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War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose 50 years of government spin and media collusion that has dragged our country into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. With remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, the documentary exposes how presidential administrations of both parties have relied on a combination of deception and media complicity to sell one war after another to the American people.

Giving special attention to parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, War Made Easy sets government spin and media collusion from the present alongside virtually identical patterns from the past, guided by Solomon’s meticulous research and tough-minded analysis. Rare footage of political leaders and journalists from the past includes Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and news correspondents Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer.

With that said, it’s often nice to get views of what’s going on in the world that aren’t directly influenced by the US government.

For that, there is Livestation.

It free, and it’s cross-platform. So, it works just fine on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Livestation carries the following channels (among others), each which offer a new take on world events:

• Al Jazeera English
• RT
• Press TV
• BBC World Service
• France 24
• CNN International

It’s worth checking out. You should go download it.

For the sake of context, Encyclopedia Dramatica is, without question, one of the top five least-sane websites on the Internet, in terms of its content. Figuring out exactly what it is, and why, is an exercise that I will leave to you.

Anyway, this is the blog post I found. It’s by Joseph Evers, the founder of ED.

For those unaware, Encyclopedia Dramatica has been in a lot of trouble in Australia lately. First ED was placed on the ACMA blacklist, a “secret” list of websites to be censored throughout Australia in their upcoming internet filter. After this list was leaked to the public, we all laughed about how we were put on a blacklist with “Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions, Christian sites, and even the websites of a tour operator and a Queensland dentist“. Meanwhile, Australia Communications Minister Stephen Conroy called for the arrests of Australians publishing the list.

So here’s the deal. This is an initial investigation into charging me, personally, with the violation of Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act. While I act in complete compliance with both the civil and criminal codes of the United States of America, and am assured the right of free speech according to our Constitution (which, if not the greatest political document in the entire history of law, is certainly on the top five) I can personally be jailed and fined for the violation of this law. Check out the court precedent they cite, Dow Jones & Co Inc v Gutnick, where a United States paper had to pay 580k for publishing an article about a globalized company headquartered in Australia and its CEO whilst completely in compliance with United States civil precedence. This isn’t a far-fetched legal theory, they have used it before. Welcome to the one world government, folks. Is this what you wanted? Is this what you had in mind? Cause this is what you’re gettin’.

Encyclopedia Dramatica will never be censored in any way. We will keep publishing this content and our Australian users will be able to view it up until the point that your God-forsaken government blocks it with their soon-to-be-implemented secret list of banned material. ACMA’s child pornography blacklist is only one half child pornography. The rest is religious and political speech. You really want Soviet-style communism as your future? I know some people that had to escape from the GDR. Many of your children will be in that position. The house of cards is about to come down, and they’re making sure your mouths are taped shut first. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

My counsel has advised me that I can never under any circumstances visit my family in Sydney again, nor otherwise make any appearances on Australian soil. Here’s to the hidden cost of freedom.

Scary. I’ve only been to ED a few times in my life, but their content has nothing to do with the issue at hand. I applaud Joseph for refusing to censor his wiki site, and I find this trend of global cooperation among pro-censorship bureaucracies incredibly chilling.

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.

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.

• 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.

Part 1:

Part 2:

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

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.

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!

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.)

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.

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have have without a shred of evidence beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little dope and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe. In fact, the list of successful pot smokers includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities.

So go ahead. Ban me from the next Olympics. Yank my endorsement deals. Stick your collective noses in the air and get all indignant on me. While you’re at it, keep arresting cancer and AIDS patients who dare to smoke the stuff because it deadens their pain, or enables them to eat. Keep sending in goon squads to kick down doors and shoot little old ladies, maim innocent toddlers, handcuff elderly post-polio patients to their beds at gunpoint, and slaughter the family pet.

Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll apologize for smoking pot when every politician who ever did drugs and then voted to uphold or strengthen the drug laws marches his ass off to the nearest federal prison to serve out the sentence he wants to impose on everyone else for committing the same crimes he committed. I’ll apologize when the sons, daughters, and nephews of powerful politicians who get caught possessing or dealing drugs in the frat house or prep school get the same treatment as the no-name, probably black kid caught on the corner or the front stoop doing the same thing.

Until then, I for one will have none of it. I smoked pot. I liked it. I’ll probably do it again. I refuse to apologize for it, because by apologizing I help perpetuate this stupid lie, this idea that what someone puts into his own body on his own time is any of the government’s damned business. Or any of yours. I’m not going to bend over and allow myself to be propaganda for this wasteful, ridiculous, immoral war.

Go ahead and tear me down if you like. But let’s see you rationalize in your next lame ONDCP commercial how the greatest motherfucking swimmer the world has ever seen . . . is also a proud pot smoker.

Yours,

Michael Phelps

Boycott Kelloggs. And let them know why.

- Ron Paul, 5 fucking years ago

Bob Barr has been slamming Dr. Paul publicly since he won the formerly-libertarian party nomination, but this seems to have offended more Ron Paul supporters than anything he has done so far.

For those who don’t know, Barr spent much of his life jailing people on behalf of the federal government for possessing substances that the state hadn’t approved of, before recently “seeing the light”. Even since his supposed revelation, he has praised the troop surge, argued for intervention in Iran and South America, advocated a national sales tax, and voted for the PATRIOT Act twice. This just scratches the surface, of course.

With that said, it’s probably for the best that he didn’t show up today.

Alas, this excitement was promptly broken and replaced with disappointment as soon as Ron Paul began responding.

If only.

It was a blast to attend.

Tom Paxton – George W. Told The Nation

(You’ll need to view this post on ChrisBrunner.com in order to see the video.)