Feb 27

Washington Post: Earth could soon cease to be a “safe operating space” for humans

climatology_dees

On January 15, the Washington Post published a story claiming that “At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings.” Citing a published paper in the journal “Science,” the article suggested that “we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries”: “the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean.”

Capitalism is blamed for “destabilizing the global environment.” Although the article (citing the paper) claims it doesn’t offer proposed solutions, it suggests that government “leaders” may be able to save humanity by having more power.

Feb 27

FCC “Net Neutrality” Takeover Will Turn Internet into a Government Licensing Scheme

tvdees

In the wake of yesterday’s powergrab of the internet by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), we should all refamiliarize ourselves with the way innovation in telecommunications was arrested by FCC control over telephone companies. For decades, the telephone industry has been under FCC regulation. And for much of the 20th Century, Bell Telephone enjoyed something of a government-licensed monopoly.

As Reason Magazine’s Nick Gillespie writes in an essay entitled, “3 Charts That Show The FCC is Full of Malarkey on Net Neutrality and Title II”:

[T]hink about how the delivery of the Internet has evolved, first from a university-based system to early commercial providers using phone lines, then to various types of fixed connections (such as DSL and coaxial cable and increasingly fiber and mobile services). Does anyone think that in 2035 we’ll be getting the Internet via a cable that pops up in your living room and also provides televison programs? What increased regulation almost always does is freeze into place existing structures and business models. Certainly that’s the case with telephony, where the heavily regulated Bell monopoly fought hard, and for a long time very successfully against all sorts of innovation, from alternative methods of long-distance delivery to accessories such as answering machines to letting people own (rather than rent) their phones. “Communism is a drag, man,” Lenny Bruce riffed. “It’s like one big telephone company.”

Feb 26

Socialists and Government Bullies Everywhere Are Cheering the FCC’s “Net Neutrality” Takeover of the Internet

fspeechzone

For several years, trusters of expansive intrusive government have sought to impose what they call “net neutrality”–a government regulatory structure–upon the internet. Ridiculously, some of them claim they are trying to “free” the internet and keep it “open.” Who exactly is threatening to enslave or close the internet? Why, the private sector; or capitalism; or certain big corporations.

Today, February 26, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3 to 2 to impose such a government regulatory takeover of the internet.

The ever-insightful Ron Paul described the situation fairly accurately:

Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a non-elected federal government agency, voted three-to-two to reclassify broadband Internet as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act. This means that – without the vote of Congress, the peoples’ branch of government – a federal agency now claims the power to regulate the Internet. I am surprised that even among civil liberties groups, some claim the federal government increasing regulation of the Internet somehow increases our freedom and liberty.

The truth is very different. The adoption of these FCC rules on the Internet represents the largest regulatory power grab in recent history. The FCC’s newly adopted rule takes the most dynamic means of communication and imposes the regulatory structure designed for public utilities. Federal regulation could also open the door to de facto censorship of ideas perceived as threatening to the political class – ideas like the troops should be brought home, the PATRIOT Act should be repealed, military spending and corporate welfare should be cut, and the Federal Reserve should be audited and ended.

The one bright spot in this otherwise disastrous move is that federal regulations making it more difficult to use the Internet will cause more Americans to join our movement for liberty, peace, and prosperity. The federal government should keep its hands off of the Internet!

Feb 26

The Entire History of “State Secrets Privilege” is Based on Fraud

Tanks_dess

Today the U.S. government is constantly invoking “State Secrets Privilege” to shut down lawsuits against the government and keep the American people from knowing the truth about government affairs. When Americans file lawsuits against the government or its blood-brother corporate agents, the government asserts “state secrets privilege” to force the courts to throw out the lawsuits. The government claims that even answering or discussing lawsuits about unconstitutional surveillance, spying and invasions of privacy would imperil national security and alert ISIS (or other bogeyman threats, most of which are creations of western intelligence agencies) to the government’s defense operations.

But the “state secrets privilege” was invented by fraud. The privilege was first officially recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1 (1953). The case involved widows of three civilians (RCA employees, actually) who died when a military airplane they were riding in crashed in Georgia. The widows filed suit and sought discovery of the accident reports. The U.S. government refused to provide the accident reports, claiming that to release such details would threaten national security by revealing the bomber’s top-secret mission. For the first time, the federal courts adopted the idea of “state secrets privilege,” and shut down the lawsuit.

There was language in the U.S. v. Reynolds opinion suggesting that the privilege would never be “lightly invoked.” However, the U.S. government has asserted the privilege on hundreds of occasions in recent years, in order to have lawsuits against itself and its coconspirators dismissed.

In 2000, the Georgia accident reports were declassified and released, and it was found that the assertion that they contained secret information was fraudulent. The reports did, however, contain information about the poor condition of the aircraft itself, which would have been very compromising to the Air Force’s case.

Feb 25

Federal Government Making Plans For Major Takeover of Internet

A dozen sources indicate that our “masters” in government in Washington are preparing to launch a major push for so-called “net neutrality” policies to regulate the internet. This socialist model will spread the stink and stain of government over the internet in a manner similar to the way governments have long controlled utilities.

If adopted, the net neutrality legislation/executive action will turn the internet over to government regulators in Chinese style.

For years, government supremacists have chaffed under the freedom of expression and discussion that prevails on the internet. Without controlling the internet, socialists will never be able to achieve their dream of slave-plantation-level thought and property control. Government insiders have been spreading a false claim that the internet is in danger of being monopolized by a small number of private firms who will then (in this fantasy dream world) keep out small, poor websites by discriminating in favor of well-funded websites.

Of course there is UTTERLY NO EVIDENCE OF SUCH A THREAT.marx_dees

Feb 25

Beware of Government-Funded Attacks on Privately-Funded Science

climatology_dees

The government-worshipping Salon.com website is reporting that certain manmade-global-warming-skeptical scientists who have testified before committees of Congress regarding the (non)threat of manmade climate change are now under investigation by the government for being nongovernmentally funded.

As most Lysander Spooner University students know, the vast majority of what passes for scientific research in the area of climate change is government funded and promoted. Government research money floods through the channels of scientific research, scientific journals and research-grant “peer review.” This explosion of government money produces a steady stream of alleged science which supports demands for more socialism and government power.

Salon.com is reporting that U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, recently sent letters to seven universities, requesting information on professors who have testified before Congress on global warming. The letters are designed to intimidate as much as to request information. They speak of “external funding” in a near-perjorative sense, suggesting that good, government-approved scientists should never accept private research grants or support.

Under particular fire is Wei-Hock Soon, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. According to Salon.com, “Soon claims that variations in the sun’s energy are likely to blame for global warming.” (Shocking!) “It turns out,” says the pro-government website, “that he has been paid over $1.2 million by the fossil fuel industry to have these views. He has also failed to disclose the conflict of interest in the majority of his scientific articles, according to the New York Times.”

Such language sounds as if Professor Soon has been accepting “fossil fuel industry” research support in secret and then deceiving scientific journals regarding such support. However, anyone familiar with scholarly publications knows that most of the journals do not request acknowledgments of all sources of funding in an author’s life, but merely request sources of funding that directly supported the study or studies being submitted for publication. This concerted effort to taint Professor Soon’s research can be viewed as part of a large-scale government agenda to discredit all but government-funded scientific research.

Of course, the vast majority of important scientific discoveries and inventions have come from private funding, while government-funded science is notoriously inefficient and unproductive. During the period when the Wright Brothers were privately inventing aviation, the U.S. military was directing hundreds of thousands of tax dollars into unsuccessful research aimed at producing a steam-powered airplane.

Feb 24

Dutch City Removes All Traffic Signs; Traffic Accidents Go Down

imagesWe were recently alerted by a lewrockwell.com essay about how traffic safety actually improves when traffic controls are decreased. American car traffic is tremendously overregulated; and there are way too many traffic cops on the roadways.

Within the Lewrockwell.com link is the mention of a Dutch city of 50,000 people, Drachten, which stripped its streets of all traffic signals and signs in the past decade.

Germany’s largest-circulation magazine, Der Speigel reported in 2006 that the number of accidents in Drachten “declined dramatically” after the open traffic design was implemented – See more at: http://alerts.motorists.org/nma-email-newsletter-issue-32/#sthash.Jfkp5K8S.dpuf

Feb 24

17,000 Federal employees made more than $200,000 last year

dd3s22

Statistically, a federal worker is now more likely to die than to quit. Federal employees are so overpaid that there are multiple books on the shelves of most bookstores on the topic of how to get a federal job.

Those who work in the federal government have hit the lottery. As the American middle class is drained of its wealth and it becomes harder to start businesses or earn a good living in the private sector, America’s wealth is rapidly moving into the public sector.

Now the National Journal reports that at least 17,000 federal workers made more than $200,000 from the taxpayers last year. America is increasingly a landscape of marble and oak-paneled government palaces surrounded by shanty towns and trailer parks occupied by the private sector.

Feb 24

Savers Continue To Be Punished

worship2_dees

If you save anything in modern America, you are an absolute fool. For years, the Federal Reserve Bank has set interest rates well below “natural” levels. (In a free lending market, private banks would tend to charge substantially more interest per dollar lent, and savers could expect substantially higher rates of return for keeping their savings with banks.)

Since the economic recession of 2008, the Federal Reserve has set interest rates at near zero. (Interest rates were already well below natural rates.) This is a powerful incentive to borrow, and a very powerful incentive NOT to save. On February 24, 2015, Fed Chair Janet Yellen announced that the Central Bank would not be hiking rates for the next couple quarters.

In practice, zero-percent interest rates mean that it COSTS BANKS MONEY TO HOLD PEOPLES’ SAVINGS. On the same day the Fed announced it would not raise interest rates, J.P. Morgan bank announced it will start charging its big clients to keep their money in savings.

Savers who keep their money in banks will increasingly find that those banks will CHARGE them fees rather than PAY any interest.

Feb 20

CLIMATOLOGIST RICHARD LINDZEN: GOVERNMENT-FUNDED SCIENCE ALWAYS TENDS TO BE BIASED IN FAVOR OF GOVERNMENT

mhikerDr. Richard Lindzen is an American atmospheric physicist and retired Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In an important interview, Lindzen states (beginning around 7:20) that:

The trouble is all of us scientists are government employees—even if we’re working for private universities. All research is supported by the government. As such we’re very sensitive to what politicians say and believe. That’s a shortcoming.

You have to figure out how to fund science in a way that there are no incentives to artificially promoting things.
When you hear for instance a scientist saying ‘the science is settled,’ you know the person has stepped out of the science.
Whenever you see someone say—instead of answering arguments—‘how could so many people agree if it weren’t true?’ That should be a red flag.