great balance in Congress, after the Senate hearings last week the House held its own little "social" just two days ago.

The subject - believe it or not - was insider trading by Congress and their aides.

There the balancing act over at the House was really in evidence. Really, imagine balancing the talks about insider trading in Congress when Spencer Bachus, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee presiding over the investment club meeting, is one of the most egregious of the alleged insider traders.

(I only use "alleged" because I like that word, it sounds so lawyerly, and I am talking about our lawmakers, don't you know.)

As far as Rep. Bachus, you just have to love his comment in the Wall Street Journal recently about the insider trading charges (oops, I mean discussions), when pinned to the mat about his excessive and very "timely" options trades conducted immediately after coming out of closed-door emergency meetings with the Treasury Secretary and Fed Chairman back in 2008.

He said, "More lawmakers should invest in the markets to better understand them."

Too bad he and the rest of Congress didn't invest all their net worth in mortgage-backed securities right before the crash, and if they had anything left, in MF Global.

But I digress.

Oh, you want me to mention that Jon Corzine, former Senator from New Jersey, will be visiting his old chambers today to tell his Senate buddies how not to invest by leveraging segregated customer funds in high-flying - make that high-yielding - bonds issued by low-flying PIIGS? That will be some good theater.

Oh, I'm still digressing.

Allow me to restore my sense of "balance."

I was talking about how the House hearings were being conducted by day-trading master Bachus. But in all fairness to him, you need to know that he was joined on the Committee by Rep. Gary Ackerman, a Congressman who received shares of stock he never paid for, for a favor he did in his official capacity.

It's not insider trading if you don't pay for something, right?

Back to my balancing act. The Senate committee looking into insider trading had two committee members who are equity-trading buffs.

Sen. Claire McCaskill nicely timed a half-million-dollar trade in Berkshire Hathaway right as the Big Bailout was signed, out of which Mr. Buffett's (he of not-so-clean hands) Berkshire was the recipient of some $90 billion, in one form or another.

And that Sen. Tom Carper, also on the committee, was a rabid trader of healthcare stocks during the healthcare debate in Congress.

Not that that means anything, does it?

No, it's all about balance in Congress.

Thank heaven, if there is one, that we elected these people.

Shah

P.S. Thanks for being a (big) part of Wall Street Insights & Indictments. The feedback I get from my readers is tremendously valuable. I need you to tell me when you "get" what I'm throwing out there... and, even more importantly, I want to know when you think I'm dead wrong. That's why I encourage you - today - to share your own thoughts on this story. Just go to stopinsidertradingincongress.com now to cast your vote.

And while our supposed "representatives" in Washington trade to their heart's content on their inside information, regular people--including billionaires--go to prison on far lesser crimes.

Consider Raj Rajaratnam, Martha Stewart and others. . . . But our "representatives" in Washington will get a pass?

Sounds "a little bitter"

Is it possible this article is a hoax? If not, Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, sounds like maybe he's gone off his rocker. He claims that, "Except for 9/11 itself, . . . there have been no terror attacks on the US." And even with respect to 9/11, he speaks of "the government’s improbable conspiracy theory explanation." (!!! --Quite a string of words, there! And does he really believe it? Maybe! As the next sentence shows.)

"Indeed," he goes on to say, "an investigative program at the University of California discovered that the domestic 'terror plots' hyped in the media were plotted by FBI agents." (!!!) --Roberts--assuming this article was written by Roberts, a man who has received the highest security clearances in the United States--links to an article published in a Russian-sponsored website to document these claims.

That sounds fishy. But the Russian website links to a Mother Jones article, The Informants.

I encourage you to read both articles, but the Mother Jones article first, since it is the primary source for the Russian article.

Before I become side-tracked on a Mother Jones article, however, I want to quote Paul Craig Roberts. I merely want to say that it seems wildly improbable that a responsible and well-informed person like Roberts would say the kinds of things he does!

But maybe not.

After all, he did write The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Law Enforcement Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.

I'll let you be the judge, however. Is he off his rocker?

Here is the conclusion to the much longer article he wrote titled, Is the War on Terror a Hoax?

I am a former staff associate of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee. I required high security clearances as I had access to information pertaining to all US weapons programs. As chief economist of the House Budget Committee I had information pertaining to the US military and security budgets. As Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, I was provided every morning with the CIA’s briefing of the President as well as with endless security information.

When I left the Treasury, President Reagan appointed me to a super-secret committee to investigate the CIA’s assessment of Soviet capability. Afterwards I was a consultant to the Pentagon. I had every kind of security clearance.

Despite my record of highest security clearances and US government confidence in me including confirmation by the US Senate in a presidential appointment, the airline police cannot tell me from a terrorist.

If I were into model airplanes or attending antiwar demonstrations, little doubt I, too, would be arrested.

After my public service in the last quarter of the 20th century, I experienced during the first decade of the 21st century all of America’s achievements, despite their blemishes, being erased. In their place was erected a monstrous desire for hegemony and highly concentrated wealth. Most of my friends and my fellow citizens in general are incapable of recognizing America’s transformation into a warmonger police state that has the worst income distribution of any developed country.

It is extraordinary that so many Americans, citizens of the world’s only superpower, actually believe that they are threatened by Muslim peoples who have no unity, no navy, no air force, no nuclear weapons, no missiles capable of reaching across the oceans. . . .

With the “terrorist threat” and Al Qaeda deflated with President Obama’s alleged assassination of its leader, Osama bin Laden, who was left unprotected and unarmed by his “worldwide terrorist organization,” Washington has come up with a new bogeyman – the Haqqanis.

John Glaser reports that, according to anonymous CIA officials, US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mike Mullen “exaggerated” the case against the Haqqani insurgent group when he claimed, setting up a US invasion of Pakistan, that the Haqqanis were an operating arm of the Pakistan government’s secret service, the ISI. Adm. Mullen is now running from his “exaggeration,” an euphemism for a lie. His aid Captain John Kirby said that Mullen’s “accusations were designed to influence the Pakistanis to crack down on the Haqqani Network.” In other words, the Pakistanis should kill more of their own people to save the Americans the trouble.

If you don’t know what the Haqqani Network is, don’t be surprised. You never heard of Al Qaeda prior to 9/11. The US government creates whatever new bogeymen and incidents are necessary to further the neoconservative agenda of world hegemony and higher profits for the armaments industry.

For ten years, the “superpower” American population has sat there, being terrified by the government’s lies. While Americans sit in fear of nonexistent “terrorists” sucking their thumbs, millions of people in six countries have had their lives destroyed. As far as any evidence exists, the vast majority of Americans are unperturbed by the wanton murder of others in countries that they are incapable of locating on maps.

The scariest thing, here? He's sounding like that political pariah named Ron Paul.

Or maybe not. The more I'm seeing, the more I'm thinking Paul really is about to become the "flavor of the decade."



And, finally, a few more comments about that Mother Jones article I mention above. I read the article and began to think Martin Stolar, a lawyer the authors quote who represented a man caught in a 2004 FBI sting operation in New York City, may be right. Maybe the 15,000 paid FBI informants today (up from 1500 in 1975--during the violent anti-Vietnam War protest era!) really are seeking to justify their salaries by "creating crimes to solve crimes so they can claim a victory in the war on terror."

The Mother Jones authors note that, "In the FBI's defense, supporters argue that the bureau will only pursue a case when the target clearly is willing to participate in violent action."

But after reading the article, I began to think, "Yeah. They pursue 'cases where the target is willing to participate in violent action' kind of the way child molesters target weak and socially disconnected children so as to find willing participants in their crimes."

The fact that child molesters are able to seduce children into going along with the abusers' crimes doesn't make the children guilty of crimes, nor does their "willingness" make their molesters less guilty.

I encourage you to see whether my analogy is correct. Read the transcript of what I'd like to call the seduction of Narseal Batiste to engage in a terror plot.

As James J. Wedick, a former FBI agent, comments,

These guys [the alleged terrorists] couldn't find their way down the end of the street. They were homeless types. And, yes, we did show a picture where somebody was taking the oath to Al Qaeda. So what? They didn't care. They only cared about the money. When we put forth a case like that to suggest to the American public that we're protecting them, we're not protecting them. The agents back in the bullpen, they know it's not true.

Read the Mother Jones article to see whether the analogy I am suggesting is valid.

Are the kinds of behaviors the FBI informants engage in what American citizens want to pay multi-billions of dollars each year for via the FBI? And is it to catch terrorists like these that we are willing to find ourselves, more and more, surrounded by a ubiquitous police state?

More and more impressed with Ron Paul . . .

The man is given no quarter. The media--even the "conservative" media--finds him offensive. Why?

"You keep ignoring the Iranian threat! [What kind of idiocy is this?]"





"You say marijuana, heroin and cocaine should be legal if states want to permit it. . . . [Obviously, your views are way outside the pale.]"



"You're a racist."



"You're unelectable."



John Stewart demonstrates the antipathy in an incisive monologue (interspersed with news footage from major media outlets):



And, finally, someone's personal "Don't Elect Ron Paul" ad:



Oh. Or you could watch this "Why You Shouldn't Vote for Ron Paul" video by someone else:

Legalism v Relationship--for my homeschooling friends

Despite removing myself form the day-to-day operations of Sonlight Curriculum, I have maintained an interest in the broader homeschool community and some of the unique (and, sadly, sometimes, uniquely weird) aspects of homeschooling.

One of those areas has to do with a kind of . . . well, let me not label it. I'll let you decide for yourself exactly what I'm talking about.

I found the Recovering Grace Blog ("a Gothard generation shines light on the teachings of IBLP [Institute in Basic Life Principles] and ATI [Advanced Training Institute]") as a result of a post at the Commandments of Men blog.

And while at Recovering Grace, I saw a link to a post titled Vow vs. Relationship. The author begins her story with a brief summary of the ever-expanding pile of commitments she began making to God as a result of the teaching she was receiving from Bill Gothard and his ATI/IBLP. Finally, having become a member of the IBLP staff, one day,

Mr. Gothard presented the teaching on taking a “vow” to read your Bible 5 minutes per day. We were then told the story of the man who made a vow foolishly in the Old Testament and was forced to kill his own daughter to fulfill the vow. Needless to say, this put a very fearful aspect and seriousness to the vow. We were then told that should we break our vow by failing to read our Bible for 5 minutes per day, we would need to “catch up” by reading extra however many days we needed to in order to make sure we had the total number of minutes. At this time, I was still so eager to please everyone that I made the vow even though I had a lot of reservations about doing so.

This was the beginning of the end of my joy in the Christian life. I now had added on the top of an insurmountable number of commitments, a vow that I was scared to death to break. I knew in my heart that I had only set myself up for failure.

My walk with God had become a formula with a checklist. Did I fulfill my vow today? Check. Did I remember to spend a good bit of time praying? Check. Did I remember to keep my thoughts pure? Check. Did I remember to clear my conscience? Check. The list went on and on. The problem with this was that I was no longer desiring to know God more intimately, I was simply wanting to check the boxes to make sure I didn’t fall under severe judgment from God.

This started a downward spiral in my spiritual health. I was suddenly afraid to even spend time with God because I might say or do something wrong that would result in His displeasure. (Yes, I do know that God sees and hears everything even before it happens, but I was so burdened with my commitments that it felt easier to avoid His direct presence and hope He would turn a blind eye.) Through an illness where I wasn’t able to read very easily, I “got behind” on my vow. I tried a time or two to get caught up, but I was suddenly so far behind that I knew I would never meet with God’s requirement for me and I just needed to hang on and wait for the proverbial shoe to fall. . . .

At some point, the author began to compare what she had done in her relationship with God to the relationship she saw she had with her husband.

When I substituted the best relationship correlation that I knew of (the relationship with my husband), I realized how frustrating this must have been to my Savior. If I had a checklist of how I needed to please my husband and did nothing but that checklist, the relationship would be non-existent. Not to mention the fact that it would be totally one-sided because I wouldn’t have time to listen.

Oh, boy! Been there. Done that.

The author's conclusion:

All of the commitments I made while under the teaching of IBLP were good in and of themselves. There are many that I still believe are exactly how God wants me to live. However, I have realized that these commitments need to be gifts of love to present to my Savior as an outflowing of my grateful heart for all He has done for me. They don’t need to be the answer for the perfect Christian life and therefore become a god unto themselves.

A wonderful story

My friend Perry Marshall retells, in a paragraph apiece, about a dozen orphan and adoption stories, . . . but ending with (and accompanied by) one major and very personal one. Excuse the additional marketing message that comes at the end of the post and/or if and when you choose to comment. The story is, after all, on his marketing blog.

I think you will enjoy it.

Cutting $1.5 trillion from the federal budget

Tongue-in-cheek . . . or maybe not.

Check out Popular Gameshow Host Tells How Government Can Cut $1.5 Trillion.

Thanks to Becky Tabor Binuya for the link.

I wrote to Becky: "I would have changed a few details. Or, if we kept his recommendation about the EPA, then I would want far DEEPER cuts in the USDA and FDA. Eliminate them completely."

"If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also . . ."

". . . If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic."

Someone actually put this principle into practice. And look at the results! (From March 2008. Thanks to my brother David for the link.)

[A]s [Julio] Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.

He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'"

Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.

"You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help," Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth. . . .

Sorry. You've got to go to the original to read the rest of the story.

Amazing.

I don't think I could bring myself to do these things.

I have a lot to learn, yet.

My sense: Diaz has trained himself through repeated acts of kindness to respond in the manner he did that evening in February 2008.

Inexpensive, simple Advent Calendar

Sarita went to Cost-Plus/Worldmarket last night with the hope she could find an Advent calendar for our granddaughter. --"Sold out since Black Friday."

Oh.

But she picked up a small bag of wrapped holiday chocolates, came home and asked if I might be able to help her.

I found a Microsoft Word^® December 2011 calendar. I had to modify it a bit. I changed the colors to white background and black lines and lettering throughout. I also shifted it to landscape orientation and added a "Baby Jesus in the Manger" kind of picture for the 25th. (Copy of modified file available here.)

I had to do a little finagling of the chocolates to make them fit . . . and to make them appear as if they had some deliberate pattern to them. We used every piece of chocolate in the bag. (The red Santas indicate expected birthdate for Natalia's younger sibling . . . and Jesus' [commemoration day] birthday.)

A little hot glue and . . . voila!

Like father, like son: Rand Paul calls Senate’s bluff, kills terrorist detainee amendment

From The Hill's Floor Action Blog:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky. [son of Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul--JAH]) on Thursday — simply by asking for a recorded vote — managed to kill an amendment that would have "clarified" that the military can indefinitely detain enemy combatants.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), called the amendment to the floor, explaining it ought to garner the support of all senators because it would simply “clarify” that enemy combatants acquitted of crimes in a court can still be held in military detention until they are no longer deemed a threat. [???!!! Let me get this right: acquitted of crimes in court, but still to be held in detention. --Now, I understand that (literally) guilty parties can be acquitted in a court of law. And I understand how an enemy combatant (a true combatant) will remain a threat whether he (or she) can be found guilty of a specific criminal act or not. But then shouldn't the court case be about whether the person really is a combatant and not about some crime? --I'm probably demonstrating some kind of naivete, here. But, really. --What is the base for this proposed legislation? --JAH]

Looking to spare vulnerable Democrats from an awkward vote on the controversial issue of extra-judicial military detention, Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), with the assent of his Republican counterpart John McCain (R-Ariz.), attempted to swiftly pass the amendment by unanimous consent.

“I think that this can be accepted on voice vote,” Levin said, when Sessions finished presenting the amendment. “I have great problems with it, but I think there is probably a majority here that will favor it.” [???!!! "I have great problems with [the legislation" but "I think this can be accepted on voice vote"? --Is this the height of hypocrisy, or what? --JAH]

But from across the chamber, Paul demanded a recorded vote on the amendment [Thank you, Paul! --JAH], which resulted in a resounding 41-59 defeat.

“I am going to ask for the yays and nays,” Paul said, surprising leaders.

Both McCain and Levin, who indicated moments before that they would agree to passage of the measure by unanimous consent, voted against it in that roll-call vote.

Campaign for Liberty's Matt Hawes commented,

[T]he amendment they tried to sneak through with a voice vote was one that would have allowed the government to indefinitely detain American citizens – even if they were tried and found not guilty – until Congress declared an end to the war on terror.

It doesn't take a lot of imagination to picture how furious the Founders would be that any American, especially one who has been found innocent of the charges, could be held indefinitely by officials sworn to uphold the Constitution. . . .

[T]his fight isn't over, and there's still other language in the [National Defense Authorization] Act to allow for indefinite detention that must be removed.

Future of the U.S. (and the EU)

I received an email yesterday from Q Wealth Report alerting me to a blog post that I think is insightful. They suggested recipients forward their e-mail to "friends who may benefit from this information."

I'm trying to do them one better, yet honor their intentions. I am reproducing here the majority of Peter Macfarlane's post but including the majority of their "sales" text--at least to honor their [marketing] intent even while sharing at no cost the (in my opinion) useful insights:

Yesterday, 30th November 2011, something very significant happened that I would like to inform you about. It was briefly reported in the mainstream media, but was not analyzed correctly.

Lots of people have asked me recently if the Euro was going to collapse. Yesterday the answer to this question became very clear to me. I can now confidently make predictions. Is the Euro going to collapse? The answer is both yes and no. Allow me to explain. . . .

DICTATORSHIPS IN EUROPE, SUSPENSION OF CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS IN THE USA

Against my own advice to follow the big picture and avoid being distracted by day-to-day news, I got caught up in following the recent Euro crisis. Granted, it has certainly been quite spectacular. Italy’s and Greece’s democratically elected governments have been replaced by technocrats. The amazing thing is that most people don’t appreciate the severity of two EU governments effectively being replaced by dictatorships controlled from outside those countries. (Spain’s decisive change in government is more positive, the result of a landslide general election, and generally makes me more positive on Spain’s future.)

In the same way, most people don’t seem to appreciate the significance of Senator John McCain introducing an amendment on Tuesday that allows the American army to arrest and intern American citizens forever without the right to trial [I wrote about the subject yesterday here--JAH]. Call me old fashioned, but the mere fact that such a proposal could even be debated in the US Senate shocks me on one level . . . never mind the fact that it could actually pass. When I grew up, this was something we would have expected of the Soviet Union, not the USA. I think it was James Madison, the primary author of the US constitution, who said “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” [Not actually. Or, at least, the statement cannot be confirmed. But Madison said very similar things. For example, "Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad" (Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1798-05-13); published in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (1865), Vol. II, p. 141) or "The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home" (Speech, Constitutional Convention (1787-06-29), from Max Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. I [1] (1911), p. 465). --JAH]

. . . All this theatre distracted me from my own insight. I can now confidently say that the Euro will not appear to collapse. It will continue to exist in some form or another. Why? Because the Federal Reserve will not let the euro collapse. To do so would trigger a dollar collapse. . . .

Here are some selected quotes from Bloomberg and The Street (here and here) published yesterday, that tell the story:

The Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, Swiss National Bank, Bank of Canada and Bank of England have joined together to make more dollars available at cheaper prices in an effort to ease liquidity strains in financial markets.

Central banks agreed to establish temporary bilateral currency swap arrangements “so that liquidity can be provided in each jurisdiction in any of their currencies should market conditions so warrant,” the Fed said today in a press release, calling the agreement a “contingency measure.”

Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co., called the bilateral arrangements “a novel step and a curious feature of today’s announcement” that “are apparently being set up as a backup plan in the event of a worsening in global financial conditions.”

So rather than European operations of Citigroup Inc. or Morgan Stanley seeking euros from the ECB, the Fed could contribute to euro liquidity by doling out loans to those institutions in the U.S.

Europe isn’t facing a liquidity crisis. The world is facing a structural solvency crisis in which businesses, governments and individuals have all borrowed money — and made promises — that cannot be repaid unless more money is printed (or, more specifically, until more credit is issued).

This actually strikes me as more than a little ‘curious.’ So now the Fed is going to start bailing out American banks with Euros???!!!

It doesn’t make a lot of sense . . . unless you go back to my original stealth devaluation premise, described in this Q Wealth article from November 2010 as well as earlier articles.

NO, THE EURO WILL NOT COLLAPSE

I take yesterday’s news as a clear signal that the euro is not going away any time soon. It will probably maintain approximately its current exchange rate against the dollar, give or take a few points. It is even likely to gain a bit, since this new multi-currency form of quantitative easing is clearly based on printing more dollars, not euros. So looked at from this point of view, I say the euro is not going to collapse.

One could certainly argue that America is bailing out Europe on one level. But I don’t really buy that either. America desperately needs to devalue the dollar as being the only hope of ever repaying debts. America is not in a better shape than Europe. The European crisis is nothing more than a distraction from a much bigger problem.

YES, THE EURO WILL COLLAPSE

On the other hand, in reality the euro already has collapsed, and it has a lot further to go. Looked at it from this point of view my answer is ‘yes, sure, the Euro will collapse.’ It’s just that the US and Canadian dollars, the yen, the pound sterling and the Swiss Franc are all going down the toilet too, in a co-ordinated global effort, at much the same speed. The central bankers are just hoping that the population won’t notice.

Of course, people are beginning to notice that something is wrong – very wrong. Grass roots citizen movements like the Tea Parties and the the ‘Occupy’ movements effectively share the same goal: to change a system of government that has become thoroughly corrupt, dysfunctional and despotic.

DECISIVELY CLOSER TO ONE GLOBAL CURRENCY

Yesterday we moved decisively closer to one, global currency, with the governments of major western economies all making this concerted move. Let’s look at how the euro came into existence, and consider the parallels with what we are seeing today wit the US, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, UK and the EU… According to Wikipedia:

In 1971, US President Richard Nixon removed the gold backing from the US dollar, causing a collapse in the Bretton Woods system that managed to affect all of the world’s major currencies. The widespread currency floats and devaluations set back aspirations for European monetary union. However in March 1979 the European Monetary System (EMS) was created, fixing exchange rates onto the European Currency Unit (ECU), an accounting currency, in order to stabilise exchange rates and counter inflation. It also created the European Monetary Cooperation Fund (EMCF).

That last organization sounds suspiciously similar to the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF). Anyway, time passed, and internal bickering in Europe continued. Fast forward to 1999.

The currency was introduced in non-physical form (traveller’s cheques, electronic transfers, banking, etc.) at midnight on 1 January 1999, when the national currencies of participating countries (the Eurozone) ceased to exist independently in that their exchange rates were locked at fixed rates against each other, effectively making them mere non-decimal subdivisions of the euro.

It was not until several years later that the euro as we now know it came into being. Still, a lot of people don’t want to give up the old currencies. As an aside, for example, I found this interesting:

Efforts to secure the return of German coins continue. In 2005, Deutsche Telekom modified 50,000 pay phones to take Deutsche Mark coins, at least on a temporary basis. Callers were allowed to use DM coins, at least initially, with the Mark pegged to equal one euro, almost twice the usual rate.

I suggest you take time to reflect on this precedent. I don’t have all the answers, but we do seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where the US dollar, the euro, the pound and other currencies become ‘mere non-decimal subdivisions’ of a global currency unit. These things take time and are not immediately obvious. You should, however, be very scared by this prospect.

WHO ARE THESE CENTRAL BANKERS?

And who are these Central Bankers? Are they pawns of the Morgans, the Rothschilds, the Queen, the church, the Obamas, the corporatists, the globalists, creatures from Jekyll Island . . . ?

I really don’t care. If someone tries to mug me on the street, my instinct will be either to defend myself, or to make a pragmatic, fast decision that it’s smarter to comply with the attacker’s demands. But I certainly won’t be worrying about the pedigree of the attacker. The same applies here.

All I can say, is these people clearly have the support of all branches and forms of all major governments. That’s right, those nice people like Senator McCain who want the right to lock you in jail and throw away the key, without having to worry about trifling details like the facts of the case. “Facts,” says McCain, “are stubborn things.”

HOW LONG CAN YOU REMAIN LEGAL?

The time has certainly come – as if you are being mugged – to panic, then quickly and calmly to do whatever is necessary to save yourself and your family. If you can’t physically move yourself directly out of danger fast, the safest course of action is to keep up all appearances of complying with the attacker’s demands. That way you can stealthily move assets and family members out of harm’s way.

Where possible, you should not just maintain the appearance of compliance. You should actually be compliant. That is still possible, just. In The Q Wealth Report, we frequently give you details of compliant offshore banking and investment structures.

However, you should keep in mind that one day soon, the time might come when it is impossible to remain compliant. Hidden currency and exchange controls like FATCA are hastening this day. When that day finally arrives, you will be forced to make possibly the most difficult decision of your life – do you break the law, or do you allow the government to pillage your assets? If you are not very careful, you might end up doing both.

PROTECTING YOURSELF WITH A SECOND CITIZENSHIP

There are ways to protect yourself. Obtaining a second foreign passport for you and your family is one of the best. This will give you the option of renouncing your existing citizenship later. It’s very relevant for US citizens now, but could also be relevant for citizens of other countries that, out of desperation, will try to follow the US lead and tax even their non-resident citizens on worldwide income. FATCA will put the information required to do this at their fingertips.

Look at the example of Uruguay. Uruguay long taxed its residents only on domestic income. But last year, they suddenly announced that forthwith, Uruguayan residents would also be taxed on income from overseas investments. To paraphrase the President, he said the only reason they hadn’t taxed overseas income before was that they didn’t have the means to do so. The signing of a series of tax information exchange agreements, ironically under the pressure of the OECD who considered Uruguay a tax haven, had changed this. [And] now, with these treaties, they did have access to information on the overseas holdings of Uruguayans. So they started taxing.

The UK, Canada, France or Australia could turn around and do the same thing tomorrow – and in the current climate, rich tax exiles would undoubtedly be a politically popular target.

You’ll find more information on second passports here and in almost every issue of The Q Wealth Report.

BUY PHYSICAL GOLD

Gold already shot up yesterday on the news of the new multi-currency QE program. Physical gold stored in a safe, offshore jurisdiction is undoubtedly one safe store of value. As I said in my original stealth devaluation articles, those who look at gold as their base reference currency, rather than as a simple investment, will see the real crash of the euro, the dollar, the pound et al.

Don’t be fooled into buying things like the Gold ETF. Find out why in our Free Gold Report.

OFFSHORE BANK ACCOUNTS TO AVOID THE GLOBAL STEALTH-DEVAULATION CONSPIRACY

As bad as government-issued fiat money is, you’ll probably need to keep some in the short term at least. For this reason, we recommend opening a multi-currency bank account somewhere offshore (that is, outside your home country and its immediate sphere of influence). This way you can keep money out of the big currencies, in the money of nations that are not participating in the global stealth devaluation conspiracy.

This will give you access, for example, to offshore credit and debit cards that work across the board – always provided plastic payment cards continue to be accepted, bearing in mind that emergency currency controls could cut them off at any time.

Further information on the practicalities of how to open an offshore multi-currency bank account, including anonymous numbered accounts (yes – they still exist!) and offshore corporate bank accounts, is available in Q Wealth’s Practical Offshore Banking Guide. The 2011 edition is currently available for download in our Members’ Area, and will be replaced before the end of the year with the drastically updated 2012 edition.

READ Q WEALTH REPORT

There’s a lot more I could say about practical strategies for protecting your assets, but I’ll save that for the articles my colleagues and I write regularly in The Q Wealth Report and our series of exclusive special reports. . . .

If you’re not ready to make a monetary commitment yet, please consider signing up for our free newsletter and/or free sample reports on important topics that are available at this site. Remember there is no obligation, you are free to unsubscribe at any time, and we will not pass your e-mail address to any third parties.

To conclude on a positive note, as I said at the beginning, the crisis we are just entering now will result in huge transfers of wealth, more than we have seen in our lifetimes. Those who keep their savings in fiat money will lose most of it. Those who invest their fiat money smartly and quickly, while it still buys things that are of value, stand to make almost obscene profits.

I don't know how "positive" that last paragraph is. Though it certainly bothers me to think I may be on the "wrong" side of currency devaluation!

I keep reading this kind of stuff. I keep posting. But will I take action? When?

U.S. government against U.S. citizens

I received the following email from Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com (see US Constitution repealed by traitorous Senators, Senate bill 1867 would allow U.S. military to detain and murder anti-government protesters in American cities for further coverage):

In a stunning move that has civil libertarians stuttering with disbelief, the U.S. Senate has just passed a bill [the National Defense Authorization Act] that effectively ends the Bill of Rights in America [see Sections 1031 and 1032--JAH].

This bill, passed late [Wednesday] night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a "battleground" upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity.

It's being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn't apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill it essentially says it can apply to Americans "if we want it to."

Even WIRED magazine was outraged at this bill, reporting:

...the detention mandate to use indefinite military detention in terrorism cases isn’t limited to foreigners. It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/senate-military-detention/

The passage of this law is nothing less than an outright declaration of WAR against the American People by the military-connected power elite. If this is signed into law, it will shred the remaining tenants of the Bill of Rights and unleash upon America a total military dictatorship, complete with secret arrests, secret prisons, unlawful interrogations, indefinite detainment without ever being charged with a crime, the torture of Americans and even the "legitimate assassination" of U.S. citizens on right here on American soil!

If you have not yet woken up to the reality of the police state we've been warning you about, I hope you realize we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you have no rights whatsoever in America -- no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent, nothing.

Read my red alert warning on this urgent development at:
www.naturalnews.com/034291_SB_1867_war_on_terror.html

... and watch this urgent interview with Alex Jones of InfoWars.com at:
www.infowars.com/stewart-rhodes-crossroads-ndaa-bill-is-pure-treason/

The mainstream media is engaged in a shameful and conspiratorial news blackout of this entire issue:
www.businessinsider.com/the-medias-blackout-of-the-national-defense-authorization-act-is-shameful-2011-12

... and even the ACLU is outraged about this potential law:
[Mike points you to this post; I think Senators Demand the Military Lock Up of American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window does a better job of summarizing what this is all about--JAH]

Are you getting all this? Do you realize America is about to be overrun by our own military?

He sounds shrill. But maybe there is good reason for it. Read the links.

Simon Black wrote in last month's Sovereign Man: Confidential:

[I]f you want to know what’s going to happen, pick up any number of books that detail the decline of empire.

I suggest William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as it is probably the most well-documented account ever recorded. It becomes painfully obvious throughout the book that Germans and Jews alike should have picked up and left Germany in the late 1920s or early 1930s. The warning signs were all there, and reading the book is like watching characters in a bad horror movie walk right into the killer’s trap.

Are we reading such a script right now in this, our beloved "Land of the Free" and "Home of the Brave"?

Perhaps I should restate that. Are we merely going to read such a script? Or will we--will you--do something about it? At least write to your senators and congressperson?

Or will this (see below) be coming soon to a town near you?

You've got to be kidding!

Newt Gingrich in the lead among Republicans?

See Mr. "Serial Hypocrisy" himself in this Ron Paul ad:

http://youtu.be/CWKTOCP45zY

Signed up for Sovereign Man "Notes From the Field" yet?

Quite enlightening!

Simon posted the following last Thursday (Thanksgiving Day):

I’d like to briefly pass along two interesting articles and one video that have struck me recently, and should you find the time today for a quick dose of reality, I highly recommend them.

The first is from Ross DeVol of the Milken Institute The Eight Best Innovation Ideas From Around the World. [Very inspiring! --JAH] Now, while it’s hard for me to support state-sponsored anything, DeVol does a great job of underscoring one of our primary points in this publication– countries around the world are starting to offer huge incentives and COMPETE for the best talent, labor, and capital.

From Singapore to Finland to Switzerland to South Korea, DeVol breaks down just a few of the places in the world that have made key policy changes to attract foreign businesses, professionals, and investment.

The second is a short article profiling Chinese professor and TV host Larry Lang’s recent comments during a lecture he gave in mainland China. In Lang’s words, the Chinese government is on the brink of bankruptcy, and that “every province is Greece.” [Disturbing! --JAH]

We’ve been beating this drum for quite some time, and if just a fraction of what Lang is saying pans out, the implications to the global economy will be severe. It makes me happy to be in Chile at the moment, working hard on our resilient community.

The last is a short investigative clip from German television . . . shedding light on the corruption and personal gain that goes on in the halls of the European Parliament.

It’s just another example of the political class criminally enriching themselves at the expense of the taxpayers. [Fascinating to watch political "leaders" scramble like cockroaches out of the limelight! --JAH]

And, of course, let's not ignore the U.S. Congress and its own insider-trading scandals--all "perfectly legal" (for them; just not for anyone else). You know, regular citizens get thrown in prison, for years, for far less obvious infractions than these "ladies and gentlemen" engage in. But who are we to question?

Crowd-sourced Bible translation?

Crowd-sourcing is how Wikipedia has produced the largest and--despite areas where certain partisan participants seem to hold sway--one of the most accurate encyclopedias ever produced. (If you're really interested in the subject, see the interminably long article on the subject in Wikipedia itself.)

Well, now The Seed Company has decided to attempt crowd-sourced Bible translation.

From Mission Network News, October 12, 2011:

"We tested a crowd-sourcing Web site in Asia in a difficult-to-access language group, and over 1,000 mother-tongue translators came to the Webpage and participated in this pilot project to help translate chapters of the Book of Luke into their heart language," says The Seed Company president, Roy Peterson. . . .

The Seed Company crowd-sourcing site had 1,000 people translating verses of Scripture, but there actually may have been many more participants. The Seed Company took a trip to the small Asian village where the pilot project took place. The village was peppered with small, dirt-floor homes, and the ministry discovered that those doing the translation were typically young people in their early 20s. The translators would head to an internet café to work, but not alone. Much of the time, they had their entire families with them, adding their input as well.

Participants were also able to give feedback on other verses that people had translated and put up, able to compliment them on a job well done or encourage revision. . . .

"Think back 50 years ago when there was one missionary, all by himself or all by herself, translating, trying to do all 7,000 verses of the New Testament," notes Peterson. "Now picture today, leveraging a crowd-sourcing, Web-based platform and getting 1,000 people, 2,000, or 10,000 from a large people group in Asia, helping to do the New Testament in their heart language."

[As of October 12, the date this article was released], The Seed Company [was] still checking the project over to see if it works well enough to be replicated . . . [and was] hoping to come to a decision [that] week. [They were also] looking for another large Asian language to try this new method of translating Scripture.

Pretty cool!

HOTS--Hare, Owl, Tortoise, Squirrel

Who do you want on any productive team of which you are a part?

According to The One-Minute Millionaire, you want at least one Hare, one Owl, one Tortoise and one Squirrel--one of each, at least.

Take a quick (and I do mean quick), but insightful survey and find out what you are and what role you are likely to play in any productive team.

I found I had no problems providing answers to the questions, and the result was spot-on.

Check it out.

Ron Paul v. all the other candidates . . .

Just received this from Ron Paul this morning. I thought it worth passing along:

If you missed Tuesday night’s debate on CNN, there’s something you need to know.

All seven of my opponents stood up on stage and applauded Big Government - asked for more of it, in fact.

So your choice is clear.

With just over five weeks left until voters begin going to the polls, if you want a President who will FIGHT for less government and lower spending, then I must ask for your support right away.

You see, Newt Gingrich – who previously warned of the dangers of the Patriot Act - now wants it expanded.

He wants amnesty, too – to keep American citizens footing the bill for government services for illegal immigrants.

The others were falling all over themselves to launch more undeclared TRILLION-dollar wars on Iran, or perhaps Pakistan, or maybe even Syria.

Of course, they all want more military spending, even though we’re already spending almost one TRILLION dollars per year – an amount nearly equal to what the entire rest of the world spends!

But that certainly hasn’t stopped the chicken-little stories from my opponents about supposed “defense cuts”!

Even Mitt Romney tried to pull the wool over our eyes.

I set him straight. NOTHING is being cut in Washington. PERIOD.

Believe me, I’ve tried!

All Congress is arguing about is how much to increase spending.

But when hundreds of billions of dollars just aren’t “enough” for my opponents’ favorite agencies, their answer is to howl in pain.

John, isn’t this the game the liberals play?

I guess we’ve learned to expect as much over the years from them.

But isn’t it downright disgusting when Republican candidates for President stoop to that level?

After all, we’re over $15 TRILLION in debt.

When are my opponents going to get serious?

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s lacking in these debates so far – seriousness.

And that’s why the establishment of BOTH parties is so scared of me.

You see, they know I am serious about balancing the budget in three years.

They know I will cut ONE TRILLION in spending my first year.

And they know NONE of their sacred cows are safe.

If we don’t need it or can’t afford it, it doesn’t matter what department of government we’re talking about.

Sure, the establishment will scream and holler that we need MORE money to keep our country safe.

But the simple fact is, if we had a constitutional foreign policy – and if we stopped nation-building and policing the world - our nation would be much safer and spend much LESS money at the same time.

Our troops understand that fact.

That’s why I’ve received more money from members of the military than all of my Republican opponents COMBINED.

But sadly, my establishment opponents just don’t seem to get it.

They want more spending, more government, and more debt.

You and I both know we can’t afford politics as usual any longer.

You and I both know maintaining the big spending, Big Government status quo will only lead to our nation’s ruin.

But I’m the ONE candidate who is serious about fixing our problems.

I’m the ONE candidate who will change our foreign policy to strengthen our national defense while ending these wars.

I’m the ONE candidate who will fight to end welfare to illegal immigrants AND secure our border.

And I’m the ONE candidate who will take power BACK from government, not scream to give more to it. . . .

My campaign is in crunch time right now.

As I mentioned, it’s just over five weeks until voters start going to the caucuses and polls to begin selecting the next Republican nominee for President.

In these final weeks, my campaign is launching an all-out voter contact blitz with TV ads, direct mail, and boots on the ground in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

With polls showing me statistically tied for first in Iowa and clearly in second in New Hampshire, you and I must make our big push right now.

So please make your most generous contribution TODAY to my campaign.

Whatever you can give, I’ll put to IMMEDIATE use getting my message of liberty to the voters.

We’re so close. I believe the time is right, and you and I have the message to win.

So please make your most generous contribution TODAY!

Together, we can Restore America Now!

For Liberty,

Ron Paul

P.S. Every one of my opponents during Tuesday night’s debate was demanding more government.

Some are even falsely claiming military spending is being cut!

But the only thing being debated in Washington, D.C. right now is how fast spending will increase!

I’m the only candidate in this race who is serious about cutting spending. And if we don’t need it or can’t afford it, it doesn’t matter what department it’s in.

Boy. The media gives everybody else and his brother coverage. Ron Paul is ignored. And yet he is really and truly in contention? What is "the story behind the story" of his being ignored? (Like the "90 seconds" story from two weeks ago.)

What kinds of inequality are acceptable?

David Brooks offers some thought-provoking tongue-in-cheek insights in a recent New York Times essay:

Fitness inequality is acceptable. It is perfectly fine to wear tight workout sweats to show the world that pilates have given you buns of steel. These sorts of displays are welcomed as evidence of your commendable self-discipline and reproductive merit.

Moral fitness inequality is unacceptable. It is out of bounds to boast of your superior chastity, integrity, honor or honesty. Instead, one must respect the fact that we are all morally equal, though our behavior and ethical tastes may differ. . . .

Technological inequality is acceptable. If you are the sort of person who understands the latest hardware and software advances, who knows the latest apps, it is acceptable to lord your superior connoisseurship over the aged relics who do not understand these things.

Cultural inequality is unacceptable. If you are the sort of person who attends opera or enjoys Ibsen plays, it is not acceptable to believe that you have a more refined sensibility than people who like Lady Gaga, Ke$ha or graffiti. . . .

Lots more where these came from.

Whew, boy! Do I have to overcome a long-held prejudice?

I was looking up a word online and bumped into this video about third-person possessive pronouns--his, her, and them.

As Emily Brewster, an associate editor at Merriam-Webster notes, Facebook recently changed its software so we should no longer see those (drive-me-crazy) notices like, "Noah Webster commented on their own photo." And it's about time, too, from my perspective! After all, Facebook knows whether you are male or female.

But then Emily gets into some areas where I myself have struggled--the sentences that require a male or female pronoun if you want to be grammatically correct, but that require both the male and female pronoun if you want to be gender-sensitive (and I have bought into the importance of gender sensitivity since I was in college, at least).

The problem is, as Emily notes, one can wind up with monstrous sentences like, "Everyone should do his or her best in whatever situations in which he or she finds himself or herself." (!!!!)

Of course, there are often simple workarounds like, "People should do their best," or, "You should do your best." But not always.

And as Emily suggests, maybe "Everyone should just do their best in the situations in which they find themselves."

And the locus for such a (to my training) grammatically awkward sentence?

How about the King James Bible? 1611 edition. Matthew 18:35: "...if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."

Yipes!

I have watched other Merriam-Webster videos over the last many years. I find them fascinating. Maybe you will, too. Check them out!

Class divisions in "classless" Zuccotti Park

My brother replied to my "Global Revolution"/Occupy Wall Street post from yesterday by sending me a link to a hilarious and thought-provoking video of Samantha Bee of John Stewart's Daily Show as she visits Zuccotti Park to report on class division within the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The United States next?

I'm editing the Landmark History of the American People by Daniel Boorstin for an elementary school age audience. I am in the midst of the section dealing with the U.S.' Declaration of Independence. I needed to check a particular phrase . . . and wound up at http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution. I have not been following Occupy Wall Street. And we don't have television, so I have never seen any of this kind of coverage before.

In the context of my American history studies and the Arab Spring revolutions, it struck me, watching the live feed: This is how governments fall. Is the U.S. next?

A very different perspective on various subjects . . .

Very rarely are we permitted to listen to alternative perspectives on matters of deep importance. I was reminded of that again last night when I received an email from John Tate, campaign manager for Ron Paul:

90 seconds.

That's how much of the first hour of tonight's GOP debate was given to Ron Paul. 90 measly seconds out of 3,600 seconds.

The remaining 3,510 seconds were spent with the other major candidates:

** Declaring their desire to start wars in Iran, Pakistan, and Syria;

** Rehashing their support for torture;

** Agreeing that President Obama has the right to unilaterally assassinate an American citizen without a court conviction;

** Explaining their plans to continue nation-building, policing, and occupying countries across the globe.

It literally made me sick watching the mainstream media once again silence the one sane voice in this election. The one dissenter to a decade of unchecked war. The one candidate who stands for true defense and actual constitutional government.

Ron Paul was silenced, in perhaps the most important debate of the cycle.

You have to ask yourself why.

I think I know the answer. Both parties have perpetuated the foreign policy that is bankrupting our nation and tearing apart the world.

Both parties have started wars without proper congressional authorization.

Both parties have fabricated reasons for war.

Both parties’ outrageous spending has taken us to the brink of disaster.

And if the other candidates on the stage tonight are to be believed, then there is only one candidate who would break the globalists’ stranglehold over our foreign policy, our Treasury, and the lives of our family, friends, and neighbors in the armed forces.

Ron Paul could change history. He could save our great nation from its own devastating policies of the past 10 years.

If his voice could be heard.

The media has once again BLACKED OUT Ron Paul.

But I am reminded, too, of an article I read this past summer about The Filter Bubble or "invisible sieve" that may be, sadly, slowly wrapping itself around even those of us who want to hear "the other side" and understand why people think differently than we do. As Facebook, Google, and other internet search engines and information servers come to "understand" our own predilections, they begin feeding us an ever-more-specialized subset of all the material potentially available in the world. And thus, as Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble, says, they begin "indoctrinating us with our own ideas," or "autopropagandizing."

I hope not. As one commentator replied to the article I just referenced,

People already [tend to] read the newspaper that reflects their biases; TV news - especially in the USA - is entertainment almost entirely devoid of content and highly country-centric. People socialize with others who resemble them. This has been true for over a century. But . . . I can, by selecting my search terms, browse for nearly everything I want. Even if I am a life-long pacifist, typing "Hitler" into the browser search bar will return information about his life and his impact on the world. Even if I am a middle-aged white male from Arkansas, typing "Moroccan lesbian" will return something outside my normal realm of experience. And - in a more factual example - I can subscribe to the online version of Al Jazeeera, browse Le Monde (if I'm willing to pay; if not I can always find excerpts and summaries) and cast a glance at... gasp... The Economist. So basically the concern about living in a bubble seems to me to be utterly fantastical. Bubble people will always live in their bubbles.

May the rest of us continue stolidly to seek to build bridges!

. . . And now, having said all that, I thought I would call your attention to a guy who obviously thinks very differently . . . and is willing to argue his points. He goes by the name Kaz and you can find him on his website called But Now You Know.

For example, Cash for Clunkers Causes Pollution and Poverty. Of course, the post is more than two years old. Kaz wrote what he did as the program was going into effect. But it is helpful to learn from history. Our government did authorize the program. And Kaz' analysis still makes sense. Some of the faults Kaz noted:

• Cash for Clunkers Pollutes
  

  This is because the older a car, the worse its gas mileage. Not only in general, but also because cars tend to perform worse as they age.
  
  Cash for Clunkers only rewards people for buying new cars, not for simply buying any car that got better gas mileage, regardless of its age. And it destroys the cars traded in, regardless of their own gas mileage.
  
  This means that only more-prosperous people, who can afford new cars, are able to use the C4C program. They are, therefore, often trading in relatively nice, fuel-efficient cars. Often, they are even buying cars only a couple of miles per gallon more efficient.
  
  Meanwhile, what about the people with older cars, which are much less fuel efficient?
  
  Simple: They are having the nicer, more efficient used cars they WOULD have bought destroyed. Leaving them in a pollutive car longer than if the C4C never happened in the first place.

  Kaz says more on the subject, but this gives the gist.
   
• . . . and Causes Poverty
  

  As the best-off consumers buy better things, items out of favor — whether used or just old models — become less expensive, allowing poorer people to buy progressively better stuff for the same prices.
  
  In the case of cash for clunkers, the Obama administration broke this:
  

  • Nice used cars will now be in shorter supply, which will raise the relative prices of the remaining nice used cars.
     
  • This will make it harder for poorer people to afford to upgrade.
     
  • This will trickle all the way down to the very poorest, who will soon find that their ability to buy some minimal car AT ALL, is affected.
     
  • That can mean the difference between getting to a job, and getting out of poverty, or being trapped indefinitely.

  So aside from the many other unintended consequences of this program, and there are many, the program has actually set the scene for poor people to have an even harder time affording cars, a vital tool for earning more money.

--A lot to think about, there. Then there was this about global warming (or cooling): There is most certainly a pattern to climate change . . . but it’s not what you may think: Climate Change Timeline – 1895-2009. And that led me to his notice about Our Fifth Year of Global Cooling: Coldest Since 1996. (What!?! --I hadn't heard about that.) Sadly, that post is almost two years old, now. So I looked to see if he had updated it since. It appears not. I found his post from 2009: 4th Year of Global Cooling, NOAA Says. Good data. Well worthy of your perusal. But I wondered if the trend has continued. And he has said nothing on the subject. However, I did find this article: October 2011 NOAA Data: U.S. Temperature Cooling Trend of 15 Years Continues, -3.7 Degrees. Yipes! As the author notes,

The per century cooling trend of this [15-year --JAH] period, a minus 3.7°F, took place despite the huge warmth produced by two large El Niño events during this 15-year span: 1997-1998 and 2009-2010. For the 10-year period ending October 2011 (November 1, 2001 thru October, 2011 - 120 months), the cooling trend accelerates to a very significant minus 10.6°F per century rate - again, per the updated NOAA/NCDC temperature records.

But as Kaz notes,

Because their budgets depend on scaring people with the global warming myth, various government organizations and bureaucrats have desperately been spinning this cooling trend, even as they avoid directly mentioning it. Around 2006, there started a growing trend to refer to it as “climate change”, not global WARMING, because they wanted to re-brand it before the cooling became well-known. Now, as the global cooling trend has continued for five years, you can actually find global warming profiteers saying as crazily anti-scientific things as “global warming will probably take a break for a while”, as if it were a tired old man, not a weather phenomenon.

He continues with a discussion of what he calls The Climate Bogeyman.

Now we’re all familiar with witch-hunt logic: We throw the unpopular woman in the lake:

• If she drowns, she was innocent.
   
• If she floats and survives, she’s a witch and we burn her at the stake.

This kind of evil trick has been used by people seeking power through fear, for as long as recorded history. It is one thing that Principles of Justice, and the Scientific Method, are supposed to counteract. Sadly, this appears to be the same logic that the global warming profiteers use. If the weather is warm, it’s proof of global warming, if it’s cold, it’s proof the weather has been disrupted by global warming. The scientific method does not stop them, even though they are “climate scientists”, because they do not use it. They have long-ago abandoned the rules of hard science.

And then, finally,

[O]verall, global cooling is worse for humanity and civilization than global warming. Whether by coincidence or not, many failures of civilizations and economies have appeared to hinge around sudden cooling periods. There is no corresponding evidence of warming bringing down societies. Regardless of what the actual temperature trend is, if anything, or what actually is causing it, the motivation of people who report every year the global temperature rises, but are silent every year it falls, seems worse than suspect. These people are no more to be trusted than a tobacco scientist, and for the same reason.

Yowzie! --Three and a half days

An interesting analysis of the Occupy Wall Street movement:



--With thanks to my brother Dave for offering the link.

Great video . . . even if I do say so myself

Sarita and I were blown away by what several staff members at Sonlight put together. We had to laugh out loud. How did they do this with straight faces and such apparent conviction?



In case you're interested and missed the URL: go to www.sonlight.com/christmas.

Word fun

I just subscribed to a free fun newsletter that comes out once a week. It deals with words. (You can check it out at http://www.worldwidewords.org.)

This week's letter included the following stories I thought you would enjoy:

Topical Words: Plan B
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The news in Britain in recent weeks has been full of references to the notorious Plan A of the Chancellor, George Osborne. He said last year that his scheme for improving the country's finances was the only one needed. Last December, the Treasury insisted that "There is no Plan B", which shows signs of becoming a sarcastic catchphrase. A hundred economists published an open letter in the Observer last Sunday in an attempt to change Osborne's mind, arguing that "It is now clear that plan A isn't working" and urging the government to adopt a plan B. This has been reinforced this week by similar calls from the Liberal Democrats, coalition partners in the government. Ed Balls, Osborne's Labour opposition counterpart, dismisses all such alphabetical labels: "Call it Plan A-plus. Call it Plan B. Call it Plan C. I don't care what they call it - Britain just needs a plan that works."

Observers of a logical bent might wonder, if Mr Osborne only ever expects to have a Plan A, why he bothered to assign a letter to it.
A British author had fun with this approach half a century ago:

"This is what I call 'pattern A'."
"And what is pattern B?" asked Ann Halsey.
"There won't be any pattern B."
"Then why bother with the A?"
"Preserve me from the obtuseness of women! I can call it
pattern A because I want to, can't I?"
"Of course, dear. But why do you want to?"
[The Black Cloud, by Fred Hoyle, 1959.]

To label alternatives with letters is now so fashionable as hardly to warrant much comment, even though to develop possibilities much beyond Plan C is either to suggest an over-controlling and anxious personality or strategies that contemplate extraordinary contingencies. Plan Z gets some attention, but usually as one so far down the list it can only be crackpottery. Even Plan B is more often a humorous comment on a Plan A that has proved impracticable ("we need a plan B", "time for plan B") than a serious potential alternative.

Legal documents have identified plans and drawings by letters for at least a couple of centuries. The origin of the figurative expression partly lies here, but more specifically in plans that illustrate alternative proposals for a development ("The scheme shown in Plan A for remodelling the house is more expensive than the alternative outlined in Plan B").

The Oxford English Dictionary has entries for both Plan A and Plan B which imply that they originate in the US. However, its earliest citation for Plan B - a letter sent during the Civil War in 1863 - turns out to refer to a physical plan or drawing. I have found a British example, from the Report of the proceedings of the Church Congress held in Cambridge in November 1861, where it refers to one of two proposals for a scheme to modify church taxes. The first known example of Plan A is currently from an equally improbable source - the 1867 Report of the US Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition of that year.

And

Sic!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on a court case in its issue of
31 October, Jitze Couperus tells us: "A Florida widow who died in
the 2001 anthrax mailings has reached a tentative settlement in her
lawsuit against the U.S. government according to court filings."

Numeracy rules. Fred A Roth reports that a headline on Fox News on
27 October read "FOX NEWS POLL: More than three thirds of Americans
are dissatisfied with the way the U.S. is heading." It has since
been changed. So has the one Roy Zukerman spotted on the website of
the Los Angeles Times the same day: in an article about measuring
the size of the planetoid Eris when it passed in front of a star, it
stated that "Just three telescopes, both in Chile, managed to catch
the event."

Seen by Ian Harrison on an advertising sign placed by a well-known
local supermarket in Johannesburg: "Whole chicken pieces." How would
one tell?

"The ads down the side of Gmail," wrote Sarah Borowski, "are quite
often a source of amusement, such as this one, obviously aimed at
Jake the Peg: 'Get 3 For The Price Of 2 When You Shop Online With
Hotter Shoes!'"

That last one seemed to make sense, although I couldn't figure out what the reference to “Jake the Peg” might be.

But then I think I “got it.” One doesn't buy individual shoes. What will you do with three shoes for the price of two? . . . But a guy named Jake who has a peg leg might like the offer. . . .

Finally, I did a search online and it turns out there’s a song called “Jake the Peg” about a guy who was born with an extra leg:

The day that I was born, oh boy, my father nearly died.
He couldn't get my nappies on, no matter how he tried,
'Cause I was born with an extra leg, and since that day begun,
I had to learn to stand on my own three feet,
Believe me that's no fun. . . .

I had a dreadful childhood, really,
I s'pose I shouldn't moan,
Each time they had a three legged race,
I won it on my own.
And also I got popular,
When came the time for cricket,
They used to roll my trousers up,
And use me for the wicket. . . .

I was a dreadful scholar,
I found all the lessons hard,
The only thing I knew for sure was three feet make a yard.
To count to ten I used my fingers,
If I needed more,
By getting my shoes and socks off,
I could count to twenty-four.
(Pause...count: 1 2 3 4 5....) To twenty-five! . . .

Whatever I did they said was false,
They said 'Quick march,' I did a quick waltz.
Then they shouted at me 'Put your best foot forward.'
'But which foot?' I said.
'It's very fine for you, you only got a choice of two, but me!

And then I found a hilarious presentation of the song on YouTube . . . presented by Rolf Harris who adapted it from a Dutch song about "Ben van der Steen" (Ben of the Stone).

Fascinating word play video

Sorry. This video includes a few ideas that are worthy of a PG-13 rating (two that show from 0:58-1:04 and two more from about 2:08-2:16). But the overall creativity, I think, is worth the price of admission.

The concept: How can you illustrate a word using the letters that spell the word in English?

A few words require some pretty fancy manipulation. But most of them don't. Honestly, I don't understand why the author/artist flipped the one letter in "Van Gogh," for example. But see what you think:



My favorites include some of the early ones: Elevator and Horizon, for example. What are yours?

Frankenfoods

My latest post on food . . . and the scary things food processors do to the things they expect us to eat.

Check out Food wars: It's us (consumers) v. them (the processors) for the latest on Ammonia-Infused Hamburger, Zombie Orange Juice, and other horrors of the "modern" food system.