29 October 2010

News roundup

I haven't posted much this week, but I've been saving a number of news stories throughout the week that I found interesting. Without further ado, here they are:

Fear of Government


Reason posts excerpts from a couple of authors about this chart. One says that not everybody is afraid of the government as the general feeling seems to be; it's only Republicans. The other argues that Democrats are equally susceptible to this fear when their party is out of power. I didn't find this chart so interesting, as what it shows is fairly obvious. What it did for me though, was highlight exactly how blind (read: partisan) Democrats and Republicans are when their party is in power. If one could take a step back and see the forest for the trees, as it were, one would find that the government acts pretty much the same way no matter which party is in power. They just focus their attention slightly differently.

Flag Burning

Talk about statist. The flag deserves respect? It's an inanimate object, for crying out loud. Justice Stevens thinks that the "U.S. flag and the symbol of liberty it represents" are too important to allow it to be burned in protest. Alright, you bring back the liberty, and I won't burn the flag.

We suck... less!

Pajamas Media explains why the Republicans are going to make big gains in the midterm elections. The story's byline says it all.
Because in the Democratic land of epic, mega, ultra, apocalyptic levels of sucking, those who kinda suck are king.
TSA scanners

The TSA was in the news quite a bit this week after an airline pilot last week decided to stand up to a TSA officer and refuse a pat down after refusing to allow them to look at his naked body with their AIT scanners. The first link there is to a CNN story which talks about how the TSA is planning to institute full body pat downs across the country. The woman who wrote the article was reduced to tears after being groped, and she is a regular traveler.

The second link is to a story written by a woman who thinks that the best way to fight for our civil rights (with respect to illegal searches by the TSA) is to begin writing letters to corporations whose businesses will be hurt if people refuse to be groped and stop flying, altogether. At first, I didn't think this approach had any merit, but after seeing the TSA steel their resolve in the face of that pilot standing up to them, I think the corporations who control the government might be our only chance.

Economic destruction

I have written a little bit about inflation and hyperinflation. Well, this article says that it (hyperinflation) is already taking hold and will be in full swing by spring of next year. The author makes a pretty compelling argument. I'm of the mind that collapse of the U.S. currency and economy are a matter of when, not if, and I suspect sooner rather than later. I don't know if it's going to happen as the author suggests, but I'm also not going to argue that it's not.

8 comments:

  1. Who'd have thunk that this would be such a visionary blog post?

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  2. Thanks for what you did this week. Awesome!

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  3. I agree with above comments, very visionary indeed.My wife and I had a similar draconian experience at San Jose International Airport. We refused the Naked Body Scanner and TSA screamed "Opt Out" and proceeded to ferociously grope us.

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  4. Hyperinflation? What data are you looking at? The US is very clearly looking at deflation very shortly.

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/meltzer-misleads/

    We're in a liquidity trap.

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  5. I admire what you did in San Diego on Nov. 13th.
    Further, I don't believe these current invasive
    TSA practices are likely to stand up to a proper
    Constitutional test....emphasis on PROPER.

    It's a very sick world, corruption at almost every turn, I'm afraid. Mr. Chertoff, WHILE a
    Bush II Cabinet official, began promoting these
    scanners, openly selling them and their enhanced "security" virtues through his Chertoff
    Group after leaving his Homeland Security post.

    I'm glad I'm 65. I can't watch the Human Circus
    all that much longer. (Yes, there are really fine, involved people, but not enough of them. As Sir Edmund Burke said so presciently, "All that is required for evil to succeed in the world is for enough good people to do nothing.")

    P.S.: I think Simon Johnson and Paul Krugman are the economists to read and heed.

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  6. I think you're just a homophobe.

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  7. I'm happy to see people like you take a stand! Good job!

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  8. Bravo John for voicing your constitutional rights to privacy.

    Perhaps you or a gifted song writer will volunteer to rewrite the telling lyrics to "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie of 1966 vintage.

    Then submit to radio stations across America to voice opposition.

    "You can fly anywhere you want with TSA's AIT.
    "Walk right in, it's just one quick rape,
    Just a short walk to the airline gate"

    John

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Please be relevant, civil, and brief... in that order.