Wickemt

Did you hear the one about the woman who couldn’t fly to testify at a trial about the government’s “no-fly list” because the government put her on a “no-fly list”?

No? It happened this past weekend, when Raihan Mustafa Kamal, the daughter of the woman suing the Department of Homeland Security – and incidentally a U.S. citizen – tried to board a plane to San Francisco in Kuala Lumpur and was told by Malaysian Airways that the Department of Homeland Security had put her on a no-fly list.

Not an Onion article. I swear.

The Identity Project blog is covering the trial, which kicked off earlier this week with a ridiculous situation, highlighted by BoingBoing. Apparently, one of the people set to testify in the case, Ibrahim’s oldest daughter, Raihan Mustafa Kamal (an American citizen, born in the US), was blocked from boarding her flight to the US to appear at the trial, and told that she was on the no fly list as well. Kamal, a lawyer, was an eye witness to her mother being blocked from boarding her flight. The US knew that Kamal was set to testify and from all indications, in a move that appears extremely petty, appears to have purposely blocked her from flying to the US. Kamal was directly told by the airline that DHS had ordered them not to let Kamal to board. The airline even gave her a phone number for a Customs and Border Patrol office in Miami, telling her to call that concerning her not being able to board.

Just so you understand what’s happening: the Federal government is being sued. The Federal government, in defending that lawsuit, has apparently just blocked the opposite party from providing a witness. It’s as if the state charged you with murder, but you have a rock solid alibi of your family, so on the day your family was going to testify, they took your family and moved them to Guantanamo and then pretended like nothing happened and they didn’t know anything.

Judge Alsup ordered the government defendants’ lawyers to investigate and report back. “You’ve got ten lawyers over there on your side of the courtroom. You can send one of them out in the hall to make a phone call and find out what’s going on.”

At the end of the first day’s session of the trial (more on that below), the governments’ lawyers told Judge Alsup that they had made inquiries and had been told that “the plaintiff’s daughter just missed her flight” and was rebooked on a flight tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.

Which was a total lie. Judge Alsup was given a copy of the “no-board” order from the DHS but he wants to wait for the witness to testify in person before taking action against the Government. Which is fine¹. It’s not like they’re going anywhere.²

But that’s not all. You know what the trial is about? It’s about just what the hell are those ‘no-fly lists’ anyway?

It’s a trial about a woman who got put on a no-fly list for no reason and she can’t find out why and can’t get back in the country. She couldn’t even come to the US to testify and had to do so via video from London.

There are so many levels of meta-subversiveness that it would make a hipster’s head spin.

On top of that, just because they didn’t feel like they’d gotten in a full day’s of shitting on the Constitution, the government argued that publicly available information was classified and thus should not be considered. We’ve already read once today about how that’s just an awful tact to take.

This year will go down in history, I think, as the year that we started to finally pay attention to the power and mission creep of our government. The extensive surveillance, the pursuit of whistleblowers and now this, this most outrageous of all.

This is what happens when the Government plays unfair. When it’s gotten too big for its own head and its ego is bigger than the national mall. This is what happens when it flexes its muscle: it deprives a United States Citizen of the most basic and fundamental of rights: to enter her own country. Why? Because it wants to keep its dark secret dealings dark and secret.

A government that is willing to do this is no longer, as Lincoln put it, a government “of the people, by the people and for the people”. Rather, it’s a government that is in spite of the people.

It would be almost comical if it weren’t so damn tragic. It’s the sort of government you hear about in Africa or Latin America. Heck, it’s something you might see in a video game or a movie. It’s almost as if the bureaucracy has achieved sentience and is now an independently thinking entity by itself, protecting itself. It’s the Red Queen. It’s V.I.K.I.  It’s HAL. Spynet has become self-aware and it doesn’t care who you are.

—

Image via the most awesome SMBC.

Go, watch.  Yes, it's 60 minutes long.  This is what's happening, right now.  And that "TS/SI" you see on a bunch of the slides?  That's the real NSA deal, that's all I'll say.  When the hair on the back of your neck stands up, that's when you will understand that you understand.



How did this happen?  Who's to blame?  If the crimes of this Government remain unknown to you, I would suggest you allow the New Year to pass unmarked.  But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek then I would ask you to stand beside me.  I do not yet choose to turn my face to the desert.

Or pop the cork of the champagne and wash down the blue pill.  All is well, Citizen.  All is for the best, in the best of all possible Republics.  The circus is entertaining, and the bread is free.

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Over the weekend, Heather Linebaugh wrote a powerful Op-ed in The Guardian newspaper lamenting the lack of public understanding regarding the American drone program. Heather should know what she’s talking about, she served in the United Stated Air Force from 2009 until March 2012. She worked in intelligence as an imagery and geo-spatial analyst for the drone program during the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here are some key excerpts from her article:

Whenever I read comments by politicians defending the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Predator and Reaper program – aka drones – I wish I could ask them a few questions. I’d start with: “How many women and children have you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile?” And: “How many men have you seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound for help while bleeding out from severed legs?” Or even more pointedly: “How many soldiers have you seen die on the side of a road in Afghanistan because our ever-so-accurate UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] were unable to detect an IED [improvised explosive device] that awaited their convoy?”

 

Few of these politicians who so brazenly proclaim the benefits of drones have a real clue of what actually goes on. I, on the other hand, have seen these awful sights first hand.

 

I knew the names of some of the young soldiers I saw bleed to death on the side of a road. I watched dozens of military-aged males die in Afghanistan, in empty fields, along riversides, and some right outside the compound where their family was waiting for them to return home from the mosque.

What the public needs to understand is that the video provided by a drone is not usually clear enough to detect someone carrying a weapon, even on a crystal-clear day with limited cloud and perfect light. This makes it incredibly difficult for the best analysts to identify if someone has weapons for sure. One example comes to mind: “The feed is so pixelated, what if it’s a shovel, and not a weapon?” I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people, if we endangered the wrong people, if we destroyed an innocent civilian’s life all because of a bad image or angle.

Moreover, the many civilians being incinerated without a trial are not the only victims here. So are the actual drone operators themselves, many of whom end up committing suicide. Recall my article from December 2012: Meet Brandon Bryant: The Drone Operator Who Quit After Killing a Child. Of course, our so-called political “leaders” never get their hands dirty, other than to take a lobbyist bribe that is. Now more from Heather:

Recently, the Guardian ran a commentary by Britain’s secretary of state for defence, Philip Hammond. I wish I could talk to him about the two friends and colleagues I lost, within a year of leaving the military, to suicide. I am sure he has not been notified of that little bit of the secret UAV program, or he would surely take a closer look at the full scope of the program before defending it again.

Full article here.

Geeks! A friend of mine is working on a project that involves parasitic brain control. She's raising funds for an experiment. Please give it a look if you have a moment. Thanks!

Whether your tipple of choice is a warm dark ale or a clear cool liquor, the price of alcohol is soaring (but there is still no inflation anywhere remember - especially in Europe) and so is demand.  From watered-down beer in the UK to rubbing-alcohol split scotch in New Jersey, stealth inflation is growing. So who is most responsible for this demand-pull (and cost-push) driven inflation in alcohol? Germany and Czech Republic (beer) and Russia (liquor) are topping the charts in per-capita demand and it seems the Italians, not content with spending less on gifts are also not drinking much...

 

Biggest European Beer drinkers...

 

Heaviest European Liquor consumers...

 

h/t @Amazing_Maps

*When I asked for guest posters in the facebook diner, Ori offered to do this post, which is sort of the “making concrete” of something I’ve believed myself for a while.  So I told him “yes, please, I would like it” and he wrote it out for me.  Again, the idea is of course the water is going to get choppy.  Everything is changing very fast.  Now, while it will continue changing for the rest of our lives (likely) maybe even faster, I believe things will get better during our life time — right now, at this moment, the tech is not going the way of a top-down big state type of society.*

Our ancestors used to roam the earth, looking for plants to pick and animals to kill, the never ending search for food for today (and maybe tomorrow) their main concern. Their wealth was limited to what they could carry, and what they could make from readily available materials in a few days of work. Then somebody came up with the bright idea of putting seeds in the ground, watching them so nothing eats them while they grow, and then harvesting them a few months later. And agriculture was born.

Agriculture produced a lot more food per acre, but the lifestyle that made it work appears completely crazy from a hunter/gatherer’s perspective. Here are some examples:

Situation	Hunter/gatherer behavior	Agriculturalist behavior
You’re hungry and there’s food nearby	Eat. It is likely to spoil in a few days anyway.	Think first. Is this the seed corn you’ll need for the next planting? Is there enough food to last until the next harvest?
Your tummy is full, and you are feeling sleepy. You’re surrounded by your family members	Rest and relax. Things are going well.	Do you need to pull out weeds? What about animals – are there any in the field that try to eat your crops?
Your cousin is hungry and you have food	Share the food. It is going to spoil anyway, and some days your hunt fails and your cousin feeds you	Can you afford to share your food? Do you have enough to last until the next harvest?
You and a few of your buddies are mad at the rest of the clan	Split the clan. Just go somewhere else.	You have to stay where your crops are. Either figure out a solution, or fight it out.
Somebody and his bullyboys come and demand you giving them some food as taxes.	Remember that big beast you killed? Use the same skills, or flee.	You’re stuck where your crops are. If they really are stronger, maybe it is a better idea to just pay the taxes.

 

We don’t know what people thought and felt during the transition period. They didn’t write about it, writing hasn’t been invented yet. But the differences between the behaviors they learned growing up with their hunter/gatherer parents and the behaviors they needed to be successful agriculturalists must have been difficult to deal with. We will never know how many early farmers planted a crop, got upset at their neighbors, and then left to look for food in the old ways. We will never know how many of them planted a crop, harvested it, and then ate it all and had to get back to a nomadic lifestyle to find enough food. We will never know how many rested when they should have been weeding and ended up giving up on the whole agriculture thing when the weeds overwhelmed their garden. We only know that those who did get farming to work had a lot more surviving children, and their descendants overwhelmed those who didn’t.

For most of human history, there hasn’t been another change of such magnitude. Some people lost wars and were enslaved, but they mostly grew up in slave-holding societies and had an idea what it is like to be a slave and how one behaves in that situation. Some people managed to take over territory and force others to work for them – but usually their upbringing included the master-peasant relationship, even if they learned it from their peasant parents. The overall structure of the society was fairly stable.

About three hundred years ago somebody figured out how to get reliable mechanical energy by burning coal. With that invention, the flood gates were thrown open and a wave of new technologies started flowing into the world. We are still surfing that wave today, undergoing a change as big as the one from hunter/gatherer to agriculturalist. So if it looks like nobody in our society knows what they are doing, or what the future will look like, it is because that is the truth. Economics and politics are games played in an arena whose boundaries come from technology. Until the technology stabilizes we can’t even start to figure out what habits will work with it. Embrace the chaos, it will probably outlast you.

 

 

"I'm a good judge" … said by government employee and judge Gisele Pollack who, it seems, sentenced people to jail because of their drug use…while she, herself, was high on drugs.

But, in her defense, "she’s had some severe personal tragedy in her life".

And that's why, it seems, she's being allowed to check herself into rehab instead of being thrown in jail.

…because not a single poor person or non government employee who gets caught using drugs ever "had some severe personal tragedy in her life".

I'm reminded of something I read earlier today:

techdirt.com

We've discussed the whole "high court/low court" concept here a few times before — in that those who are powerful play by one set of rules, while the rest of us have to play by a very different set of rules.

…

The end result seems clear. If you're super high up in the political chain, you get the high court. Reveal classified info to filmmakers? No worries. Not only will you not be prosecuted or even lose your job, the inspectors will scrub your name from the report and, according to the article, the person in charge of the investigation will "slow roll" the eventual release of the report until you switch jobs.

But if you're just a worker bee and you leaked the unclassified draft report that names Panetta and Vickers? Well, you get the low court. A new investigation, including aggressive pursuit by the government, and interrogations of staffers to try to find out who leaked the report.

Twenty years ago I was a libertarian. I thought the system could be reformed. I thought that some parts of it "worked"… whatever that means. I thought that the goals were noble, even if not often achieved.

The older I get, the more I see, the more I read, the more clear it becomes to me that the entire game is rigged. The leftists and the rightists each see half of the fraud. The lefties correctly note that a poor kid caught with cocaine goes to jail, while a Bush can write it off as a youthful mistake (they somehow overlook the fact that their man Barrack hasn't granted clemency to any one of the people doing federal time for the same felonies he committed). The righties note that government subsidized windmills kill protected eagles with impunity while Joe Sixpack would be deep in the crap if he even picked up a dead eagle from the side of the road. The lefties note that no one was prosecuted over the financial meltdown. The righties note that the Obama administration rewrote bankruptcy law on the fly to loot value from GM stockholders and hand it to the unions. The lefties note that Republicans tweak export rules to give big corporations subsidies. Every now and then both sides join together to note that, hey! the government is spying on every one of us…or that, hey! the government stole a bunch of people's houses and gave them to Pfizer, because a privately owned for-profit corporation is apparently what the Constitution means by "public use".

What neither side seems to realize is that the system is not reformable. There are multiple classes of people, but it boils down to the connected, and the not connected. Just as in pre-Revolutionary France, there is a very strict class hierarchy, and the very idea that we are equal before the law is a laughable nonsequitr.

Jamal the $5 weed slinger, Shaneekwa the hair braider, and Loudmouth Bob in the 7-11 parking lot are at the bottom of the hierarchy. They can, literally, be killed with impunity … as long as the dash cam isn't running. And, hell, half the time they can be killed even if the dash cam is running. This isn't hyperbole, mother-fucker. This is literal. Question me and I'll throw 400 cites and 20 youtube clips at you.

Next up from Shaneekwa and Loudmouth Bob are us regular peons. We can have our balls squeezed at the airport, our rectums explored at the roadside, our cars searched because the cops got permission from a dog (I owe some Reason intern a drink for that one), our telephones tapped (because terrorism!), our bank accounts investigated (because FinCEN! and no expectation of privacy!). We don't own the house we live in, not if someone of a higher social class wants it. We don't own our own financial lives, because the education accreditation / student loan industry / legal triumvirate have declared that we can never escape – even through bankruptcy – our $200,000 debt that a bunch of adults convinced a can't-tell-his-ass-from-a-hole-in-the-ground 18 year old that (a) he was smart enough to make his own decisions, and (b) college is a time to explore your interests and broaden yourself). And if there's a "national security emergency" (defined as two idiots with a pressure cooker), then the constitution is suspended, martial law is declared, and people are hauled out of their homes.

Next up from the regular peons are the unionized, disciplined-voting-blocks. Not-much-brighter-than-a-box-of-crayolas teachers who work 180 days a year and get automatic raises. Firefighters who disproportionately retire on disability the very day they sub in for their bosses and get a paper cut.

A step up from the teachers and firefighters are the cops: all the same advantages of nobility of the previous group, but a few more in addition: the de facto power to murder someone as long as not too many cameras are rolling. The de facto power to confiscate cameras in case the murder wasn't well planned. A right to keep and bear arms that far exceeds that of the serf class: 50 state concealed carry for life, not just just for actual cops, but even for retired cops.

At the same level of privilege as cops, but slightly off to one side is different class of nobility: the judiciary and the prosecutors. Judges and prosecutors can't execute citizens in an alley, a parking lot, or their own homes ("he had a knife! …and I don't care what the lying video says."), but they can sentence people to decades in jail for things that any clear-minded reading of the Constitution and the 9th and 10th amendments make clear are not with in the purview of the government. They have effectively infinite resources. They orchestrate perp walks. They selectively leak information to shame defendants. They buy testimony from other defendants by promising them immunity. By exercising their discretion they make sure that the bad people are prosecuted while the good people (i.e. members of their own clan) are not.

Above the cops, the prosecutors, and the judiciary we have the true ruling class: the cabal of (most) politicians and (some) CEOs, conspiring both against their own competitors and the public at large. If the public is burdened with a $100 million debt to pay off a money losing stadium, that's a small price to pay if a politician gets reelected (and gets to hobnob with entertainers and sports heroes via free tickets and backstage passes). If new entrants into a market are hindered and the populace ends up overpaying for coffins, or Tesla cars, or wine that can't be mail ordered, then that's a small price to pay if a connected CEO can keep his firm profitable without doing any work to help the customer. If the Google founders want to agitate for Green laws that make Joe Sixpack's daily commute more expensive at the same time that they buy discount avgas for their private flying fuck palaces, then isn't that their right? They donated to Obama's campaign after all!

I could keep myself up all night and into tomorrow by listing different groups of royalty and the ways they scam the system.

…except "scam the system" is a misnomer. I am not listing defects in a perfectable system. I am describing the system.

It is corrupt, corrupt, corrupt. From Ted Kennedy who killed a woman and yet is toasted as a "lion of liberalism", to George Bush who did his share of party drugs (and my share, and your share, and your share…) while young yet let other youngsters rot in jail for the exact same excesses instead of waving his royal wand of pardoning, to thousand of well-paid NSA employees who put the Stasi to shame in their ruthless destruction of our rights, to the Silicon Valley CEOs who buy vacation houses with the money they make forging and selling chains to Fort Meade, to every single bastard at RSA who had a hand in taking the thirty pieces of silver, to the three star generals who routinely screw subordinates and get away with it (even as sergeants are given dishonorable discharges for the same thing), to the MIT cops and Massachusetts prosecutor who drove Aaron Swartz to suicide, to every drug court judge who sends 22 year olds to jail for pot…while high on Quaalude and vodka because she's got some fucking personal tragedy and no one understands her pain, to every cop who's anally raped a citizen under color of law, to every other cop who's intentionally triggered a "drug" dog because the guy looked guilty, to every politician who goes on moral crusades while barebacking prostitutes and money laundering the payments, to every teacher who retired at age 60 on 80% salary, to every cop who has 50 state concealed carry even while the serfs are disarmed, to every politician, judge, or editorial-writer who has ever used the phrase "first amendment zone" non-ironically: this is how the system is designed to work.

The system is not fixable because it is not broken. It is working, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to give the insiders their royal prerogatives, and to shove the regulations, the laws, and the debt up the asses of everyone else.

Burn it to the ground.

Burn it to the ground.

Burn it to the ground.

Merry Christmas.

Burn the Fucking System to the Ground © 2007-2013 by the authors of Popehat. This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. Using this feed on any other site is a copyright violation. No scraping.

So Phil Robertson, who has one of the highest rated shows on cable, was asked a direct question concerning his personal religious beliefs and he gave an honest answer. Of course, honest religious opinions are not tolerated in America if they in any way hurt the feelings of statist control freaks, so the usual suspects had a come apart. A&E, being good at appeasement but bad at math, put Robertson on indefinite hiatus. Which means “we fired him, unless we wimp out at that too, and once we see which way the winds blow, we’ll bring him back.”

Here is the actual article that got the guy fired: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/television/201401/duck-dynasty-phil-robertson  We’ll go through the actual controversial statements in a bit, just to see how little it takes to make the lefty censors outrage spike. But you should read it, because as usual you will quickly discover that most of the outrage you’re getting off the internet is mostly nonsense. I warn you now, the article sucks. It is your usual breathless hyperbolic overstatement written by a typical man-child of a journalist who has never lived anywhere that is not completely paved and who considers Connecticut wild country. (oh my gosh, the ATV has seatbelts, but they are not used! I shot a .22 and a hit a bottle! I am a warrior!)

This is all over the internet right now, which is good, because people need to realize just how rigged the system is. The left in America simply cannot tolerate disagreement, deviation from group think is heresy, and when you piss them off, if they can’t dismiss you, they steamroll you. The actual topic is irrelevant. This particular one was homosexuality, but it just as easily could be guns, healthcare, or global warming. This event is just another example of the Liberal Arguing Checklist writ large: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/the-internet-arguing-checklist/

Okay, to cover the basics of this case:

1. Robertson was perfectly within his rights to answer the question truthfully according to his personal belief system. (we will look at his statement later and see just how horribly filled with hatey-hate-hatemongery it is, because you know, the left just can’t tolerate intolerance)
2. A&E was perfectly within their rights to terminate their relationship with their employee for saying something they did not like. (even if it is incredibly stupid from a business sense, but that should just be an example to boards everywhere why you should only hire us heartless conservatives to run your companies)
3. This is not an 1^st Amendment issue, and don’t waste your time saying it is, because it isn’t the government punishing Robertson’s use of free speech, it is a private entity, and private entities are allowed to choose who they want to do business with (unless of course you are a Christian baker who doesn’t want to make gay wedding cakes because hate crime or something).

As somebody who is publically politically opinionated yet still makes his living as an entertainer I find this sort of thing fascinating. See, I’m right wing. I’m so right wing that when I buy Twix I throw the left one away. I was a gun rights activist long before I ever sold my first book. I still enjoy writing political blogs. I’ve been on FOX news. And even as somebody who now has books printed in seven languages around the world, the most widely read thing I’ve ever thing I’ve ever written is an Opinion on Gun Control.  http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/an-opinion-on-gun-control/

There are a lot of conservative people in entertainment, except since it is a field so incredibly dominated by left wingers most of us of us keep our heads down. Like any field that comes to be dominated by the left, if you say anything that goes against proper goodthink, they will attack your career. Luckily for me, I write for a publishing house that only cares if we’re good enough to make our fans happy. They employ everybody from ultra-libertarians, to fire breathing conservatives, to liberals, to an actual card carrying Trotskyite communist, and my publisher only cares that our books sell. However, just because Baen Books is one of the only houses that will actually publish out of the closet right wingers, the rest of the industry thinks of it as a right wing publishing house.  Anywhere else, you open your mouth and express conservative beliefs your writing career just committed ritual seppuku. And the thing is, this industry is so steeped in liberal values (and mostly lives in Manhattan) that they don’t even realize it, they’re just doing what’s good.

It is worse in Hollywood. There are a ton of conservative actors. I know a bunch of them now, but I can’t say who they are, because most of them can’t afford to be outed because they’ll be persecuted for their lifestyle choices (oh, the irony. It burns!). I’m friends with some outspoken conservative actors, but they’re usually at that point of their career where they are successful enough they just don’t give a crap anymore.

Because of this, actual entertainment that people can consume tends to lean overwhelmingly left. Of course, you ask the left part of the country if their entertainment is biased and they’ll say, no, it is just normal. Christians are all crazy bigots. All the smart, fun, witty people live on the coasts and think just like I do while Jesus freaks and the dad from Footloose live in flyover country. Guns are scary bad unless used by a proper hero of the state and let’s all learn a valuable lesson as some children are accidentally killed. Republicans are all dumb, hate science, and think the Earth is flat. Obviously.  You ask the right part of the country if their entertainment is biased and they’ll say “Holy shit, you morons actually think Honey Boo Boo is normal life here!?”

Now this has been getting better, because it can’t hardly not when you’ve got 300 channels, and it started with subversive programming sneaking in on cable. (God bless you Mike Rowe with your crazy ideas like working hard and improving yourself as opposed to living off of welfare or demanding $15 an hour to flip burgers!) I noticed this a few years ago with all the various cable shows where gun usage was being portrayed as normal life. (can’t have all these shows about Alaska without guns, because animals there will EAT YOU). The right half of America was all like, hey, look, shows where people like me aren’t being portrayed as complete whackadoos!”

Then along comes Duck Dynasty, where OH MY GOSH they’re actually really proud of their values, they’re unabashed capitalists, they’re super happy to be rednecks, they shoot stuff for fun, they think explosives are awesome, they fish and hunt and drive big trucks that give the finger to man-made global warming, they’re Southern without us having to listen to long tirades about how we should all have white guilt, I’m guessing none of them have ever used the words “cismale gendernormative fascism” in a conversation, they love football, soldiers, America, and even Jesus, and they have the audacity to pray on camera? Whoa. Mind blown.

Of course, the entertainment industry is still scratching their head about how come a show like that was popular. But these are the same brainiacs who couldn’t figure out why an action movie starring Jamie Foxx as a thinly veiled Barack Obama going all Die Hard in the White House against the evil military industrial complex and renegade veterans bombed with people who like action movies.

Now the main guy on Duck Dynasty grew up rough. He was a complete scumbag, and he admits it. He was a drinker, a womanizer, and was on a self-destructive path. He got religious and turned his life around. Now as much as it has become trendy for the left to hate religion, and think that all Christians are good for is to persecute them, but that whole repentance/forgiveness/turn the life around thing does happen a lot. So now Robertson is a devout Christian. Nobody should be shocked that he has Christian beliefs.

But Christian beliefs are not ever to be respected according to proper leftist goodthink. Everybody knows the only higher power that matters is the government. (as an experiment, you should go onto Twitter and say something about Christmas involving Jesus, then count how many evangelical atheists show up to call you stupid and tell you how much you must hate science, because that’s what I did for the last two days. It was hilarious).

So Robertson gets interviewed by GQ. Now most of the people who have their panties in a twist about Robertson’s hatemongery have not read the actual article in question. Even with a totally unbiased GQ reporter, it isn’t that bad, but you wouldn’t know it from all the caring liberal* outrage today.

Of course, the GQ reporter is such a complete pansy that it starts with this:

Let’s start with the crossbow, because the crossbow is huge. I’m sitting in the passenger seat of a camo-painted ATV, rumbling through the northern Louisiana backwoods with Phil Robertson, founder of the Duck Commander company, patriarch at the heart of A&E’s smash reality hit Duck Dynasty, and my tour guide for the afternoon. There are seat belts in this ATV, but it doesn’t look like they’ve ever been used. Phil is not wearing one. I am not wearing one, because I don’t want Phil to think I’m a pussy. (Too late!) The crossbow—a Barnett model equipped with a steel-tipped four-blade broadhead arrow—is perched on the dash between us. It looks like you could shoot through a goddamn mountain with it.

Wow. Just… Wow… So right out the gate we are dealing with a reporter who is comically terrified of an inanimate object. Of course a crossbow can shoot through mountains, just like my .50 caliber rifles are designed to shoot down airliners, all my pistols are full auto spray fire Glocks, and all my rifles are ultra deadly AK-47 assault rifles with shoulder things that go up, because liberal reporters know their weapons.

What a basic tool (and there’s a crossbow there also).

Okay, so we know right out the gate we’re dealing with a reporter from the left. So be prepared for massive overstatement of the mundane, emotional freak outs, and probably moving lots of quotes around and butchering them for maximum narrative impact.

For example, you know what’s coming when the reporter says this:

Out here in these woods, without any cameras around, Phil is free to say what he wants. Maybe a little too free.

Well, that’s a good little statist for you. Heaven forbid Americans become TOO FREE. They might drink large sodas, not like their health insurance costs doubling, or hold beliefs that differ from proper goodthink!

Yet EVEN THEN, this is hatey-hatemonger quote of all super dooper hate EVAR from Robertson:

“It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”

Uh… Okay. So the guy who is almost 70, and been married to the same woman since he was a teenager does not see the logic of putting your dong in some other dude’s butt… HATE SPEECH!

Imagine if a gay actor got fired from his network because he made the comment that he thinks vaginas are gross. There would be outrage. And it would be understandable, because firing somebody for their personal sexual opinions is dumb (provided they aren’t a danger to society or the livestock, obviously).

Well, A&E and GLAAD, since only like 1-4% of America is gay, tops. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most guys like vaginas. Crazy. I know.

Okay, here’s the thing. Personally, I don’t care who anybody shacks up with.  I’m not even against gay marriage. Yet I still don’t really want to put my equipment in some other dude either because I like women. I should be able to say that and it be okay! But as I’ve seen here before, it isn’t enough to tolerate somebody else’s lifestyle choices, if you call them a lifestyle choice, you’ll be attacked. I did a blog post about gay marriage back when that was the topic of the day, and I wrote it from the perspective of a religions person, and quickly discovered that my not being against it wasn’t enough. The comments were full of people saying that my personal belief that a homosexual lifestyle was a choice was offensive to them.  http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/this-one-will-probably-get-me-hate-mail-from-both-sides-gay-marriage/

The perpetually offended are always going to be offended, and they always need somebody to be the bad guy so they can play the victim card. Being a victim grants liberals super powers. So tolerance isn’t enough for the champions of tolerance, but we’ll get back to that.

So here is the money quote that got him fired. (sorry, indefinite suspension, which is what happens when you are fired by pansies)

“Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong,” he says. “Sin becomes fine.”

What, in your mind, is sinful?

“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

Ooooh. Shocking. Now of course, if you read the whole article, you’ll also note that sinning doesn’t make gay folks special because Christians believe ALL PEOPLE ARE SINNERS. Including Robertson, because a big chunk of the article is him talking about his past and his own sins.

But of course the Infidelity, Slandering, and Fornication lobbies aren’t as powerful or didn’t bother to write A&E. Hell, he repeatedly condemned screwing around outside of marriage, and statistically that’s WAY more common, so where’s the manufactured outrage there?

In that blog post I linked above I wrote Christians are perfectly used to other people doing stuff that their God doesn’t approve of. That’s the thing. Just because somebody else believes that something you are doing is wrong, that doesn’t hurt you. News flash. Somewhere out there another human does not like what you are doing right now. Can you just feel their leering condescension? However will you survive?

Notice, no where in the article did Robertson urge persecution of gays in any way, shape, or form. He gave his honest answer about his personal religious belief. Disapproval of a particular behavior or choice should not be any skin off your nose. (you want to see real disapproval, be me and start talking about how Barack Obama has done a crappy job at a publishing industry dinner party in Manhattan. Good times.)

Of course, if you just listen to the internet and don’t read the article, you’d think the guy was in a white hood telling everybody to burn gay folks at the stake, but instead you get stuff like this:

“We’re Bible-thumpers who just happened to end up on television,” he tells me. “You put in your article that the Robertson family really believes strongly that if the human race loved each other and they loved God, we would just be better off. We ought to just be repentant, turn to God, and let’s get on with it, and everything will turn around.”

Or here is another quote from this vile hate monger.

“However, I would never treat anyone with disrespect just because they are different from me. We are all created by the Almighty and like Him, I love all humanity. We would be better off if we loved God and loved each other.”

Feel the hate. How it burns. Won’t somebody stand up to this madman and his cismale gendernormative fascism!

I’m willing to bet that Phil Robertson is nicer and more tolerant of homosexuals than the caring liberals who keep sending me death threats because I’m an outspoken conservative are. Yet I still realize that the vast majority of liberals are normal people who aren’t having screaming freak outs even if they disagree with my choices, so you guys need to realize that the vast majority of Christians are normal people who aren’t having screaming freak out even if they disagree with your choices. Everybody is a victim of someone’s disapproval, so grow the fuck up.

So we’ve got a dude with the super controversial opinion that homosexuality is a sin, but we should still love gay people and treat them with respect. That’s so controversial that probably only half of America feels that way. You know who else feels that way?

Time Magazine’s Man of the Year. But of course, the media was so super happy to have a major religious figure recently say something vaguely anti-capitalist to help their narrative that they overlooked all his hatey-hatemongery.

You want to see really, hateful intolerance and bigotry? Follow a black conservative on Twitter and watch caring liberals spew the most vile, hateful, insults you’ve ever seen. But that’s totally cool, because that fits the narrative. Meanwhile, as Phil Robertson haunts the left’s nightmares for believing differently, our State Department is cutting deals with Iran, where gay people are loved and respected and totally not tortured and executed.

All that said, as a capitalist I think A&E can do whatever they want. GLAAD sent them a nasty letter about somebody on one of their shows hurting their feelings and they immediately caved to pressure. That’s their choice. But putting on my old accountant hat, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that will turn out to be a really stupid decision. Remember that first part about all those millions of Americans happy to have TV shows where people like them aren’t marginalized and insulted? Yeah… They’re going to love this.

Meanwhile, look at Phil Robertson.

Does that man strike you as the sort of person who gives a shit? He looks like somebody who would have hung out with Bubba Shackleford.

Do you know what people who get up in arms and boycott networks over people on TV shows having different religious beliefs look like? This guy.

Now you know Phil Robertson does not give a shit what that guy thinks about anything. He will take his giant pile of money and happily go back to shooting ducks and eating squirrels while A&E scrambles to fill their programming with shows like The Littlest Polygamist, Amish Gold Miners, or Big Jersey Lesbians.

Obviously the execs at A&E have never read my Liberal Arguing Checklist, and they fell for #7 Concern Trolling, subcategory: Boycott.  See, us conservatives are used to being threatened by boycotts constantly for daring to deviate somehow from proper goodthink, only we laugh about it because we know the people contacting us are full of crap and probably are not fans anyway. I’m sure GLAAD members made up a HUGE part of Duck Dynasty’s viewership.

If I had been an A&E shareholder my response would have been, “Boycott us because one of our people holds a differing belief system? Holy shit! Yes! It’ll be like Chic-fil-A! Because Americans, even when they agree with their point, hate bullies. Please boycott us!”

To be fair I wouldn’t boycott Martin Bashir for being a creepy jackass either, nor can I fault his crappy network that nobody actually watches for firing him. That’s their business decision. Though I’m thinking Martin Bashir’s legion of fan won’t really make that much of a dent in MSNBC’s ratings juggernaut.

And since I know this post is going to get me attacked by the tolerant, for the record I also made fun of a publishing house for breaking their contract with a gay author, even while I said it was their (dumb) decision to make. http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/publisher-cancels-book-contract-because-the-writer-is-gay/ Because unlike the stereotypes about us Christians and our hatey-hate-hate, we are way the hell more tolerant of other’s beliefs than our left wing counterparts.

So in conclusion, Robertson, whether you agree or not, can say what he wants and that should be okay, because he’s not hurting anything other than your feelings. A&E can do what they want, but as usual being a goodthinking liberal and doing math prove to be mutually exclusive. Gay people, GLAAD is making you all look like a bunch of whiners. Stupid people, read the Bill of Rights, A&E isn’t the federal government. Liberal reporters, holy shit, you guys are a bunch of melodramatic wimps. America, somebody somewhere doesn’t like something you believe in, grow a pair.

 

*One quick note for all you whiny No-Labels types. I’m going to use the word LIBERAL to describe liberals acting like liberals. You’ll live. Obviously, not all liberals are in favor of squashing dissenting opinions or disallowing someone from holding personal religious beliefs, but everybody trying to squash dissenting beliefs about today’s topic is either a liberal, statist, communist, socialist, or just being a dick. So yes I know that YOU personally are a special snowflake different from said stereotype, but I’m too lazy to keep typing that out, and to use some helpful stereotypes to explain, I’m a greedy, right-wing capitalist 1%er who needs to get back to work writing more bestselling novels that promote violence against the differently-living. Save the hate mail. It gets really repetitive.  And when I use the term “caring liberal” it is for the special ones who keep threatening to murder me, because irony amuses me.

Reason.com informs us that a group of startups (Evertrue, Kinvey, Localytics, etc.) decided to get together to throw themselves a combined holiday party, so that employees of each of these small firms could schmooze with each other and others in the local tech scene.

As they have the last three years.

And, as they have the last three years, they structured the party thusly: a rented hotel function room, an open bar, a $50 cover charge, invites sent out over eventbrite.com, and surplus funds donated to charity via
tugg.org. (The exact recipient of the charity was TBA, but was to come from one of TUGG's "portfolio" of causes: Latino STEM Alliance, Youth Cities, Technology for Autism, Music & Youth, etc.

The Boston Police, meanwhile, was hard at work at solving the murders and homicides in the city.

I'm joking, of course.

The Boston Police were actually setting up a sting to catch anyone who violated the law regulation
204 CMR 4.03 1 (e) which makes it illegal to vary the price of alcohol over time.

I'd explain why this is an important regulation, and why anyone who violates it deserves to go to hell and/or be arrested, but I think it's pretty clear: we can't just have people selling things at different prices at different times, or we'd there'd be complete anarchy.

'nuff said.

So, anyway, the Boston Police, having solved the problem of murder, rape, and larceny within its territory, turned its attention to a consortium of technology startups and raided their Christmas party.

The good news is that a peaceful resolution was achieved: once the tech startups (cough) voluntarily (cough) agreed that instead of donating the profits to something silly like encouraging Latino youth to excel at science and technology, they'd instead donate it to a charity organization of armed individuals known as the "Boston Police Department", all charges were dropped.

I'm sort of curious to ask for records on Boston PD policies, but I've recently learned that Boston LEOs refuse to respond to public documents requests and threaten to arrest journalists who call them on the phone.

Render unto Caesar, my friends. And if at any point you're not sure which wordly power is Caesar, remember: he's the one who can crucify people without repercussions.

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Scott Greenfield wins the award for the best article on the latest incident in our rape-happy police state: A New Low: Vaginal Probes At The Border.

…but Reason magazine wins not just the award for best headline for this particular outrage, but the lifetime award for best headline ever mocking the police state:

Drug Warriors Kidnap and Sexually Assault a Woman After Getting Permission From a Dog. Jacob Sullivan Sullum [ typo! ] wrote the article. I'm not sure if he also wrote the headline, or if that was done by some unnamed Reason intern. If the latter: dude (or dudette): you rock.

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Just a reminder, you can support SMBC, get rewards, AND help remove intrusive ads from the site at our Patreon page.

(Eugene Volokh)

From Distractify. I do not vouch for their authenticity, but I laughed out loud at some of them. Thanks to GeekPress for the pointer.

(Ilya Somin)

Space law scholar Glenn Reynolds (AKA Instapundit) has an interesting USA Today column on the potential development of property rights on the Moon:

On Saturday, a Chinese lunar probe made the first soft landing anyone’s made on the moon since 1976….

Though the landing was a big deal in China, most of the rest of the world responded with a yawn. Moon landing? Been there, done that.

But October Sky author Homer Hickam was more excited. He wondered on Twitter if China might want to make a territorial claim on the moon, noting that the area the lander is exploring may contain an abundance of Helium-3, a potentially valuable fusion energy fuel that is found only on the moon. According to former astronaut/geologist Harrison Schmitt, China “has made no secret” of its interest in Helium-3. Schmitt observes, “I would assume that this mission is both a geopolitical statement and a test of some hardware and software related to mining and processing of the lunar regolith….”

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty provides that “outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” But that’s not much of a barrier.

First, the treaty only prohibits “national appropriation.” If a Chinese company, instead of the Chinese government, were to stake a claim, it wouldn’t apply. And, at any rate, China — which didn’t even join the treaty until 1983 — can, like any other nation, withdraw at any time. All that’s required under the treaty is to give a year’s notice.

So if the the Yutu rover finds something valuable, Chinese mining efforts, and possibly even territorial claims, might very well follow. And that would be a good thing.

What’s so good about it? Well, two things. First, there are American companies looking at doing business on the moon, too, and a Chinese venture would probably boost their prospects. More significantly, a Chinese claim might spur a new space race, which would speed development of the moon.

If the Moon does turn out to have valuable resources that could be exploited, it will be important to establish a system of effective and stable property rights. Difficult questions will have to be addressed, such as how much property an individual, firm, or national government is allowed to claim, and on what basis. For example, if China establishes a base on the moon for mining purposes, is it entitled to claim only the land on which the base’s structures sit or some additional territory around it? In addition, it will be critical to allow private property on extraterrestrial bodies, not just government property. State ownership of some extraterrestrial property is probably inevitable and necessary. But private property rights are also essential. A vast socialist empire in space is unlikely to work any better than socialism here on Earth.

Obviously, the Moon might ultimately prove to be an economic dud, in which case property rights there won’t matter much. But the same issues are likely to arise with respect to other extraterrestrial bodies in the future. They deserve some serious advance consideration, as it is often easier to get institutional frameworks right in the first place than to fix bad institutions once they have become established and developed powerful interest group constituencies.

The Flower Shell is a 12 gauge round, claimed to be in development by a Scandinavian design firm, that is loaded with seeds instead of shot. Their website is very pretty and loaded with language such as “Instead of less life, The Flower Shell evens out the effects of regular ammunition”, which I guess is true if you are a tree hugging hippy who thinks plants are people too.

They even have a video of someone firing a shotgun at his feet …

Either we are being trolled or this design firm is hoping an ammunition maker is crazy enough to purchase the rights to their name and design.

Thanks to Jonathan for the tip.

Here's some damage that can be calculated in dollars and cents.  $15 Billion and counting:

An IBM shareholder is suing Big Blue, accusing it of hiding the fact that its ties to the NSA spying scandal cost it business in China – and wiped billions off its market value.

The Louisiana Sheriffs' Pensions and Relief Fund has filed the suit in New York, claiming that Big Blue "misrepresented and concealed" that its association with the NSA caused Chinese companies and the Chinese government to abruptly stop doing business with it, according to the shareholder's lawyers.

"When the company ultimately revealed the truth regarding the collapse of its business in China, the price of IBM stock fell almost $12 per share," the legal team said in a statement, while inviting other shareholders to join the suit.

...

In the following days, IBM shares dropped 7.4 per cent to $172.86, wiping $15bn from its market capitalisation.

This isn't the first time this has happened.  Remember Cisco's big earnings miss?  This isn't the last we've heard of this sort of thing.

NSA has lost the security geeks in Silicon Valley.  They look like they're fixin' to lose the big money types there as well.  Neither of these events will help them, but they seem not to be smart enough to figure out that this is happening.  But we'll know that it's having its impact when Senator Feinstein starts publicly complaining about the NSA.  So far she's been on their side, but it shouldn't take too many of the big tech firms telling her that they're going to donate to someone else's campaign to get a different song played.  The Congress is, if nothing else, coin operated.

And it's all for nothing.  Literally, nothing has come out of this program in terms of stopping terror attacks (unless you believe NSA Director Alexander, which I don't).  And in fact, nothing can come out of it:

Perhaps the NSA’s tests are more accurate than I have assumed. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that the NSA’s tests have astronomically high accuracy, with sensitivity and specificity of 98 percent. Then the NSA would be justified in spying if more than 65,300—think Portland, Maine or Lynchburg, Virginia—Americans were terrorists.

Don’t forget that the TSA is only at 40 percent. The TSA also has an easier job screening passengers and their bags. The NSA has a more difficult job with snatching electronic snippets out of the ether. If the NSA’s tests are merely as accurate as the TSA’s, the NSA would only be justified in spying if more than 4.7 million Americans—the population of South Carolina—were terrorists.

He has math and everything.  You have to posit an absurdly large number of terrorists for this program to have any chance at all of catching them.  The program does in fact seem to be effective in catching large Congressional appropriations, but that will be cold comfort to Senator Feinstein and her cohorts when all the Silicon Valley filthy lucre starts to dry up during campaign season.

The guys with the coins are mad enough to go to court.  This will not end well for Ft. Meade. 

Whether an unintended consequence of the push for over-consumption of the Chinese consumer or simply a man hitting his breaking point (as many Americans - we are sure - have considered in the last few weeks), 38-year-old Tao Hsiao lept to his death from a 7th story walkway in a Jiangsu mall after his girlfriend would not stop Christmas shopping. The 5-hour marathon 'consumption' ended badly after Tao's girlfriend said he was "spoiling Christmas," when he chided her that she "already had enough shoes...it was pointless buying more." He died on impact, and no one else was injured. It is unknown if his girlfriend continued shopping...

 

Via Shanghaiist.com,

When his girlfriend insisted on prolonging their Christmas shopping marathon, 38-year-old Tao Hsiao leapt from a seventh-story walkway and killed himself in a Jiangsu shopping mall.

Tao and his girlfriend (whose name has not been released) had reportedly been in the Golden Eagle International Shopping Center, in Xuzhou, for some five hours before a rather routine relationship scuffle escalated drastically out of proportion.

Tao told his girlfriend that "she already had enough shoes, more shoes that she could wear in a lifetime and it was pointless buying any more," according to a witness. Tao was then accused of "spoiling Christmas," and the shouting match likely would have continued had Tao not chosen that moment to hurl himself over the seventh-story balcony.

Tao fell through elaborate christmas decorations and crashed into a shopping stall on the mall's ground level, injuring no one but himself in the process. He died on impact.

 

It brings a whole new meaning to the term "shop til you drop"...but Tao's last words do ring horribly true in this age of over-consumption

Big Dog, Wild Cat, Cheetah... all names one wouldn't associate with Google (if anything perhaps feline-named Apple operating systems). And yet, the company that is best know for its internet prowess and having more data about the search habits and private interests of each and every computer user than the NSA could ever dream of, is ever more aggressively moving into the animal kingdom. The robotic one that is.

After last weekend, 60 Minutes ran an amusing infomercial of Amazon's latest very forward multiple boosting product development with its delivery drones, Google refuses to lag behind in the futurism department and promptly acquired Boston Dynamics, the creator of the world's fastest running robot, as well as various other realistic animal-like machines supplied to the US military. As the FT reports, "The internet company’s acquisition of Boston Dynamics is latest in a string of robotics acquisitions in a mysterious initiative led by former Android chief Andy Rubin."

Just what robotic critters will carry Google's logo?

Among the creations to crawl, jump and gallop from its labs are Big Dog, a four-legged robot that can clamber over uneven terrain such as snowy forests, even when assailed by kicks from its makers, and Cheetah, which claims to hold the record for the fastest legged robot in the world, running at more than 29 miles per hour.

 

Many of Boston Dynamics’ robots have been developed with funding from the US Department of Defense’s research unit, Darpa, making Google a military contractor, at least for now.

 

Google’s ultimate objective for its growing collection of robots remains unclear but Mr Rubin’s project sits among its so-called “moonshot” ventures, such as self-driving cars and balloons to provide internet connectivity to remote regions.

 

His other acquisitions include Bot & Dolly, a design studio that makes an automated camera system used in movies such as Gravity, and Schaft, a spin-off from the University of Tokyo whose bipedal robots boast much stronger “muscles” than other bots.

 

Boston Dynamics was founded in 1992 by Marc Raibert, formerly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A much-viewed YouTube video shows Boston Dynamics’ four-legged WildCat robot “galloping” and “bounding” around a car park at speeds of 16 miles per hour, before – perhaps reassuringly – falling to its knees on ice.

The response has so far been one of mild amusement: "Which company that owns all our private data and has the motto “Don’t Be Evil” just bought a military robotics firm?” tweeted Joe Randazzo, creative director at Adult Swim, a comedy and satire channel. "‘Don’t be evil,’ he cried, while being chased by the robot hounds," quipped Andy Baio, a tech entrepreneur and founder of the XOXO conference, in a tweet.

One can only hope that in borrowing some robotic folklore from Isaac Asimov, the prime directive of Google's robotic farm will indeed be "don't be evil" or else the amusement will be short-lived.

A quick summary of Google's latest robotic product portfolio:

 

I was reading an old Harry Turtledove alternate history paperback over the weekend and it got me thinking about the science fictional conceit of parallel universes.

For your consideration:

The cross-universe gate was invented in Research Triangle Park in 2017, although none of the researchers understood what they had until two years later. The problem was that the gate would make connections to other universes, but the connection would collapse with in milliseconds.

In 2019, though, they finally tuned in another world where through some trick of math or physics, the gate was stable. Three weeks later they understood what they'd found: a world where history diverged from our own in the 1820s. A world where the Confederacy broke away after a brief war, slavery was phased out in the 1890s and replaced with an almost as bad feudalism, and the union – stretching from Alberta to Columbia – was restored.

A world where through accidents of assassination, random laws, a few unlucky plagues, and more, technology was several decades behind our own world, and where the standard of living was only half of what we're used to here in Earth Prime.

The government got wind of the project early and tried to monopolize it, but the secret was already out. The equipment to build a gate required neither strange and expensive materials nor huge amounts of power.

Which is to say, in short order, thousands, then tens of thousands of gates were connecting Here and There. And then the immigration started. After all, how are you going to keep them down on the farm when they've seen X-boxes, internet porn, cancer drugs that actually work, and more.

Of course, unparalleled immigration was not with out its dark side. Here has gay marriage, smoking bans, a general societal agreement on a decent welfare state, and more. There has none of these things. After history split in the 1820s a lot of the "blue" changes we experienced here never happened. A man – even a gentleman – over There has no compunctions about telling a black man on the sidewalk to get out of his way, and will address him as "n_____" as he does so. It's unsociable not to offer a guest a cigarette. The idea of welfare spending is insane – why, one might as well ask a woman who she prefers as the next president!

By 2025 there were three million There men over Here.

By 2030 there were thirteen million.

There were some advantages – they'd do the jobs that most of us only watch Mike Rowe do on TV. Shortages of lumberjacks, welders, coal miners, and more were alleviated. In an economy still suffering from the economic collapse of 2008, this was no small thing. The economy picked up.

In Here world, where the government reports that 20 percent of Americans claim to have a disability, there was grumbling. How dare these interlopers do jobs that no decent Here person would do, and accept so little for them?

Other joined in the clamoring, saying that their willingness to work for less was hurting wages.

The There men paid their taxes, though, and they kept the factories running, so the business elite argued forcefully in their defense. Zuckerberg was particularly eloquent.

There was more grumbling. The "n-bomb" was making a return to use and smoking and littering was up. Every other week a professor at Harvard or Yale penned an editorial in a prestigious east-coast newspaper arguing about the coarsening of our national culture.

There were now over twenty million There men.

The Somerville, Massachusetts government reversed itself and declared that the There men could, in fact, be called "illegals".

…but their timing was comedy gold, because it happened the day before the US Supreme Court ruled on the matter. In a divided ruling with no less than one primary opinion, one separate concurrence, and three dissents, the court ruled that since the There men had US citizenship granted under a Constitution identical to ours (aside from some minor differences like the lack of a 19th amendment), they were, in fact, US citizens, and could not only stay here, but could vote.

The internet erupted, and a minor law blog even made the front page of the New York Times when several of the authors got so heated about the topic that they started calling each other "pony-lovers".

That was forgotten in days, though, because people belatedly realized what amnesty meant: November was coming – and with it, elections. …and it turned out that the Republicans had been passing laws: registering people to vote at dive bars near the oil fields, at Ford dealerships, at Pawn shops near the coal mines.

The Republican sweep was unprecedented. President, 61% of the Senate, 64% of the house of Representatives.

Some conspiracy theorists on the left immediately declared that the trans-historical gates had been a plot all along: the Republicans had been behind the whole thing. Was not the fact that they registered There men to vote at the places where they congregated proof of this?

The conspiracy was never proven, but for decades the allegation lived on: The Republicans, unable to convince the people to elect their party, had elected to import a new people.

They'd done it – and they'd won.

Of course, it wasn't a complete victory for the Republican establishment: they themselves were discomfited by the relegalization of mandatory prayer in school, the increase in the violent crime rate (the There men did like to duel), the resurgence of prostitution, the fact that most restaurants now smelled like tobacco smoke for the first time in half a century, and more. On the bright side, though, the Republican elite didn't actually have to interact with those people. Their votes were needed, yes, but they weren't exactly welcome in the same social circles.

But enough science fiction.

Let's return to the real world.

Let's talk about amnesty for illegal immigrants, the motor-voter law, the fact that the US does not require proof of citizenship to vote, and the talk of a "permanent Democratic majority", and allegations that the Democrats have elected to import a new people.

(N.B. my own thoughts on immigration probably aren't remotely like what you think from the above)

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Just a reminder, only 5 days left to get an SMBC thing by Christmas AND we're down to about 40 SCIENCE books. Thanks, geeks!

Carlos Miller runs the indispensable blog Photography Is Not A Crime, which documents the struggle between citizen-photographers and the cops and government officials who would like to prevent them from taking pictures of things. That's a trend we've talked about here as well — whether it's cops arresting citizens on the pretense that their cell phones might be futuristic weapons or on the pretense that they are "interfering" with police business (even when they are a safe distance away on their own property). In addition, we've talked about the ongoing legal struggle against laws that purport to prohibit citizens from recording cops engaged in their duties in public, and about how cops are attempting to suppress publication of recordings of their public activities.

Miller's campaign has gotten him charged with crimes before. Now it's happened again — because he published the contact information of the Boston Police Department's Public Affairs Officer.

The story begins typically for Photography Is Not A Crime with a story about a Boston Police Department sergeant thuggishly assaulting a photographer recording a traffic stop. A PINAC fan and journalism student named Taylor Hardy called the Boston PD's Bureau of Public Information on its public line to ask about the story. Hardy spoke with Angelene Richardson, a spokesperson for the Boston Police Department who provides information to the media and public. When Hardy published a recording of that call, the Boston Police Department arranged for him to be charged with wiretapping. Hardy claims that he informed Richardson that he was recording the call (though he did not successfully record that part of the conversation), apparently Richardson claims that he did not.

Even assuming that Hardy didn't disclose that he was recording (and it would be foolish to take the BPD's word on that), it's very dubious policy for the government to charge a citizen with a crime for recording a call with a police department's public information officer on the phone line the department identifies as its public information line. Any such communication can't possibly be regarded as private. There may be constitutional problems with a wiretapping statute that allows prosecution of a citizen under those circumstances. But the BPP wasn't done doubling down yet.

When Carlos Miller wrote about the wiretapping charges against Hardy, he encouraged readers to contact Richardson at her BDP telephone number and email address, which the BPD published online:

Maybe we can call or email Richardson to persuade her to drop the charges against Hardy considering she should assume all her conversations with reporters are on the record unless otherwise stated.

In other words, Miller encouraged his readers to petition the government for a redress of grievances, as protected by the First Amendment.

The BPD has charged Miller with witness intimidation. The BPD also threatened any of Miller's readers who contact the BPD:

Detective Nick Moore also assured me he would do the same to any PINAC readers if they continue to contact departmental spokeswoman Angelene Richardson as they have been doing since yesterday.

“I can go and get warrants for every person who called her,” he said during a telephone conversation earlier this evening. “It’s an annoyance. It’s an act of intimidation.”

Indeed — an act of intimidation is involved. But it's an act of intimidation by the BPD, which is sending a clear message about how it will handle citizen dissent.

What a accomplishment: the Boston Police Department has discovered a way to make it a crime for citizens to contact the person it designates to talk to citizens.

By the way, I often tell people to shut up rather than answer questions from cops, because when cops say they are "just clearing up some issues" or "just want to straighten some things out" or "just want to get some facts," they are very often full of shit: they are trying to get you to incriminate yourself. As an example of what I mean, consider the dishonest, unctuous bullshit that BDP Detective Nick Moore used in an effort to get Carlos Miller to talk before charging him:

Mr. Miller,
Can you please contact me at your convenience at my office, xxxxxxxxxxxxx. I realize that you do not trust the police and that is fine but I assure you I am not trying to jam you up. I just wish to have a cordial conversation with you and clear the air about a few things. Please do not post my office number or email to your website as I have numerous victims of serious crimes who contact me on a daily basis and It would not be fair to them or me if my voicemail box is full and they cannot get ahold of me.
My supervisors and the District Attorney’s office are aware of this request but I assure you that the conversation will just be me and you, not recorded, and again, Im not trying trap you into anything incriminating. As I relayed to Mr. Hardy I try to give everyone involved in my investigations the benefit of the doubt and speaking with you about this hopefully will accomplish that. Thank you.
Detective Moore
Boston Police Department

Cops are not looking out for your best interests. Cops are looking to put someone in jail.

Update: Boston PD has slunk away.

Encourage People To Contact the Boston Police Department's Bureau of Public Information? That's A Jailin'. © 2007-2013 by the authors of Popehat. This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. Using this feed on any other site is a copyright violation. No scraping.

First, from Communist China.  The Reuters caption reads: “A policeman (2nd L) of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) controls a mock rioter during a SWAT police performance drill at a training base in Xi’an, Shaanxi province October 30, 2013.”

Next, from Communist America (via Instapundit):

David Eckert, a resident of Deming, NM, was pulled over by police officers after failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. For whatever reason, the officers decided Eckert was hiding something, or perhaps they were unsatisfied that a routine stop hadn’t blown up into something bigger.

They asked him to step out of the car and then searched his vehicle (without his consent). Another officer brought in a drug dog which reacted (a relatively worthless indication of anything — drug dogs can easily be “alerted” by their controlling officers) to the driver’s seat. (Eckert’s lawyer calls into question this dog’s training, presenting documents that claim to show it hadn’t received the proper field training and recertification. See exhibits listed under docket item 27.) Then the officer “observed” that Eckert was standing “erect with his legs together” and his “buttocks clenched.” This was all the justification the Deming police needed to subject Eckert to the following horrific chain of events at a hospital in neighboring Silver City.

1. Eckert’s abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.
2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert’s anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert’s anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
4. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
5. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
6. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.
8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert’s anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.At no time did Eckert give his consent to these searches.

The faces are different, but the wicked heart that enforces totalitarianism is the same the world over.

By now you've probably heard the story of David Eckert. He's the New Mexico man who was stopped by police, detained based on a suspicion he was hiding drugs in his rectum, and subjected to increasingly intrusive anal probing and eventually sedation and a colonoscopy. You might have read about him at Simple Justice or Defending People or BoingBoing or Techdirt or Reason or any of the other places that reported on the ghastly episode.

I waited to write about it until I could get a copy of the search warrant affidavit — helpfully provided by my friend Kevin Underhill of the absolutely essential legal blog Lowering the Bar — so that I could address this question: what quantum of proof is required in New Mexico for the police and compliant doctors to rape and torture a man?

What Police And Doctors Did To David Eckert

I use the terms "rape" and "torture" quite deliberately.

Mr. Eckert released medical records to local reporters, who reviewed them and noted that the following things were done to him by doctors and staff at Gila Regional Medical Center:

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.

2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

5. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

6. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.

8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.

Allow me to repeat: no narcotics were ever found during Mr. Eckert's encounter with police and doctors.

Throughout this ordeal, Eckert protested and never gave doctors at the Gila Regional Medical Center consent to perform any of these medical procedures.

Section 30-9-10 of the statutes of New Mexico provide:

A. Criminal sexual penetration is the unlawful and intentional causing of a person to engage in sexual intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio or anal intercourse or the causing of penetration, to any extent and with any object, of the genital or anal openings of another, whether or not there is any emission.

B. Criminal sexual penetration does not include medically indicated procedures.

C. Criminal sexual penetration in the first degree consists of all sexual penetration perpetrated:

(1) on a child under thirteen years of age; or

(2) by the use of force or coercion that results in great bodily harm or great mental anguish to the victim.

Whoever commits criminal sexual penetration in the first degree is guilty of a first degree felony.

Police officers successfully encouraged doctors to penetrate David Eckert's anus repeatedly, eventually sedating him so they could do it with a colonoscopy device. The procedure was not medically indicated; it was indicated by our nation's War on Drugs.

So why are the police officers from the City of Deming, New Mexico Police Department and doctors and staff from Gila Regional Medical Center who committed these acts upon David Eckert not charged as rapists?

Because they have excuses — the color of law, and a warrant.

How The Police Secured A Warrant To Anally Probe David Eckert

If you want David Eckert's version of what happened to him, you can read the federal complaint he filed against the City of Deming, New Mexico; Deming Police Officers Bobby Orosco, Robert Chavez, and Officer Hernandez; Hildalgo County and Hidalgo County Sheriff Officers David Arrendondo, Robert Rodriguez, and Patrick Green; Deputy District Attorney Daniel Dougherty; and Gila Regional Medical Center and doctors Robert Wilcox and Okay H. Odocha.

But let's not just take his word for it. Let's consider the word of the law enforcement officers for what justified them to bring Mr. Eckert to the Gila Regional Medical Center for doctors to go spelunking in his innards, eventually sedating him so they could so so.

Officer Robert Chavez of the Deming Police Department sought the search warrant. You can read his entire search warrant application here. This is what he sought judicial leave to search:

A brown 1998 Dodge displaying New Mexico JOS-3ll with a YIN #3B7KC26Z9WM274255 and the person of David W. Eckert with a date of birth of 08/0811959, to include but not limited to his anal cavity.

Before he applied to a judge for a warrant, Officer Chavez asked Deputy District Attorney Daniel T. Dougherty for permission. Asking a Deputy DA for permission, in theory, prevents cops from seeking improper or deficient warrants.

In theory.

Officer Chavez took the search warrant to a judge.¹. The following is the sum total of what he told the judge to justify what followed:

I. I Officer Robert Chavez was contacted by Sgt Detective Orosco in reference to a brown 1998 Dodge pick- up truck that failed to stop at the posted stop sign at the intersection of Deming Del-Sol and Pine Street.

2. I was traveling East bound on Pine Street and did locate the brown 1998 Dodge pick-up traveling West bound on Pine Street from Deming del-Sol.

3. I conducted a traffic stop with the brown 1998 Dodge pick-up displaying New Mexico JGS-31l with a VIN#3B7KC26Z9WM2742SS in the parking lot of 1021 E. Pine Street (Wal-Mart) parking lot.

4. I approached the driver who was later identified as David W. Eckert and informed him for the reason for the stop.

5. While speaking with Mr. Eckert I did notice that he was avoiding eye contact with me as I asked him for his driver's license, registration and proof of insurance.

6. As Mr. Eckert handed me the documents that were requested I did notice his left hand began to shake at which time I had Mr. Eckert step out of the vehicle. Once outside of the vehicle Mr. Eckert was asked if he had any weapons or anything else that might harm me which he stated "no".

7. I then conducted a Terry Pat Down on Mr. Eckert's person to search for any weapons which none were found.

8. While Mr. Eckert was standing outside of the vehicle I did notice his posture to be erect and he kept his legs together. A short time later I informed Mr. Eckert that a uniformed patrol Officer was coming to issue him a citation for the stop sign violation.

9. Officer Villegas did arrive and issued Mr. Eckert his citation for stop sign violation.

10. Mr. Eckert was then informed that he was free to go.

11. As Mr. Eckert turned to walk back towards his vehicle, I asked him for verbal consent to search his vehicle for any illegal narcotics andlor weapons at that time he did give consent.

12. I then asked Mr. Eckert if I could search his person for any illegal narcotics and/or weapons. At that time he stated that he had a problem with me searching his person.

13. I then informed Mr. Eckert that an open air search was going to be conducted on the vehicle and reminded him that he had given verbal consent to search his vehicle as well.

14. Hidalgo CountyK-9 Officer walked his K-9 around the vehicle which the K-9 alerted to the driver's side of the vehicle. A short time later the K-9 made entry into the cab of the vehicle and once again alerted to the driver's side seat.

15. Mr. Eckert was then informed of the K -9 alerting to the seat and was informed that a search warrant was going to be obtained. Hidalgo County K-9 Officer did inform me that he had dealt with Mr. Eckert on a previous case and stated that Mr. Eckert was known to insert drugs into his anal cavity and had been caught in Hidalgo County with drugs in his anal cavity.

16. Mr. Eckert was then placed into investigated detention and was transported to the Deming Police Department.

17. Mr. Eckert's vehicle was tagged for evidence and was later transferred to the Deming Police Department's impound lot awaiting a search warrant.

18. At approximately 140 I hrs~ I contacted DDA Dougherty and informed of the incident. DDA Dougherty did approve pursuit of a search warrant for Mr. Eckert's vehicle and also for Mr. Eckert's person to include Mr. Eckert's anal cavity.

That's it. The factors that allegedly justify police intrusion into David Eckert's anus are:

• That his hands were shaking and he avoided eye contact during a traffic stop;
• He refused to consent to a search of his person;
• He stood erect with his legs together;
• No drugs were found in his car or in a pat-down of him (police pat-downs for weapons often turn up drugs, which mysteriously feel like dangerous weapons when touched by police, or which are immediately identifiable as drugs when touched by police);
• A drug dog (with no information given about the dog's training or qualifications or success rate) "alerted" to his car seat (though no drugs were found in his car); and
• An unidentified Hidalgo County K-9 officer asserted, without any specificity, that Eckert had previously hidden drugs in his anus.

That's all.  It really comes down to three things:  (1) subjective officer impressions that Eckert looked nervous, (2) a dog alerting on his seat, and (3) an unnamed cop making an unspecific claim that he had previously hidden drugs in his anus. 

The first factor is smoke and mirrors.  It is increasingly clear in America that a reasonable person should be fearful during an encounter with police, who can generally shoot you (or your dog) with probable impunity, and who, it appears, can arrange for you to be systematically anally raped if the mood strikes them. My hands would shake too.

The second factor — the dog alert — has its own problems, but at any rate does not connect drugs to Mr. Eckert's anus. The third factor is effectively an anonymous tip. The affiant, Officer Chavez, does not identify the officer, explain the basis for the officer's knowledge, or offer any details about the alleged instances in which drugs were found in Mr. Eckert's anus. Anonymous tips must be corroborated to support probable cause, and this effectively anonymous tip isn't.

Mr. Eckert asserts that drugs were never found in his anus by any law enforcement agency. If true, that suggests someone lied – the K-9 officer who allegedly told Officer Chavez that, or Officer Chavez. A warrant premised on material false information is invalid. In deciding whether false information was provided to the court to secure the warrant, consider this: the Hidalgo County K-9 officer's report on the incident here doesn't mention any such knowledge about Eckert and doesn't say he conveyed any such information to Officer Chavez. Do you think that would have made it into his report if he had? [Edited to add: A sharp-eyed commenter points out that Hidalgo County Officer Orozco says on page four of this report that he informed Chavez that Eckert had a drug history -- but once again, there is a very glaring absence of any statement that he knew that Eckert had hidden drugs in his rectum.]

You can read Officer Chavez' reports of the incident here and here.

By the way, Eckert has filed a motion for partial summary judgment on some issues, in which he asserts that the dog in question "was not certified and had no credentials."

What Should Terrify Us About This

Orin Kerr is a Fourth Amendment expert. Yesterday at the Volokh Conspiracy — without the benefit of the search warrant yet, as he emphasized — he analyzed the search. As he explained, such an intrusive internal search required a higher level of proof and justification:

The key case is Winston v. Lee, 470 U.S. 753 (1985), which expressly considered when the government can get a warrant to perform surgery on a suspect for evidence in their body. Under Lee, the court must conduct a balancing of the overall invasiveness of the surgical measures as compared to the need for evidence to say whether a warrant can be used to allow the surgical technique. On one hand, withdrawing blood to test it for alcohol in a DUI case is reasonable, and is allowed. On the other hand, dangerous surgery to extract a bullet lodged under a suspect’s collarbone was unreasonable when the bullet was of relatively low evidentiary value.

Prof. Kerr didn't opine on probable cause because he didn't have the warrant yet. But Prof. Kerr concludes that the intrusiveness here — a series of anal intrusions culminating in sedation and a colonoscopy — is not justified under that balancing test to secure drugs that a suspect might hide in his anus. I note that Eckert argues in the complaint that the warrant is invalid because it did not specify the level of surgical intrusion permitted; he cites a case that supports that proposition but also establishes that police officers might be able to rely on a "good faith" defense that the warrant is valid because of their good faith belief that it was valid. Yes, that is a thing.

That is to say a warrant, like the one at issue, that authorizes a medical procedure search of a specific area of the body but does not prescribe any off-limits procedures will be subject to good faith unless the police misled the magistrate, the magistrate abandoned her judicial role, or the warrant so clearly lacked probable cause.

Even though they didn't find drugs — so the admissibility of evidence is not at issue — their reliance on a judge will be a defense.

So: these cops got a warrant that vaguely allowed a search in David Eckert's anus for drugs. Even though searches found nothing, the cops and doctors continued to escalate to steadily more invasive procedures into David Eckert's body to find drugs. Yet, under the "good faith" exception, their reliance on the warrant might be valid if the warrant was valid. Moreover, as Prof. Kerr explains, the cops might be able to rely on the qualified immunity that government employees tend to enjoy when they do things like subject us to involuntary anal probing.

Some people are citing this incident for the proposition that it is terrifying that police officers and doctors would break the law and violate a suspect's rights. I submit there is something far more terrifying about it: the prospect that a court might find that Mr. Eckert's rights weren't violated at all, and that he has no recourse for a team of cops and doctors raping and torturing him.

What's terrifying is that the warrant requirement is supposed to protect our rights from overzealous cops, but here a judge approved a warrant to probe a man anally premised on fluff and a tip from an anonymous cop.

What's terrifying is that lawyers are supposed to guide cops in the law, but a Deputy DA approved this warrant.

What's terrifying is that though the warrant is extraordinarily flimsy, there's a decent chance a judge might find it sufficient. That's because the judiciary has been steadily ground down by decades of law-and-order thin-blue-line rhetoric and by the purported imperatives of the Great War on Drugs, and judges routinely shrug and accept transparently bogus police speculation and awful warrants.

What's terrifying is that a judge who has bought the government's narrative may, employing the balancing test Prof. Kerr talks about, decide that the amount of drugs that can be hidden in a man's rectum justifies detaining him, X-raying him, repeatedly digitally probing him, and despite a total lack of indication he is carrying drugs, sedating him and subjecting him to a colonoscopy.

What's terrifying is that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is only as strong as judges allow it to be — and, by extension, only as strong as We the People insist that it must be. We the People are easily frightened into agreeing that the promise of safety outweighs the Fourth Amendment. As Learned Hand said:

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.

I'm not afraid because police officers violated David Eckert's constitutional rights by raping and torturing him because they thought he might have a trivial amount of drugs.

I'm afraid that they might not have violated his rights as defined by the courts, because we have allowed those rights to wither away out of fear and indifference.

The government will continue to act like that until we decide, collectively, that a government that would rape and torture a man to find a fistful of drugs is not worthy of our allegiance, obedience, or respect. The government will continue to act like that until we say "enough."

What Is The Quantum of Proof Necessary for Police to Rape and Torture you in New Mexico? © 2007-2013 by the authors of Popehat. This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. Using this feed on any other site is a copyright violation. No scraping.

Submitted by Marin Katusa via Casey Research,

While the White House spied on Frau Merkel and Obamacare developed into a slow-moving train wreck, while Syria was saved from all-out war by the Russian bell and the Republicrats fought bitterly about the debt ceiling… something monumental happened that went unnoticed by most of the globe.

The US quietly surpassed Saudi Arabia as the biggest oil producer in the world.

You read that correctly: "The jump in output from shale plays has led to the second biggest oil boom in history," stated Reuters on October 15. "U.S. output, which includes natural gas liquids and biofuels, has swelled 3.2 million barrels per day (bpd) since 2009, the fastest expansion in production over a four-year period since a surge in Saudi Arabia's output from 1970-1974."

After the initial moment of awe, pragmatic readers will surely wonder: Then why isn't gasoline dirt-cheap in the US?

There's indeed a good explanation why most Americans don't drive up to the gas pump whistling a happy tune (and it has nothing to do with evil speculators). Let's start with the demand side of this equation.

Crude oil consists of very long chains of carbon atoms. The refineries take the crude and essentially "crack" those long chains of carbon atoms into shorter chains of carbon atoms to make various petroleum products. Some of the products that are made from petroleum may surprise you.

The United States has the largest refining capacity in the world and is still by far the largest consumer of oil in the world (though China is beginning to catch up), and its refineries require 15 million barrels of oil a day. That means even though, due to the shale revolution, domestic production has dramatically increased to about 8 million barrels, the US still has to import between 7 and 8 million barrels of expensive foreign oil a day.

Let's take a look at who the US buys the imported oil from. (Now that I finally figured out my way around the new Windows 8—which, by the way, really sucks—I can even add some color to my tables.)

Canada is blue because it is not only friendly with the US, but also has the ability to increase oil production. The other countries are red because they either have decreasing oil production, or the country is not on good terms with the US government, or the production may be at risk for various reasons. The "red countries" all sell oil to the US at higher prices than does Canada.

As I said, the US imports about 7 million barrels of oil a day, and our top 5 exporters make up between 5.6 and 6.8 million barrels while the rest is split among other countries.

This means that even though the US has significantly increased its oil production in the past five years, a good chunk of oil has to be imported at much higher prices. And higher crude oil prices for refineries means higher prices at the gas pump.

But that's not the only issue: The "new oil" produced from the shale oil fields in the Bakken and Eagle Ford formations isn't cheap. Both the Bakken and Eagle Ford have been hugely successful, and an average well in either region can produce over 400 barrels of oil per day.

That may sound like a lot, but drilling thousands of meters into the ground (both vertically and horizontally), then casing and fracking the well, costs millions of dollars. And the trouble doesn't end once the well has been drilled: oil and gas production can drop as much as 50% in the first year.

Think of it as running on a treadmill—but the incline gets steeper and steeper the longer you run. That's the current reality of America's oil production.

Now, these areas also have to deal with declining legacy oil production ("legacy" meaning older oil wells that produced before fracking became popular) due to depletion rates. Freeze-offs, and even hurricane season can affect the legacy oil wells' production decline.

As the old wells begin to deplete, they need to be replaced by unconventional wells with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Even though these new wells provide an initial burst of production, they decline very quickly. That means you need to drill even more wells just to keep up—and the vicious cycle continues.

The costs, as you can imagine, are forbiddingly high. Even in known oil-rich regions like the Bakken and Eagle Ford, the all-in cost of extracting a barrel of oil from the ground can cost as much as US$75 per barrel (for comparison, Saudi Arabia can produce oil for as low as US$1 per barrel). To put it in simple terms: cheap oil in North America is a thing of the past.

So, the US produces expensive oil and relies on imports of even more expensive oil. And since the refiners need to make money as well, this means higher prices at the pumps. Who loses? The US consumer, of course.

What would help lower gas prices? Building more pipelines to deliver cheaper Canadian oil to refineries in the US and decreasing the refineries' dependence on expensive foreign oil. Until these new and much safer pipelines are built, rail has to pick up the slack. Almost 400,000 railcars full of oil are expected to be shipped in 2013, compared with just 9,500 railcars in 2008, a whopping 41-fold increase.

But rail is not the answer. In fact, transporting oil by rail is much more dangerous than transporting it by pipeline. Just last week, we wrote about two recent accidents, one of which claimed 47 lives.

Federal and state taxes at every step of the gasoline-making progress make the pain at the pump even worse. The US government already takes more than 60% of the divisible income from every barrel of oil produced… and another 50 cents per gallon at the pump.

Then there's the matter of Obama's supposed "Green Revolution" and how America would be saved through the use of alternative energies. Obama wrote massive checks to different renewable energy firms that went belly-up, the most famous of them all being solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, whose bankruptcy cost American taxpayers more than $500 million. Obama is also a heavy supporter of ethanol (his home state of Illinois, after all, is the third-largest ethanol-producing state) and has increased the targets for the use of ethanol in transportation.

Someone has to pay for all of these subsidies, so why not get the dirty, evil oil companies to pay for them? Keep in mind, though, that the oil companies have enough lobbyists and lawyers to keep the government at bay—so the higher prices will be passed on to the consumers.

To sum up why the price of gasoline is so high even though the US is producing so much more oil than before:

1. The high cost of American oil production
2. Even higher costs due to imported (non-Canadian) oil
3. Obama not allowing cheaper Canadian oil to flow to the refineries via pipelines such as the Keystone XL
4. The taxes on crude are used to fund Obama's green dream—his green-energy "legacy"—and his love for ethanol and the taxes at the pump will not decrease

 

Doug Casey and I are convinced that new technologies applied in the Old World will bring huge New World profits. But don't take my word for it—I challenge you to try out my research. Click here to take me up on my 100% money-back guarantee.

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr has an informative post about an important Fourth Amendment decision out of the United States Court of Appeals for The Third Circuit. United States v. Katzin addresses, among other things, whether the Fourth Amendment requires police to get a warrant before installing a GPS on your car — the court says yes.

But inspired by tipster Patrick I want to focus on one line in the opinion by Judge Greenaway:

The Government contends that requiring a warrant prior to GPS searches would “seriously impede the government‟s ability to investigate drug trafficking, terrorism, and other crimes.” (Appellant Br. at 27.) We fail to see how such a conclusory assertion suffices to except GPS searches from the requirements of the Fourth Amendment‟s Warrant Clause. Doubtless, we are aware of the dangers posed by terrorism and comparably reprehensible criminal activity. However, we would work a great disservice by permitting the word “terrorism” (in the absence of any other information or circumstance) to act as a skeleton key to the liberties guaranteed under the Constitution. [emphasis added]

Judge Greenaway calls it a "skeleton key." I've called it an "airhorn issue." What is it? It's a concept — like "terrorism menaces us" and "think of the children!" and "drugs are bad" that is used as a substitute for principled legal analysis. Skeleton keys and airhorns are not so much argued as they are invoked, ritualistically, to justify government power. As Judge Greenaway implies, the government invokes them without principled support.

When the government and its supporters invoke "terrorism!", they often want to avoid three questions: (1) what evidence is there that this situation has anything to do with terrorism? (2) How will this power you are seeking actually reduce the danger of terrorism? (3) Have you supplied evidence showing that the need to fight terrorism is sufficient, under established constitutional law, to justify this particular infringement of rights?

That's why I call it an airhorn issue — it's calculated to drown out argument, not make an argument. "Terrorism" — like Think of the Children! and The Sourge of Drugs! and Cyberbullying! — is frequently used as a substitute for evidence or legal analysis. Why can the Department of Homeland Security get involved in online piracy? TERRORISM! Why can a police department get search warrants to discover the identity of someone who wrote satirical cartoons about it? CYBERSTALKING! Why can a state pass a law making it a crime to post mocking pictures? CYBERBULLYING! Why should registered sex offenders be required to register with their probation officer when they use a nickname to leave comments on a newspaper's web site? THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Think critically. A word is not the same as the thing it purports to describe. Words are often arguments. Let us not be dupes who accept arguments uncritically, particularly when they are invoked to limit our rights. Words, used right, can be magical, in a colloquial sense. Think of "I love you" and "not guilty" and "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." But let's not stand by while the government and its supporters attempt to use words like magic invocations that grant power merely by their utterance. "Terrorism?" Prove it.

Skeleton Keys, Airhorns, And Magic Words © 2007-2013 by the authors of Popehat. This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. Using this feed on any other site is a copyright violation. No scraping.

Every now and then, it is good to refresh knowledge of what is truly important in life. So it’s time to post “The Greatest Speech Ever” by Charlie Chaplin. Charlie Chaplin was known as the greatest silent actor ever. The most powerful excerpts from his speech, still very relevant today, in my opinion, are below:

 

"And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost."

 

"To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish."

 

And particularly relevant, is the following, as it applies to nearly all world leaders today and it should serve to awaken us to the knowledge that divided we will fall to the brutal immorality of today's banking/government/military complex, but united, we have the power to change our futures for the better:

 

"You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let’s use that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfill their promise, they never will. "

 

 

 

Here is more about Charlie Chaplin, courtesy of Wikipedia:

 

Chaplin arrived in Los Angeles, home of the Keystone studio, in early December 1913. The 1940s saw Chaplin face a series of controversies, both in his work and his personal life, which changed his fortunes and severely affected his popularity in America. The first of these was a new boldness in expressing his political beliefs. Deeply disturbed by the surge of militaristic nationalism in 1930s world politics, Chaplin found that he could not keep these issues out of his work: "How could I throw myself into feminine whimsy or think of romance or the problems of love when madness was being stirred up by a hideous grotesque, Adolf Hitler?”

He chose to make The Great Dictator – a "satirical attack on fascism" and his "most overtly political film". There were strong parallels between Chaplin and the German dictator, having been born four days apart and raised in similar circumstances. It was widely noted that Hitler wore the same toothbrush moustache as the Tramp, and it was this physical resemblance that formed the basis of Chaplin's story. Chaplin spent two years developing the script and began filming in September 1939. He had submitted to using spoken dialogue, partly out of acceptance that he had no other choice but also because he recognised it as a better method for delivering a political message. Making a comedy about Hitler was seen as highly controversial, but Chaplin's financial independence allowed him to take the risk. "I was determined to go ahead," he later wrote, "for Hitler must be laughed at." Chaplin replaced the Tramp (while wearing similar attire) with "A Jewish Barber", a reference to the Nazi party's belief that the star was a Jew. In a dual performance he also plays the dictator "Adenoid Hynkel", a parody of Hitler which Maland sees as revealing the "megalomania, narcissism, compulsion to dominate, and disregard for human life" of the German dictator.

The Great Dictator spent a year in production, and was released in October 1940. There was a vast amount of publicity around the film, with a critic for the New York Times calling it "the most eagerly awaited picture of the year", and it was one of the biggest money-makers of the era. The response from critics was less enthusiastic. Although most agreed that it was a brave and worthy film, many considered the ending inappropriate. Chaplin concluded the film with a six-minute speech in which he looked straight at the camera and professed his personal beliefs. The monologue drew significant debate for its overt preaching and continues to attract attention to this day. Maland has identified it as triggering Chaplin's decline in popularity, and writes, "Henceforth, no movie fan would ever be able to separate the dimension of politics from the star image of Charles Spencer Chaplin." The Great Dictator received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor.

Chaplin decided to hold the world premiere of his film Limelight in London, since it was the setting of the film. As he left Los Angeles, Chaplin expressed a premonition that he would not be returning. At New York, he boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth with his family on 18 September 1952. The next day, Attorney General James P. McGranery revoked Chaplin's re-entry permit and stated that he would have to submit to an interview concerning his political views and moral behaviour in order to re-enter the US. US Congressman John E. Rankin of Mississippi told the House in June 1947:

 

"[Chaplin] has refused to become an American citizen. His very life in Hollywood is detrimental to the moral fabric of America. [If he is deported] ... his loathsome pictures can be kept from before the eyes of the American youth. He should be deported and gotten rid of at once."

 

 

What is remarkable about the above is that Chaplin’s speech about fascism in The Great Dictator nearly 75 years ago is as relevant today, if not more relevant, as it was back then. In addition, as Chaplin was demonized for telling the truth back then, administrations worldwide today, like the current White House administration, are relentlessly demonizing and persecuting truth tellers as well, after deceitfully pledging to protect them. It is for these reasons, in an Orwellian age when telling the truth is a revolutionary act, that we must spread "The Greatest Speech Ever" far and wide.

CBS News:

California sheriff’s officials and family members say deputies shot and killed a 13-year-old boy who was carrying a replica assault weapon.

Two Sonoma County deputies saw the boy walking with the replica weapon at about 3 p.m. local time Tuesday in Santa Rosa. Lt. Dennis O’Leary says they repeatedly ordered him to drop what appeared to be a rifle before firing several rounds.

The boy fell to the ground. Deputies handcuffed him and began administering first aid, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Deputies then discovered that the gun the man had been carrying was a replica, and he also had a plastic gun in his waistband, CBS San Francisco reports. O’Leary said the teen is believed to live in the area where he was killed.

The deputies involved have been placed on administrative leave while an investigation is conducted by police from Santa Rosa and Petaluma and the district attorney’s office, CBS San Francisco reports.

This is wicked behavior.  In Colonial times men were expected to carry their weapons to church worship services and practice afterwards with the rest of the community.  Today, LEOs will, at the slightest provocation, properly interpreted or not, gun down little boys where they stand for carrying toys.  The important thing of course is that the LEOs got to “go home at the end of their shift.”

The mother asks, “Why did they kill him? Why?”  Because they can.  Grieve for your lost little boy, Mrs. Cazarez, and we will grieve for the loss of our country to agents of Satan.  Now watch the blue wall close in behind these cops, these child murderers.  Watch it happen, and tell me if a single cop tells the truth or holds anyone accountable.  Tell me if a judge or jury finds these men guilty of anything?  No, the strongest response will be from totalitarian lawmakers who want to make it illegal to have or sell toy guns.

Watch it happen.

A man after my own heart has written an article (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming) well worth the reading and pondering:

The world doesn’t have to be like this. Things can be different.

I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?

It’s simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.

Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you’ve never been. Once you’ve visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different.

And while we’re on the subject, I’d like to say a few words about escapism. I hear the term bandied about as if it’s a bad thing. As if “escapist” fiction is a cheap opiate used by the muddled and the foolish and the deluded, and the only fiction that is worthy, for adults or for children, is mimetic fiction, mirroring the worst of the world the reader finds herself in.

If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn’t you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with(and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real.

As JRR Tolkien reminded us, the only people who inveigh against escape are jailers.

In another paragraph, Mr Gaiman has this to say:

I was lucky. I had an excellent local library growing up. I had the kind of parents who could be persuaded to drop me off in the library on their way to work in summer holidays, and the kind of librarians who did not mind a small, unaccompanied boy heading back into the children’s library every morning and working his way through the card catalogue, looking for books with ghosts or magic or rockets in them, looking for vampires or detectives or witches or wonders. And when I had finished reading the children’s’ library I began on the adult books.

They were good librarians. They liked books and they liked the books being read. They taught me how to order books from other libraries on inter-library loans. They had no snobbery about anything I read. They just seemed to like that there was this wide-eyed little boy who loved to read, and would talk to me about the books I was reading, they would find me other books in a series, they would help. They treated me as another reader – nothing less or more – which meant they treated me with respect. I was not used to being treated with respect as an eight-year-old.

And this chilling tidbit:

According to a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, England is the “only country where the oldest age group has higher proficiency in both literacy and numeracy than the youngest group, after other factors, such as gender, socio-economic backgrounds and type of occupations are taken into account”.

Or to put it another way, our children and our grandchildren are less literate and less numerate than we are. They are less able to navigate the world, to understand it to solve problems. They can be more easily lied to and misled, will be less able to change the world in which they find themselves, be less employable. All of these things.

 

My comment: Here is a photograph of a public library in Detroit, our clearest example of slow-motion downfall of a great city, not to barbarians, but to our democratically elected economic politics. The chairs and lights were stripped out, and the books were left to rot.

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