The bailouts of banks, mortgage lenders, and insurance companies by the federal government will now cost American tax-payers about a half-trillion dollars. This according to Neil Cavuto of Fox News. But, according to Congressman Ron Paul, it could be considerably more.Congressman Paul rightfully points out that the best course of action by the federal government should have been no course of action at all.
Watch the video for more.

Ahhhhh......Fall is in the air! And so is circumcision.

From the Meming of Life:

It was originally a religious ceremony, a (quite strange, if you think about it) symbol of faithfulness to God. But interestingly, circumcision was not common outside of Jewish and Muslim practice until the 1890s, when a few religious enthusiasts, including the strange character JH Kellogg, recommended it as a cure for “masturbatory insanity.” Kellogg spent much of his professional effort combating the sexual impulse and helping others to do the same, claiming a plague of masturbation-related deaths in which “a victim literally dies by his own hand” and offering circumcision as a vital defense. “Neither the plague, nor war, nor small-pox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as this pernicious habit,” warned a Dr. Alan Clarke (referring to masturbation, not circumcision).

Given these jeremiads by well-titled professionals, the attitudes of American parents in the 1890s turned overnight from horror at the barbarity of this “un-Christian” practice to immediate conviction that it would save their boys from short and insane lives. It was even reverse-engineered as a symbol of Christian fidelity and membership in the church.

(Isn’t it a relief that we’ve left this kind of mass gullibility so very far behind?)

The supposed health benefits and other red herrings were created after the fact, in the early 20th century, to undergird sexual repression with a firm foundation of pseudoscience.

More here.

From Jacob Sullum @ Reason's Hit & Run blog:

Yesterday the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the state's smoking ban applies to private clubs as well as businesses open to the general public. Washington's Clean Indoor Air Act, passed in 1985, exempts "private facilities which are occasionally open to the public except upon the occasions when [they are] open to the public." An initiative approved by voters in 2005 broadened the ban to cover "places of employment." American Legion Post 149 in Bremerton challenged the Kitsap County Board of Health's attempt to stop its members from smoking at the post home, where all seven employees are relatives of members and all but one smoke, arguing that the exemption for private facilities remained in force. A five-judge majority of the state Supreme Court disagreed. Four judges dissented, with one of them, Richard Sanders, concluding

that if the majority's interpretation of the law is correct, the law is unconstitutional:

I would hold the Act does not apply to the Post Home as a private facility. Alternatively, if the Post Home's status as a private facility does not limit the Act's application, I would hold the Act is void for vagueness; unduly interferes with the Post Home's right of intimate association; violates the Post Home's substantive due process rights absent actual proof of a real and substantial relation between secondhand smoke and workplace dangers; and violates equal protection by distinguishing between two classes of business without reasonable grounds.

Just more government control to keep the sheep in line.
Read more here.

The answer is here.

Four years ago The Slate dropped this Little Nugget and the info still holds true: Your Vote Does NOT COUNT. (Basically.)
For better odds, play Lotto.

More "Newspeak" from the speech police.

From Protein Wisdom:

– A Utopia, of sorts, where “unity” prevails — even if in order to do so free speech is (like some bad Disney project) “re-imagined” as a right that is heavily policed by the state, with the upshot being that only the speech that doesn’t hurt or offend or cause a rift in the progressive unity continuum is protected, with the rest relegated to a growing repository for what is termed “hate speech.”

The argument goes something like this: in order to have free speech, everyone must be able to have his say. But one is not able to have his say if one’s say is not respected, or is met with “intolerant” counter speech — such that intolerance is equated with a refusal to allow the speech of others equal intellectual standing, regardless of its flaws, inconsistencies, lies, etc.

To point out such things is to engage in a “tyranny of facts” — and as we all know, “tyranny” is bad and ugly and wrong. Thus, in a country increasingly unmoored from Enlightenment thinking and the founders’ animating ideological principles, best captured in classical liberalism and some soft forms of libertarianism, “free speech” has become, perversely, a means by which to grant speech the kind of enforced moral relativism favored by — and in fact demanded by — the totalitarian underpinnings of “progressivism.” As with its sociological counterparts, multiculturalism and the “diversity movement,” acceptable speech is increasingly determined by how little it offends.

Or, to put it another way, free speech — which was conceived as a way to protect unpopular speech from majoritarian tyranny and governmental intimidation — is now, in a perfect Orwellian flip, being re-imagined as a way toward “unity,” by factoring out as hateful those bits of speech that move us further away from a leftist Utopia, where we all stand as one, honoring the state and it charismatic secular godhead.

From the movie's website:

Based on the short story Harrison Bergeron by celebrated author Kurt Vonnegut, 2081 depicts a dystopian future in which, thanks to the 212th Amendment to the Constitution and the unceasing vigilance of the United States Handicapper General, everyone is finally equal... The strong wear weights, the beautiful wear masks and the intelligent wear earpieces that fire off loud noises to keep them from taking unfair advantage of their brains. It is a poetic tale of triumph and tragedy about a broken family, a brutal government, and an act of defiance that changes everything.

Everyone needs to see this movie when it is released. Watch the trailer here.

From Pajama's Media:

In his color-coded article, “The Color-Coded Campaign,” John Heilemann doesn’t just hint that racial prejudice will prevent Barack Obama from winning the White House. He states it directly and without equivocation. The reason America’s first black major party presumptive presidential nominee hasn’t blown out the intractably boring and uninspiring John McCain in the polls, given “surging” Democratic voter registration and voters’ disenchantment with Republicans, is his skin color.

It wouldn’t have anything to do with Obama’s liberal beliefs, inexperience, gaffes, and inconsistencies, would it? No, it’s because he’s black, says Heilemann and other liberals. Lurking just below the surface of any white person’s criticism of Barack Obama is racial bias. Heilemann’s article leaves the impression that Obama longs to take the high road and rise above such distractions; Republicans and other white people just won’t let him.

For more, visit this website.

This article from Wikipedia is an excellent spark for debate on our two-party system.

Today we bring you an excellent article from Aaron Nye on Helium.com. where he posits some very interesting and very true facts about modern secondary education.

Here's a snippet from Mr. Nye's article:

It seems that people these days are content to watch "American Idol" and "Entertainment Tonight" on television rather than actually learn anything. Most folks have forgotten (or more to the point, never knew) what learning is. Critical thinking has gone, like so many other invaluable skills, the way of the do-do. In ancient Greece, universities were not the classroom style, rote memorization facilities of indoctrination of today. Indeed, they were far from what passes for modern education. They actually taught people the skill of philosophy.

Trust me when I say that this article will definitely get you thinking about the state of modern education.

You’ve seen him plenty of times on sitcoms; he’s the dumb, bumbling, idiot dad/husband/boyfriend who's useless at everything but bringing home a paycheck. The message: Guys are dumb and women, being the superior sex, have to lead them around. This, of course, cues the laugh track.
Yet a survey from an organization called Children Now found that two-thirds of kid respondents described men on TV as angry, while respondents from another group’s survey said men were portrayed as corrupt on TV by a 17 to 1 margin. Clearly, this is no laughing matter.

See the ads here.

Is climate change, or global warming or whatever you want to call it, real?
I think that the cyclical nature of weather and climate make global "warming" inevitable. But, I also think that the notion that humanity is to blame for climate change is simplistic and for the most part untested.

I will gladly jump on the global warming band wagon if it can be proven (objectively) with out a shadow of a doubt that global warming is caused by humans.

But here's the rub; I don't want to be forced at figurative gun point to blindly accept that global warming is: a) a crisis of immense magnitude, and b) caused solely by human activity. It goes against the very principles of persuasion and scientific observation.

With that said here's an interesting piece by Charles Krauthammer over @ Townhall.com


*Note: The story I've linked to is a little old but points out some good points about environmentalism and it's parallels to communism.

The Internet, that miraculous series of tubes, is a wonderful, relatively new platform that allows everyone to have a voice, much like in the days of yore when news was spread by word-of-mouth. To date, the Internet has remained blissfully free of government regulation. Its backbone resting in the private sector, requiring no licensing for use, and is seemingly beyond the reach of those who would like government regulation of online behavior such as "hate" speech, obscenity, and too much control by a few corporations.

So everyone should be thrilled that the Internet can deliver unprecedented levels of free speech, right?

Maybe not.

From Pajamas Media:

In a recent editorial, the NY Times welcomed federal regulation of the Internet under the benign-sounding cause “net neutrality,” warning us that Internet service providers might suppress ideas they do not like. The Times ignores the fact that the First Amendment is designed to protect us
against suppression of ideas by the government, not the private sector, which has neither the power nor the motive to suppress ideas.

Moreover, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal tells us, “Net neutrality is a solution in search of a problem.” It has not been given a chance to surface, much less an opportunity for the marketplace to fix this hypothetical problem. It is a weak reason to allow the irreversible step of government regulation.

Another party that is uncomfortable with free speech on the Internet is the Orwellianly-named group “Free Press.” They are pushing for the FCC to regulate the Internet similar to the way it regulates broadcast TV, calling for a national (read “government”) broadband policy to regulate price, speed, and availability. They also want the government to provide municipal broadband service to everybody, even though this model has already collapsed in the marketplace.

And of course, the U.N. and its many dictatorships is no fan of free speech on the Internet. Last November, the United Nations’ Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held its second annual meeting with a not-so-hidden agenda for a U.N. takeover of the U.S.’ private sector control of core Internet systems.

More here.

Can a 13 yr old girl be a sexual predator when her victims are of legal age?

Read this and decide for yourself.

Just thought I'd share this with you all.

Here we go. Maybe the calendar should be set back to 1984.

From Global Research:

In the wake of Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins' (R-ME) alarmist report, "Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorism Threat," the Senate may be moving towards passage of the Orwellian "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" (S. 1959).

A companion piece of legislative flotsam to the House bill, "The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" (H.R. 1955), the Democrat-controlled Congress seems ready to jettison Constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly. The bill passed the House by a 404-6 vote in October. Twenty-three congress members abstained, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers.

More here.

When will politicians, and the people who vote for them, learn that the more you regulate something the harder you make it for honest, law abiding citizens to function as honest, law abiding citizens? Just look at gun control or the licensing requirements in some states for cosmetologists. I'm just saying.

Browsing through You Tube to day I came across this little ditty in support of Ron Paul:



Read more about Ron Paul here, here and here.

I just finished reading Little Brother by BoingBoing.net's very own Cory Doctorow, and I must say I was floored by the by the scope of this "young adult" book.

This is some of the best near-future sci-fi I've read in a very long time. The political tone of the book and the ideas about how technology enriches the lives of those who use it and transparency in government are extremely thought provoking.

I would recommend to anyone, even those over 25 (wink,wink), to go out right now and buy the book.

Believe me, you will not be disappointed.