If you follow CNN, you’re almost certainly already aware that, due to a shortage of IP addresses, “the internet might stop working.”

I just wanted to take a moment to make three quick points:

1) The Internet is not going to stop working when we run out of IP addresses. In fact, that whole idea is incomprehensibly dumb.

2) There are PLENTY of IP addresses!!

Okay, get this… There are fewer than 300 million internet users in the world. There are over 4 BILLION IPv4 addresses.

Get it? There are plenty of addresses. The problem is not the number of addresses. The problem is that the crackheads assigning them don’t care whether or not they end up being utilized. What an incredible (and expensive) waste.

3) There is a very simple solution to this that doesn’t involve spending billions of dollars on forcing the world to move to IPv6 before it’s ready:

ARIN should just start reclaiming unused IP blocks.

It’s that simple. It really is.

Ping each IP address, and if there’s no response, check a few ports.

Use that data to create a utilization metric for each IP block.

If the IP block is underutilized, or not used at all, simply recover part or all of the IP block for someone else to use.

That’s it. That’s all that has to be done.

People are idiots.

So here’s the Plain English version of what’s going on, as I understand it.

What You Should Already Know

Everybody knows that the US Government is running a HUGE deficit — like $1.8 trillion so far this year — way more than the average human can fathom. I think it’s also safe to assume that everybody understands that this money is borrowed from other governments, like China, Japan, Brazil, the UK, etc.

So, obviously, the US government has to pay interest on this money that it borrows. It makes these payments by borrowing more money, which results in more interest payments for which even more money must be borrowed, and so on. The cycle continues as the debt increases exponentially.

What You May Already Know

This works fine as long as other countries continue to have an appetite for US debt. However, if they were to decide not to continue buying more and more US debt, the US Treasury would not longer to be able to afford to service its debt and would have to default. Total chaos would ensue, like you can’t imagine. Many banks would be rendered insolvent overnight, mutual funds and ETF’s would be wiped out, corporate and individual savings would be depleted, tons of governments — both foreign and domestic — would instantly go bankrupt, and the $100 trillion T-Bond futures market would be crushed.

But, that will never happen, because this is America, and the rest of the world will always want more and more and more of our debt, no matter how much we create. It’s a risk-free investment, after all!

What Just Happened

So, long story short, it turns out that last week the Treasury started having trouble unloading some of that freshly-created debt. Actually, they couldn’t sell about half of it. But not to worry — Bernanke’s crew quietly stepped in, printed $14 billion out of thin air, and used it to buy up all those bonds nobody else wanted.

That’s an easy quick fix, because most people probably won’t even learn about what happened, but it should send off alarm bells for anyone who has any interaction with the US economy.

See… if nobody wants to buy the US treasury’s debt, they basically have two options: They can default on the debt, which I described above, OR, since the government can print its own money, they can print money like crazy to continue financing their madness.

The latter is what seems to be going on right now. The problem with this is that as they create more new money, the existing money — the cash that’s in your wallet and bank accounts — loses value. Since your money is less valuable, it takes more of it to buy the same stuff. In other words, prices go up. Economists call this “price inflation” for obvious reasons.

All modern governments do this to some degree. This is why prices gradually go up over time. It’s basically a hidden tax.

However, the more the US government inflates the money supply to finance their deficit spending, the faster the US Dollar will lose its value. If this continues, the US economy could enter into a state of hyperinflation, and virtually all of the value of the USD could be wiped out.

This is nothing unprecedented. The US did it back in the 1860′s, Germany did it in the 1920′s, China did it in the 1940′s, Israel did it in the 80′s, and Zimbabwe is doing it today. These are just a few of many, many examples.

I guess the biggest difference is that everyone in the US seems to think it can’t happen here, but apparently it’s starting to slowly unfold.

Stefan Molyneux does a fantastic job of explaining exactly why. It all boils down to the government-enforced monopoly that is the AMA. This is a must watch for anyone who has any interest in the current health care debate.

If you get all of your news from media outlets in the US, you're totally missing out. Podcast clients like Miro make it not only possible, but very easy, and very convenient, to get on-demand news from around the world. You pick and choose your content sources, and episodes just download automatically. I see content every day that I would never, ever see from the US media. One example from just a few minutes ago is this two-part interview between Josh Rushing and Michael Mullen about the US military strategy in Afghanistan. Just ask yourself while you watch: "Would anyone in the American mainstream media ever dare ask questions like this?" I will list the RSS URLs of some of my content picks in case you're interested in checking it out for yourself:

• Al Jazeera English 
• Feed URL
• Nationality: Qatari
• Description: One of the three largest English-language news channels worldwide.  It's a 24-hour English-language news and current affairs TV channel headquartered in Doha, Qatar.
• Russia Today
• Feed URL
• Nationality: Russian
• Description: Also known as RT, is a globally broadcast English-language news channel from Russia, and the first all-digital Russian TV channel.
• Press TV
• Feed URL
• Nationality: Iranian
• Description: An English language international television news channel, based in Tehran.  It has 26 international correspondents and more than 500 staff around the world.

These are just three out of about thirty content sources that I receive video from daily.  If you have one that you feel should be listed here, let me know.  Or, if you want to see my list of Technology or Libertarian content sources, let me know.

Click here if you can’t see the video.

I don’t know much about Max Keiser, but I think I just became a huge fan.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Click here and here if you can’t see the videos.

Here’s just one example.

Click here if you can’t see the video.

The idea that this will be thrusted upon everyone in American really, really pisses me off.

I pretty much always use my meal times to catch up on the news by watching video podcasts on Miro. One such podcast is the Obama-worship-session that is NBC Nightly News.

So I was sitting here, minding my own business, scarfing down a cheeseburger before I go to work replacing a Cisco access point, and then this pops up:

Okay, the bit about crowding out the private healthcare industry with government bullshit was bad enough, but the next point that read “REQUIRE ALL AMERICANS TO GET COVERAGE” almost made me choke on my food.

Are you fucking serious?

Does anyone understand the gravity of what this means??

Are the Americans who support this FUCKING MORONS?

This is so fucking dumb that I hardly know where to start.

No, I’m not talking about the inevitable 4-hour-wait-times, or the total destruction of incentives that would otherwise cause healthcare providers and healthcare customers to act fiscally sensible. And let’s set aside for the moment the fact that subsidies DRIVE UP PRICES, which has brought today’s outrageously expensive healthcare prices to what they are now. And never mind that some people will literally die from not receiving the care they need because they had to wait on a list for years before getting their life-saving operations. We can discuss all of that later.

It’s bad enough that the government wants people to engage in this nonsensical Socialist bullshit, but mandatory coverage means that sensible people won’t have a choice. You will literally have to register with the state for really expensive, really shitty, “free” healthcare coverage, or be penalized. And then, once “the government” (ie. you) is paying for your healthcare, guess who gets to dictate how you live and what you eat? (Hint: It won’t be you.)

That’s right, suckers. Watch and learn. This will give the government every excuse on the planet to intervene in your life. You’re fat, you see, and they’re paying for your healthcare. So, the fatty foods have got to go. You smoke, you see, and that causes cancer, which the government has to pay for. So, your cigarettes must be outlawed.

Banning trans fats was just practice. You’ll see.

Meanwhile, all the good doctors will go where they can make money on their ridiculously expensive investment of an education, you get to wait in line for two to four hours when you go to the doctor, your aunt who fell and broke her hip will wait two to four years for a replacement, the real cost of healthcare will skyrocket, and you’ll be forced the pick up the tab.

What really kills me is that this has been done in plenty of other countries, and what I describe above is what actually happens. (Just ask a Canadian about his or her last trip to the doctor.) And yet, there are morons — lots and lots of morons — who still support this.

Way to go, America!

Michael Moore has announced that his latest documentary will take on the free market — that is, the freedom to produce, buy, or sell whatever you want, to whomever you want, at whatever prices you want. This is pure evil, of course. Not because it benefits everyone involved, but because it makes some people wealthy. And, according to Michael, that’s a big problem for America.

Says Moore:

“The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn’t have enough wealth. They wanted more — a lot more. So they systematically set about to fleece the American people out of their hard-earned money. Now, why would they do this? That is what I seek to discover in this movie.”

This is just dumb. As John Stossel begins to point out, it’s not the private sector that is “fleec[ing] the American people out of their hard-earned money,” it’s the government. Who robs Americans of half of their hard-earned income at gun point every single year? Who counterfeits endlessly to the point of causing massive and widespread malinvestment, job losses, inflation, and depressions? It’s certainly not the private sector. And it certainly has nothing to do with Capitalism.

(Note: This post was authored for the LRC Blog.)

A quote from the Department of Homeland Security website:

We're also actively monitoring travelers at our land, sea, and air ports. We're watching them for signs of illness, and we have appropriate protocols in place to deal with those who are sick. Precautions are being taken to protect travelers and border personnel. Anyone exhibiting symptoms is being referred to an isolation room where they can be evaluated by a public health official before proceeding to their destruction.

 The site has now been changed to read, "before proceeding to their destination."  However, a footnote still exists that references the typo and includes the original phrasiology.  Man, what a scary typo.