Jan 22

Government again moves to ban private encryption

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After the San Bernardino attacks last month, many voices suspected the episode was another false flag operation by undercover government agents. Evidence pointed to the fact, for example, that the very government buildings “attacked” (reportedly by Islamic militants) had been the focus of numerous government “drills” in the weeks prior.

Now, the FBI seems to be claiming that the alleged San Bernardino perpetrators “encrypted” (meaning password-coded) their cell phones–stopping the heroic FBI from tracking down the “AlQueda,” . . . er, “Isis” attackers’ masterminds behind the attacks.

See here.

This means, obviously, that the FBI is making YET ANOTHER major push for laws banning private-sector encryption and allowing the all-seeing eye of the state to have total access to all private-sector information.

Jan 22

The Lesson from Flint: Never Trust Government to Deliver a Vital Good or Service

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The City of Flint, Michigan–long under the political control of pro-government extremists–is now in the news for secretly supplying high-lead water to its population.

Lots of political blaming and shaming. But the lesson is: Never trust government to dispense a vital commodity or service.

The private sector would NEVER knowingly provide contaminated water to customers. Any company that sold bad water would be quickly bypassed by customers. It would happen instantly.

it’s a great example of government failing to efficiently provide even the most basic of public services due to a characteristically toxic combination of administrative bloat and financial mismanagement.

See here.

Jan 21

Walmart losing millions, closing stores where minimum-wage laws are harshest

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In case anyone needed further evidence that minimum-wage laws create unemployment, here is another story about Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart once had a thriving business model. It offered cheap goods at a central location.

But Wal-Mart has come under attack from anti-business voices for years. In response, Wal-Mart has increased its pay rates for its labor (which has put the giant retailer in danger from competitors).

This past quarter, Wal-Mart suffered major losses, and announced it would close (or not open) several Wal-Mart stores around the country. Columnist Debra J. Saunders suggests that Wal-Mart appears to be closing stores sited in areas with higher-than-market minimum-wage ordinances.

Jan 20

Bozeman Chronicle Prints Headline Suggesting that “Coordinating” One’s Campaign with a Nonprofit Group is “Corruption”

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The First Amendment protects political speech above all other forms of speech.

But in Montana, there is a powerful movement of pro-government voices (not the least of which are the major newspapers) who support ever-more government control over political speech under the guise of “campaign finance regulation.” Montana politicians have been investigated by the government for doing such things as purchasing a ten-dollar domain name without reporting the purchase to the government. See here.

The notion that a politician could be violating the law by merely approving favorable campaigns by independent groups or PACs is a new idea, unknown under First Amendment jurisprudence prior to Buckley v. Valejo in 1976 (and, to a great extent, after).

On January 20, 2016, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle–arguably Montana’s most extreme pro-government newspaper–published the FRONT-PAGE, ABOVE-THE-FOLD headline: “New cache of WTP emails preview arguments in Wittich corruption trial.” See here.

Say what? “Corruption” used to mean bribe-taking, skimming money from public coffers, abusing one’s authority, or using one’s position to hurt people. Things like a government official paying out millions of tax dollars to cover up a police murder just prior to reelection. See here.

Now the government supremacists are pushing to declare that private-sector advocacy groups may not even coordinate their brochures or flyers with candidates they support.

Stay tuned!

Jan 17

Odds of dying in a terrorist attack since 9/11: One in 90 million

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Since 9/11/2001, the U.S. government has diverted well over A TRILLION DOLLARS from the productivity of America into government programs supposedly aimed at protecting Americans from “terrorism.” (To put this in perspective, the total output of the country–public and private sectors combined–is around $16 trillion.)

Yet terrorism is a miniscule threat. An American has about a 1 in 90 million chance of dying from a terrorist act in any given year. See here.

Jan 13

The Worst Teachers in the World: Paid $70,000 Annually

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The collapsing socialist city-state of Chicago is plummeting into bankruptcy, hiking taxes, and torturing its citizens at record pace.

Now the public teachers of the City intend to strike! They have a median salary of $71,017 and contribute—on the high end—only 2 percent of their salaries toward their very lavish pensions.

Their average salary (as INDIVIDUALS) is 51 percent higher than Chicago’s median HOUSEHOLD income, which is estimated at $46,877. See here.

Jan 13

More shocking revelations from Wisconsin’s political police state

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The public is largely oblivious to one of the biggest scandals in recent American political history. A tale that includes midnight raids by SWAT teams, machine guns brandished in the middle of the night, secret wiretaps of internet traffic, gag orders and secret evidence–aimed at suppressing inconvenient political movements.

See here. And here.

As many are aware, the politics of Wisconsin have undergone major changes in the past decade. The State has a socialist, extreme pro-welfare-state, pro-union-control history; but voters and governor Scott Walker have made some mild inroads against this tradition in recent years. In response, the State’s establishment has launched an all-out political witch hunt against Walker (and his perceived backers), and against free-market ideology generally.

(It seems that the political inquisition was aimed at proving that Walker was ‘coordinating’ his campaign with independent issue organizations, or the Koch Brothers, or the ghost of Joe McCarthy, or something. According to one commentator, “the campaign finance probe turned into a five-county shakedown of nearly every right-of-center group in the state.”) See here.

(Note: nothing herein should be interpreted as expressing any support whatsoever for Scott Walker (who is mostly a typical politician).

The Wisconsin Supreme Court previously ruled that the State’s fanatical political police violated age-old constitutional protections when they launched midnight raids of Walker’s offices and the homes of supporters and various Republican activists. (Midnight search warrants have been banned for centuries, except in the most extreme violent settings or circumstances.)

But political prosecutors balked at court orders requiring them to return the stolen documents. They claimed that they needed to keep all the illegally-seized documents to defend themselves from lawsuits that might come in the future. (Some have already come.)

Earlier this week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court boldly ordered the State’s Inquisitors to return the documents and destroy any copies.

Stay tuned!

Jan 12

The higher the status of an academic journal, the more likely it is that the journal publishes false “science”

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More on the “fake, but peer-reviewed” front: in 2013, the “prestigious” journal, Psychological Science, published a paper supposedly finding that climate skeptics tend to have “conspiracist ideation” (whatever that means). The journal suggested that people who disbelieve the moon landing are more likely to doubt government climate claims.

The “study,” by Lewandowsky, Oberauer and Gignac, entitled, NASA faked the moon landing—therefore, (climate) science is a hoax, was quickly found to be filled with statistical errors.

of the 1145 participants in the study, only 10 thought the moon landing was a hoax. Of those who thought climate science was a hoax, almost all of them, 97.8 per cent, did NOT think the moon landing was a hoax.

See here.

This editorial suggests that there is a direct relationship between the status of a journal and the likelihood of it publishing fraudulent studies. Or it may be that academia is so riddled with flawed studies that most of them pass unnoticed, but such studies in the most influential journals tend to get exposed more often.

Jan 11

More than 100 peer-reviewed studies show the Sun is the driver of global temperatures

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Government voices claim that it is settled science that manmade carbon dioxide is the primary driver of global temperatures.

The debate is over!

Yet well over 100 peer-reviewed papers have found a stronger correlation between sun activity and temperatures on the Earth. See here.

Jan 10

Non-government health care gets cheaper and better; while government health care gets steadily more expensive

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Government subsidies of health care–often enacted with claims that they “help the poor”–increase demand without increasing supply, causing prices to rise.

Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and the VA system have all INCREASED the basic costs of medical care for poor people.

But there are areas of medicine that are ‘elective,’ meaning that people make choices for the care and pay out of their own pockets. One example is LASIK surgery to correct vision. No insurance policy pays for it, and no government program provides it.

And guess what? The quality of LASIK surgery has increased significantly while the costs HAVE GONE DOWN!

One prominent LASIK surgeon is now charging 35 percent LESS than he charged a decade ago–and quality has greatly improved.

See here.