Free North Carolina: Dec 17, 2011

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Reminder: Oh, Won’t You Please Shut Up?

There’s really no excuse for the fact that we don’t have a “SHUT UP!” tag; I shall have to remedy that. After all, “SHUT UP!” is one of our most venerable and consistent themes.

There’s a reason for this. The reason lies at the heart of law enforcement methodology in general and federal law enforcement abuse of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001 in particular.

Imagine this scenario, based on an actual situation:

A business associate calls you and says, “my dear business associate, the shit has hit the fan; Federal Agency X is investigating Project Y we did together. Two Agency X agents are interviewing people.”

“Oh coitus,” says you, or words to that effect, and terminate the conversation.

Later that day, two well-dressed and polite agents of Agency X visit you. Because you despise me and want me to weep and gnash my teeth, you consent to be interviewed. At some point, they ask you “have you talked about this investigation with anyone?”

“No,” you say.

They smile.

At the end of the interview, it occurs to you to ask, “Hey, am I in trouble? Do I need a lawyer?”

The agents smirk. “No,” they say. “I mean, unless you lied about talking to anyone about this investigation.”

See, you’ve fallen into a false statement trap,

Texas Drought Takes Cow Numbers Down By 600K & A Plague of Pigs in Texas

Via Survival

The worst drought in Texas’ history has led to the largest-ever one-year decline in the leading cattle-state’s cow herd, raising the likelihood of increased beef prices as the number of animals decline and demand remains strong.

Since Jan. 1, the number of cows in Texas has dropped by about 600,000, a 12 percent decline from the roughly 5 million cows the state had at the beginning of the year, said David Anderson, who monitors beef markets for the Texas AgriLife Extension Service. That’s likely the largest drop in the number of cows any state has ever seen, though Texas had a larger percentage decline from 1934 to 1935, when ranchers were reeling from the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, Anderson said.

Anderson said many cows were moved “somewhere there’s grass,” but lots of others were slaughtered. He said that in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana and Arkansas, about 200,000 more cattle were slaughtered this year, a 20 percent increase over last year.

That extra supply could help meet increased demand from China and other countries, but the loss of cows likely will mean fewer cattle in future years.

=========

A Plague of Pigs in Texas

About 50 miles east of Waco, Texas, a 70-acre field is cratered with holes up to five feet wide and three feet deep. The roots below a huge oak tree shading a creek have been dug out and exposed. Grass has been trampled into paths. Where the grass has been stripped, saplings crowd out the pecan trees that provide food for deer, opossums and other wildlife. A farmer wanting to cut his hay could barely run a tractor through here. There’s no mistaking what has happened—this field has gone to the hogs.

“I’ve trapped 61 of ‘em down here in the last month,” says Tom Quaca, whose in-laws have owned this land for about a century. “But at least we got some hay out of here this year. First time in six years.” Quaca hopes to flatten the earth and crush the saplings with a bulldozer. Then maybe—maybe—the hogs will move onto adjacent hunting grounds and he can once again use his family’s land.

Wild hogs are among the most destructive invasive species in the United States today. Two million to six million of the animals are wreaking havoc in at least 39 states and four Canadian provinces; half are in Texas, where they do some $400 million in damages annually. They tear up recreational areas, occasionally even terrorizing tourists in state and national parks, and squeeze out other wildlife.

Texas allows hunters to kill wild hogs year-round without limits or capture them alive to take to slaughterhouses to be processed and sold to restaurants as exotic meat. Thousands more are shot from helicopters. The goal is not eradication, which few believe possible, but control.

Thomas Jefferson vs. The Elites

Old Virginia Blog
Verbatim Post

"Bureaucrats hate the quintessential American culture of family farms. The independence-centered, 'pull yourself up by your boot straps' emphasis on responsibility goes against everything they believe in. Simply put, people who think for themselves and work hard don't live off the government . . . Farming is part of our identity. It is our way of life, our heritage, our patriotism, and the foundation of our generational values. Farming is the essence of our loyalty to our families and our God -- and there is nothing more sacred than that. That's why unelected liberal elites don't want farm kids working on farms."
~ Josiah Cantrall

More here at the American Thinker.

"Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands."
~ Thomas Jefferson to John Jay 23 August 1785

I could smell the hay and Orchard Grass of my youth as I watched the video.

Short Walk To Slavery

The Real Domestic Terrorists

Via Southern Nationalist Network

Those who support States rights, constitutional government, and the right of secession are now commonly called by the ruling elite right-wing extremists and potential domestic terrorists. We traditional Southerners are indeed familiar with this game. Had the term been around then, our ancestors—from Washington and Jefferson to Lee and Davis—would have been called domestic terrorists by the Brits and Yankees, respectively. As it was, they were simply called “traitors.” We reject the use of both terms for ourselves and for our forebears. Instead, we can make a good case that the real threats to domestic peace and quiet are on the other side. And yet we continue to pay them tribute and allow them to rule over us.

Who They Are?

The real domestic terrorists were (and are) those who oppose ordered Christian liberty and the worldview which upholds it. Indeed, Abe Lincoln and his minions have sired a long line of domestic terrorists, including most recently George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama (and all who aid them in their misrule). We might throw the larger part of Congress into the mix as well.

Most of what the U.S. government does is beyond the bounds of its constitutional limitations. That makes it unlawful. That which is unlawful ultimately terrorizes society. Jefferson told us that the fundamental law of the land should be viewed as chains to bind a singularly dangerous beast (the general government). For a while the beast was successfully bound; however, he slipped his chains for good in 1865 and our republic of republics was lost. Today, we live under a strange combination of socialism and fascism that would surely please a Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, or Mao as much as it would disgust our Founders.

Of course, it is for our own safety. That’s what the Communist rulers told us.

Godfather Politics
Verbatim Post

“In accordance to the principles of Doublethink, it does not matter if the war is not real, or when it is, that victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labor. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects. And its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”

George Orwell, 1984

It was a well-known truth under Communism that all foreign policy was for domestic consumption. The regimes in Eastern Europe talked loudly against the greedy capitalists and their constant “threats” against the “workers’ paradise.” But no matter how much effort they put in their propaganda was, we knew that it was all directed not against the West but against us, their own citizens. Every time the propaganda intensified, we knew it meant less liberty, more repressions, longer lines to buy groceries, etc. And of course, more people arrested on trumped up charges, just to keep the rest of us under fear.

“Foreign policy is interior policy, with different words,” a dissident author concluded. And was sent to jail without trial, as a “traitor.”

If anyone had any doubt that the same thing applied to our own Federal government, this last week should have dealt with that doubt. Our own Senators – and worst of all, Republican Senators – voted to officially transform what was supposed to be a “foreign” policy into a policy for the interior. Finally, officially, the War on Terror is a war “waged by the ruling group against its own subjects.” So far the official battlegrounds of the War on Terror were small – one or two medium-size nations somewhere in the Middle East, a chemical plant in Sudan, a residential compound in Pakistan. This week the war was officially expanded to its largest and most populous battleground, covering 7 percent of the world’s total land area: The United States of America. There is a new group of combatants: The 300 million American citizens who still want to keep their Life, Liberty, and Property to themselves.

This declaration of war against the population of the United States was a bi-partisan effort. (Have you noticed how the destruction of liberty is always a bi-partisan effort?) No wonder, if one pays attention to Orwell’s words: “The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects.”

Of course, it is for our own safety. That’s what the Communist rulers told us. If it wasn’t for the concentration camps and the military jails and the secret police and the breaking into homes by the secret police, we would have been defenseless victims in the hands of the capitalists. And the same applies today: If it isn’t for our government to be able indefinitely detain us without trial, we would be victims of terrorism. Uh huh.

The Patriot Act led to the creation of Homeland Security and its most grotesque arm, the TSA, manned almost entirely by sexual predators and perverts. As it is today, the TSA hasn’t stopped a single terrorist but it performs well in terrorizing children, pregnant mothers, elderly and sick people, and disabled war veterans. The Republican Senators certainly know what has come out of that bad law based on good intentions; they certainly know from that experience who will be the target of the NDAA – the same people who are the target of the TSA, not the terrorists. If you want to know who will be filling the indefinite detention camps, go to an airport and watch who is groped and harassed by the TSA. With that clear lesson from the last years, the Republican Senators voted nevertheless for another such law. What a few of us suspected – that the War on Terror was just a policy for the interior – is now official. This is nothing less than the Boston Massacre in modern setting.

"Saying Merry Christmas is worst than fornication or killing someone" Islamic scholar

Via Atlas Shrugs

=========

Looking in the Mirror suggested using this as a comparison

Election Expert John Fund: Voter ID Laws Don’t Suppress Black Vote

Political analyst John Fund tells Newsmax that Attorney General Eric Holder is flat wrong in accusing Republicans of using voter ID laws to suppress the black vote.

“We have two examples of states that have had photo ID laws now for seven or eight years — Georgia and Indiana,” the election expert told Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview. “They’re very tough requirements, but voting has gone up in those states, including minority voting. And not just the election that Barack Obama ran in, but even in the 2010 midterm election.”

More than a dozen states, including Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin, passed laws this year aimed mostly at reducing voter fraud by requiring that voters show a driver’s license or another state-issued photo ID.

Holder said in a speech in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday that ballot access “must be viewed not only as a legal issue but as a moral imperative.” He announced that the Justice Department is scrutinizing the new state voter ID laws and looking at filing lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Fund, author of the 2004 book “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy” scoffed at Holder’s plans to investigate.

“Let’s be clear,” said Fund, now a senior editor at The American Spectator. “Whenever an American applies for a job, whenever anyone applies for a job in America, they have to prove their citizenship, they have to produce papers. As for photo ID, photo ID has become an ingrained part of our life. If you board a plane, you show photo ID. If you cash a check, you show photo ID. If you rent a video, you show photo ID. If you board a train, you often have to show photo ID. Check into a hotel room, you often have to show photo ID.”

Fund, who noted in “Stealing Elections” that Mexico has stricter voting ID requirements than the United States, said: “Mexico had a long history of voter fraud and the only way they bring credibility to their elections was to have these special identification cards made with holograms on them and various other anti-fraud devices.

“You have to present your fingerprint. You get an ink stain on your finger to make sure that you can’t vote twice. Mexico has much cleaner, clearer, sharper, simpler election laws than we do, and they’ve cut down fraud dramatically. We should learn from their example, because they’re doing it right.”

Compare Mexico’s voting requirements with those of the United States.

Sheriff Arpaio Fires Back at Obama Rights Charges

America's toughest sheriff is living up to his nickname in a battle against the United States Department of Justice over its report which accuses the Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff's Department of a pattern of civil rights violations involving Latinos.

County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says he intends to fight allegations in the 22-page Justice Department report which claim his department has violated the civil rights of Latinos in enforcing immigration laws in Arizona, reports World Net Daily.

"Obama has just put a welcome sign on the United States border with Mexico," told Arpaio to WND referring to the president who back in September, in an inteview with a group of Latino reporters, said the sheriff and his department should not be viewed as a model for other law enforcement departments in how to enforce federal immigration laws.

Obama further told the journalists that the United States 50 states with 50 different immigration laws.

Just Don’t Say God

Front Porch Republic
Verbatim Post

Patrick J. Deneen

In this season of the “holidays,” it was announced several days ago that Fairfax County schools would be permitted to install video surveillance cameras in High Schools. Fairfax County is frequently lauded as being one of the best public school counties in the nation, but, as residents of the county, we receive regular updates of various assaults, thefts, “gang-banging” and near-riots taking place in the High Schools.

A civilization reveals its deepest commitments through its education – enculturation – of its young. We have whitewashed not only God and religion from the schools, but all questions of the Good in favor of a embrace of relativist toleration and non-judgmentalism, along with an ethic of entitlement, self-realization, and a utilitarian view of education. It has been argued since the beginning of the liberal era that the “bracketing” of questions of the Good would result in civil peace and toleration.

Instead – as Thomas Hobbes told us – we increasingly live within a surveillance State, an all-seeing Leviathan. In lieu of self-sustaining standards of respect, modesty, manners and maturity, we are surrounded by evidence of cultural pollution, social dissolution and irresponsibility. Into the breach fills the State to enforce by diktat what social decencies once governed.

This is the consequence of several centuries of the liberal vision of toleration and peace in place of God and Good – our children “surveilled” where instead they should be gaining deeper understanding and practices of adulthood and even the beginnings of wisdom. But, do not mention the name God or say “Merry Christmas” – that might cause discomfort. Better to turn our schools into panopticons, our children into inmates.

Obama Christmas Carol

Via Sad Hill News
Verbatim Post

They say history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes...

American Mercenary
Verbatim Post

So I'd like to think that at the sunset of an Empire the United States will follow the same pattern as other declining empires. Particularly if we look to (formerly) Great Britain we can see some interesting parallels.

After WWII ended war rationing continued in Britain through the mid 1950's. Britain paid back the last of its "war debt" to the US not too long ago, more than five decades past the end of hostilities.

Today the American Empire has spent a decade fighting and largely funding (through NATO) two wars, and there is no telling how long it will take to pay off the "war debt" from these excursions. However, unlike Britain, the overall "war debt" is but a small portion of our overall debt.

But if history does indeed rhyme, we will see our land forces decrease to a very small, very competent fighting corps which will be used in a series of "police actions" throughout the world for the next few decades. We will see our Air and Naval forces continue to be "world class" but reduced in size and focused more on deterrence than any sort of force parity with potential rivals.

I can't predict the future, but I can see the past. And as Empire's fade into the sunset they have awesome might, like an old heavyweight boxer who still has a few rounds in him. However, like we found in Libya, there is not a whole lot of endurance behind those take down punches.

So as our ability to outfight opponents decreases, our focus will shift towards defeating opponents before they have the power to fight in any sort of parity. Smart policy would dictate more human intelligence collectors, more "Special Forces" working in conjunction with intelligence agencies, and a decreased conventional force. I think that we will see the US leave South Korea before I retire simply because the token forces we have on the peninsula wouldn't do any more good than an extra bomber wing stationed out of Japan. Our four remaining combat brigades in Europe offer no advantage in deployment time to those brigades housed at Fort Hood, or Fort Bragg.

So, for better or worse, the decline of conventional forces stationed overseas will continue. In the early 1990's we had 18 active Army Divisions. By the year 2000 we had 10. If you reconstitute our "modular brigades" back into Divisions then we could still field 10 Divisions worth of combat power. That each Brigade is around 5,000 people and there are 4 brigades in each Division, simple math tells us that 200,000 Soldiers are part of the Army's "combat power."

What that doesn't tell us is what the jobs are of the other 280,000 Soldiers. Obviously some are part of combat formations such as Fires Brigades (bringing the big guns and rocket artillery) or Engineer Brigades (providing mobility, counter-mobility, and survivability services) or whether they are part of something like a Theater Sustainment Command. You can look it up if you like.

But my point is that for the size of the Army there is a lot of "tooth to tail" going on (hence the need for so many contractors to free up "fighting power" that would be otherwise sucked into logistics). So expect the Army to get downsized but have more "fighters" and fewer "fuelers" and many more "contractors" to fill in for the lost logistic support.

In short, America's Army will get leaner, meaner, and much more "mercenary" in terms of how business is conducted. However I could be completely wrong and we could go to the "strategic" Army of the 1930's where an active duty cadre provided the "skeleton" of a unit to be filled out by draftees, although in this case the draftees would come from an enlarged Reserve and National Guard. We didn't get into too many "brushfire wars" in the 30's, discounting some actions by the Marine Corps. However, the threat of a 12 million man Army wasn't enough to keep the peace with Germany and Japan.

We truly do live in interesting times.

"BBC: We Fake It All The Time."

Sir David Attenborough yesterday defended Frozen Planet's fake polar bear footage – by comparing BBC nature documentaries to movies. His blunt remarks came as more footage from the series was exposed as a sham. In a surprising justification for duping millions of viewers, the TV star argued that owning up to splicing archive film with real Arctic scenes during the programme would have spoiled the mood.

His blunt remarks came as more footage from the series was exposed as a sham. Speaking after our exclusive story yesterday revealed shots of a polar bear and her newborn cubs were staged in a zoo using fake snow, Sir David, 85, said: "The question is, during the middle of this scene when you are trying to paint what it is like in the middle of winter at the pole, to say 'Oh, by the way, this was filmed in a zoo'.

"It ruins the atmosphere, and destroys the pleasure of the viewers and destroys the atmosphere you are trying to create. "It's not a falsehood and we don't keep it secret either. But to say actually in the middle of that sequence, I mean how far do you take this?

"Do you say this is a penguin, but actually it was a different penguin colony than this one and this one is a different one? Come on, we were making movies." It yesterday emerged BBC producers also misled viewers about footage of a frozen caterpillar in hit seven-part series Frozen Planet.

To some, the fakery itself may be of interest, as the BBC has been caught out before as regards polar bears. Not so long ago, the BBC used artistic license to imply polar bears were apparently stranded on icebergs without showing nearby ice shoals. Former US Vice-President Al Gore used similar footage to imply polar bears were trapped on icebergs when they were not.

To me, the issue is a much larger one, and that's what I want to examine in this article. There is an important point here: The Internet (and even its attached mainstream media such as the Daily Mirror) is making it extremely difficult for the Anglosphere power elite's dominant social themes to catch hold the way they did in the 20th century.

Wealthy playboy Phillipe Barraud personally commissioned this design through local Cadillac dealer in Lausanne, Switzerland on one of the finest chassis that America had on offer.

Phillipe chose the Cadillac V16 for its monstrous 452 cu engine and robust chassis that could support any coachwork that adorned it. Cadillac shipped a bare chassis, one of only two that year, around the world to Switzerland and there it was bodied in Lausanne by Willy Hartmann. Barraud wanted to body the chassis in his own home town so he could personally suprvise the work.

Lib Radio Host Bill Press Tells Tebow: ‘S-T-F-U’ About Jesus

Liberal radio pundit and former CNN host Bill Press has a message for Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow: “S-T-F-U” about Jesus.

The leftist commentator used this acronym (which stands for “shut the f**k up”) while speaking on his radio show this morning about his dislike for Tebow’s “in-your face” Christian faith.

“…And you know what I want to say, S.T.F.U. I’m tired of hearing Tim Tebow and all this Jesus Talk,” Press said. ”He better be praying hard this week, because he’s up against a real quarterback on Sunday — against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.”

As if this weren’t rough enough, Press continued, saying, “Everybody wants to make him a hero. I think he’s a disgrace. I think he’s an embarrassment.” Listen to his controversial assessment of Tebow, below:

Anonymous donors pay off Kmart layaway accounts

The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.

He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.

"She told him, 'No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."

At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents.

Slain border agent's family: Prosecute the feds

In a statement released through attorney Pat McGroder, the family said it was "incomprehensible that members of ATF and DOJ would embark on such an egregious operation and then try to conceal the link between this failed investigation and Brian's murder.

"We now believe that, if it can be shown that laws were broken, then all those responsible for Fast and Furious should be held criminally liable."

McGroder said that his law firm represents the Terry family as victims in criminal cases linked to the gun-trafficking saga and that it may file a lawsuit against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

The swindler, the cyanide pill and the underwater ballroom

Via Jason, Belle Grove

Britain may play second fiddle to Italy or France when it comes to producing beautiful buildings. But when it comes to playful, quirky constructions, we are world-beaters. Britain is the global home of the folly.

And the people behind these architectural eccentricities — extravagant creations built primarily for decoration and which often appear to be something that they’re not — are frequently just as fascinating as the buildings themselves.

None more so than the man who created Witley Park in Surrey. The tale behind it involves not just a staggeringly ambitious, wildly over-the-top folly, but also a tragic Victorian morality story of speculation, corruption, disgrace and suicide.

Deep in Surrey, near Godalming, lies the village of Witley. A mile and a quarter west, in a ramshackle wood, next to a walled kitchen garden, you’ll find a holly tree wrapped around a hut with a door in it.

Go down the spiral concrete steps, and there, 40ft beneath the surface, lies a teardrop-shaped tunnel that leads to Britain’s most extraordinary folly — a ballroom, built of iron and glass, beneath a lake.

Leading off it, an aquarium-cum-smoking room was added, where guests puffed on their cigars and admired the passing carp.

Above the domed, glazed ceiling of the underwater ballroom, a yellowish natural light shines through the murky lake water. A giant statue of Neptune stands at the dome’s peak, poking above the surface, apparently walking on water.

This underwater ballroom is the last, mad, magnificent fragment of a Victorian fantasy world that made Michael Jackson’s Neverland look like a dull municipal park.

Battle of Blood River: Day of the Vow

ViaThe Moneychanger©

On 16 December 1838 at Blood River occurred the battle between the Afrikaaner Vortrekker & Zulu King Digane. With 464 fighting men and 200 servants the Afrikaaners defeated 10,000-20,000 Zulu, leaving 3 wounded versus 3,000 dead. When asked afterwards how so few Afrikaaners could beat them, one Zulu warrior said, "It was not them, it was the men fighting from the clouds."

On 16 December 1838 at Blood River occurred the battle between the Afrikaaner Vortrekker & Zulu King Digane. With 464 fighting men and 200 servants the Afrikaaners defeated 10,000-20,000 Zulu, leaving 3 wounded versus 3,000 dead. When asked afterwards how so few Afrikaaners could beat them, one Zulu warrior said, "It was not them, it was the men fighting from the clouds."

Wikipedia

Voortrekkers migrated into Natal and negotiated a land treaty with the Zulu King Dingane. Upon reconsideration, Dingane doublecrossed the Voortrekkers, killing their leader Piet Retief along with half of the Voortrekker settlers who had followed them to Natal. Other Voortrekkers migrated north to the Waterberg area, where some of them settled and began ranching operations, which activities enhanced the pressure placed on indigenous wildlife by pre-existing tribesmen, whose Bantu predecessors had previously initiated such grazing in the Waterberg region. These Voortrekkers arriving in the Waterberg area had believed they were in the Nile River area of Egypt based upon their understanding of the local topography.^[2]^[3]

Andries Pretorius filled the leadership vacuum hoping to enter into negotiations for peace if Dingane would restore the land he had granted to Retief. When Dingane sent an impi (armed force) of around twelve thousand Zulu warriors to attack the local contingent of Voortrekkers in response, the Voortrekkers defended themselves at a battle at Nacome River (called the Battle of Blood River) on 16 December 1838 where the vastly outnumbered Voortrekker contingent defeated the Zulu warriors. This date has hence been known as the Day of the Vow as the Voortrekkers made a vow to God that they would honor the date if he were to deliver them from what they viewed as almost insurmountable odds. The victory of the besieged Voortrekkers at Nacome River was considered a turning point. The Natalia Republic was set up in 1839 but was annexed by Britain in 1843 whereupon most of the local Boers trekked further north joining other Voortrekkers who had established themselves in the region.