Japan Disaster

While watching the news coverage of Japan's horrific earthquake, I saw that the Prime Minister of Japan is quoted in saying, "This is the worst disaster in Japan since World War II."  I guess he means, but does not say, since America dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing nearly half-a-million civilians.  Yes, this earthquake is devastating and terrible, but it's no atomic bomb.  At least the earth wasn't being evil when it attacked Japan. It was random. God Bless America.

Inexcusable

During a speech in which Hillary Clinton condemned the actions of totalitarian governments in the Middle East, peace protester and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern was tackled and dragged from the room.  His crime was standing up and facing the back of the room while everyone else sat and faced the speaker.  He was bloodied and bruised, handcuffed, and put in a little cell.  Why was this not a bigger deal?  Did Jon Stewart talk about this? Democracy Now! covered the incident and interviewed McGovern. Watch it here. It's really chilling to watch the whole thing caught on tape: Clinton rattles on without missing a beat as an old man is violently accosted ten feet in front of her. She terrifies me. 

RUN RON RUN

 

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Ron Paul 2012?

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On the final day of this month's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Ron Paul won the presidential straw poll. He beat out mainstream Republicrat Mitt Romney with 30% of the vote (to Romney's 23%). In spite of his growing popularity among the American people and the talking heads on cable news, Paul's victory was discounted as meaningless because his "rabid" supporters "commandeered" the conference. At least this was the portrayal of the event, despite the fact that Paul supporters paid for their own tickets and managed their own conference transportation - a stark contrast, indeed, to the members of Romney's camp, who were bussed in and wined and dined.  Jack Hunter covers this nicely in his weekly video essay:



Regardless of the validity of the straw poll, I think the question now is: Will Ron Paul make another run for president in 2012; and, more importantly, should he?  My understanding, based on information coming from the Paul camp, is that if enough money can be raised by a specified date, they will make a go at it. They seem off to a strong start, with over 700,000 dollars raised on George Washington's birthday last week.

As one of those "rabid" supporters from the '08 campaign, if Paul says "I'm in," than I'm in and ready to go to work, making signs from shower curtains and harassing people at local fairs all over again.  But, I wonder if a Ron Paul run for president is not the most effective strategy in the larger effort of spreading of liberty and freedom. As much as I would love to see it, I don't think Ron Paul will be president. Still, a run at the presidency, at this point, would serve as a gigantic education campaign and could trigger the viral spread of the message of liberty. And therein lies the crux of my ambivalence. I am torn because as the chair of the Monetary Policy Subcommittee overseeing the Federal Reserve, Ron Paul is now in a unique position to make legitimate changes to the terrible central banking system and America's fiat money failures. A run for Senate in 2012 could realistically yield a victory, and with his son now a senator, the two of them could team up to make some serious headway in transforming our corrupt government.

If you are like me, you are incredibly rich and have tons of extra money right now. If you are interested in helping Ron make the choice to run, make a donation here.

Take a look at this great speech of Ron's at CPAC:

Evolution of Fairness

Micheal Shermer is the editor in chief of Skeptic magazine and  the author of the 2007 book Mind of the Market. He is pro-market and an atheist, and he is very close to the ideal spokesman for Austrian economics. (Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to quite get the anti-war thing, but perfect is the enemy of the good, no?)

In this video he explains the concept of the evolution of fairness.  Shermer draws his economic conclusions from his study of evolution and natural order; I really like the chimp examples he uses, as these so closely relate to human behavior.



I find that a number of the best Austrian school economists are overly-religious and are into pseudo-science and quack medicine (homeopathy, anti-vaccination, conspiracy theories, and so on). Conversely, I find that most scientists tend to be in favor of legislative solutions to problems that concern onlytheir own areas of study.  I like Shermer because he is a charismatic spokesperson for rational, pro-market types who happen to not believe in a boogieman in the sky who's gonna get us if we're bad.

Off Topic

Hello all,

This is a video I made about the restaurant I used to work at.  Enjoy.

A Day at Penny Cluse Cafe from Bus Huxley on Vimeo.

Response: Wretched TSA...

Tim,
Ron Paul stood on the floor of the House making his impassioned and principled speech and proposed a bill that he KNOWS will not be passed through into law.  As you say, legislative victories are not the only way to create change.  In fact as I see it, legislative victories are a good measure of how insidious and corrupt a politician is.  How much has this congressmen been influenced by lobbyists?

I was speaking with a pilot friend of mine the other day and he said that the pilots union is using this video in a message to all the pilots who are members.  The pilots are being told under no circumstances should they go through a scanner or be humiliated in front of the long line of customers as their junk is touched.  This video has generated over 250,000 views on youtube. 

In this Bloomberg article, a poll taken on Dec 4-7 shows that the 39 percent of Americans want to see more oversight of the Fed and 16 percent want to see it abolished outright (I'm in that 16 percent).

My point is this: two or four years ago nobody was talking about the Federal Reserve.  Since Ron Paul's book "End the Fed" debuted at number six on the New York Times Bestsellers list, awareness of our dubious and secret central bank has bloomed, as has the likelihood of real change.   In fact, as it states in the Bloomberg piece, "Ron Paul was picked to head the House Financial Services subcommittee that oversees the central bank."  Very good. 
   
Ron Paul has gotten very little legislation passed through both houses over his terms as a congressman.  But to me, those tiny numbers say there is at least one Statesman who is able to resist the powerful pull of lobbyists.

Can you think of a legislator with copious "notches on their bedpost" who you see as having helped us?