Putting Gatsby to Shame

GSTAAD—“Mick Flick Invites you to the Roaring Twenties,” read the black-and-white invitation card. A flapper and a Rudolph Valentino type in white tie and tails flirted in the old-fashioned manner—she dreamlike, fluttering her eyes upward, he looking swarthy and passionate while standing over her. In the background, a roomful of swells tripped the light fantastic.

It is rare for a party to live up to expectations, especially one which people travel long distances to attend. I’ve given a few in my life and none of them has ever truly clicked. Mainly it has to do with preparation. I haven’t got the patience, but Mick is a German Mercedes-Benz heir who’s very thorough.

It was a sublime pleasure walking into the great room of the Palace Hotel, which was decorated into a kind of twenties speakeasy, with nothing to remind me of today’s brutal culture. No oiks, no cheap celebrities, no publicity seekers, no freaks. Everyone was dressed to the nines: the women in flapper dresses, the men in white ties, dinner jackets, and white-striped suits à la Chicago gangsters.

“I can’t think of a better reason to throw a bash than to tempt fate by tripping the light fantastic—arthritis or no arthritis.”

Mick’s ex-wife (and mother of his three children) Maya Schönburg had the brilliant idea to have only tables for two or three or four people, like nightclubs tend to do, and the trick worked. Two great bands played their hearts out, can-can girls danced and ooh-aahd, and 290 of us quick-stepped Gatsby to shame.

One’s guests have always been the main ingredient for a successful party. In this case, half of them were in their twenties, the age of Mick’s children. Alexander Flick is a talented documentary maker while his younger brother Moritz works for the best and only responsible newspaper in Israel—Haaretz. No hedgies they. I sat with old friend Peter Livanos, Donatella Flick, and Kirsty Bertarelli, the young and beautiful English wife of Switzerland’s richest man and past America’s Cup winner. The partying had begun on a tiny alpine hut the day before during lunch. I had a full chalet and something like fourteen people staying, all of them young except for my close buddies Leopold and Debbie Bismarck. With them and the mother of my children we went skiing early Friday but spent most of the afternoon in the sun, downing pure Swiss wine.

By the time we got down I was thoroughly crocked and stayed that way during dinner with more German friends, Heinrich and Milana Fürstenberg. Then it was up to the palace, which was straight out of Grand Hotel, listening to refined German accents with lots of blonde young women running around pursued by the ridiculous likes of me.

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Obama Crisis Management System

Via Middle American Radical

Quote on the Athenian plague

Via Survival

"Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its origin to the plague. Men who cooly ventured on what they had formerly done in a corner, and not just as they pleased, seeing the rapid transitions produced by persons in prosperity suddenly dying and those who before had nothing succeeding to their property. So they resolved to spend quickly and enjoy themselves, regarding their lives and riches as alike things of a day.

Perseverance in what men called honour was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether they would be spared to attain the object; but it was settled that present enjoyment, and all that contributed to it, was both honourable and useful. Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain them. As for the first, they judged it to be just the same whether they worshipped them or not, as they saw all alike perishing; and for the last, no one expected to live to be brought to trial for his offenses, but each felt that a far severer sentence had already been passed upon them all and hung over their heads, and before this fell it was only reasonable to enjoy life a little."

-- Thucydides The History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 2, Chapter 7, Section 53, translation by Richard Crawley; revised by R. Feetham, 1952, regarding the conditions during the Athenian plague during the Second Siege of Athens by the Spartans during the Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC.

Ron Paul: NDAA Floor Speech Jan 18 2012

Via Looking in the Mirror

Santorum: State Murder as a "Moral Enterprise"

“God did not just give us rights,” pontificated His High Holiness Rick Santorum during a January 17 campaign stop in Lexington, South Carolina. “He gave us a moral code by which to exercise them. See, that’s what Ron Paul sort of leaves out. He leaves out [that the] rights and responsibilities that we have come from God…. And he says, `No, we just have rights, and then that’s it.’ No, we don’t. America is a moral enterprise.” And morality, Santorum believes, is best instilled through State coercion, including officially sanctioned murder.

Santorum presented that assessment just a few hours after a GOP debate in which Dr. Paul precipitated torrential booing from the pious Republican crowd by insisting that government is bound by the central tenet of the Christian moral code – the Golden Rule.

According to Newt Gingrich – whose General Urko act drove the assembled Republicans into a simian frenzy of bloodlust – it is “irrational” of Paul to insist that there are limits on the government’s powers of discretionary killing.

Elaborating on that idea in a January 18 interview with South Carolina pastor Kevin Boling, Gingrich asserted that Dr. Paul’s insistence on applying the Golden Rule to foreign policy demonstrated that he had absorbed the “anti-American, self-hating attitude of the American Left.”

That accusation of moral lassitude against Dr. Paul – who served in uniform as a young father with two small children – dribbled down the multiple chins of an impenitent Chickenhawk who used his wife as a draft deferment, then spent the last few years of the Vietnam Era schtupping college girls. ("We would have won in 1974 if we could have kept him out of the office, screwing [a young volunteer] on the desk,” lamented his congressional campaign director.)

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Taking Back the Skies

Actor Mark Wahlberg, in the February issue of Men’s Journal, claimed that if he had been on Flight 93 which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after being hijacked on 9/11, he would have thwarted the terrorists. Here is what he said:

“If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’”

It was a foolish thing to say. He has since apologized: “I deeply apologize to the families of the victims that my answer came off as insensitive, it was certainly not my intention,” he told TMZ. “To suggest I would have done anything differently than the passengers on that plane was irresponsible.”

We’ve come a long way from 9/11, but the threat of terrorists is still with us. The Fort Hood massacre is an example. The following article is written in the spirit of reality. We can’t say, “It can’t happen here, and it won’t happen again.”

“We’re the government, and we’re here to save you”

Famous last words. There’s only so much that governments can do to stop terrorists who are committed to blowing up planes, buildings, people, and themselves. If a group of crazed men want to overpower a flight crew, they’ll find a way to do it or die trying and take the plane and its passengers with them. All it takes is a few razor blades, the panic of passengers, and the unwillingness of men to take matters into their own hands because they have been assured that the government is in control and everyone has been properly screened. I’m not buying it, and neither should you.

While I applaud the security precautions taken by the airports, they are not foolproof. Razor blades can easily be concealed. But who even needs razor blades? There are some very hard plastics and composite materials that can be sharpened enough to slit a throat. (Think how easily paper can cut skin.) These types of weapons cannot be picked up by scanners and “magic wands.”

It’s the presence of the security devices that makes us feel safe enough to let down our guard. Terrorists know this, and they will exploit it. While we’re relaxed, they’re plotting and planning. How many times have you heard “experts” tell us that the terrorists will not use planes again? Don’t believe it. They will continue to test the fence looking for blind spots and soft spots. A second wave of planes-as-missiles would bring commerce to a screeching halt and turn America into a virtual police state. That’s the goal. Hit us where it will hurt the most.

It’s Up to You, Me, and the Guys Next to Us

So what do we do? While the government has decided not to scrutinize Mid-Eastern men out of fear of verbal and legal assaults from the ACLU and Muslim advocacy groups like CAIR, there’s nothing stopping us from doing it. This isn’t to say that there may not be home-grown terrorists trying to bring down planes. And it will take a group of them to do it. So if you see five or ten Mid-Eastern types, probably traveling without wives and children, be suspicious. If you spot such a group, size them up physically. Could you take most of them — man to man — in a fight?

Introduce yourself to the other men on the flight. Ask them about their destination, work, and family. Do they fly a lot? Talk about sports is always a good ice breaker. Did they play football in high school or college? For how long? Get an idea of their physical abilities. Do they look in shape? If they’re wearing short sleeves, take a look at their forearms. Meaty forearms are a good sign.

The goal is to make the men feel comfortable knowing that there are other men who will do something if there’s trouble. Nothing needs to be said directly, but they’ll know when the time comes for action. If the terrorists get wind of what’s happening, all the better. It will force them to look for softer targets. Keep your eyes and ears open. Don’t let your guard down.

How to Strangle a Terrorist

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Chilling: SOPA Versus Free Speech

Via Our Eternal Struggle

The separation between enforcers and the general public today is greater than it has ever been.

Via California Tree of Liberty

Let's talk about 'training' for a bit. Ok, we are human beings but the reality is that we can be trained just like a dog. Think about it - you can't train a stupid dog, can you? It's almost impossible and where it is possible it takes far more time and resources than normal. The bottom line is that you have to have some level of intelligence in order to be 'well' trained and I think that this is our achilles heel as a species. Without intelligence we cannot fathom psychology never mind see when some psychological tactic has been successful or not and it's only through being aware of and seeing such things that we learn 'the best ways' to operate in any given social situation and make no mistake - this thing we are dedicated to dealing with right now is, in essence, a social situation.

We all do it, training, and the most intelligent of us, as we find 'the best ways' to do things .... well, ..... we tend to follow the same formula afterwards, don't we? We train ourselves. THIS is training - finding 'the best ways' to do things and then doing things that way to the best of our abilities until a better way has been found. Do not - ever - take the word 'training' lightly. Whenever you hear it bear in mind exactly what it is we are talking about. When it comes to humans training is no different than the training of a dog and I don't mean that in any derogatory way either. It's just a fact.

The folks in control of enforcer training programs know exactly what they are doing and they are doing a damn good job of it too.

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M1 Garand rifles, but not carbines to be imported

Still playing games. If carbines had been allowed, it should have driven the current prices down. No wish for a M-1 thumb, but I would like another carbine.

Washington has agreed to allow the importation of M1 Garand rifles from Seoul, reversing its earlier decision to ban the shipping of the weapon used by South Korean and U.S. soldiers during the 1950-53 Korean War, a senior defense official said Wednesday.

“The U.S. government approved the imports of some 86,000 of the rifles,” said Lee Sun-chul, deputy defense minister for force and resources management.

“The historic firearms are expected to be sold to American Korean War veterans and their families in time for the 62nd anniversary of the Korean War, which falls on June 25 this year.”

Kim Mi-sung, an official of the force and resources management office, said the defense ministry received an approval letter from the United States on Sept. 2 last year that stated Washington agreed to allow the importation of the M1s.

She noted that the U.S. government, however, rejected Seoul’s proposal to export some 600,000 M1 Carbines, which were also used in the Korean War, as they come with a magazine that can carry multiple rounds unlike the Garands.

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The Transformational Tyrant

Via Looking in the Mirror

No man is born a murderer, or evil or cruel. In America, no man is born a king or a tyrant. Just as a man must learn to be a killer, men must teach themselves to be tyrants. Barack Obama has learned how to be a tyrant.

The proclivity was always there, along with the arrogance and narcissism. When you are better than everyone else, it is a small step to wish to reign over them as well. Yet, few expected a University of Chicago lecturer on constitutional law to decide the Constitution did not apply to him, only to mere mortals like us. After all, when speaking of George Bush in 2007, he said, "I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution.

"I refuse to take 'no' for an answer," said Barack Obama in defense of his usurpation of our Constitution, which established three coequal branches of government, sharing power, designed to impede the machinations of a transformational tyrant refusing to take "no" for an answer, or a power-drunk Congress, or an out of control judiciary.

The checks and balances codified in our Constitution are the foundation of the balance of power intrinsic to our system of government. It is an exercise in divided authority -- adversarial, confrontational and restricted.

The Constitution is meant to curtail the extremes of unbridled authority. It protects liberty by throttling the wet dreams of would be tyrants.

A constitutional law professor should know this, but Barack Obama was a Senior Lecturer, not a professor on the track to tenure. Apparently, he had no desire for the rigorous imperative of publish or perish. He had bigger plans. Why write about the Constitution, when as a tyrant, he could rewrite the Constitution?

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American Revolution: County Sheriffs vs. the Federal Government

Via California Tree of Liberty

Get one thing straight and get it right!

Americans are not revolting against the Federal government and we are not planning a revolution against the Federal Government of The United States of America.

The Federal government revolted against us. They are the ones constantly violating our Constitution, from the street punk who calls himself President, right on down to local government employees.

The Federal government has set a tone in this country where they murder us with impunity. Federal and local cops murder unarmed citizens with mace, tasers and guns. And they get away with it, thanks to the help of corrupt higher ups.

They drug our kids, with mind altering "anti-depressants" and all manner of pharmaceuticals and vaccines. They harass and arrest people growing wholesome food. They prohibit citizens from going on "public" lands that have been used for centuries.

They have created enormous amounts of laws to criminalize normal behavior. Over 40,000 laws were passed in the United States of America last year alone.

They invade our homes in the middle of the night with armed psychopaths, to arrest people for minor "crimes": Hint: If they know enough to believe that a criminal is at home sleeping, wouldn't they also know enough to just wait outside until he comes out?

They shoot our dogs, they shoot mentally handicapped people, they shoot physically handicapped people, they shoot our kids, they shoot our mothers and shoot our grand parents, when there is no apparent threat to their own safety.

Without mercy, they beat those same people to the ground and hospitalize them or beat them to death when there is no apparent threat to their own safety. They do it for fun and laugh about it afterwards.

There are cops on permanent duty in schools, arresting kids on criminal charges, for things as non-threatening as using perfume in class or farting in class. Rather than call the parents for a misbehaving child in a school for problem children, they arrest them, mace them, taser them and even shoot them.

They rape, they kill, they deal in drugs, they steal, they frame people for fictitious crimes and get away with it. They even rape other men.

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Why Ron Paul?

Via Theo Spark

Since posting a passing comment on my Facebook fan page about Ron Paul, I have been inundated with questions and concerns about my support of the Texas Congressman in the current Republican Primary race. In one of my many political posts (frequently, I post videos, news articles, etc., in an effort to show the importance and influence of worldview), I simply stated that I voted for Dr. Paul in the last election, and planned to vote for him again.

The result was hundreds of comments; more than any other post I’ve ever submitted. Most of the comments were positive. However, several were extremely negative. Some vowed never to follow, or support my ministry any further, while others simply communicated their dismay. Still others, like today's questioner, just asked honest questions. As a result, I’ve decided to explain my position, and this seemed like the best place to do it.

Let me say ahead of time that I do not believe that politics will save America. Nor do I believe there are any perfect candidates. There never have been, and there never will be. Moreover, it is not my goal to answer every objection to the Paul candidacy as I know that there are those who, for various reasons, will not be persuaded, and more importantly, that’s not my job. My goal here is to offer insight in to my own reasoning as I wade through another political season and make a personal choice.

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Nigel Farage at it again!:)

Via Theo Spark

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE COMING...ERR...CURRENT STRUGGLES (OR, QUIT WORRYING ABOUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT!)

As I surf around different internet forums I keep seeing, as I have for over 20 years, too many folks voicing their concerns about the protection of the Second Amendment. Often, these statements include something along the lines of “If the Second Amendment goes, all the others will follow!”

Newsflash! The others are already disappearing, or gone, as is the Second…

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The USA PATRIOT ACT pretty well kicked this old relic to the curb. If you had any doubts, look at the video footage of police response to the Occupy Wall Street protests, specifically in Oakland, California, and on the UC-Davis campus. I don’t care what your views are on the OWS movement. Even if you think, as I do, that they are mostly a bunch of spoiled, rotten, rich-kid, bourgeoisies socialists/communists/Marxists, as long as they are PEACEFULLY assembled, to petition the government about their grievances, they have the natural, human right to bitch and whine.

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GOAAlert: Legislation could potentially shut down gun websites

By now, you are no doubt aware that several websites have either gone totally or partially “dark” today in protest of the pernicious internet legislation that will be coming to a vote next week. Wikipedia and Google are just two of the websites which are protesting in this manner.

And while you may have not paid much attention to this story, you need to know that the “muzzle the web” legislation these sites are protesting could also affect your ability to get gun-related information on websites like GOA’s.

The reason is that S. 968 could, in its final form, allow the Brady Campaign to partially shut down our GOA website and our organization (plus many other pro-gun websites) with a series of factually accurate, but legally frivolous complaints.

The Senate bill and its House counterpart have accurately been called “a direct attack on the underpinnings of the web.”

True, many of the most serious “gun problems” are in the House counterpart. But the reality is this: We are within a few votes of killing the whole concept next week in the Senate with only 41 Senate votes.

But if we allow the so-called “anti-piracy” bill to go forward on the HOPE that the worst provisions will not make it into the final version -– and we fail to eliminate them -– the bill may be unstoppable.

Here are the “gun problems,” as we see them:

Section 103(b)(1) of H.R. 3261 allows any “holder of an intellectual property right” to demand that PayPal and other payment and advertising services stop providing services to organizations like ours, thereby shutting off our income.

How would they do this? Perhaps by arguing that we were stealing their intellectual property by quoting their lying misrepresentations in our alerts.

Is this legally frivolous? Sure it is. But the Brady Campaign is the King of Frivolous Complaints:

* Remember when the Brady Campaign asked the Federal Election Commission in 2007 to shut down GOA’s ability to post its candidate ratings on the Internet? They claimed that we were in violation of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act. Thankfully, the FEC ruled in GOA’s favor, thus enabling us to continue posting candidate ratings without restraint.

* Remember when the Brady Campaign got 36 state and local jurisdictions to bring frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers –- not in the expectation of winning, but to drain the resources of the manufacturers in order to halt the manufacture of guns in America?

This “muzzle the web” legislation will throw the doors open to even more frivolous complaints. Could we defend ourselves? Yes, we could. We could file a counter notification under section 103(b)(5) and spend years defending ourselves. But the one thing we did learn during the 36 frivolous lawsuits is that the anti-gun forces in America have very deep pockets.

And the other problem is that, under section 104, our Internet providers would be insulated from liability for shutting us down. But they would receive no comparable insulation from legal liability if they refused to cut us off.

The Senate version, S. 968, has been amended, at the behest of Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley and others, to provide many protections which were not in its initial form.

Under section 3, the Attorney General would go to court and would have to claim that, because of a hyperlink to an offending site, we were “primarily” engaged in the theft of intellectual property.

We would feel a lot better about these protections if the Attorney General were not Eric Holder, a ruthless ideologue who has demonstrated that he will go to any lengths to destroy the Second Amendment.

So the bottom line is this: H.R. 3261 and S. 968 would potentially empower the Brady Campaign and Eric Holder to go after our Internet site. To do so, they would have to make the same frivolous arguments and engage in the same lawless activity that they have done so often in the past.

But -– given that we’re within a few votes of snuffing out that risk by killing the bill in the Senate -– we believe it’s the better course of action to do so.

ACTION: Click here to contact your Senators. Ask them to vote against S. 968, every chance they get.

SOPA

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Bored with union organizing, SEIU gears up for thuggery

Via On to Liberty

Something questionable is going on when a state chapter of the Service Employees International Union advertises on the SEIU national website a "Lead Internal Organizer/Home Care (LiA)" position paying up to $65,000 a year for somebody with the following qualifications:

• Train and lead members in non-violent civil disobedience, such as occupying state buildings and banks, and peaceful resistance.

• Plan and execute strategic direct action field plans including banner drops, bank takeovers, and capitol occupations with membership, other local unions, and coalition partners.

• Execute field plans for special campaigns including contract campaigns, ballot initiatives, COPE contributions, general membership growth and the broader campaign to fight for a fair economy.

(For those not familiar with SEIU nomenclature, "COPE" stands for Committee on Political Education, which the national union describes as the "300,000 SEIU members, staff and retirees who contribute an average of $7 a month." That at least explains the source of some $25.2 million of SEIU's beaucoup campaign money for Democrats.)

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Begin Sex Ed in Kindergarten, Says New ‘National Standards’ Report

By the time they leave elementary school, children should be able to “define sexual orientation,” and by the eighth grade be able to “define emergency contraception and its use,” according to a report containing controversial new recommendations for sex education in U.S. public schools.

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The New Trickle-Down Theory

Should we seek the deeper meaning in the video of US Marines urinating on Taliban combatants’ dead bodies in the wilds of Afghanistan? What does it tell us about our country? What does it say about Washington and the hypocrites in charge of the lone surviving superpower? What does it demonstrate about Washington’s self-destructive crusade that started with 9/11 and led to the “War on Terror”?

The incident itself is trivial, albeit symbolic. Such conduct is illegal under the Geneva Conventions and contrary to US military regulations. It is also a war crime. Nonetheless, it might be comparable to drunken acts at a rogue fraternity house. But these Marines were not drunk; they were only acting like idiots.

The Marines were doing little more than aping the attitudes and lawlessness of their superiors—the Washington politicians and functionaries who have launched a fool’s errand across the greater Middle East and Southwest Asia.

In their own small and depraved way, the Marines in the video were carrying out Washington’s grandiose foreign-policy objectives. As such, they reflect the neoconservative mindset of the Washington foreign-policy establishment, whose hubris has trickled down to the troops.

“In their own small and depraved way, the Marines in the video were carrying out Washington’s grandiose foreign-policy objectives.”

The smart operators at the top of the pyramid thrive on secrecy, misdirection, and lies. It got them where they are. They are sticking with it. The foot soldiers out in the field doing the dirty work are more honest but less mature. The Marines made the mistake of flaunting their misdeed to the world via YouTube.

And now Washington officially goes through the act of being outraged.

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Bill Kristol Wants Ron Paul To Leave The GOP

The Battle of Atlanta

Verbatim Post

Bill Kristol:

“A lot of people when they criticize Ron Paul have to preface their criticism by saying, ‘you know, he’s good guy, he brings a lot to the debate,’” Bill Kristol said on C-SPAN. “I actually don’t buy that. I do not think he’s a particular good guy . . . I think it would be better for the Republican party, if he left the Republican party.”

You know what Mr. Kristol,they are a lot of us out here who wish Ron Paul would leave the GOP,and we would follow him right out the door too.It is clear,that if you believe in constitutional government,individual liberty,with a committment to smaller,less intrusive government,their is no longer a place set for you at the Republican party's table.The only time the GOP wants to hear from any of us,is just for us to open our wallets to fill their coffers and vote for the RINO of the month.Any other time we are to sit down and shut up and be thankful that they,the elites,let us stay in such a Grand Old Party.Maybe it is time to go!

Gunporn

Link

'I kept warm by burning MONEY...and dreaming of taking a sauna with my wife': Climber, 66, reveals how he survived two days in mountain blizzard

A seasoned mountaineer, who was lost for two days in a snowstorm on a mountainside, told rescuers he survived by burning dollar bills and dreaming of a sauna.

Yong Chun Kim, 66, started a fire and first burned leaves - before resorting to the contents of his wallet and his socks.

The pensioner, from Tacoma, became stranded on Mount Rainier in Washington after becoming separated from a group who were also snowshoeing on Saturday.

Mr Kim, who served in the South Korean military in the Vietnam War, told local station KOMO-TV that he had fire starters with him and first burned some leaves before turning to personal items.

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The Secret Behind SOPA

Via SHNV

The secret behind SOPA, the so-called anti-piracy bill which is today the target of an unprecedented backlash with Wikileaks and other major websites ‘going dark’ to protest the legislation, has nothing to do with piracy or copyright theft – it’s about the formal effort to mimic Communist China’s system of Internet censorship.

But don’t take our word for it, listen to what Joe Lieberman, co-sponsor of PIPA, SOPA’s sister version in the Senate, said about the purpose of behind the US government’s efforts to control the Internet under the guise of cybersecurity.

Lieberman characterized fears that the US government would use such powers to censor political content as “total misinformation,” yet goes on to admit that the purpose behind the agenda is to mimic China’s ability to “disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war,” adding, “we need that here too”.

Of course, Communist China’s “war” is not against foreign terrorists or hackers, it’s targeted against people who dare to use the Internet to express dissent against government atrocities or corruption. China’s system of Internet policing is about crushing freedom of speech and has nothing to do with legitimate security concerns as Lieberman well knows.

Having largely failed in his bid to use fears over cyberwarfare, bearing in mind it was the United States and Israel who launched the Stuxnet attack, to achieve the ultimate goal of Internet control, Lieberman has returned with the same agenda only under a different guise – the Protect Intellectual Property Act – of which he is the co-sponsor.

Whether the justification is cybersecurity or anti-piracy, the end game remains the ability to seize control over the Internet and shut down websites on a whim.

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Lee’s Own Emancipation Proclamation Predates Lincoln’s

Remembering Robert E. Lee: A Week-Long Observance
North Carolina’s Legal Holiday Observes Lee’s Birthday January 19th

“Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation made an impression upon Robert E. Lee. He understood its significance. Lincoln intended to win the war and to preserve the Union regardless of consequences. When he was inaugurated he had affirmed that he had neither the power nor the disposition to interfere with slavery. He had now reversed himself. But thereby, his military government was made perfect.

This view [Lee] expressed to [President Jefferson] Davis. “The military government of the United States has been so far perfected by the recent proclamation of President Lincoln, which you have no doubt seen, and civil liberty so completely trodden under foot, that I have strong hopes that the conservative portion of that people, unless dead to the feelings of liberty, will rise and depose the party now in power.”

Yet while Lee was penning his letter to Davis he was signing and delivering the deed of manumission to the three hundred Custis slaves. This act antedated Lincoln’s proclamation by three days; Lincoln’s proclamation became operative January 1, 1863, Lee’s manumission papers had been in effect since December 29 previous.”

(Robert E. Lee, A Biography, Robert W. Winston, W. Morrow & Co. 1934, pp. 208-209)

Lee’s Own Emancipation Proclamation Predates Lincoln’s

European genome and Neanderthals

Via Matthew

We're learning that at least 4% of the European genome is of Neanderthal origin. See any similarities?

Reconstruction (based on gene frequencies) of what a neanderthal might have looked like.

1963 Chevrolet Corvette Split Window Coupe 427/550 HP, 6-Speed

Poll: Do you view the Sons of Confederate Veterans as a racist organization? +3

Via Billy

HERE

"FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS? NOT HERE!

Good article.

"You know, comrades," says Stalin,

"...I consider it completely unimportant

who in the party will vote, or how;

but what is extraordinarily important is this —

who will count the votes, and how!"

In a few months, we'll all go to the polls to select our next President, ALL of our House of Representatives, and 1/3 of the Senate.

I think few would dispute that this is one of the most important elections in the history of our Republic - and that its literal future will be decided by this election!

Many of us are intensely worried about the slate of candidates, but that should be the LEAST of our worries!

Electronic voting machines are used all over our country. Every single one of them is a black-hole for your vote.

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