Thoughts Aloud

Archive for May, 2009

I encountered an old retired friend who is stunned that the government has revealed the project he has been unable to talk about all these years, “US lab debuts super laser.”

Equipment connected to a house-sized sphere can focus 192 laser beams on a small point, generating temperatures and pressures that exist at cores of stars or giant planets.

NIF will be able to create conditions and conduct experiments never before possible on Earth, according to the laboratory.

A fusion reaction triggered by the super laser hitting hydrogen atoms will produce more energy than was required to prompt “ignition,” according to NIF director Edward Moses.

“This is the long-sought goal of ‘energy gain’ that has been the goal of fusion researchers for more than half a century,” Moses said.

“NIF’s success will be a scientific breakthrough of historic significance; the first demonstration of fusion ignition in a laboratory setting, duplicating on Earth the processes that power the stars.”

Since he knows better, he reckons they are claiming this benign purpose for the weapon in order to get the “greenies” now in charge to continue to support their obscenely expensive project. He also shared the fact that they often triggered UFO sighting reports by bouncing the laser off the moon. ◄Dave►

My world is truly upside down. In my youth, we used to laugh at the notion that Pravda was a legitimate news source. It was considered nothing more than the propaganda wing of the Communist Party in the USSR. By the ’90s we were calling CNN the “Clinton News Network,” because of their blatant bias and advocacy for Progressive causes. Of late, I have regarded MSNBC as the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party and have likened them to Pravda.

That is probably an egregious libel against the Pravda of today. One is far more likely to find honest and accurate reporting in Pravda than MSNBC. Try to imagine, if your head is capable of such irrational flights of fantasy, MSNBC publishing this piece from Pravda, “American capitalism gone with a whimper“:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama’s command that GM’s (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of “pure” free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a “bold” move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK’s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our “wise” Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper…but a “freeman” whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set “fair” maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

Stanislav Mishin

The article has been reprinted with the kind permission from the author and originally appears on his blog, Mat Rodina

Ouch! Does he nail it, or what? I went to his blog and found:

Thus, it is quite obvious that we, the Russian people are not, have never been, nor ever shall be, a part of the West.

Thank God – we are Russians!

We can well coexist with the West peacefully and profitably. We can even make friends with you, but please do neither lecture us, nor interfere with our affairs.

Fair enough!

As I said, my world is upside down. I spent most of my life despising the Russians and fearing a confrontation with them. Now, I would gladly trade half of my whimpering countrymen with them for an equal number of Stanislav Mishin’s. Alas, I get the distinct impression that he wouldn’t take a Green Card if we offered him one. I can’t say as I blame him… and that is the most profound insight of this mornings trip around the world. America is not what it once was, and the prognosis for it ever recovering from the insidious slide into Marxism is not good. ◄Dave►

Dr. Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D. has diagnosed our malaise and written a book on, “The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness.” It and excerpts from it are available on his website, “Liberty Mind.”

I eschew the Orwellian use of the word “Liberal” to refer to the Marxist Left; but if one substitutes the word “Progressive” wherever he uses “Liberal” in the following excerpt, “On the Madness of Modern Liberalism,” he convincingly makes the case that the Leftist ideology is an evil psychopathology, whatever label one attaches to it:

The egalitarianism and welfarism of modern liberal government are incompatible with the facts of human nature and the human condition. But the rise to power of the liberal agenda has resulted from the fact that the people of western societies have irrationally demanded that governments take care of them and manage their lives instead of protecting their property rights. This misconception results in massive violations of those rights while permitting government officials to act out their own and their constituents’ psychopathology. The liberal agenda gratifies various types of pathological dependency; augments primitive feelings of envy and inferiority; reinforces paranoid perceptions of victimization; implements manic delusions of grandeur; exploits government authority for power, domination and revenge; and satisfies infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation.

Modern liberalism rejects, to one degree or another, the competence and sovereignty of the common man and subordinates him to the will of governments run by liberal elites. The western world’s twentieth century capitulation to this philosophy is obvious–and the implications for liberty are ominous. But the history of the world also documents the heroic struggles of human beings to escape from tyrannies of all types, whether imposed by the brute force and declared entitlement of a dictator, or falsely justified by economic, religious or political sophistries. The science fiction of Marxian economic evolution, the grandiose fantasy of a New World Order, the utopian dreams of The Great Society, the myth of the divine emperor, have all had their turns on center stage in irrational man’s attempts to legitimize government control and deny individual liberty. The realities of the human condition, especially the inherent sovereignty of individuals and their inevitable differences in choice and preference, render all collectivist doctrines absurd. A rational biologist will not transport a mountain goat to a prairie and declare a match between organism and environment. A rational social policy theorist will not create an environment of rules for human action that dismisses individual differences, ignores the critical roles of free choice, morality and cooperation, and otherwise distorts and violates the nature of man, and then announce that utopia has arrived in a workers’ paradise.

Like all other human beings, the modern liberal reveals his true character, including his madness, in what he values and devalues, in what he articulates with passion. Of special interest, however, are the many values about which the modern liberal mind is not passionate: his agenda does not insist that the individual is the ultimate economic, social and political unit; it does not idealize individual liberty and the structure of law and order essential to it; it does not defend the basic rights of property and contract; it does not aspire to ideals of authentic autonomy and mutuality; it does not preach an ethic of self-reliance and self-determination; it does not praise courage, forbearance or resilience; it does not celebrate the ethics of consent or the blessings of voluntary cooperation. It does not advocate moral rectitude or understand the critical role of morality in human relating. The liberal agenda does not comprehend an identity of competence, appreciate its importance, or analyze the developmental conditions and social institutions that promote its achievement. The liberal agenda does not understand or recognize personal sovereignty or impose strict limits on coercion by the state. It does not celebrate the genuine altruism of private charity. It does not learn history’s lessons on the evils of collectivism.

What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.” They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”

The liberal cure for this endless malaise is a very large authoritarian government that regulates and manages society through a cradle to grave agenda of redistributive caretaking. It is a government everywhere doing everything for everyone. The liberal motto is “In Government We Trust.” To rescue the people from their troubled lives, the agenda recommends denial of personal responsibility, encourages self-pity and other-pity, fosters government dependency, promotes sexual indulgence, rationalizes violence, excuses financial obligation, justifies theft, ignores rudeness, prescribes complaining and blaming, denigrates marriage and the family, legalizes all abortion, defies religious and social tradition, declares inequality unjust, and rebels against the duties of citizenship. Through multiple entitlements to unearned goods, services and social status, the liberal politician promises to ensure everyone’s material welfare, provide for everyone’s healthcare, protect everyone’s self-esteem, correct everyone’s social and political disadvantage, educate every citizen, and eliminate all class distinctions. With liberal intellectuals sharing the glory, the liberal politician is the hero in this melodrama. He takes credit for providing his constituents with whatever they want or need even though he has not produced by his own effort any of the goods, services or status transferred to them but has instead taken them from others by force.

Radical liberalism thus assaults the foundations of civilized freedom, and for that reason it is a genuine evil. Further, given its irrational goals, coercive methods and historical failures, and given its perverse effects on human development, there can be no question of the radical agenda’s madness. Only an irrational agenda would advocate a systematic destruction of the foundations on which ordered liberty depends. Only an irrational man would want the state to run his life for him rather than create secure conditions in which he can run his own life. Only an irrational agenda would deliberately undermine the citizen’s growth to competence by having the state adopt him. Only irrational thinking would trade individual liberty for government coercion, then sacrifice the pride of self-reliance for welfare dependency. Only an irrational man would look at a community of free people cooperating by choice and see a society of victims exploited by villains.

The liberal agenda urges the citizen to place his basic trust in government, to see it as the mother of all providers, and to mistrust those with whom he would have to trade voluntarily in order to get what he wants. In doing this, the politician seeks to redirect to government offices the trust which can and should empower the individual to run his own life through voluntary cooperation with others. Government programs appeal to the citizen’s passivity by implying that he need not provide for his own health care, housing or retirement. And he need not cooperate with his fellows for these purposes either. Instead, he is told, he need only trust the government to make available to him whatever he needs and to implement that trust by ceding to its officials the power to tax the people and regulate them for his benefit. In short, the government invites the citizen to vote for the candidate who promises what a parent gives a child. It invites him to assume the dependent role of the child, to surrender his personal sovereignty to the state, to ignore his existential obligation to take full responsibility for his material and social welfare, and to empower government officials as his guardians.

His neurosis is evident in his ideals and fantasies; in his self-righteousness, arrogance and grandiosity; in his self-pity; in his demands for indulgence and exemption from accountability; in his claims to entitlements; in what he gives and withholds; and in his protests that nothing done voluntarily is enough to satisfy him. Most notably, the radical liberal’s neurosis is evident in his extravagant political demands, in his furious protests against economic freedom, in his arrogant contempt for morality, in his angry defiance of civility, in his bitter attacks on freedom of association, in his aggressive assault on individual liberty. And in the final analysis, the irrationality of the radical liberal is most apparent in his ruthless use of force to control the lives of others.

In a competent society the principles of ordered liberty guide the citizen throughout the life cycle. They inform him and his children and the community of the rules by which human beings make good lives for themselves. Because the rights, laws and duties of the competent society are all of a piece and reflect the bipolar nature of man, the entire ensemble of individual citizen, family, community, society and institutions forms a coherent whole in support of life, liberty, social cooperation and the pursuit of happiness. Under the rules that govern ordered liberty, the human organism and its physical and social environment are in harmony to the maximum extent possible given the turbulent nature of man.

By contrast, a society organized under radical liberalism comes into immediate conflict with the bipolar nature of man and with the rights, laws and duties needed for human beings to live in peace and freedom. Rather than coordinating the life of the individual citizen with the institutions of his society, radical liberalism sets individuals and institutions into perpetual conflict with each other through its rhetoric of class warfare and victimization, its violations of personal freedom through confiscatory taxation and invasive regulation, its attacks on family integrity, and the endless bungling of government bureaucracy.

With an incomparable record of flawed analysis, faulty solutions and destructive consequences, liberal government grandly proclaims itself indispensable and presumes to regulate and administer our lives from the business office to the bedroom. The inherent potential for madness in all human beings–our tendencies toward grandiosity, overestimation and extravagance; our impaired judgment, distortions of fact, misunderstanding of cause and effect and resistance to learning from experience; our lack of perspective and obsession with irrelevant details; our foolish goals, paranoid fears and irrational counter-aggression; our power-grabbing and criminality–all are writ large in the madness of liberal government. Its policies and operations are a study in the psychopathology and sociopathology of human nature.

Contemplating this profound insight, it offends me that Republican politicians demand that we accommodate such evil in order to win elections, rather than loudly condemn it in the most unambiguous terms, and do everything possible to eradicate such irrational nonsense among thoughtless sheeple. ◄Dave►

This is the chart Glenn mentioned on-air this morning, which is part of the American Thinker article, “Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis” by James Simpson published eight months ago today. It is one of the links I referenced in my “Obamacoup” post. He said Bill O’Reilly will be on his show tonight to discuss ACORN, which they have been discussing quite a bit off-air lately. He is begging a legitimate investigative journalist to go for the Pulitzer Prize that is waiting for anyone breaking this story wide open, who can’t be dismissed as partisan kooks as he or Bill will be. Tonight’s Glenn Beck show should be interesting. ◄Dave►

Glenn Beck has been poking at ACORN of late. On this morning’s radio program, he is finally getting around to the truth about the genesis and purpose of the organization, which I reported on back on March 8th at: “The Obamacoup.” He says he is going to get into “The Cloward-Piven Strategy” on his TV program tonight. Now, if he can get O’Reilly interested in it we might actually wake a few people up to what this nonsense is all about. If you haven’t read the linked articles in my Obamacoup post, I highly recommend them. ◄Dave►

The one reporter in the whole nation with the guts to ask the question, and his colleagues allow glib Gibbs to spin it into a big joke and laugh with him. Too bad he is still asking the wrong question. It is not about where he was born, but the conditions of his birth. Since Obama freely admits that he was born a dual citizen, he is by definition not a “natural born citizen,” and thus he is a usurper, ineligible for the office he pretends to hold.

Gibbs is dismissive of the 400,000 citizens; but that is just the number who have signed WND’s petition. There are millions more who think he should release his real birth certificate and college records. All one need do is observe the skeletons in the closets of so many of his associates, who he has failed to get confirmed to appointed office, to wonder what he is hiding himself. Isn’t it ironic and a perversion of common sense that we require a higher level of scrutiny for a security clearance for everyone except the man at the top? Chances are he couldn’t qualify for the security clearance required to be a janitor at the White House. ◄Dave►

You have to be kidding me. This is just too much. Apparently the American Bar Association lists Sonia Sotomayor as a member of “La Raza,” the very racist Latino organization, whose very name means “The Race”:

In addition to her work on the bench, Judge Sotomayor is an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law and a lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School. She is a member of the American Bar Association, the New York Women’s Bar Association, the Puerto Rican Bar Association, the Hispanic National Bar Association, the Association of Judges of Hispanic Heritage, and the National Council of La Raza. She has received many honors including, most recently, an award from the National Association of Women Lawyers.

(Bold emphasis mine)

These are the folks advocating amnesty for illegal aliens, and have said they are retaking their “Aztlan” for Mexico one neighborhood at a time. To me, this is the equivalent of a neo-Nazi skinhead nominating a member of the KKK to the Supreme Court.

Explain to me again why my disagreement with the Obamessiah’s Marxist agenda, or this judges advocacy of legislating from the bench, are considered evidence that I am a racist; but his membership in Wright’s racist church, and her membership in La Raza, are not. Why do we give the PC crowd any respect at all? ◄Dave►

Say goodbye to any remnants of the concept of the rule of law. Her snickering attitude couldn’t be more dismissive of the proper role of the courts:

The rapidity with which the Progressives are driving the nails in the coffin of our Constitutional Republic is just breathtaking. Judicial policymakers will undoubtedly soon abound… ◄Dave►

I know the bloody struggle between the Tamil Tigers and the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka has not been on the average American’s radar screen, and the news that the government forces have finally crushed the Tigers and killed their leaders got little coverage here. I happen to have several friends and associates from Sri Lanka, and have empathized with those among them who are ethnic Tamils. Needless to say, one can suffer ethnic discrimination without actively supporting a terrorist organization battling it. Yet, it must be difficult not to have some sympathy for their cause, if not their tactics. How many moderate Muslims have a similar relationship with the Jihadis?

Sri Lanka now has the opportunity to rebuild a peaceful society, as the radicals have been eliminated within their country, and it seems that the only remnant of it exists among their diaspora scattered around the world. Thus, it was incredibly encouraging to me to receive the following e-mail from one of my Tamil friend’s brother in Australia. It deserves loud applause and a wider distribution:

Hi Friends,

I write this with a lot of sadness, relief and hope, form what has happened in the past few months. As a Tamil, (and proud to be one) I deeply feel that together, we can build the burnt bridges and pave a path to peace, happiness, equality and prosperity for us and for the future generations to come.

We cannot forget what happened for the past three decades, however we need to put aside our emotions, despair and remember those lives, which were lost in bloody war in the name of “equality”. We (Tamils) have to now reconcile and win the trust of the nation. For decades, we have been secretive, unpredictable and uncompromising. Sure enough, we were discriminated in the past, deprived of our equal rights and treated unfairly. Now we have to give the nation a chance to prove that, it is not the case.

We have to let go of the past and not react to our feelings in an irrational and selfish way. We talk about the 1953 era, of the riots and how the Tamils were discriminated and treated badly. In 1953, the whole world was a different place and had a different attitude. In America blacks could not go in to a restaurant or a supermarket or attend a white school, the aborigines in Australia did not have any rights. Now America has a black president, and the Aborigines have equal rights; we Tamils now have to give it a chance for change to happen in our motherland. We are hanging on to views and ideologies, which formed thirty years ago, which are not appropriate anymore. I think that, in the past 20 years we have created a doubt in the minds of the Sinhalese and the nation, making them wonder weather every other Tamil is a Tamil Tiger or not.

Prior, to 1988, before I left to Australia, I remember after a rugby game at Longden Place and a few (in my context) drinks at the club, going home in the early hours of the morning, my only fear was whether I will be stopped and breathalysed and charged for DUI. In the later years in my many trips to SL, the fear was whether I would be subject to harassment because of my Tamil name. Why do you think it is so? Is it not because of the war, the suicide bombings? All of this distrust of Tamils started after the war began. So, did we not create this for ourselves? This is not only happening to the Tamils, in fact If you send money to the US or visit the US bearing an Arabic name, you are scrutinised vigorously, which began after “9/11”. The Arabic world calls it “discrimination”.

In 1983, the news of the death of 13 soldiers sparked an organised riot, and over 2000 Tamils lost their lives and over 100,000 Tamils were displaced. The nation soon realised that it should not have let it happen, and the wider community shared the same sentiment. In 1996 a raid on a Military camp in Mullaitivu by the Tigers, 1,500 soldiers were killed, yet there was no repeat of 1983, or for that matter since 1983 several thousands soldiers have lost their lives and we did not see a repeat of 1983.

We talk about “Genocide”, which is a very powerful and compelling word. No doubt, that many women and children have lost their lives, but one has to remember in every war, innocent people loose their lives. There is blame on both the armed forces and the Tigers. Lets not be the judge of that, let the appropriate organisations investigate and report the findings.

The Tamil Diaspora and number of organisations are having protest marches and their websites are relentlessly publishing calls for the IC to intervene about the mistreatment and harassment of the civilians. However much we are angry and anxious, we must have patients and let the government, UN and the other aid organisation to embark on the huge task ahead of them to relocate, resettle and reconcile the civilian casualties.

We have been having protest marches for decades around the world. Has one head of state or a member of a parliament took a flight and gone to Sri Lanka and discussed the problem with the authorities? I do not think so. The IC will mention our plea in their speeches, or talk about it when the next election comes around.

Does the IC know the differences between Jayasinghe and Jayasingham? It is up to us reconcile and rebuild friendships. What has happened in the past has happened, we cannot turn back the clock. The truth of what happened in the battle zones will only surface, if the victims have no fear in revelling the truth. From this point, onwards it is up to us to make sure that this is possible. We should regain the trust and the sympathy of the grater community.

We Tamils started this war his was never an option. For thirty years, we have fought a bloody war with no results. Are we going to continue this for another thirty years? No. We, have lost too much, the nation has lost too much. It is time to take a step back and think sensibly putting aside our emotions and pride.

The Tamil Diaspora and community leaders, spokespersons and organisations are calling for the Tamil community to “re-group and realise our leaders dream”, after three decades of war, is it not the time now to wake up from that dream? They say now that the Tigers are defeated that we will be systematically eradicated, as there is no one to protect us. We should stop speculating of what the future holds for the Tamils in Sri Lanka and need to get these myths out of our heads and win the trust of the nation we should responsibly publish and circulate articles and news items, or even refrain from doing so until the displaced civilians are settled. Now we need to concentrate and work closely with those who are in SL to help the refugees.

In the past, few days there are reports that, during the celebrations following the governments victory over the Tigers, that may Tamil business were forced to give money towards the celebrations, and this news is from “Reliable sources”. This may be true may not be true, however when we hear such news we need to think rationally and responsibly before we spread it around, Sometimes, in times of sadness, desperation and anxiety the, truth is often exaggerated and taken out of context. We all remember, back in SL at a big match we generally have a “hat collection” to pay for our celebrations. This has been a culture. Every Christmas, New-year, Vesak or during Vel Festival, the garbage collectors, the posties etc go house-to-house collecting money for celebrations. It is not an unusually thing to happen. The people who have not experience this should not be alarmed and portrait such incidents as “ discrimination and harassment”.

I ask those who receive this mail, to support me in achieving a united and equal Sri Lanka for all who were born there. One day I wish to return to the country of my birth and live as an equal citizen in peace and harmony.

How can you help? Tamils should reach out to the Sinhalese and speak about the grievance you have, and ask them to help you achieve security and equality. My, Sinhalese friends should reach out to a Tamil and unconditionally trust them and help them achieve security and equality.

We, Tamils have to realise that this is the only nation that Sinhalese is spoken, and we should respect that, win their trust and respect in return.

Cheers,

Mohan.

Very well said, Mohan. I wish you much success in promulgating this voice of reason among your people. I admire your effort. ◄Dave►

…and on and on it goes… ◄Dave►

There is an interesting comparison between the conditions leading to the hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic and those we are currently experiencing, by Ellen Brown in “The Weimar Hyperinflation? Could it Happen Again?:

Some worried commentators are predicting a massive hyperinflation of the sort suffered by Weimar Germany in 1923, when a wheelbarrow full of paper money could barely buy a loaf of bread. An April 29 editorial in the San Francisco Examiner warned:

“With an unprecedented deficit that’s approaching $2 trillion, [the President’s 2010] budget proposal is a surefire prescription for hyperinflation. So every senator and representative who votes for this monster $3.6 trillion budget will be endorsing a spending spree that could very well turn America into the next Weimar Republic.”1

In an investment newsletter called Money Morning on April 9, Martin Hutchinson pointed to disturbing parallels between current government monetary policy and Weimar Germany’s, when 50% of government spending was being funded by seigniorage – merely printing money.2 However, there is something puzzling in his data. He indicates that the British government is already funding more of its budget by seigniorage than Weimar Germany did at the height of its massive hyperinflation; yet the pound is still holding its own, under circumstances said to have caused the complete destruction of the German mark. Something else must have been responsible for the mark’s collapse besides mere money-printing to meet the government’s budget, but what? And are we threatened by the same risk today? Let’s take a closer look at the data.

Brown goes on to make a case that it was short selling currency speculators who destroyed the German Mark, not seigniorage. She suggests that massive government inflation of the money supply need not cause price increases if the money is spent into existence for productive efforts like infrastructure projects, instead of being loaned into existence by bankers; and it can be kept within the borders isolated from the currency speculators. She cites early American Congressional regulated money and Lincoln’s financing of the civil war. I am not sure I agree with her premise; but it seems to be a moot point for several reasons.

Obama is a tool of the bankers, not an adversary of them. Besides, the last two Presidents to try to go around them, Lincoln and Kennedy, ended with abbreviated careers and much speculation that crossing the bankers was responsible for their demise.

Moreover, our currency is still the world’s reserve currency, and the speculators will always have access to it. Besides, the international speculators perform a valuable service. Fiat currencies can in fact be inflated or deflated without much notice within the borders of a country initially. It is the job of the speculators to keep track of such things and create a value for value international exchange rate in a global marketplace. This drives the governments / central banks to distraction over the way it thwarts their devious seigniorage; and that is a good thing.

The only reason we are not already in a currency crisis, is that we are the world’s reserve currency and other nations are inflating theirs too. It won’t stay that way, and sooner or later, the world will give up on our lack of discipline and abandon the dollar. When that happens, it will be all over. The dollar is already worthless, and the only reason anyone will take one in exchange for their labor, goods, or services, is their expectation that they will be able to turn around and exchange it for their own needs.

The moment there is the slightest fear that one cannot get a “dollar’s worth” of what they need spending FRN’s, nobody will want them and they will become very expensive toilet paper. There is not much point in dreaming otherwise. Gold is still massively undervalued. Think about it. ◄Dave►

Am I humor challenged, or something? I don’t find this funny at all:

Waxman himself acknowledges that he is not familiar with everything in the bill… Well, why the hell are you voting on it then, Congressman? The Texan didn’t impress me either. This is not a joke, it is a massive tax increase. These clowns are mocking us for being critical of the fact that they didn’t read the Stimulus bill a couple of months ago before signing it. Folks, we need to stop voting for incumbents, no matter which party they are in. We need a whole new bunch of Congress-critters. This lot has forgotten who their boss is. ◄Dave►

Again, this story is not going away…

Grand juries cite Obama for ineligibility, treason:

Hundreds of “presentments” – or accusations assembled by citizen grand juries – are scheduled to be given to courts, sheriffs, prosecutors, judges and legislators across the United States by July 4 alleging that Barack Obama is ineligible to be president of the United States and his occupancy in the Oval Office constitutes treason.

The accusations are being assembled by the citizen grand juries that have been meeting in recent weeks around the country, and one organization, American Grand Jury now has posted an online procedure that provides a step-by-step instruction manual for those who are concerned about Obama.

American Grand Jury spokesman Bob Campbell’s site includes information on the history of grand juries, their powers, rules, evidence, forms, etiquette and how to file the resulting claims.

While there are other groups organizing and holding grand jury meetings too, Campbell told WND that his is the largest group, having convened five already along with two state grand juries and it plans to sponsor another half dozen in the next 30 days.

“Sooner or later some court or many courts will formally indict Obama from our presentments or [a] complaint,” he said. “Our goal is to convene and conclude 12 to 13 grand juries before July 4 rolls around and to serve our presentments as many as 200 times with courts, sheriffs, prosecutors, judges or legislators across the land.

“The pressure is mounting and someday justice will be served or the country will probably explode from loss of faith in our Constitution,” he said.

If those numbers don’t produce action, he said, the plans are to double, or triple the numbers, and try again.

Sooner or later… ◄Dave►

I have stumbled across a truly fascinating website where one could spend untold hours of thought provoking reading. Global Research is wide ranging and deep; but you might as well enter where I did at, “Preparing for Civil Unrest in America“:

The Economic and Social Crisis

The financial meltdown has unleashed a latent and emergent social crisis across the United States.

What is at stake is the fraudulent confiscation of lifelong savings and pension funds, the appropriation of tax revenues to finance the trillion dollar “bank bailouts”, which ultimately serve to line the pockets of the richest people in America.

This economic crisis is in large part the result of financial manipulation and outright fraud to the detriment of entire populations, leading to a renewed wave of corporate bankruptcies, mass unemployment and poverty.

The criminalization of the global financial system, characterized by a “Shadow Banking” network has resulted in the centralization of bank power and an unprecedented concentration of private wealth.

Obama’s “economic stimulus” package and budget proposals contribute to a further process of concentration and centralization of bank power, the cumulative effects of which will eventually resul in large scale corporate, bankruptcies, a new wave of foreclosures not to mention fiscal collapse and the downfall of State social programs. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America’s Fiscal Collapse, Global Research, March 2, 2009).

The cumulative decline of real economic activity backlashes on employment and wages, which in turn leads to a collapse in purchaisng power. The proposed “solution” under the Obama administration contributes to exacerbating rather than alleviating social inequalities and the process of wealth concentration.

The Protest Movement

When people across America, whose lives have been shattered and destroyed, come to realize the true face of the global “free market” system, the legitimacy of Wall Street, the Federal Reserve and the US administration will be challenged.

A latent protest movement directed against the seat of economic and political power is unfolding.

How this process will occur is hard to predict. All sectors of American society are potentially affected: wage earners, small, medium and even large businesses, farmers, professionals, federal, State and municipal employees, students, teachers, health workers, and unemployed. Protests will initially emerge from these various sectors. There is, however, at this stage, no organized national resistance movement directed against the administration’s economic and financial agenda.

Obama’s populist rhetoric conceals the true nature of macro-economic policy. Acting on behalf of Wall Street, the administration’s economic package, which includes close to a trillion dollar “aid” package for the financial services industry, coupled with massive austerity measures, contributes to precipitating America into a bottomless crisis.

The rest of the article is interesting and gets into HR645. I have followed many of the links to other of Michel Chossudovsky’s contributions to the site. All were interesting and thought provoking. I recommend the place. ◄Dave►

Whatever one might think of the mentality of the citizens of Taxachusetts and their taste in politicians, one doesn’t normally think of it being a State full of uneducated functional illiterates. Perhaps one expects too much of their school system, which seems to be doing an exemplary job of dumbing down Massachusetts kids for the Progressive agenda. The article, “Aspiring school teachers fail in math” explains much:

MALDEN, Mass. (WPRI) – According to state education officials, nearly three-quarters of the people who took the state elementary school teacher’s licensing exam this year failed the new math section.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released the results Tuesday. They say that only 27 percent of the more than 600 candidates who took the test passed. The test was administered in March of this year.

The teacher’s licensing exam tested potential teachers on their knowledge of elementary school mathematics. This included geometry, statistics, and probability.

Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester was not surprised by the results. He told the Boston Globe that these results indicate many students are not receiving an adequate math education.

Tom Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents , said “The high failure rate puts a shining light on a deficiency in teacher-prep programs.”

Elementary school mathematics? College graduates who have been actively training to become teachers? Is this pathetic, or what? ◄Dave►

Here is more evidence that nothing is sacred… er… let me rephrase that… Here is more evidence that nothing remains secret forever, and trying to take the edge off the dreadful business of war with a sense of humor can come back to bite anyone involved in prosecuting one.

A reader sent me a link to a powerful “GQ” article about Donald Rumsfeld. Essentially a hatchet job on the man I used to cheer for his adroit handling of the press during his daily briefings, it reveals that daily top secret “Worldwide Intelligence Update” documents frequently included bible passages over military imagery on their cover:

On the morning of Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House. The briefing’s cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days’ war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”

This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine. On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”

That last one was my favorite, and it is also indicative of the agenda of Robert Draper. While he sees Saddam striking a “dictatorial pose,” I see him looking rather foolish reading something in full uniform, beret, and huge reading glasses on Iraqi TV. Anyone not humor challenged, or obsessively Politically Correct, would have naturally laughed at the biblical “caption”; and the implication that it was done seriously to pander to Bush’s religiosity is itself laughable.

One must read further to learn that it wasn’t Rummy who started the practice, although he apparently enjoyed them. Since these were “eyes only” hand delivered documents, one might have been forgiven for having a bit of “gallows humor” type fun with a dreary business. I seem to recall referring to Napalm victims in ‘Nam as “Crispy Critters.” I wonder what the PC crowd would have done with that. 

Unfortunately, Draper’s central premise that these covers would be inflammatory if viewed by Jihadis is correct. Therefore, one must ask why in the world he has released them to the world at:

http://men.style.com/gq/features/topsecret

Firefox with NoScript installed wouldn’t let me view them, no matter how I tried to disable it, so I had to use IE to see them; but I suspect the Jihadi’s will not have much trouble.

I recognize that in the end, even the Republicans were down on Rummy, because the years of demonization by the Progressives had taken their toll, and he became a political liability at the polls; but I remain convinced that he was a Patriot, who did his best for his country during one of its most challenging periods, and his service was definitely a net plus. I suspect his attempt to drag the military out of its heavy armor and artillery oriented past, and into the 21st Century paradigm requiring light and mobile forces, created most of his enemies within the Pentagon, who assisted the chattering class in bringing him down.

While Draper portrayed it as a petulant power play inspired failing, I particularly appreciated his reluctance to send Federal troops into New Orleans for a law enforcement roll during Katrina. In contrast, I suspect the current administration would regard such a situation as “an opportunity that shouldn’t go to waste,” and would send in the Federal troops with barely concealed glee. ◄Dave►

As I have mentioned, I have joined several Ning.com social networking sites spawned by the Tea Party and 9/12 Project movements. There are far too many of them basically trying to do the same thing. Today I received an invitation for yet another called ePatriots Conservative Action *Connection* purported to be a resource aggregation site for all the rest of them. That was at least a new twist, so I joined to check it out. It sure has a lot of links to conservative/libertarian places, and only about 50 members so far.

One interesting link I followed was a search engine for other Ning.com sites, which allows topic specific searches. The supplied URL:

http://www.ning.com/search/networks?q=republican+libertarian+conservative+we-surround_them+912+9-12+GLENN-BECK+HANNITY+PATRIOT+CONSTITUTION

…returned 894 Ning.com sites! Just perusing a few pages of them finds most to be rather small groups, although one boasted over 40K members. The most intriguing called itself “Hip-Hop Republicans – A Movement of Urban and Inner-City Republicans & Libertarians,” which has 172 members. If anyone finds any interesting groups that are actually having serious debates, which need my attention, please let me know. ◄Dave►

I have a well-earned reputation as a contrarian. In part, this is a result of my extreme “missmatcher” (a NLP input filter sort) mind. Where most people, being “matchers,” compare new data with what is already known looking for similarities, my mind automatically looks for differences. Ask me to compare similar objects, and my mind will assume that it is being asked to report all the things that are different about them, while a strong matcher will report all the characteristics they notice they have in common. Submit a new idea, and it will immediately search for the hidden flaw that dooms it as unworkable, no matter how good it initially sounds.

This trait has driven collegues around the bend over the years; but it has also saved a lot of wasted time, effort, and grief. In a business meeting, someone will present a great sounding idea and everyone else jumps aboard with enthusiasm – until the contrarian in their midst asks, “Have you considered {hidden flaw}…,” which renders it stillborn. In my own enterprises, I had to learn to bite my tongue when the flaws were inconsequential, in order not to dampen employees enthusiasm for inovation.

Naturally, this affliction appears in my writing and can be a turnoff to readers. I really enjoy debate on forums and in comment sections, so it was with pleasure that I encountered a flawless little essay by Paul Graham entitled “How to Disagree.”:

The web is turning writing into a conversation. Twenty years ago, writers wrote and readers read. The web lets readers respond, and increasingly they do — in comment threads, on forums, and in their own blog posts.

Many who respond to something disagree with it. That’s to be expected. Agreeing tends to motivate people less than disagreeing. And when you agree there’s less to say. You could expand on something the author said, but he has probably already explored the most interesting implications. When you disagree you’re entering territory he may not have explored.

The result is there’s a lot more disagreeing going on, especially measured by the word. That doesn’t mean people are getting angrier. The structural change in the way we communicate is enough to account for it. But though it’s not anger that’s driving the increase in disagreement, there’s a danger that the increase in disagreement will make people angrier. Particularly online, where it’s easy to say things you’d never say face to face.

If we’re all going to be disagreeing more, we should be careful to do it well. What does it mean to disagree well? Most readers can tell the difference between mere name-calling and a carefully reasoned refutation, but I think it would help to put names on the intermediate stages. So here’s an attempt at a disagreement hierarchy:

Profound! A cogent license to be disagreeable! What follows is a hierarchy of disagreement techniques from DH0, Name-calling, to DH6, Refuting the Central Point. I intend to refer to them often in the future, and look forward to the time when I can from memory declare, “That is only a DH3 class argument on the Graham scale, and not as convincing as a better effort might be.” The value of this scale cannot be explained any better than he does:

The most obvious advantage of classifying the forms of disagreement is that it will help people to evaluate what they read. In particular, it will help them to see through intellectually dishonest arguments. An eloquent speaker or writer can give the impression of vanquishing an opponent merely by using forceful words. In fact that is probably the defining quality of a demagogue. By giving names to the different forms of disagreement, we give critical readers a pin for popping such balloons.

Such labels may help writers too. Most intellectual dishonesty is unintentional. Someone arguing against the tone of something he disagrees with may believe he’s really saying something. Zooming out and seeing his current position on the disagreement hierarchy may inspire him to try moving up to counterargument or refutation.

But the greatest benefit of disagreeing well is not just that it will make conversations better, but that it will make the people who have them happier. If you study conversations, you find there is a lot more meanness down in DH1 than up in DH6. You don’t have to be mean when you have a real point to make. In fact, you don’t want to. If you have something real to say, being mean just gets in the way.

I suspect I will still be thought mean, because I don’t suffer fools easily and come by my reputation as a curmudgeon honestly; but I intend to work on the promise of the second paragraph. ◄Dave►

The recent Federal Grand Jury actions brought to my attention a blog entitled, “The Steady Drip,” which I have found interesting to peruse. Beyond the cool graphic:

…I was particularly struck by Sewell’s assertion in his guide for newbie readers:

This blog was started to give people a source of information they can trust. I almost never make the mistake of including scams, false rumors, or poorly researched items. I encourage readers to alert me if they spot an anomaly. It will be quickly corrected.

The search function is in the upper left hand corner. Readers are invited to cut and paste from this blog to your own emails. Each subject title has an embedded link so cut and paste the title and the first few lines. That will direct a person back to this blog.

That is an admirable goal and a standard I have not always met.

Today’s entry, “Exposing Obama’s PSYOPS Agents and Tactics,” is well written, informative, and thought provoking:

Patriot Lisa and All American Joe are “false flag” agents who feign loyalty to the cause they are attempting to harm,

Patriot Lisa will post a message on a conservative blog similar to this, “I want to get rid of Obama as much as the next person but all I see here is racism and hatred. We are never going to get rid of Obama with right wing rants and tin foil hat conspiracy theories. There is no use in even trying. We lost and the best thing to do is just adjust and wait for the next election.”

All American Joe will post, “We need to get torches and pitchforks and march on the White House. Obama is a Muslim Black Power Manchurian Candidate for everything that is evil in the world. If I had my way his own Secret Service detail would do America a favor and take Obama out.”

Then Patriot Lisa and All American Joe will get into an argument that detracts from all serious debate, ruining the experience for reasonable people, and giving the forum a bad reputation. Patriot Lisa and All American Joe will share private messages to compare tactics, chuckle, and congratulate each other at how good they are at their jobs.

Ask yourself if the message you are reading serves the goals of your cause. Not all misguided people are Obama’s PSYOPS agents. However their activity can damage your cause even if that is not their motive. Confront these attitudes and offer suggestions about what kind of thinking does make a contribution and is part of the solution. If they insist on posting damaging comments they probably are Obama’s PSYOPS agents rather than simply misguided.

Yep, we sure have encountered these folks a lot lately on the 9/12 Project forums. The rest of the post discusses Obot Agents and Logical Fallacy Agents, with some basics in argumentation, logic, fallacies, etc. There is a great put down for ad hominem arguments, and a few interesting links. I think you will find it an enjoyable read. ◄Dave►

Frequenting the many forums spawned by Glenn Beck’s 9/12 project, It has been gratifying to see the huge number of Americans finally awakening to what has happened to the principle of Liberty in our country, and pining for a return to the minimalist government and the rule of law enshrined in our Constitution. Most of these folks would be considered moderates rather than ideologues, and come from both camps of the Incumbrepublocrat duopoly. Unfortunately, the faith-based ideologues control both of those camps. Since the oligarchy has rigged the game to make it exceedingly difficult to mount a Third Party challenge from the individual Liberty perspective, it appears that we need to take over one of theirs, if we have any hope of ending this nightmare without a bloody revolution.

I am sure my use of the term “faith-based” caused immediate heartburn with some readers; but I was not picking on one side. To me, for example, the environmentalists on the Left are every bit as irrational in their blind faith in the junk science underpinning their causes, as the religious fundamentalists on the Right are in the sanctity of their holy writs. The fundamentalists on the Left idealize Robin Hood every bit as much as the fundamentalists on the Right revere their various prophets. The socialists are just as religiously invested in their dogma as are the godly activists they so despise and/or fear.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, Beck’s 9-12 Project, Glenn made a regrettable and serious mistake to include belief in a god in his list of nine principles. It would have been infinitely better to have made Principle #2:

I cherish the original Constitution of the United States of America, and pledge to defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I recognize that some imprudent Amendments and unconstitutional statutes have been enacted in and since 1913, which need to be repealed to return our Federal government to its rightful limited role in our lives.

I mean no disrespect to anyone when I assert that the god fearing activists are part of the problem, not the solution, for what ails our body politic. Our Constitution was crafted to maximize individual Liberty by minimizing the power of the Federal government in our republic. It was never meant to regulate the behavior of citizens in any way. The Incumbrepublocrat Party has corrupted this nation into the mob rule of a democracy, which our Founders labored mightily to avoid.

These professional politicians actively encourage, and benefit from, the endless battle between the Politically Correct altruists on the Left, and the Piously Correct altruists on the Right, who are constantly struggling for control of the levers of coercive government, in order to impose their own brand of altruistic PC morality on everyone else. Everyone’s Liberty suffers from the effects of what is essentially a competition between two religious dogmas over matters of morality that have no relevance in the affairs of state, and damned little in the public affairs of freemen.

Most Americans are nominally religious, nominally compassionate for the underdog, and are nominally concerned about the environment; but they are not dogmatic about these affairs. One can generally care about clean air and water, wildlife, and pristine vistas, without abandoning man’s need to exploit the environment for fuel, food, clothing, and shelter, or lose any sleep over inconveniencing a few caribou. One can be compassionate without choosing to plunder the more productive members of society, to support one’s charities. One can worship all manner of gods, without forcing one’s beliefs and moral codes on disinterested citizens.

From the perspective of our Constitution and individual Liberty, all these PC ideologues are problematic. It is a perversion of its intent for any of them to co-opt government to enforce their PC standards on the rest of us. It is an outrage that, given the two-party system, sovereign individuals are forced to align ourselves with the less egregious of two tyrannical ideologies, to quash the agenda of the more offensive one. We need an organization solely focused on Liberty, which rejects all attempts to regulate the behavior or plunder the earnings of individuals, for whatever cause

How much more effective this 9/12 Movement could be, if those awakening and pining for a return to the Liberty afforded by our original Constitution, could firmly reject sanctimonious proselytizing by PC ideologues, while attending to political matters regarding our decidedly secular government. This would open up our ranks to independents and moderates on either side. Nominal Democrats would not then think they had to stick with the onerous socialists, just to protect themselves from the oppressive agenda of rabid fundamentalists; and nominal Republicans would not think they had to stick with the onerous fundamentalists, to protect themselves from the oppressive agenda of the rabid socialists.

Since we would be focused on changing the behavior of the Federal government and lightening its purse, rather than the behavior and purse of individual citizens, I predict our ranks would swell far beyond those of the ideologues, who heretofore have gotten away with counting us among them. Then, we could simply take over one or both of the Incumbrepublocrat wings, or force them into minority party status, in the face of our growing numbers. All that is required to pull this off, is to reject the guilt trips these PC groups use so effectively to keep us from speaking our minds openly and forthrightly. Think about it. ◄Dave►