Apr 08

Easter Island was wiped out by Little Ice Age; not manmade ecological collapse

Pro-government extremist Nicholas Kristof, a writer for the New York Times, recently repeated claims that the great sculptors of Easter Island were wiped out due to manmade environmental destruction.

Similar claims were made by Professor Jared Diamond in his bestseller “Collapse”–a wide-ranging set of sociological essays culminating in a call for central planning by learned government officials. Both Krisoff and Diamond have been vigorous promoters of the government’s catastrophic-manmade-global-warming-by CO2 theory.

The two pro-government writers have offered Easter Island as an example showing why people must rely on governmental elites to guide their lives. Diamond and Kristof claim the ancient Easter Islanders died off because they cut down all the Island’s palm trees to use as rollers for the massive sculture stones and then were without logs to build canoes. They claim the trapped Easter Islanders then died of starvation when their environment eroded and collapsed. Kristof even entitled his Times essay, “A Parable of Self Destruction.”

But research indicates the claims of Diamond and Kristoff are mostly mythical. The people of Easter Island mostly died off due to the advancing cold of the Little Ice Age. See here.

Apr 03

U.S. Supreme Court holds cops who shoot knife-holding citizens are immune from suit

Many Americans wonder why cops are so violent, aggressive and lawless. Why don’t they obey the Constitution or Bill of Rights?

The answer is America’s judges. For more than a century, judges have enshrined cops as masters over the rest of humanity. Judges tend to hold that when a person gets hired as a cop and dons a magic suit, he becomes essentially immune from liability for anything he does on the job.

Cops regularly kill, punch, rape, torture and abuse the citizenry, but almost never face any legal repercussions.

Here is a recent Reason Magazine expose on a recent Supreme Court ruling (Kisela v. Hughes) which held that a cop who murdered a knife-holding woman in her kitchen is immune from suit.

It is important to remember that the Supreme Court hears only a small and dwindling number of cases — less than one in 100 of the cases that it is asked to hear will ever get a determination on the merits. Most of those cases, according to the Court’s rules and practices, will be cases where lower courts are divided on the law or an important legal issue is otherwise unsettled. These summary reversals are a notable, and sometimes explicit, exception. The Court takes a comparatively large number of factbound cases that present no lasting legal issue other than whether the Ninth Circuit got it wrong again.

Apr 03

Governments worldwide launch efforts to crush criticism of government, calling it “fake news”

Recently the government of Malaysia voted to ban “fake news” as defined by the government. A new law will punish those who spread misleading information by up to six years in prison.

Although the New York Times described the law as the first of its kind, such laws have actually been enacted hundreds of times by governments everywhere.

Throughout the 1600s through the 1800s, all British presses had to be licensed, and governments prosecuted hundreds of people for “seditious libel,” the crime of bringing the government into disrepute. (America’s Founding Fathers all used alias names when they published political letters, knowing they faced punishment if they were identified.)

(Today in the U.S., pro-government forces call such anonymity “dark money,” and prosecute such speakers and publishers for campaign-finance violations.)

The EU has also launched a committee to study the issue. In the U.S., major platforms such as Facebook and Google (upon the urging of government officials) have launched efforts to censor “fake news” (meaning, mostly, news critical of government or offering an anti-government philosophy).

The government of Turkey has imprisoned dozens of journalists for circulating what the government calls fake news.

Now there is news that the government of India has backed away from similar plans to ban “fake news.” The Wall Street Journal reports that “India withdrew plans on Tuesday to punish journalists judged to be promoting “fake news” after widespread criticism that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was trying to muzzle the press.”

Apr 02

Seattle property taxes rise 43 percent in 4 years; hundreds prepare to flee

The Seattle Times reports that hundreds of home owners are preparing to sell their homes and leave the city. Property taxes have risen more than 40 percent during the past 4 years.

The city has become known for pro-government politics, and its voters seem to vote for every proposed mill levy. In some areas, mill-levy votes have increased property taxes significantly.

Two years ago, the Seattle City Council voted to impose a $15-per-hour minimum wage.

Apr 02

Thousands flee socialist Baltimore

Baltimore–once one of America’s greatest cities–has collapsed under the weight of government, cops, taxes, and murder.

As thousands flee, the City’s population is now lower than at any time in a century.

The Baltimore Sun newspaper recently reported that “The city’s outrageous property tax of $2.248 per $100 of a property’s assessed value is more than double of its surrounding jurisdictions,” and has produced more renters than homeowners.

Additionally, the city’s high income tax of 3.2 percent–the maximum allowed by Maryland law–drives away many productive residents.

Baltimore has the nation’s second highest rate of cops-per-residents. Perhaps because of so many cops, the city has some of America’s highest crime rates.

Mar 31

Stephen Reinhardt, one of America’s greatest judges, dies during doctor visit

U.S. 9th Circuit judge Stephen Reinhardt, known as the “Liberal Lion” of the 9th Circuit, died Thursday while visiting a dermatologist.

Reinhardt was “liberal” in the old, anti-police-state, sense. He fought to save habeas corpus from the police state. He fought for criminal defendants who were given no chance and little due process.

If you were wrongly convicted of any crime in a western federal courthouse, and you were lucky enough to draw Stephen Reinhardt as one of your three 9th Circuit judges in your appeal, you had a chance of overturning your conviction.

R.I.P. Stephen Reinhardt, March 27, 1931 – March 30, 2018.

Mar 29

Medicaid and pensions now eat 1 out of 5 state tax dollars; this share is about to explode.

Has the entire American experiment been for the benefit of one cohort of people: 21st-century government workers?

In the 240 years since the American Revolution, the U.S. prospered like no other nation in world history–due to the Bill of Rights and low levels of government interference and regulation.

But now government programs and regulations are choking the life force from the American society.

A recent report by the Wall Street Journal warns that Medicaid and government-employee pensions now threaten to displace all other government spending within the next several decades. America will become, in all essence, a redistribution program designed to take all the money from the private sector by force and deliver that money to (retired) state employees and state medical programs.

Already Medicaid and government pensions consume about one out of every five tax dollars collected by state and local governments.

Those costs are outpacing growth in tax revenue year after year.

Connecticut has just 31.7% of what it needs to pay its employees’ future retirement benefits, according to state financial reports. A fund for teachers has 52.3%. Together, that adds up to more than $37 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, or about $10,300 per Connecticut resident.

Mar 26

Government of Big Timber, Montana–population 1,600–spends $5.6 million on new water treatment plant

Government-provided water is often polluted, dirty, and toxic, despite its exorbitant cost.

Yet government trusters tend to defy water privatization to their dying breath.

The town council of Big Timber, Montana recently voted to spend $5.6 million–approximately $3,400 for every man, woman and child in the town–for a new water treatment facility.

Big Timber is nestled between two large, clean rivers (the Yellowstone and the Boulder).

Mar 26

Mass murder at gay night club was committed by undercover FBI

New evidence suggests the FBI may have staged the 2016 mass murder at the gay “Pulse” nightclub in Orlando to spur gun control and anti-Muslim sentiment.

At the time of the 2016 massacre of some 49 gay nightclub attendees, the government-supporting, or “mainstream,” press reported the event as a Muslim hate crime or terrorist attack. There were hints, however, that the event may have been something of a false-flag operation; and ultimately, the mass-media mostly dropped the story.

Now it has come out that the government concealed evidence in a federal criminal trial showing that the alleged shooter was an FBI asset. The shooter’s father was a long-time FBI informant who regularly made anti-gay speeches and statements. (The father’s supposed anti-gay sentiments are now called into question as potential false-flag staging.)

Mar 26

Philadelphia sewage flows directly into City drinking water

Drinking water delivered by municipal governments is often dirtier and more toxic than water from any other source.

And when one does the math, one almost always finds that government-provided drinking water is vastly more expensive (in the aggregate) than private-sector alternatives.

Now there is news that the City of Philadelphia’s public water supplies are cross-connected to the City’s sewer lines in numerous instances. See here.