Submitted by AntiWar's Justin Raimondo via Contra Corner blog,

The Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) is being touted as the newest “threat” to the American homeland: hysterics have pointed to Chicago as the locus of their interest, and we are told by everyone from the President on down that if we don’t attack them – i.e. go back into Iraq (and even venture into Syria) to root them out – they’ll soon show up on American shores.

How is this supposed to work? Well, you see, that monster who beheaded James Foley had a British accent, and there are reports of more than a few Brits (and Americans) traveling to Syria to fight on behalf of ISIS. So these jihadi “internationalists” could always just fly back to either Britain or the US, where another 9/11 would shortly be in the works.

Let’s put aside the FBI statement that, while Americans abroad may be in some unspecified degree of danger, ISIS represents “no credible threat” to the continental United States. If we take the ISIS-threatens-us-at-home war propaganda seriously we have to believe Western law enforcement agencies, with all the tools at their command – including near total surveillance of online and telephonic communications worldwide – have no idea what dubious characters have traveled to Syria via, say, New York or London, and would in any case be powerless to prevent their return.

In short, we have to invade yet another country (or two) because our own post-9/11 security arrangements are virtually nonexistent – in spite of having spent untold billions on building them up.

Can that really be true?

If we step back from the hysteria generated by the beheading of US journalist James Foley, what’s clear is that this new bogeyman is the creation of the United States and its allies in the region.

ISIS didn’t just arise out of the earth like some Islamist variation on the fabled Myrmidons: they needed money, weapons, logistics, propaganda facilities, and international connections to reach the relatively high level of organization and lethality they seem to have achieved in such a short period of time. Where did they get these assets?

None of this is any secret: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the rest of the oil-rich Gulf states have been backing them all the way. Prince Bandar al-Sultan, until recently the head of the Kingdom’s intelligence agency – and still the chief of its National Security Council – has been among their biggest backers. Qatar and the Gulf states have also been generous in their support for the Syrian jihadists who were too radical for the US to openly back. Although pressure from Washington – only recently exerted – has reportedly forced them to cut off the aid, ISIS is now an accomplished fact – and how can anyone say that support has entirely evaporated instead of merely going underground?

Washington’s responsibility for the success of ISIS is less direct, but no less damning.

The US was in a de facto alliance with the groups that merged to form ISIS ever since President Barack Obama declared Syria’s Bashar al-Assad “must go” – and Washington started funding Syrian rebel groups whose composition and leadership kept changing. By funding the Free Syrian Army (FSA), our “vetted” Syrian Islamists, this administration has actively worked to defeat the only forces capable of rooting out ISIS from its Syrian nest – Assad’s Ba’athist government. Millions of dollars in overt aid – and who knows how much covertly? – were pumped into the FSA. How much of that seeped into the coffers of ISIS when constantly forming and re-forming chameleon-like rebel groups defected from the FSA? These defectors didn’t just go away: they joined up with more radical – and militarily effective – Islamist militias, some of which undoubtedly found their way to ISIS.

How many ISIS cadres who started out in the FSA were trained and equipped by American “advisors” in neighboring Jordan? We’ll never know the exact answer to that question, but the number is very likely not zero – and this Mother Jones piece shows that, at least under the Clinton-Petraeus duo, the “vetting” process was a joke. Furthermore, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) may well have been on to something when he confronted Hillary with the contention that some of the arms looted from Gaddafi’s arsenals may well have reached the Syrian rebels. There was, after all, the question of where that mysterious “charity ship,” the Al Entisar, carrying “humanitarian aid” to the Syrian rebels headquartered in Turkey, sailed from.

Secondly, the open backing by the US of particular Syrian rebel groups no doubt discredited them in the eyes of most Islamist types, driving them away from the FSA and into the arms of ISIS. When it became clear Washington wasn’t going to provide air support for rebel actions on the ground, these guys left the FSA in droves – and swelled the ranks of groups that eventually coalesced into ISIS.

Thirdly, the one silent partner in all this has been the state of Israel. While there is no evidence of direct Israeli backing, the public statements of some top Israeli officials lead one to believe Tel Aviv has little interest in stopping the ISIS threat – except, of course, to urge Washington to step deeper into the Syrian quagmire.

In a recent public event held at the Aspen Institute, former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren bluntly stated that in any struggle between the Sunni jihadists and their Iranian Shi’ite enemies, the former are the “lesser evil.” They’re all “bad guys,” says Oren, but “we always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.” Last year, Sima Shine, Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, declared:

"The alternative, whereby [Assad falls and] Jihadists flock to Syria, is not good. We have no good options in Syria. But Assad remaining along with the Iranians is worse. His ouster would exert immense pressure on Iran.”

None of this should come as much of a surprise to anyone who has been following Israel’s machinations in the region. It has long been known that the Israelis have been standing very close to the sidelines of the Syrian civil war, gloating and hoping for “no outcome,” as this New York Times piece put it.

Israel’s goal in the region has been to gin up as much conflict and chaos as possible, keeping its Islamic enemies divided, making it impossible for any credible challenge to arise among its Arab neighbors – and aiming the main blow at Tehran. As Ambassador Oren so brazenly asserted – while paying lip service to the awfulness of ISIS and al-Qaeda – their quarrel isn’t really with the Arabs, anyway – it’s with the Persians, whom they fear and loathe, and whose destruction has been their number one objective since the days of Ariel Sharon.

Why anyone is shocked that our Middle Eastern allies have been building up Sunni radicals in the region is beyond me – because this has also been de facto US policy since the Bush administration, which began recruiting American assets in the Sunni region as the linchpin of the Iraqi “surge.” This was part and parcel of the so-called “Sunni turn,” or “redirection,” in Seymour Hersh’s phrase, which, as I warned in 2006, would become Washington’s chosen strategy for dealing with what they called the “Shia crescent” – the crescent-shaped territory spanning Iran, Iraq, Syria, and parts of Lebanon under Hezbollah’s control, which the neocons began pointing to as the Big New Threat shortly after Saddam Hussein’s defeat.

The pro-Sunni orientation of US policymakers wasn’t reversed with the change of administrations: instead, it went into overdrive, especially after the much-vaunted Arab Spring. Both Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State, and David Petraeus, who had yet to disgrace himself and was still CIA director, lobbied intensively for more support to the Syrian rebels. The Sunni Turn took a fateful turn when the Three Harpies of the Apocalypse – Hillary, Susan Rice, and now UN ambassador Samantha Power – hectored Obama into pursuing regime change in Libya. In this case the US and its NATO allies acted as the Islamist militia’s air force while supplying them with arms on the ground and diplomatic support internationally.

Yet even as Libya was imploding from the effects of its “liberation,” the neocons and their “liberal” interventionist allies in the Democratic party – and in the highest reaches of the Obama administration – were building support for yet another fateful “Sunni turn,” this time in Syria. Caving to this pressure, the Obama administration decided to act on accusations of poison gas supposedly used by Assad against the rebels to directly intervene with a bombing campaign modeled along Libyan lines. Only a huge public outcry stopped them.

ISIS could never have been consolidated in the form it has now taken without the strategic disaster of Washington’s “Sunni turn.” While the US may have reason to regret this harebrained strategy, it’s far too late for that – and it looks to me like our “allies” in the region, including Israel, aren’t about to turn on a dime at Obama’s command.

Last year around this time Vladimir Putin very publicly warned against the scenario we are seeing unfold in the Middle East:

“If Assad goes today, a political vacuum emerges – who will fill it? Maybe those terrorist organizations. Nobody wants this – but how can it be avoided? After all, they are armed and aggressive.”

Now that Putin’s prediction has come to pass, we’re too busy confronting him in Ukraine – and dreaming of the day we can do to him what we did to Assad – to acknowledge it. But you can hear the gears of our policymaking machine screaming in protest as Washington does an abrupt about-face and starts cooperating with Assad – previously denounced as the latest edition of Adolph Hitler – by sharing intelligence enabling the Syrian army to target ISIS positions.

We have always been at war with Eurasia. Or is that Eastasia? I forget.

The lesson of all this?

What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to intervene. And deceive – this administration has not only been lying to the American people about the nature of the Syrian “liberators” we’ve been funding with their tax dollars, they also been deceiving themselves. The Sunni Turn has turned on them, and with a vengeance.

The ancient Greeks had a word for the particular sin committed by our political class: they called it hubris– a mindset generated by the belief that humankind can defy the gods and get away with it. Yet the divine pantheon of Olympus had a way of giving these malefactors their comeuppance: they sent the goddess Nemesis to avenge such sacrilege – and she was relentless in her pursuit. The word nemesis has come down to us to mean “the inescapable agent of someone’s or something’s downfall” – and that is as succinct an explanation of the origins of ISIS as we are likely to come across.

Okay, so the anti-interventionists told us so – but now what? What should the United States do about ISIS now that they’ve taken over half of Syria and a third of Iraq?

The answer is: let Assad, the Iranians, the Turks, and, yes, the Russians take care of it, since they are the states directly threatened by the growth of the so-called Islamic State. Why should we fight their war for them?

Contrary to the War Party’s hebephrenic appeals to intervene, inaction on our part is key to the destruction of ISIS. The Grand Caliph of the Islamic State would like nothing more than to be able to portray ISIS as the valiant opponent of a US reentry into the region. It would be a tremendous propaganda victory for them to be able to frame their cause in this context because the result would be a successful international recruiting drive that would fill the ranks of the Islamic State’s army even as hundreds are killed by US drones and missile strikes.

By letting nature take its course and permitting Iraq’s predatory neighbors to gobble up the charred remains of the Iraqi state we destroyed, we can solve a problem we created in the first place, albeit not without incurring the inevitable cost of our initial error – which was invading Iraq in the first place.

ISIS has made a big deal out of declaring the end of the Sykes-Picot agreement, which divided the region between British and French interests at the end of World War I. Having declared their “Islamic State,” ISIS claims to have destroyed the status quo by militarily – and, to much notice, symbolically – erasing the border between Syria and Iraq. The claim is laughable: a ragtag”army” of perhaps 17,000 fighters couldn’t have achieved that without some significant outside help, not only from the Saudis and the Qataris but, decisively, from Washington.

We abolished Sykes-Picot by effectively putting an end to Iraqi statehood. The process was completed when Washington subsequently allied with Iraq’s Sunni tribesmen in a vain hope to avoid the break up of Iraq and drive Al Qaeda out of the country. What happened, instead, was that the Sunni tribesmen’s brothers across the by-then-virtually-nonexistent border were drawn into the Iraqi arena, where they took up the fight against Baghdad – and their American backers.

ISIS didn’t blast Sykes-Picot to pieces: we did, and now we must live with the consequences. Nemesis has taken her pound of flesh.

The best course now is to learn the lesson every child has to absorb before he can attain adulthood in more than merely a physical sense: actions have consequences. Applied to the Middle East, this lesson can only have one meaning: stay out and keep out.

First, you couldn’t trust houseplants & potato chip bags.

But that’s not what’s going to do you in.

No, you’re doomed because of your super-fancy smart phone.

Not from the microphone or the GPS (although that’s not doing you any favors, privacy-wise), it’s the phone’s gyroscope, which automatically rotates the screen when you rotate the phone – it lets anybody eavesdrop on you [emphasis mine]:

The MEMS gyroscopes found on modern smart phones are sufficiently sensitive to measure acoustic signals in the vicinity of the phone. The resulting signals contain only very low-frequency information (

***Since iOS and Android require no special permissions to access the gyro, our results show that apps and active web content that cannot access the microphone can nevertheless eavesdrop on speech in the vicinity of the phone.***

This sort of thing is why I have a superunfancy blitheringidiotphone.

Oh, and at the link, you can also scroll down to find out what else that stalkerment officials don’t need permission to access.

If you need me, I’ll be over here under my tinfoil tent…

Submitted by Justin King (of The Anti-Media) via The Burning Platform blog,

George Orwell ranks among the most profound social critics of the modern era. Some of his quotations, more than a half a century old, show the depth of understanding an enlightened mind can have about the future.

 

1)  “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”

Though many in the modern age have the will to bury their head in the sand when it comes to political matters, nobody can only concern themselves with the proverbial pebble in their shoe. If one is successful in avoiding politics, at some point the effects of the political decisions they abstained from participating in will reach their front door. More often than not, by that time the person has already whatever whisper of a voice the government has allowed them.

 

2)  “All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”

Examining the nightly news in the run up to almost any military intervention will find scores of talking heads crying for blood to flow in the streets of some city the name of which they just learned to pronounce. Once the bullets start flying, those that clamored for war will still be safely on set bringing you up-to-the-minute coverage of the carnage while their stock in Raytheon climbs.

 

3)  “War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.”

It’s pretty self-explanatory and while it may be hard to swallow, it’s certainly true. All it takes is a quick look at who benefited from the recent wars waged by the United States to see Orwell’s quip take life.

 

4)  “The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”

My most prized books are a collection of history books from around the world. I have an Iraqi book that recounts the glory of Saddam Hussein’s victory over the United States in 1991. I have books from three different nations claiming that one of their citizens was the first to fly. As some of the most powerful nations in the world agree to let certain facts be “forgotten,” the trend will only get worse. History is written by the victor, and the victor will never be asked if he told the truth.

 

5)  “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Even without commentary, the reader is probably picturing Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning. The revolutions of the future will not be fought with bullets and explosives, but with little bits of data traveling around the world destroying the false narratives with which governments shackle their citizens.

 

6)  “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”

Make no mistake about it; if an article does not anger someone, it is nothing more than a piece. Most of what passes for news today is little more than an official sounding advertisement for a product, service, or belief.

 

7)  “In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer…”

In every conflict, it is not the side that can inflict the most damage, but the side that can sustain the most damage that ultimately prevails. History is full of situations in which a military “won the battles but lost the war.”

 

8)  “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

Haditha. Panjwai. Maywand District. Mahmudiyah. These names probably don’t ring a bell, but it is almost a certainty that the reader is aware of the brutality that occurred in Benghazi. The main difference is that in the first four incidents, those committing the acts of brutality were wearing an American flag on their shoulder.

 

9)  “Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”

Everyday there is a new form of censorship or a new method of forcing people into self-censorship, and the people shrug it off because it only relates to a small minority. By the time the people realize their ability to express disapproval has been completely restricted, it may be too late. That brings us to Orwell’s most haunting quote.

 

10)  “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

Once the people are indoctrinated with nationalistic beliefs, and the infrastructure to protect them from some constantly-changing and ever-expanding definition of an enemy is in place, there is no ability for the people to regain liberty. By the time all of the pieces are in place, not only is opportunity to regain freedom, but the will to achieve freedom has also evaporated. The reader will truly love Big Brother.

YouTuber waterskizone has a pet macaw named Vito that loves to fly. But where another parrot might be perfectly content to stretch its wings circling above a field, Vito, it seems, has a distinct preference for the open road – especially when his owner comes along for the ride.

Read more...

Every group has that one friend… [banglesong]

 

 

View online      Forward   August 22, 2014   Useful Idiots and the Something For Nothing Society - Part 4 of 5 Send To A Friend | View Past Articles | Subscribe | PDF Version                      In this next chapter of Useful Idiots and the Something for Nothing Society, we will put the final nails into a century’s UNFOLDING MADNESS.  A country of free men has been transformed into an authoritarian state on its road to totalitarianism as the final denouement unfolds under their policies. The final connecting dots of from whence we came, where we are today, and the inevitable destination of societal and economic collapse of empire as has been seen throughout history and Austrian economics.  It’s been an EXTREMELY interesting journey, one which has been full of opportunities and heartbreaks.  I have witnessed much of it in my 58 years.  At the time of many events, I did not understand the significance of them. Now, I believe I do.  This is not a story of doom and gloom. It is the story of man, human behavior and history repeating.  In the Rise and Fall of empires and societies such as ours, it is always darkest before the dawn. We are in the late evening (9pm) heading towards midnight in my opinion.  Soon the destruction will come to an end with a bang, and spring can emerge as the global economic system and societies are rebuilt from the ashes.  It has always been so throughout history.  This time will be no different. When people ask you what’s wrong with the world and you tell them and they stare back at you with an empty look, you can print this series out and hand it to them and they can read it in a hour.   In Part I of this series we covered the transformation of the monetary system from sound reserve backed constitutionally mandated currency system to what now has become completely unsound Fiat currency and credit system.  Money has changed from a system for storing wealth, purchasing power and ones labor for the future to a confiscation scheme run for the benefit of Banksters and socialist progressive government.  Do not miss this as UNSOUND money and Reserveless banking is the master thread and foundation of all the chaos unfolding in the world today.   In PART II of this series we thoroughly covered how the ACCOUNTABLE, LOCALLY controlled education systems have been high jacked and transformed into FEDERALLY CONTROLLED, UNACCOUNTABLE, public school MONOPOLIES designed to create sheeple and Useful Idiots ripe for exploitation.   The Locally controlled school systems that created the most prosperous country in the history of man are now nothing more than PROGRESSIVE SOCIALIST indoctrination centers designed to mentally cripple the futures of our children.  It is now an insidious system to create morally and fiscally insolvent citizens, bereft of histories lessons, contemptuous of what created our exceptional country and its burgeoning middle classes, unable to produce more than they consume.  They do not know how to live prudent and productive lives and DO NOT have the BASIC knowledge needed to build a prosperous and independent life.   In Part III of this series, we covered the impoverishment of the masses and how they have been turned from free men into debt and tax slaves through the scheme known as Fiat currency and credit creation and creeping centralized government.  We learned how the value of their wages has been reduced and debased by the very people in whom they have placed their trust: the government and banking/financial systems.  In reality, the powers that be have created a land of serfs in the developed world.  Only serfs had it better as they only gave 25% of their incomes to their masters and dealt in coin based sound money.   In history, one man’s taking of the fruits of another man’s labor was called SLAVERY.  Now, in the land of George Orwell we have become, it is called FAIRNESS.  Real money is basically EXTINCT in today’s world, except for gold and silver, killed by the elites who control the world today.  All three previous parts of this series are critical foundations to this edition: DON’T MISS THEM.   Now onto today’s missive:   While government has grown, so has its CONTROL over and destruction of the PRIVATE sector, and FREE ENTERPRISE!  Regulating personal freedom, free market capitalism and opportunity away from the private sector and entrepreneurs to their crony capitalist partners in crime. This is the imposition of the socialist fascist state the US has BECOME!  The EU, Japan and UK are WORSE.         Small business is where most if not all job creation comes from.  It is entrepreneurs with better ideas entering the economy in the quest of the holy grail of providing MORE GOODS AND SERVICES TO THE PUBLIC FOR LESS MONEY.  It is the ultimate PUBLIC service as it lets people get MORE FOR THEIR MONEY and thus gives their families a better standard of living.  In the Something for Nothing Society, corrupt public officials and crony capitalists stand against this process.  They want to take the fruits of the industrious and transfer it to themselves as entitlements and to their crony supporters as regulated demand to themselves.  Just another way to KILL their emerging new COMPETITORS, they raise the price of entry into business for them.  Look at this disparity of the costs of the regulatory state by enterprise size:     PENALIZED for creating a business and new jobs, these numbers are from 2008 so the regulatory freight train since that time has added considerably to this disparity and crime against the private sector which is where wealth and incomes come from.  These last two illustrations are from a working paper called 10,000 Commandments by the American Enterprise Institute, and are the picture of loss of PERSONAL and BUSINESS freedoms.   It represents CAPITALISM, entrepreneurism, competition, productivity and innovation PROHIBITED by LAW.  It is the imposition of SLAVERY of those that produce by those who DO NOT!  It is also central government tyranny, crony capitalism, less goods and services for more money, and economic central planning being IMPOSED BY LAW!  What you see here is but the tip of a regulatory ICEBERG.  Icebergs sink things: in this case it is the US and European economies.  Progressive socialists have become totalitarians in the past and this is one way they do it.   “Like many of the challenges we're facing, the tipping point we're approaching is the result of a liberal progressive mindset that seeks a larger, more active government and lets bureaucrats decide what's best for everyone instead of allowing citizens to govern themselves. Its response to every social problem is more government, more bureaucracy and more taxpayer money.” - Rep Paul Ryan   This is reported by NO ONE in the main stream media and few outside it, as it is a SILENT KILLER working in the shadows of Brussels and Washington DC. It is SEIZING and hammering away at your freedoms, cementing their interests into place above yours and passing laws to attempt to stop future change.  Can you imagine a world where unsuccessful policies are NEVER REFORMED or REPEALED? This is IT!   “If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.” - Winston Churchill   “Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.”  - Thomas Paine   Those regulations number in the millions.  We are expected to know and comply with them all.  Not knowing them is no excuse. Men’s rea, has been SUSPENDED (men’s rea is the idea that you have to have the knowledge and intent to violate the law, if you did not you were not guilty).  Now, we are expected to know and comply with millions of words of regulatory and legal gibberish, indecipherable to the common man.  Everyone’s behavior and endeavors must comply with the thoughts of a bureaucrat who has no idea of the realities of business, nor the problems or situations they are trying to regulate. This was done to you by your elected representatives in Washington DC and Brussels.  They turned every one of us into habitual criminals OVERNIGHT, just waiting to be picked up, or challenge them PUBLICLY. Then, they will roll out the law and TAKE YOU and YOUR family down for challenging their POWER OVER YOU and your behavior.  FREEDOM DENIED!   "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force, like fire it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master." - George Washington   A totalitarian state has been put in place; you just haven’t been notified yet.   You are subject to ARREST if you do not COMPLY to rules which DO NOT WORK in REAL LIFE.  Real life problems will not yield to faraway and fairytale solutions.  They think themselves GODS but are imbeciles of hubris.  Mostly PROBLEMS must be solved by those directly confronted with them, think doctor/patient relationships.  Should that between patient and their doctors be handled by a RULE BOOK?  Obamacare, Medicaid and increasingly Medicare are RULE BOOK medicine. Their explanation for this behavior: you have no knowledge of the issues you are bring confronted with and they are doing this to save and protect you.  Of course, the public school monopolies work to insure general stupidity.   Government rulebooks now exist for almost EVERY activity in the PRIVATE SECTOR.  The rules they have for themselves (constitution, IRS, Immigration, NSA, etc.) are ROUTINELY IGNORED, with no penalty to themselves for their CRIMES against the rule of law or the public at large.     "The two enemies of the people are criminals and Government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” - Thomas Jefferson   Washington DC regularly ignores and works to undo the supreme laws of the land, and insists we comply with laws and regulations which are blatantly UNCONSTITUTIONAL.  Progressive socialists and their useful idiot supporters call the constitution a LIVING document subject to endless reinterpretation.  No! It is not.  Only weasel word lawyers and “would be” MONARCHS and RULERS think this. They are working to impose this on the something for nothing societies and useful idiots.  We are in a constant constitutional crisis. Our Constitution is being completely eviscerated on a daily basis by the powers that be in Washington DC (District of Corruption). How many people really understand that FEDERAL EMPLOYEES are not subject to being FIRED?  Do you think they can be held accountable for their actions if they can’t be fired?  Once again: NEVER REPORTED.  This is the destruction of private sector opportunities, common sense solutions, and the middle class.   None of this is new.  Wise men and women have written about it for centuries. It happens over and over again throughout HISTORY.  It is the decline, destruction and demise of EMPIRES!  They kill what made them great.   The last time TAXES and REGULATIONS were reduced was the presidency of Ronald Reagan.  He tore the chains of overregulation off the American economy and it BOOMED as you shall see later in this missive.  Take a look…     Ronald Reagan cut the regulatory chains on the private sector by ONE THIRD, and people reacted accordingly.  They went to work because it PAID to do so.  They innovated, started small businesses, hired people and the economy BOOMED after a DECADE of STAGFLATION.  Reagan was MORNING IN AMERICA as he cut the government regulations and confiscatory taxes that were binding us.  That ECONOMIC miracle can be REPEATED!   Just lift the chains of overregulation and taxation off the American people!  Chance of that NIL.  It is why Reagan’s memory and the truth of the economy at that time is VILIFIED, and misreported by progressive socialists.  He stood AGAINST everything they stand FOR.  The results are a testament to the different outcomes of the two approaches to societal wealth creation.  Freedom and reward for hard work versus government authoritarianism and confiscatory taxation of the fruits of your labor.   "I think we have more machinery of Government than is necessary, to many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." - Thomas Jefferson   “The more corrupt the state the more it legislates.” - Cicero   “We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”  - Ayn Rand   "It doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? Such machinery already exists." - Ronald Reagan   Tocqueville also foresaw exactly how this regulatory state would suffocate the spirit of free enterprise:   "It rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces [the] nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd." - Alexis de Tocqueville   "Whenever men are allowed liberty, and freedom of choice, they will make mistakes. Liberty is not a guarantee of omniscience. But neither are the mistakes of free-men a valid excuse to take away their liberty, and impose Government controls in its stead, on the ground that all wisdom and disinterestedness resides in the people who are going to do the controlling."  - Henry Hazlitt   Bureaucracies have life cycles as all things do in nature and God’s world.  Here is an excellent illustration explaining them by Charles Hugh Smith of www.oftwominds.com. We are firmly on the bottom row depending on what state or country you reside in:     This is why the economy can’t recover as State and Federal bureaucracy has grown to a point of poisoning the economic system in the US and Europe.  It does not pay to start a business or hire a worker as the obstacles are just growing and growing.  Take a look at this chart from the Brookings institution showing more businesses closing than beginning. It is NO COINCIDENCE that this began in 2008 when the president took office:     This is a picture of the entrepreneurism and dynamism of the US economy GRINDING to a STOP as it no longer pays to take the risk of starting a business while expectations of the future of the economy under government policies are so NEGATIVE.  This is the face of a something for nothing society destroying and outlawing the incentives to produce. RUNAWAY REGULATIONS and mindless BUREAUCRACIES are now blocking the blood system of the economy, throwing EVER GROWING sand in the gears of the system.   The more it grows, the more it destroys the economy going forward.  That is actually its reason to exist - to take over more and more of your lives, confiscate your freedoms and opportunities and transfer it to themselves and their cronies.  This is one of the BASIC REASONS Europe and AMERICA CANNOT recover.  This REGULATORY STATE must be REFORMED before the economy will resume real growth. Do you really think the SOMETHING for NOTHING family is getting $14,758 dollars’ worth of safety from the federal government and its regulations? Or would that money be better served in their POCKETS? This COST goes UNREPORTED by the main stream media.  As the government legislates and regulates, COMPLIANCE officers will be entering our lives more and more to document and punish those that don’t COMPLY.  Compliance officers are now the largest job opportunity in America and Dodd Frank, the Affordable Care Act and other malevolent legislation from the president’s first term will just grow and grow.  It is an ever growing python squeezing the life out of America.   Backing out misstated inflation and illustrating the cost of runaway government and regulation, the REAL economy has been in SECULAR DECLINE since 1971.     The NUMBERS don’t LIE. Notice how Growth in REAL terms skyrocketed when REAGAN CUT TAXES and SLASHED REGULATION rolling back the Something for Nothing Society and WELFARE STATE?  The economic expansion ENDED as the same time his presidency did (Bush was a socialist progressive in disguise as a conservative just as his son was and is).  May Ronnie rest in peace, he was the greatest president of my lifetime in my opinion and you can see it in the numbers.  Most if not all GDP since 2000 is courtesy of MISREPORTED INFLATION to FOOL the USEFUL idiots and Something for nothing society. All GDP growth is nominal (measured in fake DEPRECIATING dollars and misreported inflation) not real wealth creation. Our standards of living and economies are IN FREEFALL; the Middle class is desperate for an improving economy and the ability to GET ahead.  THOSE DAYS ARE GONE courtesy of the money printers, banksters, public servants, bureaucrats and the elites which CONTROL THEM. Useful idiots will vote for any CHARLETON who promises an ability to get ahead as it SOUNDS GOOD. The same people the USEFUL idiots have PUT in CHARGE! Author’s Note: In my opinion the greatest manmade disaster and OPPORTUNITY in history is unfolding in every corner of the world. Are you diversified or operating with EYES WIDE SHUT? Are you prepared to turn it into opportunity by properly diversifying your portfolio? Adding absolute return investments which are designed with the potential to thrive (up and down markets) regardless of what unfolds economically or politically? This is what I do for investors; help them diversify into investments which are created to potentially thrive in the storm. For a personal consultation with me CLICK HERE! In closing, today we learned of the totalitarian state being cemented into place by Washington DC and Brussels (European Commission).  Statehouses and individual countries in the EU have done all this and more.  Putting two layers of economic and personal destruction upon their SUBJECTS.  They are not your servants, you are theirs.  The word “public servant” is an oxymoron and doublespeak.  One meaning for you, another for them.  It is corruption on plain display, but largely unseen until it smashes you in the face and diminishes your futures like the silent KILLER.  What I have just detailed has EXPLODED in size since the Global financial crisis.   As Rahm Emanual for chief of staff to the president once said:   "You never want to let a serious crisis go to waste."  - Rahm Emanuel   Well, they didn’t waste it on either side of the Atlantic.   Reform may be something the political class utters but makes no actions to do so.  The REQUIRED road to recovery has become much FARTHER AWAY.  Many MAIN STREAM leaders say this is urgent priority but their admonitions go unaddressed.   The socialists in charge today say this is to protect you as you are too stupid to protect yourself.  Of course, much of that is true as almost 40% of the public has now been dumbed down and mentally disabled by design in the public school monopolies they have IMPOSED upon us.  For those poor souls, the future is very bleak and, for those that can take care of themselves, slavery lies ahead as the people the useful idiots support and vote for legislate are the DUMBEST AMONG US.  The developed world is increasingly being brought on a sociopathic road.  It is the definition of useful idiots and something for nothing societies.  As they grow, so grows the insane behavior and outcomes throughout our lives.   Laws must be simple, easily understood and widely known to be complied with.  We all want the rule of law versus the rule of man.  The rule of man is known as dictatorship, while the rule of law is known as a constitutional republic, what was given to us by the founding fathers.  The insidious nature of the imposed legal and regulatory systems is a crime against all free men.  These systems are contrary to the constitution and magna carta, which enshrined the powers over government to the man on the street aka the public.  This is enslavement, freedoms and private property rolling back in plain sight to a public, which does not know or has not been taught history.   Laws and regulations are NEVER REPEALED or REFORMED, only left on the books to expand government power over the people and economy.  I can’t imagine a better way to poison our futures than not policing ourselves and throwing out what no longer works.  Government is not the solution to problems, it is the cause of them.  Useful idiots have been taught just the opposite and vote for it.  It is another example of how the suicide of the greatest nation ever on earth is unstoppable as their legions just grow and grow, manufactured by the school systems in which we have misplaced our trust and our children.   Don’t miss the explosive final edition of USEFUL IDIOTS and the Something for Nothing Society and its alarming conclusions.  You may have it delivered to your inbox as Subscriptions to this commentary are FREE - CLICK HERE.  The momentum to the fall of empire is unstoppable and the system which spawns it is in place.  Take the time to read the first 3 parts of the series as they are the foundations of the subsequent letter.  They are available to you - CLICK HERE!   May God Bless you all,  Ty DISCLAIMER AND TERMS OF USE: While TedBits strives to present accurate and useful information, we make no guarantee of accuracy or completeness. All information and opinion expressed herein is subject to change without notice. Opinions and recommendations contained herein should not be construed as investment advice. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell any securities or commodities. Do not assume that any recommendations, insights, charts, theories or philosophies will ensure profitable investment. The information contained herein is for personal use only. Any redistribution of this information is strictly prohibited. Gold and silver backed means that various commodity options strategies in gold and/or silver may be used. When buying options, you may lose all of the money paid for the option. When selling options, you may lose more than the funds received for selling the option. Strategies using combinations of positions, such as spreads or straddles, may be as risky as taking a simple long or short position. A high degree of leverage is used to buy or sell a sufficient quantity of options and/or underlying futures contracts equal to the value of the entire portfolio. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you and lead to large losses as well as large gains. Absolute-return is not meant to imply that a positive return can or will be achieved. Absolute-return describes investment strategies which are designed to have the potential to succeed in rising, market-neutral and falling market conditions. Gold and silver backed and absolute return investments do not mean the investor will take actual physical possessions of any precious metal. Nor should any promise or guarantee be implied that such investments will perform better than any other investment in any possible future scenario described herein nor that such investments can or will preserve or protect in such possible future scenarios. TedBits may include information obtained from sources believed to be reliable and accurate as of the date of this publication, but no independent verification has been made to ensure its accuracy or completeness. Many of the statements and views made are the opinions of the author. Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. This report is not a request to engage in any transaction involving the purchase or sale of futures contracts or options on futures. There is a substantial risk of loss associated with trading futures, foreign exchange and options on futures. This letter is not intended as investment advice, and its use in any respect is entirely the responsibility of the user. Past performance in never a guarantee of future results.   You are currently signed up to The Ted Bits newsletters. To unsubscribe click here

We've long-argued that red light cameras, those little flashy things that ticket you for going through a stop light, have always been way less about safety and almost entirely about generating revenue for municipalities. And, while we've covered how corrupted the money-flow of these systems can be, you just have to admire the brazenly "Chicago-way" story of how the windy city got into bed with camera peddlers.

The former chief executive officer of Redflex, a major red light camera (RLC) vendor, has been indicted on federal corruption charges stemming from a contract with the City of Chicago. On Wednesday, in addition to former CEO Karen Finley, government prosecutors also indicted John Bills, former managing deputy commissioner at the Department of Transportation, and Bills' friend Martin O'Malley, who was hired as a contractor by Redflex.

Now, I can tell you as a native of the area that city officials getting indicted on corruption charges along with the company bribers barely registers as news here any longer. Hell, we send governors to prison like it was the official retirement plan for the office. The charges in this indictment, however, are a special brand of sleazy. Redflex sold the city on the cameras, hired O'Malley as a contractor for $2 million dollars, and O'Malley then sent much of that cash directly back to DoT official John Bills, like some kind of monetary boomerang. Redflex then got into the act directly, because why the hell not.

Via Redflex employees, Bills also acquired a Mercedes and a condominium in Arizona. A May 2014 affidavit written by an FBI special agent suggests that Bills likely used some of this money to purchase and store a boat, buy a car, pay for an addition to his Michigan cabin, pay for his girlfriend's mortgage, pay his own mortgage, pay his kids' schools, and hire a divorce attorney over the course of several years.

To be fair to Bills, it costs a lot of money to keep your side-piece living happily while you divorce the mother of your children and update that sweet cabin-pad. Oh, it should also be mentioned that Redflex employees sent Bills on a couple of vacations over half a decade, and by "couple" I mean seventeen. This all adds up to 23 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, bribery, and some additional charges thrown in because screw these guys. And it's not as though these stupid cameras all this corruption paid for actually, you know, worked. The Chicago Tribune's reporting indicates that something like 13,000 bogus tickets were issued to city residents via Redflex cameras, which were dropped in 2013 due in part to this scandal.

But, hey, don't worry, guys. Redflex is all over this problem.

"Last year we announced aggressive leadership changes, industry leading compliance policies and procedures, and a distinction between our past and present," Jody Ryan, a spokeswoman, wrote to Ars. "Redflex Traffic Systems is moving forward. Since we announced these changes we have signed, renewed, or executed over 100 contracts. Redflex has cooperated fully with the investigative authorities while maintaining the integrity of our customer programs. Our focus is on making a life-saving difference in the communities we serve across the country."

Except their cameras don't do any of that and nobody is going to trust anything coming from the company or city officials about the effectiveness of the cameras, either, what with the details on how the Chicago bid was won by Redflex being revealed. It turns out that Bills actually coached Redflex on how to win the bid, rigged the voting order so that members of the evaluation committee Bills had convinced to vote for Redflex would vote first (indicating broad support to other members), and then had the company hire his buddy, O'Malley, as the Chicago account manager for Redflex.

When it comes to Chicago politics, contracts, and the like, this is as Chicago as it gets. However, given that the whole red light camera thing is a money-making scheme to begin with, the whole concept reeks of corruption. Kill these things off now, please.

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…. are from Ludwig von Mises, writing in Human Action.

1. A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.

2. Every socialist is a disguised dictator.

HT: Dennis Gartman

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
What’s confusing you
Is the nature of my game

- The Rolling Stones

The reason that Internet trolls are effective is that people still don’t understand their game.

There are 15 commonly-used trolling tactics to disrupt, misdirect and control internet discussions.

As one interesting example, trolls start flame wars because – according to two professors – swearing and name-calling shut down our ability to think and focus.

And trolls will often spew divisive attacks so that people argue against each other, instead of bad actions and policies of the powers-that-be.   For example, trolls will:

Start a religious war whenever possible using stereotypes like “all Jews are selfish”, “all Christians are crazy” or “all Muslims are terrorists”.

Yesterday, the alternative news site Common Dreams caught a troll using scores of different user names to spew anti-Semitic bile. (Common Dreams discovered that the same troll was behind the multiple user names by tracking their IP addresses. And the troll confessed to Common Dreams.)

The troll is a “a Jewish Harvard graduate in his thirties who was irritated by the website’s discussion of issues involving Israel”.

He posted anti-Semitic diatribes – such as Hitler should have finished the job and killed all Jews – using one alias.  Then – a couple of minutes later – he’d post an attack on the first poster using a different alias, claiming that criticism of Israel is the same thing as anti-Semitism.  (Note: Holocaust survivors and Israeli ministers say it’s not.)

Why would a Jew post vile anti-Semitic comments?  Because normal people are offended by – and don’t want to be associated with – pure, naked anti-Semitism, and so they will avoid such discussions.  If the discussion was originally criticizing a specific aspect of Israeli policy, the discussion will break down, and the actual point regarding policy will be lost.

Similarly, anti-Semitic posts weaken websites by making them seem less reputable. Indeed, Common Dreams says that the troll’s anti-Semitic comments drove away many of that site’s largest donors … dealing a severe blow to its continued viability. That’s exactly what trolls spewing anti-Semitic bile are trying to do: shut down logical discussion and discredit and weaken sites which allow rational criticism of policy.

It is well-known that foreign  governments and large companies troll online. See this, this this, and this. For example, the Israeli government is paying students to post pro-Israeli comments online.

And American students are also attempting to influence internet discussion.

While the Common Dreams troll claims that he’s not sponsored by the state of Israel, government  agencies have manipulated  Internet discussion for years. This includes the use of multiple “socket puppet” aliases.  The potential for mischief is stunning.

Unless we learn their game …

Before we get to this week’s list of Stuff to Read While You’re Pretending to Work I wanted to quickly remind everyone about mine and Dean Somerset’s Excellent Workshop High-Five the weekend of October 18th in Washington, DC.

You may be wondering what the heck is an Excellent Workshop High-Five? Well, for starters we couldn’t just name this shindig “Hey You, Come Hang Out With Us!” or “An American and a Canadian Walk Into a Gym…..”

We had to give it some pizzazz.  Hence, the title.

Second, and most important, this is a two-day event, where Dean and I bleed just about everything we know with regards to assessment, program design, coaching, and everything in between.  It’s very much an opportunity to learn from two coaches who have been around the block and who have a TON of coaching experience.  Plus it’s an opportunity to earn some continuing education credits and see what I’m like before and after drinking a Spike.

For more information regarding location, itinerary, accommodations, and price you can go HERE.

Elite Athletic Development Seminar - Mike Robertson & Joe Kenn

There are a handful of coaches where whenever they talk, write, or allude to anything strength and conditioning I’ll drop whatever it is I’m doing and listen and soak up as much information as I can.

Unless I’m getting fed grapes by a Victoria Secret model, then it can wait. But other than that I’m glued.

I have an immense amount of respect for both Mike and Coach Kenn and this seminar series is about as close as you’re going to get to a master class on how to develop freaky athletes as you’re going to get.

The introductory sale of $150 off ends TONIGHT (8/22) at midnight.  In addition everyone who purchases will be able to sit in on a live Q&A with both Mike and Coach Kenn.

What’s more, if you’re a coach or personal trainer the NSCA approved this course for 1.4 CEUs. Holla!

There’s little reason not to jump on the train folks.  Go HERE, and thank me later.

4 Tips You Need to Know For a Bigger Bench Press - Adam Pine

There’s a lot more to building an impressive bench press than you think.  I really enjoyed this article by Adam because he hammers home the importance of the set-up (which is something a lot of trainees never think about).

9 Tips for Dedicated Lifters – Dan John

We should all just shut-up and listen to Dan John.  He’s always right anyway.

2 Bonus Articles From Yours Truly <——- That Be Me

The 8 Most Dangerous Exercises For Your Shoulders – this is an article that both myself and Eric contributed to on Stack.com.

So You Think You Can Design a Good Workout? – this is an article I recently wrote for MensHealth.com on the topic of program design where I hit on some quick and easy (and I hope self explanatory) tips to make your programs more effective.

Enjoy the weekend everyone!

From George Will, the logic behind what I call the health care Trojan Horse

Washington’s response to the menace of school bake sales illustrates progressivism’s ratchet: The federal government subsidizes school lunches, so it must control the lunches’ contents, which validates regulation of what it calls “competitive foods,” such as vending machine snacks. Hence the need to close the bake sale loophole, through which sugary cupcakes might sneak: Foods sold at fundraising bake sales must, with some exceptions, conform to federal standards.

So if school lunch programs are a platform for so much micro-regulation, how much regulation do you think the government takeover of healthcare will justify?  If government is paying most of the health care bills, then any activity that might affect your health is then logically subject to government regulation, if for no other reason than to protect against additional costs.  Motorcycle helmet laws have been justified for years on this logic that helmetless riders impose additional costs on government health programs.  Well, if that works for motorcycling, why shouldn't government be heavily regulating skiing?  Or for that matter, why should it allow people to drive cars at all?  Perhaps we should have to get government approval before every car trip to make sure it is not "frivolous" and creating future health care costs through accident risk.

Or how about that most costly-to-health-care activity of all: sex.  Sex spreads expensive diseases.  It can lead to expensive procedures like abortion.  And of course it can lead to costly pregnancies and, worst of all, new lives that have to be maintained for another 80 years by the government health care system.  If funding school lunch programs leads logically to banning cupcake sales at schools, why won't Obamacare lead logically to micro-regulation of our every activity?

King County, Texas has seen the biggest shift in political preferences of all US counties since 1960 according to WaPo; but as io9's Mark Strauss notes reveal that during the last two decades, this is not unusual - an increasing number of Americans have chosen to veer Right or Left in their political orientation - with almost no center ground. That trend becomes especially apparent when looking at U.S. election results, county-by-county, since 1960.

 

As WaPo reports,

We also identified the two counties that changed the most and least between 1960 and 2012. Wyoming County, N.Y., has voted 30-plus percentage points more Republican than the rest of the country in basically every election since John Kennedy first won. King County, Tex., however, has gotten remarkably more conservative.

This is how every single county in the United States has voted vs. the national average since 1960.

 

The redder the red, the more Republican the county voted than the rest of the country. The bluer the blue, the more Democratic it voted.

Source: The Washington Post

Remember all those allegations that Obamacare would be an unmitigated disaster for businesses, especially smaller companies? Well, now we have proof.

As the Philly Fed, which mysteriously soared at the headline level even as the vast majority of its components tumbled, reported moments ago, "in special questions this month, firms were asked qualitative questions about the effects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and how, if at all, they are making changes to their employment and compensation, including benefits."

What the survey found was very disturbing: not only did businesses report that as a result of Obamacare the number of workers they employ is lower than higher (18.2% vs 3.0%), that there has been an increase in part time jobs (18.2% higher vs 1.5% lower), leading to a big increase in outsourcing and most importantly, Obamacare costs are being largely passed on to customers (28.8% reporting higher vs 0.0% lower), the punchline was that while there is basically no change in the number of employees covered (17.6% higher vs 14.7% lower and 67.6% unchanged), there has been a big jump in Premiums, Deductibles, Out-of-pocket maximums, and Copays, which has been "matched" by a far greater reduction in the range of medical coverage and the size of the network.

In short a disaster.

And what's worse, this sentiment will persist long after the current subprime auto loan-driven manufacturing renaissance is long forgotten.

Eventually, video game companies are going to have to come to terms with the fact that their biggest fans can also be immensely creative and that they often want to channel that creativity towards adding to the game franchises they love. Thus far, the vast majority of fan-driven projects having anything to do with video game franchises are met with stonewall takedowns and cease and desist letters. The most frustrating of these are when mixed signals are sent to the fans engaged in these projects, where the people doing the work are under the impression that their efforts have been cleared for takeoff only to be grounded late in development. To treat creative folks who can be amongst a company's greatest fans that way is to bite the hand that feeds them in a very real way.

And now it's happened again. A group of dedicated Metal Gear fans endeavoring to remake the original 1987 NES title in Valve's Source engine and had been in contact with a Konami rep the entire time. After month's of work, Konami apparently just informed them that they no longer had permission and forced them to shut it all down.

"The project has been shut down by Konami," an email sent to the site read. "Seems that they all couldn't agree on the project going ahead."

The mod team also revealed that David Hayter was on board to voice Snake, and had even recorded some lines for it. It posted a work-in-progress trailer showing a rough cut of scenes yet to be animated, complete with Hayter's dialogue.

In correspondence elsewhere, remake organizer Ian Ratcliffe indicated that he had been in regular contact with a Konami representative in the UK about the project and that he'd been given the all clear, with the stipulation that the game not be sold commercially. The carpet was then pulled out from underneath the team by Konami's legal department in Japan. Ratcliffe was far more understanding than many people might have been.

The agreement was made verbally, we first got approval a couple of months back after being told to take the moddb page down. Following that Jay Boor from Konami UK, told me that the agreement was getting written up by Japans legal team. (We were contacted by a couple of guys from Japan initially but since it's all been through Jay.) We were told to keep the page down as they wanted to make the announcement once E3 was out of the way. I'm not really sure what happened to be honest, we had a lot of back and forth with Jay and he was in full support of the project. It seems that the whole of Konami was divided on whether we should go ahead or not but I think ultimately it was Japans decision.

I totally understand their reason in doing so, not matter how disheartened the team is, we thank them from the bottom of our hearts for all that they've done, Jay especially. Not to forget the huge amount of support we got from the fans, to which we're more than grateful for. We got to work alongside industry professionals, it's been really inspiring and I feel privileged to have been a part of it. We aren't gonna be sour about the whole thing it's the experience that counts.

We're now in the planning stages of making our own IP, in the words of Liquid Snake - "It's not over yet!"

It's an amazingly gracious and politic reaction to what was essentially the dicking over of the effort of a dedicated group of fans by Konami's legal team. To spend months working on a title, organizing labor, getting some impressive voice talent on board, all in good faith under the notion that a Konami rep had given the green light, and to then have all that work torn away by the very company whose work you love so much must be a hell of a feeling. Sure, Ratcliffe's team should have gotten the correspondence and the 'okay' in writing, but there's still no reason for Konami to dump on their fans like this. There was no commercial interest here, just the love of the game, so to speak. All in the name of copyright.

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There’s a pretty interesting and stark contrast between two completely different approaches to saving wildlife in Africa (rhinos, elephants, lions, leopards and African buffaloes, etc.): a) ban the private ownership and all commercialization of wildlife except for eco-tourism vs. b) allow the private ownership of wildlife and legalize commercial activities relating to wildlife like private game ranching. Most African countries like Kenya take the first approach – individuals are not allowed to own or profit commercially from wildlife. A change in South Africa’s law in 1991 legalizing private ownership of wildlife and private game ranching provides a natural experiment to compare the two approaches.

A recent Bloomberg article provides these details:

1. South Africa’s private game-ranching is a $1.1 billion a year industry and growing at 10 percent annually. Foreign hunters, about 60 percent of whom came from the U.S., spent $118.1 million on licenses to hunt in South Africa in 2012.

2. Private game ranches have increased fivefold to 10,000 since South Africans were allowed to own and profit commercially from wild animals. The game ranches cover 20 million hectares, or about 16 percent of the country’s land.

So what’s happened to the number of wild animals in South Africa?

3. The private game industry is largely responsible for boosting the country’s large mammal population to 24 million, the most since the 19th century, and up from 575,000 in the early 1960s. For example, South Africa now has more than 20,000 white rhinos, 80 percent of the world’s total, up from 1,800 in 1968 when limited hunting was first introduced.

4. South Africa’s law change has also led to a commercial trade in wild animals with captive-bred species ranging from sable antelope to wildebeest sold at wildlife auctions.

And what about the situation in Kenya?

5. Kenya has lost 80 percent of its wildlife since it banned hunting in 1977 and large-mammal numbers are declining by 4.2 percent a year. The country’s elephant population has dropped 76 percent since the 1970s, while rhinos are down 95 percent.

MP: As counter-intuitive and paradoxical as it might seem, the best way to save African elephants, lions, leopards and rhinos from extinction is to kill them and eat them – in limited numbers of course. That is, by allowing private ownership and game ranching in South Africa, wild animals like the rhino have a commercial value that naturally results in greater conservation and protection efforts (“sustainability”) than in countries like Kenya, where wildlife naturally and predictably decline in numbers as victims of the “tragedy of the commons.”

As Steven Landsburg reminds us in The Armchair Economist, “Most of economics can be summarized in four words: People respond to incentives. The rest is commentary.” It shouldn’t be surprising then that wild animals are increasing in numbers in South Africa and decreasing in Keyna – private property rights, commercial use, market pricing, and the profit motive are the incentives that make all the difference in the world.

If there is such thing as a perfect motorcycle accident, this might be it: a motorcyclist crashes full speed into a car that's changing lanes. That's bad. The crash launches his body into a spinning mess in the air. That's definitely bad. But yet somehow he manages to flip and land standing up on the car's roof.

Read more...

stunes530:

bittenlipsandbrokenhearts:

Get the fuck out

Wut.

by uaiHebert

Equal protection means that the same law applies to everyone, at least in theory.  But compare these two stories:

1. Exxon fined $600,000 for 85 bird deaths in five states over five years

Exxon Mobil has agreed to pay $600,000 in penalties after approximately 85 migratory birds died of exposure to hydrocarbons at some of its natural gas facilities across the Midwest.

The fine amounts to about $7,000 per dead bird.

The oil company pleaded guilty to causing the deaths of waterfowl, hawks, owls and other protected species, which perished around natural gas well pits or water storage areas in Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Texas over the last five years....

“We are all responsible for protecting our wildlife, even the largest of corporations,” said David M. Gaouette, the United States attorney in Colorado, in a statement accompanying the Justice Department’s announcement.

We are all responsible for protecting our wildlife... except if we are politically-favored solar companies with strong ties to the Obama White House

2. No fines for solar power plant that may be killing 28,000 birds a year

A common sight in the sky above the world's largest solar thermal power plant is a "streamer," a small plume of smoke that occurs without warning. Closer inspection, however, reveals that the source of the smoke is a bird which has inadvertently strayed into the white-hot heat above the plant's many reflecting mirrors. Because the BrightSource Energy plant near Ivanpah uses supercritical steam rather than photovoltaic energy, the sun's heat is reflected off more than 300,000 mirrors to a single point, which is used to drive a steam turbine. The downside of that, of course, is that it's lethal for any wildlife that strays into the picture -- a problem that was recognized well before the facility opened, but now the government has gotten involved.

Government wildlife inspectors believe that insects are drawn to the highly reflective mirrors, which in turn lures local birds to their doom. BrightSource feels that the issue has been overblown, claiming that only 1,000 living creatures will die in a year, but the Center for Biological Diversity believes the actual figure is closer to 28,000. The US Fish and Wildlife service is pushing for more information and an accurate calculation of the deaths before California grants the company any more permits for solar plants.

You can see from the last line that the Feds don't seem to be even considering a penalty, but are just considering whether they should permit such plants in the future.  If the 28,000 figure is correct, this company should be getting $196 million in fines (the Exxon rate of $7000 per bird)  if there was any such thing as equal protection.  Even the company's admitted figure of 1,000 a year is almost 60 times as high as Exxon was penalized for, despite the fact that Exxon experienced the deaths across hundreds of locations in five states and this is just one single solar plant.

The same alternate standard is being applied to the wind energy industry, as I wrote a while back here.

REPORT: Perry Grand Juror Was Active Dem Party Delegate During Proceedings...


(Second column, 2nd story, link)

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Student arrested after writing about killing dinosaur with gun...


(Third column, 14th story, link)

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(Don Boudreaux)

… is from page 235 of Matt Ridley’s 2010 book, The Rational Optimist; (I’m re-reading Matt’s book in preparation for a new class that I’m teaching this Fall semester at GMU; the class is entitled “Economics of Sustainability”):

Suppose you had said to my hypothetical family of 1800, eating their gristly stew in front of a log fire, that in two centuries their descendants would need to fetch no logs or water, and carry out no sewage, because water, gas, and a magic form of invisible power called electricity would come into their home through pipes and wires.  They would jump at the chance to have such a home, but they would warily ask ho they could possibly afford it.  Suppose that you then told them that to earn such a home, they need only ensure that father and mother both have to go to work for eight hours in an office, travelling roughly forty minutes each way in a horseless carriage, and that the children need not work at all, but should go to school to be sure of getting such jobs when they start to work at twenty.  They would be more than dumbfounded; they would be delirious with excitement.

Mom Creates App That Remotely Locks Kids' Phones Until They Call Back...


(First column, 13th story, link)

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wait for it… wait for it….............. just fucking do it!!1!