In this thread we post short things that don't require a seperate thread.
Previous low content threads:
October 2011 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/26422.aspx
September 2011 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/26084.aspx
August 2011 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/25783.aspx July 2011 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/25323.aspx
June 2011 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/24987.aspx
May 2011 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/24393.aspx
April 2011 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/23834.aspx
March 2011 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/23166.aspx
January 2011 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/21877.aspx December 2010 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/21375.aspx November 2010 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/20722.aspx October 2010 http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/20457.aspx
Beat me to it
Here's a nice one. Send it to all your ignorant acquintances:
If You Favor a Policy, Please First Figure Out What it Is.
I moderated a panel on infrastructure and jobs at the Bipartisan Policy Center this morning, and one of the topics that came up was an infrastructure bank. Asked about it, one of the panelists said "what I'd like is to make all the members of Congress write a 100 word essay on what an infrastructure bank is." It was a good line, and the audience laughed because it hints at something all too true when it comes to discussing policy: there are a lot of ferocious advocates of policies they can't explain. [...]
The passion is certainly real, and understandable. But the attachment to Glass-Steagall is not. Of the hundreds of times I've seen this, in all but two or three cases it's been absolutely clear that the person advocating this could not describe the content of Glass-Steagall (presumably the one passed in 1933), nor the multi-decade unraveling of its major provisions. If anyone makes any of the obvious criticisms--"Really? You want to bring back Regulation Q?"--they're not even particularly sheepish about admitting that well, of course, they're not exactly familiar with the whole thing, but . . .
I tried really hard this month after you beat me last time :)
Herman Cain acting confused (the last bit is the best):
http://bcove.me/ztpyxz2c
Bringing "it's all relative" to a whole new level.
Wow, the government is going for a high schore:
American teenager assassinated
Why Education is Useless
I've been out of the news loop this week, so I don't know how popular this is in the media yet:
Wheylous:I tried really hard this month after you beat me last time :) Herman Cain acting confused (the last bit is the best): http://bcove.me/ztpyxz2c Bringing "it's all relative" to a whole new level.
I swear to the mythical God that Herman Cain is wearing a mask. Behind it you'll find this:
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Free Keene - Four liberty activists share their experiences of being jailed
Wow, Wheylous, you're a total downer. Things are starting to get really, really scary. The worst part is how completely unaware the general public is to the gravity of what is going on. The significance of this murder is not merely that "it's a minor!" but the fact that it's a minor is always supposed to be a big deal (e.g. consider statutory rape) but, in this case, it isn't because The Powers That Be don't want it to be a big deal. They can obtain exemption at will from the very memes they have themselves created to control the rest of us with.
Clayton -
Haha. The article does say that it is unknown whether they meant to target him specifically... but the administration is not denying it...
So let's see: Herman Cain is a former local Federal Reserve chairman beloved by so-called limited government people. He speaks in soundbites generally. His foreign policy is, "I'll talk to my advisors." He states that he would negotiate hostages with terrorists before recanting the position hours later. He says abortion is, "not his call" yet proceeds to state he is pro-life and that abortion should not be a legal option.
This was pretty funny
colbert super pac occupy wall street co optportunity stephen on location
From TomWoods.com today:
A Suffolk University poll of Florida Republicans finds 25% in support of Mitt Romney and 24% supporting Herman Cain. In other words, these voters believe the country is about 4 percent off track but basically all right. For all their talk about how bad Obama is, apparently things aren’t that bad if they want to replace him with a safe establishment man like Romney or Cain (former head of the Kansas City Federal Reserve). [...]
You can imagine how much “change” we can expect from a guy like that — the whole establishment lines up on one side (the New York Times, the Washington Post, the cable news commentators, John McCain, Barack Obama) and the American people on the other, and Cain goes with the establishment. But he’ll be a big maverick next time that happens, right? Sure.
Cain’s Pattern of Evasion and Misdirection
PolitiFact: Cain said that China "indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability." According to the U.S. State Department, China conducted its first test of a nuclear weapon in 1964. So Cain’s approximately 40 years behind the times. China is a long-standing nuclear power. We rate his statement Pants on Fire.
Unmanned drones on US soil?
Lew Rockwell on Freedom Watch
"... [they see it that] we have an aggressive government that's always hunting for war." Interesting quote, especially since this interview appears to be sometime in the 1950's when America was supposedly on its highest moral ground after its supposed battle against the forces of evil during WWII.
Kudlow: Ron Paul is an "expert on monetary policy" and the Federal Reserve...
It's long, but still a great discussion. Paul does really well here
MSNBC Morning Joe (scarborough)
I enjoyed this one. I never get tired of watching ignorants having reality shoved in their face. It's also kind of interesting to see this Task character get somewhat chummy with the statist on the set and try to pretend Schiff was speaking crazy talk...when all throughout 2009 he had Schiff on this show on the heels of a lot of his predictions coming to pass, and treated him like royalty. (Not unlike Jon Stewart...who incidentally hasn't had Schiff on since that one episode 3 years ago.)
This man is a Judge in Aransas County, Texas who handles child abuse cases.. He admits it is him and says it "looks worse than it is."
The only reason he thinks "it looks worse than it is" is because he is dressed like a regular ol' serf so you cant tell whose authority the 16-year-old girl dared to defy. If he was wearing a uniform this would look normal to some people.
Watching that made me sick to my stomach. I think I'm gonna vomit.
I don't know if anyone's posted about In Time on here, but I caught a few scenes at work today. If you haven't heard, it's a dystopian film where time is money, the basic idea is this:
In the future, genetic alteration has allowed humanity to develop a system where individuals stop aging 25 years after birth. Due to over-population concerns, time has replaced money as the standard currency and people must acquire more time through labor and commercial means after turning 25 years of age, or die within a year. Each social class lives in a different area called a Time Zone: The poor live in the ghettos of Dayton and work each day to earn a few more hours of life, which they must also use to pay for everyday necessities. The rich live in the luxurious New Greenwich, and can live for centuries to millenia based on how much time they have accrued.
The plot focuses around Timberlake's character who starts stealing time and giving it to others who have no more than a day of time left each day (I don't feel like explaining more than that with all the details). There's a scene where they see signs with the interest of time loans going up 30+ percent in seconds, and they realize that no matter how much time (money) they inject into the population the prices will only go up to even or balance out the newly injected time.
Well, if it could not be more obvious, I don't know what is.
As I pointed out in the comments on this video (which were quickly buried as it appears that comments are being made at the rate of about 1 per second), these pigs will take your children away for a story of abuse fabricated by their own paid social workers but, behind closed doors, they know that they can get away with anything short of murder. I doubt that this incident is aberrant among judges, family law judges in particular.
The amount of power held by a typical county judge is astounding. A typical county judge in a moderately populated area disposes of dozens of years of human life in a month. They have absolute, gold-plated immunity for any decision they make as a judge. The President of the United States - who is practically emperor of the world - will be hauled off in chains to a war crimes tribunal before an American judge is held liable for a decision made as a judge. Now, think about this caustic mixture for a moment... you have people holding unimaginable power over the lives of hundreds of individuals every year and who are absolutely, unqualifiedly immune for each and every decision they make regarding those people's lives. Something wrong with this picture?
American law is in really bad straits and badly needs to be reformed. We need to end the monopoly on arbitration held by the government's court system. It's literally killing us.
I was reading about Blackwater on Wiki, and this was listed under the political views of Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater (now called Xe Services LLC):
Prince describes himself as a "libertarian", majoring in Austrian Economics at Hillsdale College. He describes his political views as follows: "I'm a very free market guy. I'm not a huge believer that government provides a whole lot of solutions. Some think that government can solve society's problems. I tend to think private charities and private organizations are better solutions." Prince credits his time as a White House intern with some of his free market views. There he confronted some of the great growth in the federal government. "Having that White House internship responsibility and badges, I walked around some of these other cavernous federal agencies, and you want to talk about depressing? Walk through HHS (Health and Human Services) or HUD (Housing and Urban Development) or Commerce, you name it. Leviathan realized."
Prince describes himself as a "libertarian", majoring in Austrian Economics at Hillsdale College. He describes his political views as follows:
"I'm a very free market guy. I'm not a huge believer that government provides a whole lot of solutions. Some think that government can solve society's problems. I tend to think private charities and private organizations are better solutions."
Prince credits his time as a White House intern with some of his free market views. There he confronted some of the great growth in the federal government.
"Having that White House internship responsibility and badges, I walked around some of these other cavernous federal agencies, and you want to talk about depressing? Walk through HHS (Health and Human Services) or HUD (Housing and Urban Development) or Commerce, you name it. Leviathan realized."
Previous owner and founder of Blackwater libertarian and even Austrian?
Even a Libertarian with any sense knows the big bucks ooze out of the state's teat!
Turn brown eyes blue... definitely tantalizing!
I haven't seen this on here yet. Just a cool Ron Paul video I grabbed from a friend who posted it on FB.
Added.
Fox News really wants Rick Perry. Too bad no one else does.
Ron Paul as an Independent in 2012?
Is Cain's Campaign Over?
Real quick on the dollar/euro situation with Peter Schiff. Watch baldy get into his indignant drag queen head shake at the end. It's so funny to watch all these people argue with someone like Peter and try to defend these ridiculous positions. I still haven't been able to completely figure out why they're so compelled to do this. It's like they just don't like what he has to say so they feel the need to try to attack him even though they have nothing to refute it.
Local news posted that the CIA is going over Twitter and Facebook updates. They are stationed in some industrial park (location unknown) in Virginia and are looking for statements regarding the war in the middle east (I guess in regards to people discussing the military's actions in general, plans, etc. Stuff to "tip off" the enemy.) Out of boredom I had shared the story from the local news FB and added a ton of trigger words as the status.
Hate to point this out, Bert, but that article is just run-of-the-mill disinformation. They've been spying on us for decades. Articles like this try to give the reader the impression that this is some really new, innovative idea that the CIA has only just recently deployed to inculcate a feeling that the spy agencies are always behind the times and always playing catch-up and so on. The fact is that the NSA has had a tap on the backbone of the Internet since almost the day after 9/11 and they monitory ev er y thing. Whatever legal hurdles are placed in their way are simply routed around and the march goes on.
Oh, I'm aware it's been going on for a while, I just find it amusing they want to publish it. As if now it's official and on the record. Now I'm curious as to what industrial complex in VA has some CIA computer geeks sitting around reading thousands upon thousands of status updates a day.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
Bert: Must be one mind-numbingly boring job. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Think about all those PhDs that get sucked up and have their brilliant minds turned to dreaming up faster algorithms for data-mining this ocean of raw data the NSA is collecting. For all its mystique, the NSA is really naught but a glorified mail-monitor that just applies massive technological and human resources to scan and collate an unimaginable amount of communications. I believe probably something very close to 100% of all unencrypted English-language communications are scanned at one level or another. But how much better off would we be if those minds were instead solving the very same kinds of problems for peaceful, productive commerce?
And it gets worse. There is an incestuous relationship going all the way back to WWII between US intelligence and Silicon Valley, for all its supposed free-market cachet. I work for one of the largest companies based in Silicon Valley. This may sound completely insane to you, but I believe that part of the purpose of Silicon Valley is to "sop up" the technological talent and keep them from competing with all those PhDs at NSA. What good is it to the NSA to get all these brilliant people cracking codes and dreaming up ever-bigger, ever-faster, ever-smarter data-mining algorithms when the private sector has 10 times as many brilliant people dreaming up ever=stronger codes and ever-better, ever-faster privacy algorithms and practices? Why not deal with the problem at the source by soaking up those brilliant private-sector people into dull, pointless jobs in oversized tech companies given regulatory and other favors "behind closed doors" to stay on top and maintain record profits year-after-year?
The amount of wealth being destroyed by the current status quo is staggering to the imagination. If we somehow managed to break free of it, people will not be able to comprehend the rate of economic growth that will emerge... it would be so sudden and so dramatic, it would be like a bomb going off.