Sep 24
A new Bloomberg News Service poll finds that 31 percent of Americans view the government’s climate-change claims as a “total hoax.” See here.
These figures suggest that the government will have an uphill battle rounding up, arresting or otherwise punishing such vast numbers. The government would need to build concentration camps for 100 million Americans.
Sep 22
Government trusters seeking to further socialize America, to raise taxes even further, to abolish (private-sector) money in politics, and further empower government must conceal certain discomforting facts. Government workers are paid at least one-and-one-half-times what private workers are paid for the same work. (In fact, careful analysis which factors in vacation time and benefits shows that figure is much higher than two times as much.)
Now a report about New York City’s school custodians shows “Custodians took home an average pay of $109,467 in the 2013-14 school year — and 634 of the city’s 799 custodians earned more than $100,000 in salary and overtime during that time. See the NY Post report here.
Sep 21
The average person in the world is at least 4 times more likely to be killed by his own government than by any foreign government, any criminal, or any terrorist.
Statistically, one’s own government is always the greatest source of potential danger to one’s life. For years, Gallup has been asking the question: “Do you think the federal government poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens?” For almost 10 years, 40 percent or more of Americans have responded “yes.” Now, in 2015, 49 percent, ALMOST A MAJORITY, wisely state that the U.S. government is an immediate threat. See here.
Gallup polling from the past month has also shown that 75 percent of Americans view their government as corrupt, see here, and half of Americans say the government regulates business too much, see here.
(Interestingly, only 21 percent say government regulates business too little. Claims by pro-government “campaign-finance reform” advocates that “the rich” are promoting deregulation against the wishes and sensibilities of the public are demonstrably untrue. The public WANT MORE DEREGULATION, as shown by consistent polling.)
Sep 19
Pictured above, the Jackson Glacier, taken at around its lowest point of the year, Sept. 13, 2015.
We at Lysander Spooner University are embarking on a continuing research project to study and photograph Montana or Wyoming glaciers each year from the same vantage points and dates of the calendar.
As many people know, various agencies of the government claim that human production of carbon dioxide is causing America’s glaciers to melt at accelerated rates. No one contends that the glaciers have not melted in the past century; but the government’s obvious motive to exaggerate the phenomenon begs for further inquiry.
The National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey each have produced web pages and imagery purporting to show glaciers much larger in previous decades (say, the 1940s or 1950s) than the same glaciers are today.
One glaring problem, however, is the fact that glaciers tend to melt continuously throughout each summer and rebuild during winter. Consequently, one can easily deceive viewers by showing a photo of a large glacier taken in the early summer of a past year juxtaposed against a photo of the same, much smaller glacier taken in the late summer of a recent year. The government’s “comparative” photo websites do not even try to match dates of the season. See here.
We picked a date that is reportedly the average date of first freeze in the town of East Glacier, Montana (bordering Glacier National Park)–September 13. As the date fell on a Sunday this year, it provided a great opportunity for Lysander Spooner University researchers to embark on a fun field trip.
We photographed the Jackson Glacier and other prominent glaciers and snowfields visible on the Going-To-The-Sun Highway inside GNP.
We hope to revisit GNP each year on or around the same week, and turn this research trip into an annual event. In the future we hope to include more glaciers, including some that require hiking into, and perhaps some outside GNP (such as those in Montana’s Beartooth Mountains or Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains).
Our long-term goal is to develop an accurate, continuing photo archive–always from the same week in September, when summertime melting has had its way with the glaciers of the northern Rockies.
Join us next year for a great time!
(Thanks to Kirsten Tynan for her wonderful photography.)
Sep 19
We previously reported that the University of California system–a government network subject to the free-speech provisions of the Constitution–was proposing a university-wide speech code that banned “intolerant” “expressions.” See here.
On Thursday, Sept. 17 (ironically, “Constitution Day”), the proposal was the subject of a large public meeting.
According to F.I.R.E. (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education):
The most worrying statements came from Regent Richard C. Blum, whose wife is United States Senator Dianne Feinstein. Blum said earlier in the meeting that “we’ve been too tolerant, too patient about all this for too long,” and continued:
I should add that over the weekend my wife, your senior Senator, and I talked about this issue at length. She wants to stay out of the conversation publicly but if we do not do the right thing she will engage publicly and is prepared to be critical of this university if we don’t have the kind of not only statement but penalties for those who commit what you can call them crimes [of speech], call them whatever you want. Students that do the things that have been cited here today probably ought to have a dismissal or a suspension from school. I don’t know how many of you feel strongly that way but my wife does and so do I.
Yes, a UC Regent flatly threatened the university with political consequences if it failed to craft a “tolerance” policy that would punish—and even expel—its violators.
See F.I.R.E.’s discussion here.
Government colleges and universities are increasingly repressive environments, dominated by socialist and pro-government ideology, where pro-market, individualist, and antigovernment sentiments are silenced.
Sep 19
Our masters in government repeatedly tell us we are to be “engaged” in politics. But when citizens “engage” in efforts to limit or rein in government–especially when such citizens become successful–they are increasingly subject to criminal prosecution and imprisonment.
In Missouri, a citizen activist named Ron Calzone, who bills himself as a “citizen lobbyist,” has been fined $1,000 by the Missouri Ethics Commission for failing to register as a lobbyist.
Calzone IS NOT A LOBBYIST in any normal sense. He does not get paid by anyone to “lobby” the legislature.
Increasingly, the act of . . . , well, activism, is becoming a crime; especially when one’s activism promotes criticism of the almighty state.
Read Reason Magazine’s description of the case (and other similar cases in other states) here.
Sep 19
Statistically, a federal employee is more likely to die than to quit. They are so pampered with lavish pay and benefits that they report substantially higher levels of job satisfaction than do workers in the private sector.
A new Gallup poll finds that 82 percent of government workers are fully satisfied with their retirement plans (as compared to just 57 % of private-sector workers). See here.
In many rural counties, the largest and most luxurious homes and estates belong to government retirees. Federal workers can be commonly seen in large casinos in Las Vegas and Foxwoods, flashing wads of hundred dollar bills and spending lavishly on gambling and entertainment.
Sep 19
As shown previously (see here), America’s government colleges and universities have become Orwellian thought-control zones where wide-scale discrimination and repression of libertarian and anti-government thought are routinely practiced.
Now another government college, the College of DuPage in Illinois, has been caught falsely telling libertarian protesters that they have no constitutional right to hand out pro-freedom or anti-government brochures on public campus grounds without first getting government permission. A campus cop is caught on film threatening to arrest the students. See here.
Sep 19
Last week, 20 “climate scientists”–each of whom is government-funded–signed a letter to President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Lynch calling for government to investigate and prosecute those who question or disagree with the government’s climate-change messaging. See the letter here.
The letter makes numerous preposterous claims (e.g., that skeptics are knowingly promoting false science, as “extensively documented in peer-reviewed academic research,”* and that the “methods of [skeptic] organizations are quite similar to those used earlier by the tobacco industry”).** The letter further alleges that skeptics’ doubts constitute criminal acts.
Any notion that the First Amendment might protect the expression of doubts regarding the government’s claims goes unmentioned in the letter.
Debate no more! the letter says. Jail those who disagree with the government! See here.
* the letter cites “(Brulle, 2013)” as support for the proposition that “peer reviewed academic research” demonstrates that skepticism funders are knowingly funding false research. The Brulle “study” has been discredited. Essentially, the Brulle study made the claim that conservative oil billionaires are spending as much as $1 billion annually to promote climate doubts, based on the fact that certain philanthropists support free-market think tanks which occasionally delve into climate questions.
** the analogy between skeptics of the government’s climate-power agenda and the tobacco industry is a false one. Tobacco companies were marketing a product. Skeptics are merely voicing questions or expressing their opinions.
Sep 19
Governments and their worshippers are promoting claims that 2015 is on track to become “the hottest year in world history.” (Just as these same sources claimed 2014 was the hottest year in history.)
But these claims are entirely based upon government-manipulated land and ocean-surface temperatures. Almost half of these temps are fake, or have been government-adjusted. See here. A common way for governments and government-funded scientists to manipulate temperature claims is to “adjust” the past to make it appear colder than it was actually measured.
Satellite measurements–which are arguably far more reliable–have measured NO WARMING WHATSOEVER in 18 years, 8 months. See here.
