Saturday, March 17, 2012
Official List Of Words Feds Monitor On Social Networking Sites
Lead, Follow, or get the Hell out of the way...
III. That's the label I most associate with myself when I must try to define myself to people in political discussions. I am a small 'r' republican, yes. But even that doesn't say it all, or as neatly as does 'III'.
You see, in my mind, a republican will spend more time trying to reason and coerce and convince people to leave him alone.
A III Patriot will try. We'll even, usually, walk away. Hell, most of us have been trying to find a place to be left alone our entire lives. But we'll swing more quickly than any republican I have ever known. And we'll swing faster than any Republican, Democrat, and even Anarchistic Zero-Gov folk I have ever known. And, well, the Non-Aggression people - I respect your intent, folks. I swear I do. But your enemies do not.
III says: Leave me be, or else.
And we mean it.
Most of us mean it, anyway.
Talk is cheap.
Consider for a few moments the actions that have been taken in the last 18 months or so in our little III Community:
Texas Sues Obama Administration in Abortion Dispute
Cindy Mann, the director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on Thursday the federal government had no choice but to discontinue the program because Texas' denial of funds for abortion restricts the freedom of choice of health providers and is not permitted under federal law.
With the decision, Texas became the first state to have its Medicaid Family Planning Demonstration Program canceled by the federal government. The program provides basic medical services, including breast and cervical cancer screening, and birth control, for 130,000 of the state's poorest women.
The filing of the lawsuit comes as both Republican officials in Texas and the Obama administration have expressed regret that poor women in the state who depend on the health services could be hurt by the escalating political fight.
"This is about life and the rule of law, which Texas respects and the Obama administration does not," Texas Governor Rick Perry, a former Republican presidential candidate, said in a statement on Friday.
More @ NewsMax
Three 'race realist' blogs shut down this week
Sarah Maid of Albion
VERBATIM POST
Mike Smith's Political Commentary has been wiped by Blogger
Ron Paul Draws Massive Crowd Of 5000 In Illinois
GOP presidential contender Ron Paul continues to draw massive crowds as he campaigns across the country. Yesterday saw almost five thousand people turn out in Illinois to see the Congressman, while his rivals can only draw crowds in and below the hundreds.
Paul’s supporters will once again be asking serious questions as to where his rivals are getting their votes from, as another raucous mass of humanity provided the Congressman with a rock star welcome.
The original venue of Foellinger Auditorium, around a 1500 capacity building at The University of Illinois, had to be switched to George Huff Hall, a gymnastics and volleyball arena, following a deluge of early RSVPs.
As he introduced Paul, Illinois Republican Rep. Tim Johnson told the crowd that they were part of the single biggest turnout of Paul’s 2012 campaign to date.
More @ Info Wars
Making 9 Million Jobless "Vanish": How The Government Manipulates Unemployment Statistics
Overview
When we look at broad measures of jobs and population, then the beginning of 2012 was one of the worst months in US history, with a total of 2.3 million people losing jobs or leaving the workforce in a single month. Yet, the official unemployment rate showed a decline from 8.5% to 8.3% in January - and was such cheering news that it set off a stock rally.
How can there be such a stark contrast between the cheerful surface and an underlying reality that is getting worse?
The true unemployment picture is hidden by essentially splitting jobless Americans up and putting them inside one of three different "boxes": the official unemployment box, the full unemployment box, and the most obscure box, the workforce participation rate box.R.L. Burnside R.I.P.
An era in American music ended when legendary blues guitarist R.L. Burnside passed away in 2005. A fixture on the Mississippi Delta blues scene for decades, Burnside and his gritty, growling musical style was a living link to the black musicians who originated the Delta blues back in the 1920s and from whom he first learned how to play. In the early 1990s Burnside gained fame when he was "discovered" by new generation of blues aficionados and rock and rollers.
Robert Lee Burnside was born November 23, 1926 in Oxford, Lafayette County, MS, in the hill country above the Delta. Burnside spent much of his life in the northern section of the state and made his home in Holly Springs. A triangular basin between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, the Delta was long an impoverished, rural place, with an economy dominated by an unfair system in which whites owned the land and black sharecroppers worked it for meager wages.
The blues was a musical style that emerged as a key element of African-American culture in the twentieth century, and was born in the 1920s out of the Delta's pervasive injustice and racism. "Working for the man, you couldn't say nothing but you could sing about it, ya know," Burnside told Ed Mabe in a 1999 interview that was published on the Web site Perfect Sound Forever, when asked about the starting point of the blues. "Couldn't tell him what he done wrong."
Burnside was himself a sharecropper in his earliest working years, and did not begin playing the guitar until the age of 16. He came under the influence of a neighbor, "Mississippi Fred" McDowell, who was one of the pioneers of the blues genre. He learned a lot from him, and the highly rhythmic style that Burnside plays is evident in McDowell's recordings as well.
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LANGUAGE!
You See Me Laughin' (1 of 4) 2002
You See Me Laughin' (2 of 4) 2002
You see me laughin part (3 of 4) 2002
You see me laughin part (4 of 4) 2002
Party Loyalty Above Constitution and Country
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The grim life of a galley slave
In 1690 the standard price for a slave was 1,500 reales - a slave capable of rowing for hours, days or even weeks in the open air. But despite his 22 years, Maraut, "son of Yusuf, dark, with small mouth and thick lips, wart on his head by the ear, stain on right ear, sign of injury on the same hand," was sold for just 400 reales on account that he was "useless."
Being unfit and useless for combat must have helped the distinguished Cervantes avoid a similar fate to Maraut after he was captured on his way back to Spain after surviving a great many skirmishes and the greatest naval conflict between galleys in history: the Battle of Lepanto (1571).
Cervantes' adventures - five years held captive in Argel - do not figure in the 25 Galleys Books preserved by the Spanish navy because they cover a later period (1624-1748), featuring slaves, prisoners and enlisted soldiers and sailors. The restoration of these gigantic volumes will provide valuable information for the historians of today: written using the circumlocutions of the time, they reveal biographies of common people at the service of royalty.
"When the king needed rowers he provided incentives for [the courts to give out] galley sentences," says Carmen Téres, technical director of the navy archives.
Maraut was one of the king's thousands of slaves - the brute force that propelled several almost flat boats, ideal for coastal skirmishes, around the Mediterranean. We do not know if leaving the galley bettered Maraut's life, but it is difficult to imagine conditions worse than those on board. A shackle kept him tied to his seat, where he ate, slept and went to the bathroom. He was barefoot and his head was shaved to prevent the accumulation of lice and to make identifying him easier in case he escaped. Nothing more lay ahead for a slave than the sea, battles with the boats of their (probably) Turkish or Berber compatriots, and the very real option of ending up at the bottom of the Mediterranean, trapped in their rocking prison.
More @ El Pais
Seven Fulton County Commissioners charged with Criminal Acts in Atlanta, Georgia
The presentation made quite an impact on the audience seated behind me, but there was no response at all from the seven Fulton County Commissioners that I addressed.
I have now notified each of the Fulton County Commissioners that I am charging them with criminal violations....
After I was threatened with arrest as employees of the Fulton County District Attorney and Fulton County Sheriff committed jury tampering and obstruction of justice, I stopped to think who is the boss of the DA and Sheriff. Fulton County is run by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, and they are where the buck stops. I immediately made plans to attend their next Coimmission Meeting and speak.
I emailed each Commissioner in advance with evidence of corruption by their employees and the federal judges. No response.
When I was called, I got straight to the point:
Six years ago, I was sued here by some people from New York. The entire lawsuit was completely made up. I obtained deposition testimony from the Yankees in which they admitted everything in the lawsuit was false. Judge Orinda D. Evans ignored the undeniable evidence and said I lost. I have been fighting this for six years, and it has cost me over $1.5 million.
As a result of this, I’ve discovered that the federal court system in Atlanta is a corrupt operation in which the judges commit crimes on a regular basis. I set out to document the corruption. I have massive proof. I have an envelope for each of you with a CD containing evidence.
I want each of you to be aware of the crimes because this forces you to report this to law enforcement – felony if you don’t (18 U.S.C. 4).
The federal judges are doing everything they can to stop me to avoid indictment, conviction, imprisonment, disgrace, and impeachment. A federal prisoner has reported that he was approached with a deal to get out of prison if he killed me. So, this may be a matter of life or death for me.
The Man Who Broke Atlantic City
Don Johnson won nearly $6 million playing blackjack in one night, single-handedly decimating the monthly revenue of Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino. Not long before that, he’d taken the Borgata for $5 million and Caesars for $4 million. Here’s how he did it.
Bob Barr's Liberty Guard sues TSA
Barr's Liberty Guard group alleges that the TSA refused to comply with FOIA requests from the organization in November 2010, when the group was encouraging airline passengers to opt out of body scanners used by TSA .
Critics have contend that the TSA scanners invade passengers privacy, and Barr said the lawsuit from Liberty Guard, which considers itself nonpartisan, would be good for all Americans.
"This lawsuit will help empower all those who travel by commercial air carrier, to be protected against arbitrary and privacy-invasive techniques employed by the federal government that are of questionable constitutional validity," Barr, who served in Congress from 1995 to 2003, said in a news release.
Freeloading welfare queens
- “I’m here trying to get some Obama bucks. That‘s what I’m doing, trying to get some Obama money.”
- “I want a check.”
- “Tell me why you like Obama.” — “Because he gives me stuff.”
- “Who you going to vote for?” — “Obama.” — “Why?” — “Because he’s black.”
- “When was the last time you actually worked?” — “About half a decade”
- “You’re a perfectly healthy young man, why aren’t you working right now?” — “My background. Once you go to jail it’s hard to get a job.”
- “Why should my tax dollars be going to you?” — “My ancestors came here to help build this place — my ancestors, slaves.”
- “Do you really want to work, or do you just want to get a free check?” — “I just want to get a free check.”
More @ The Blaze
What Happens if Someone Nukes D.C.?
Have you ever wondered what would happen if Washington, DC, suffered a nuclear attack? Apparently, some of DC’s higher-ups were wondering the same thing and, like everything else they’re curious about, they decided to conduct a study.
Turns out, 10-kiloton nuke would be very, very bad for D.C., Northern Virginia, and Maryland (shocker, I know).
“The study—‘National Capital Region: Key Response Planning Factors for the Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism’—simulates and prognosticates a nuclear strike at 16th and K Streets, the heart of downtown DC and only a couple blocks from the White House. The kind of spot a terrorist would want to plant a bomb,” Gizmodo’s Sam Biddle writes.
However, as easy as it is to snicker at the study’s findings (What? D.C. would be destroyed? You don’t say!), the report also “paints a horrifying, incredibly detailed radioactive portrait” of what would most likely happen should someone detonate the nation’s capitol.
“Unlike the Cold War-era bombs of yore, which were designed to erase entire capitals, a ‘smaller’ bomb like the one in question here would, hypothetically, leave survivors. What happens to us?” Biddle asks.
First, as the 2011 study shows, there would be “Three Layers of Destruction”:When Elites Depart
One of the benefits of having a son that is a scholar of ancient warfare, from Alexander the Great to the Byzantine Empire to the Mongols, is that we can have wide ranging discussions on very deep topics. Of perennial interest to us: why do complex societies/civilizations collapse?
One of interesting working theories we have is that while complex societies can be in decay for a long period of time, they only collapse when its favored elites abandon it/betray it.
Here's an example from Roman history written by Joseph Tainter:
The Collapse of The [Western] Roman Empire
One outcome of diminishing returns to complexity is illustrated by the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.Starting Next Month, the U.S. Will Have the Highest Corporate Tax Rate in the World
On April 1, Japan will cut its corporate tax rate to 36.8 percent from 39.5 percent.
You know what that means, right?
It means the United States will officially have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, with average combined federal and state profit levies of 39.2 percent.
“Yes, that’s higher than Sweden,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “Higher than Russia. And China, Mexico, Denmark and even France. Doesn’t it make you want to break out in a chant: U-S-A, U-S-A?”
More @ The Blaze