Dave Barry's year in review: 2009

It was a year of Hope -- at first in the sense of ``I feel hopeful!'' and later in the sense of ``I hope this year ends soon!''

It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result Washington, rejecting ``business as usual,'' finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it.

To be sure, it was a year that saw plenty of bad news. But in almost every instance, there was offsetting good news:

BAD NEWS: The economy remained critically weak, with rising unemployment, a severely depressed real-estate market, the near-collapse of the domestic automobile industry and the steep decline of the dollar.

GOOD NEWS: Windows 7 sucked less than Vista.

Dave Barry looks at 2009. Reading this may bring a smile to your face as you reminisce on the antics of our politicians.

Taking Us Down

Due to a glitch on their website, Don Stott's column for December 29, 2009 is unreadable, so it is presented here in its entirety. [Ed.]

Taking Us Down
December 29, 2009

It's irrelevant to me, how you believe the World Trade Centers collapsed. I don't care whether you believe that never has a fire in a steel framed building, collapsed a building or not. (It has never happened). There are some who believe that explosions in the basements took them down. Others believe it was a pancake type of affair, with the various floors falling down on each other, and going down that way. (Videos don't show it happened that way). No one can explain why World Trade Center # 7 went down, if the whole thing wasn't an 'inside job.' No planes hit that building, but down it went, just like it was a professional job, as I think the other Trade Centers going down were. Who did it? The fact is that the so-called Arab 'pilots' were so unskilled, that in flying school, they could barely fly a single engine Cessna, and to imagine that professional pilots would fly into the World Trade Centers, even with a gun at their heads is unthinkable. I don't know who flew those planes, but whoever they were, they were trying to take us down.


No professional pilot, no matter how many hours he has, and how much skill he has, could have possibly done that to the Pentagon, as the flight path is impossible for any plane to execute. Besides, there were no engines or other plane parts visible after the crash. A missile? Undoubtedly, or the FBI wouldn't have collected all the cameras which photographed it. Fired by who? The whole thing seems to have been planned, to not just destroy buildings and kill people, but it seems, to literally take America down. We're in Afghanistan and Iraq now, thanks to the 9/11 frauds, and they are taking us down.


There was no reason to go to Iraq, and no reason to go to Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden has never been found, which was the original reason to go to Afghanistan, even though he denied having anything to do with it immediately after 9/11 happened. Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, and he even invited inspections of his kingdom. No, he had to be taken down, and what better method to destroy America, than to fight two absurd, expensive wars? Pointless wars. Wars, which involve invading Muslim nations. They are outraged, vow retaliation, and I don't blame them. The 23 year old Nigerian who attempted to take down the plane Christmas day, was rehearsed over and over again. His explosives were sewn into his underwear, which made them undetectable, and he was allowed to enter the plane. He waited till the plane was on its downward flight path, heading for a landing, before he tried to blow it up. Know why? (I have never heard it on the boob tube). The reason was, in my opinion, so that the disintegrating plane would fall on occupied territory, rather than over the ocean. He was going to kill hundreds in that plane, and probably hundreds on the ground. He was going to get 72 virgins and instant paradise, but now he must have a public defender, rather than going before a firing squad immediately, which is what I would have done.


Our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, have infuriated the Muslim world, and they will continue to terrorize us by any means at their command, and some will get through our best detection methods. The wars are taking us down by creating enemies in the Muslim world, running our debts so high that they are unpayable, and killing our soldiers. Notice that Switzerland isn't threatened by Muslims. Neither is Sweden, Norway, Finland, or any other neutral nation. I think the Muslim religion's rewards for its members killing infidels is abominable. Neither Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, or any other religion in the world, advocate killing non-believers. No religion, other than the Muslim religion, advocates and rewards killing non believers, or as they call us, 'infidels.'.


Why are we there, infuriating them? I have no idea. Why don't candidates for office, advocate and promise to get the troops out as fast as is possible, and apologize to the nations which have been invaded? Have we built schools? Surely. Have we tried to make the two nations into our idea of democracies? Surely, but it has failed, and we can't even speak their language. Why not leave them alone, like Mary's Little Lamb, and let them find their own ways? Will they take to democracy? I don't know, nor care. If we hadn't invaded their nations, they wouldn't be angry at us, try to blow up planes, and commit other atrocities. Why should we care what goes on in Iraq or Afghanistan? Oil? No, because we could be easily independent if we drilled in ANWAR and off the California coast. North Dakota is already pumping oil, and it is said that they have more oil than Saudi Arabia.


Kennedy tried to take down the Federal Reserve and CIA, and they took him down. If decent, Constitutional advocating candidates ran for office in 2010 and 2012, would they be taken down with ridiculous advertising and lies ? The question, I suspect is, who are "THEY?" We all like to talk about "them," and "they," who are doing all this, but I must admit, I am not convinced as to who 'they' or 'them' are. Everyone has their own list of evil people and groups who are trying to take us down, but I am not convinced about any of them. Whoever 'they' are, they're doing a very good job of it. America still thinks that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK with a bullet which made a couple of 90 degree turns, even though that is nonsense. America still thinks semi-literate, totally amateur pilots, flew huge jets into the World Trade Centers, and I think that is absurd. They still believe the impossible flight path of a huge passenger jet into the Pentagon, even though it is impossible, and there was no evidence to prove it. Was 9/11 designed to take us down in Afghanistan and Iraq? Was 9/11 designed to make us invade Muslim lands for no reason at all, so as to make them hate us?


Who got us into pointless, expensive, disgusting, Korea and Vietnam? Wasn't it the same bunch who got us into Iraq and Afghanistan? The same guys who tell us that our troops on foreign soils are 'defending us?' Are the Congress and President evil? Just plain stupid? Drunk with power? Who has told the Congress and President, that government is so wonderful anyway? The Tea Party groups, 9/12 groups, and millions who agree with them, are going to try very hard to get rid of them. Sunday, I heard Newt Gingrich on 'Meet The Press,' say that we are in a government bubble, just like the housing bubble and Wall Street bubble. If this is true, does this mean that in 2010 and 2012, the huge government bubble will be burst by us, and be brought down, down, down, like they seem to be taking America down, for far too many decades? I hope so!

The Global War on Stealth Underwear

Preventing terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland has nothing to do with occupying vast tracts of land or winning the hearts and minds of backward villagers whom we falsely depict as surrogates of an evil empire, as we did in Vietnam and are now doing in Afghanistan. What is needed is smart police work to catch these highly mobile fanatics, and that begins with actually reading and then acting on the readily available intelligence data. It requires detectives with brains and not generals with firepower.

The ballooning of the defense budget after 9/11 has proved a great boondoggle for the military-industrial complex, which suddenly found an excuse to build weapons and deploy conventional forces against a superpower enemy that no longer exists. But our stealth fighters and bombers designed to defeat Soviet defenses that were never built are a poor match against a terrorist’s stealth underwear.

Hmm. The terrorists are seemingly unmoved by our promises to close Gitmo and to bring Democracy to their countries.

What is the Constitution?

[A] political maxim must be admitted: union, through the U.S. Constitution, does not equal freedom and can actually be destructive to freedom. Given the natural laws of sovereignty, self-defense, self-preservation and self-government, the States may in fact be better off not to be a part of a union that is causing their demise. More pointedly put, the States may in fact be better off to declare the compact (the U.S. Constitution) or at least, the federal laws creating their demise, null and void within their sovereign borders. Naturally, this sovereign power can come in different forms, through nullification, active resistance to federal usurpations, controlling the mechanisms used against the states, and secession.

The formerly sovereign states have ceded their independence to the tyrants in DC.

Climate and the Fate of Humanity

Global warming is the most prominent form of mass hysteria raging across the world today. Kids in school these days are almost afraid to breathe, because it will “increase their carbon footprint.” It’s quite amazing, the way carbon, the element all life is based on, has replaced plutonium as the enemy-element. It’s as if the chattering classes are making war on the periodic table of the elements.

Meanwhile, they’ve been changing the cry from “global warming” to “climate change” because there’s so little evidence there’s actually any warming going on. I believe that as little as a decade from now, global warming will be recognized as one of the greatest swindles in world history. It has so little scientific basis, it can only rationally be considered a political scam.

Politicians are using the ruse of anthropogenic [man-made] global warming as cover for their agenda.

Safe Shopping in Texas

Thanks to Karen for the link



Obviously not in New York or Washington, DC.

A Short Introduction to Non-Voting

Readers recognize that there are two principal demands that their governments make upon them: pay your taxes and vote. (Of course, there are many other 'demands', such as military service, send your children to school, have a drivers license, etc., but many of these are ancillary to the primary means of government survival, which is the collection of taxes.)

Now, of these two principal demands, taxation carries criminal sanctions: pay your money or we imprison your body and/or confiscate your property. However, as yet in most nations of the world, failure to vote in government elections carries no penalty.

Since your vote is your sanction of government, whether or not your vote is cast for the winning side, you should consider whether your participation in the electoral process is a benefit for freedom and liberty.

2009: A year of new lows

With apologies to Kris Kristofferson, let’s face it: “Health-care reform” is just another phrase for “nothing left to lose.” Because if the Congress can order you and me to buy insurance today, they can order us to march across the country with our hands tied behind our backs tomorrow.

Does that seem like an exaggeration? Not to me. The power of the federal government is so gargantuan that it is now bigger than the Constitution, which means anything is possible. Tyrants don’t need rules. They do what they want to do because it is convenient, not because it is constitutional.

Frank Miele has a list of stories for 2009 which the AP overlooked.

Have a Merry Government-Regulated Christmas

In case you missed it, Obama's Christmas speech...

Some would say we are helpless to fight the tyranny of Santa and must do nothing, lest he harms our kids; others say we must end Christmas and abolish all gift-giving. This is a false choice. We can have Christmas and presents, and we can be free of the judgmental madman known as Santa. What we need is a government takeover of the Christmas business.

The government has always made knowing the needs of its citizens its specialty, and the FBI already has extensive files on everyone, so we know who is naughty and who is nice. So what entity is better qualified to give gifts to all of its citizens? Plus, our methods would be open to the public — to a certain extent (you may need to file an FOIA request). Furthermore, we would make sure everyone receives gifts. Everyone. And best of all, it will be deficit neutral. In fact, it will actually reduce the deficit through efficiencies and through confiscating magic fairy dust from the North Pole and applying it to the budget.

Starving the Tax Beasts

I have concluded that there IS a way to fight the beasts—starve them. Cut off their money supply.

I suggest that we engage in a REAL “tea party”; a REAL tax rebellion. No, I’m not advocating anything illegal like refusing to file or pay taxes. Nothing as inane as sending tea bags to Congress. I’m not saying commit fraud or up your exemptions. Committing fraud to avoid taxes is like shooting a cop to avoid a traffic ticket.

What I AM advocating is that you take an active interest in your taxes. There are thousands of tax loopholes that you can legally take advantage of and decrease your tax bill. I am not advocating tax evasion; I AM advocating tax avoidance. (The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is 5 years.) These tax strategies were placed in the tax code so others could use them. There is no reason why YOU cannot also use them.

Some tax strategies to ponder. Why not take advantage of the inane tax laws? Some research and effort may yield worthwhile results.

Posterity's Debt to Me

As a kid cornetist in a small town drum and bugle corps I attended patriotic functions of various kinds, such as those held on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Consequently, I heard a great deal about the sacrifices made by our forefathers to make the nation secure for posterity. There usually was a line a two concerning the necessity of we, the present generation, doing what we could to insure that our posterity would continue to enjoy the blessings of our great nation.

Where did those old-timers get such a crazy idea? Imagine Americans today doing much of anything on behalf of posterity! It's the other way around. Here in the 21st century it's "What can posterity do for us?"

And, to complete today's curmudgeonly hat trick, here's John Potiphar expounding on debt and borrowing from our children and grandchildren.

Lost Jobs

Millions of American jobs have been lost in the last few years. Shipped to China, Mexico, or other places with cheap labor, miniscule taxes, and impotent governments. The places which took American jobs, all had several things in common. Things which America used to possess, but no longer has. Skill? Ability and desire to work? Hardly. American workers are the best in the world. Education? Learning has little to do with factory work, which has vanished. Tax benefits for corporations who ship jobs overseas? Partially, and perhaps this should be examined, but not here.

Don is pondering the jobs - or lack of them - problem.

The Case for Skewering Santa's Elves

What used to be Christmas, and was a joyous celebration of Mithra’s birthday, or the solstice, or something else reasonable, has become the Winter Holidays or, more candidly, the Winter Shopping Season. It no longer has anything to do with Christianity, which has gone flaccid in the suburbs and in the heartland consists of lunatics waiting to be Raptured up to heaven as by a giant godly Hovermatic. You can’t call it Christmas. We must observe the constitutional separation of church and retail.

This fool business has apparently become the foundation of the American economy. I have read that without Holiday sales, retailers of things nobody in his right mind ought to want would go out of business. That’s a lot of retailers. I’m for it. I mean, how many ugly ties can the Republic stand?

Fred is getting into the spirit(s) of Christmas.

HAPPY DAYS ARE COMING

My business model is Henry Ford. He made a lot of money for himself, but he did it by making cars so inexpensive that the average person could afford one. A typical car, pre-Ford, cost $2,000 (in gold dollars), but a just-as-good Ford cost $400. Henry Ford was better off, and the average Ford buyer was better off. That is what is called win-win. That is the real America. People got rich by making others better off. They did not get rich by taking irresponsible risks and then getting bailed out by the government. They did not buy politicians by donating to their campaigns and having one of their agents (Henry Paulson) placed in a high government position where he could steal from the people and put the money into their own pockets.

Howard Katz says protect yourself from the criminal thieves who are looting you.

Shakedown in Copenhagen

If you would know what Copenhagen is all about, hearken to this nugget in The Washington Post’s report from the Danish capital.

“Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenari—who is representing all of Africa here—unveiled his proposal Wednesday for a system in which rich countries would provide money to poor ones to help deal with the effects of climate change. ...

“Zenawi said he would accept $30 billion in the short term, rising to $100 billion by 2020. ... This was seen as a key concession by developing countries, which had previously spurned that figure ... as too low.”

There was a time when a U.S. diplomat would have burst out laughing after listening to a Third World con artist like this.

But not the Obamaites. They are already ponying up.

The climate change agenda is a bogus excuse to "spread the wealth" and further the goal of a world government.

“In All Cases Whatsoever …”

The following letter represents how to contact your representatives without begging them for favors but calling them on their actions. Well done Thomas!

Dear Senator McCaskill,

I notice that the US House yesterday approved a $290 billion increase in the government’s “debt ceiling,” raising it from $12.1 trillion to $12.4 trillion.

Presumably the Senate will take up similar legislation in the near future.

I am not writing to yourself, Senator Bond and Representative Clay in order to urge any particular vote or action on the matter, but rather just to inform you that I’m not responsible for, nor do I intend to pay off, your debts.

I’ll be publishing this letter in one or more public spaces so that your creditors will be aware of this fact. If they’re going to loan money to the three of you and your 532 colleagues in the House and Senate, they may want to run credit checks first. Just so long as we’re crystal clear on the fact that I won’t be co-signing for you, the rest is between you and them.

Best regards,
Thomas L. Knapp

What is a Right?

Big Government progressives in both the Democratic and the Republican parties have been trying to trick us. These folks, who really want the government to care for us from cradle to grave, have been promoting the idea that health care is a right. In promoting that false premise, they have succeeded in moving the debate from WHETHER the feds should micro-manage health care to HOW the feds should micro-manage health care. This is a false premise, and we should reject it. Health care is not a right; it is a good, like food, like shelter, and like clothing.

The boys and girls in DC are interfering in every aspect of our personal lives.

'You Americans Are So Gullible'

We may not have had a socialist military coup that changed things overnight, but we have had a purposefully gradual attack on our belief in the essential nature of freedom. These "small doses of socialism" have changed America and been the cause for the loss of much of our freedom.

In the latest saga the forces of dominion are attempting to solidify their control. This is evident in three epic battles of the last couple years. First, it was our economic freedoms that came under attack when the Federal Reserve-propelled illusory housing and stock market boom crumbled. Instead of letting the mal-invested assets liquidate, our government and the governments of the world have subjugated the people of the earth to an unbearable debt burden.

More gloom and doom I'm afraid. It's hard to find good news these days.

The Adam Lambert Problem

But something tells me this isn't all about money. It's possible, and I can't help but think likely, that the poll is also about other things, and maybe even primarily about other things.

Sure, Americans are worried about long-term debt and endless deficits. We're worried about taxes and the burden we're bequeathing to our children, and their children.

But we are concerned about other things, too, and there are often signs in various polls that those things may dwarf economic concerns. Americans are worried about the core and character of the American nation, and about our culture.

Peggy Noonan continues the theme we read in the previous post. She sees our circumstances as a result of a lack of direction and a loss of priorities.

American Purgatory

What we need to alter this course is a procession of men who possess moral fortitude and common sense, men of rationality and reason. Men of action who will set in motion the dismantling of institutions that bleed this nation dry.

Hope is not a strategy. This present state of manufactured optimism emanating from the White House and our news outlets is contemptible. We are in dire need of new reformist leadership and of new voices that will speak the truth. A national purification is long overdue. Time is not on our side. Look at the track record this nation has racked up over the last few decades and this economic and moral purgatory in which we find ourselves might very well mark the beginning of our walk of death down the long road to Hell.

A gloomy scenario is rendered in this essay. Our leaders are corrupt and we keep electing them because we have been corrupted by them. Don't think so? Just stop, look and listen to the ongoing charade parade.

The Boston Tea Party, 1773

In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us.

...The next morning, after we had cleared the ships of the tea, it was discovered that very considerable quantities of it were floating upon the surface of the water; and to prevent the possibility of any of its being saved for use, a number of small boats were manned by sailors and citizens, who rowed them into those parts of the harbor wherever the tea was visible, and by beating it with oars and paddles so thoroughly drenched it as to render its entire destruction inevitable.

The Boston Tea Party took place 236 years ago today. The colonists then had a stronger dislike for government than Americans do today.

Fat City

What are the risks of an exploding U.S. public debt?

The Chinese, Japanese and Arabs still buying that debt will begin to suspect they are holding onto paper on which the United States will default, or will cheapen by inflating its currency—as the Germans did in 1923 to avoid paying war reparations.

When they do, they will stop buying U.S. debt and start dumping. The Fed will then have to raise interest rates to attract borrowers, throwing the economy into a tailspin.

Is Congress even aware of what is happening?

No. Congress does not have a clue - either that or they are whistling past the graveyard.

To Congress: Your Loan Has Been Called

We have fixed nothing in the last two years. We have not forced bad debt to default yet worse, despite the incessant pumping and attempted "forcing" of credit into the system via government borrowing the pump has now officially failed, as the new Z1 data shows.

Note that despite all the Federal Deficit spending - $1.4 trillion last fiscal year (ending in September) and $300 billion more in the last two months - approaching two trillion dollars - the total credit outstanding in the system - including the new Federal borrowing - went negative in the third quarter of this year.

The bottom line:

Your attempt to play "pump prime" over the last two years has FAILED.

The Fed is playing a game which it cannot win and which will result in a very costly conclusion.

Freedom is scary!

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

- Mohatma Ghandi

Ghandi had it right, if we are to live in freedom we must all act as free people. I do not think it is possible to legislate utopia, from everything I’ve seen it usually backfires. Peace and freedom are up to us as individuals and cannot be reached by blind belief in the government. The state is always looking to expand its power, by trying to use it to control others or to take care of you, you put yourself in its sights. The complement to freedom is responsibility, if you give up responsibility over your own life in the hope that you will be provided for by your representatives, you will lose your rights to them in exchange. In some ways liberty is like walking the high wire without a net, it is risky and it takes knowledge and self discipline. This is what scares people about freedom, that they will be held responsible for their own welfare. You can have liberty or you can have security, but you can’t have them both at once. Centralized organization may give you a sense of security, but is it worth its cost?

A thoughtful essay by Jessica Pacholski.

Citizens for Hyperinflation

Remember that these people elect state and federal lawmakers, including the president. Thanks to Travis Holte for the link.

Sigh. Maybe it's hopeless. These people don't know and don't care and don't care that they don't know. Thanks to Karen De Coster for the tip.

The Vision of the Founders: Dead and Gone

The Bill of Rights should be mourned, not celebrated. It is defunct. Intended as the bulwark of the right of decentralized self-government, it now serves mainly as an excuse for the opposite: a roving judicial veto of state policies that federal judges dislike.

So, if the people of virtually every state ban flag burning or regulate abortion, provide capital punishment or support prayer in school, that does not settle the matter. Unlike 200 or 100 years ago, today the federal judiciary is apt to step in to stop state legislatures from adopting policies like this.

The people never consented to have the federal judges behave this way.

Bill of Rights Day was signed into practice by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on December 15, 1941, one hundred and fifty years after the actual signing of the Bill of Rights by our forefathers. It will not be a topic for discussion on the news shows today.

The Growing Movement to Nullify National Health Care

In response to what some opponents see as a Congress that doesn't represent their interests, State Legislators are looking to the nearly forgotten American political tradition of nullification as a way to reject any potential national health care program that may be coming from Washington.

In 2010, residents of Arizona will be voting on a State Constitutional Amendment that would let them effectively opt out of any proposed national health care plan.

Legislatures in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are also considering similar State Constitutional Amendments.

And now, Missouri is joining them.

The bullies in DC are huffing and puffing but are encountering some resistance to their bluster from the normally compliant states.

Critics of Cecil Bothwell cite N.C. bar to atheists

ASHEVILLE — North Carolina's constitution is clear: politicians who deny the existence of God are barred from holding office.

Opponents of Cecil Bothwell are seizing on that law to argue he should not be seated as a City Council member today, even though federal courts have ruled religious tests for public office are unlawful under the U.S. Constitution.

Voters elected the writer and builder to the council last month.

Speaking of atheism, an interesting conflict of a state constitution with The Constitution is brewing in Asheville, NC. A duly elected City Council member is an atheist and his lack of belief in a deity is an outrage to theistic opponents.

The Last Real American Dollar

This is about the last REAL AMERICAN MONEY.

When one looks at real money, gold coins per se, it is hard not to notice the references to freedom and liberty. That is because "REAL MONEY" is freedom.............and liberty. It always has been, and it always will be. The truth be known, the modern route to slavery is through DEBT.

Take a good look at this five dollar bill above. There is one thing that is different than any other bill you have seen in circulation. That difference when viewed in the lens of today has profound implications. Can you spot what the difference is? (It is not the red seal) Take a few moments before your read the answer below. Take a good look. What is different and what is the implication?

The dollar is experiencing a bit of unpleasantness. It is backed by nothing but faith and the creditors are agnostics on the road to atheism with respect to its value.

Is Obama Really Preparing for Civil War?

America's founding document (the Declaration of Independence) declares that our states are "free and independent." And so they are. We are not "one nation" with one all-powerful central government. We are a confederation of nation-states, united in a voluntary union, with each State reserving to itself the power and authority of self-determination, and ceding to the federal government limited, specifically delineated duties and limitations – limitations that have been totally ignored to the point that, for all intents and purposes, our once-great constitutional republic has been thoroughly expunged. Therefore, it is NOW time for the states to stand up to this meddlesome, every-growing tyranny that is known as Washington, D.C., and defend the rights and liberties of their citizens!

Is the populace ready to revolt? Government is prolonging the inevitable by using a Robin Hood strategy; i.e., fleecing the producers and doling the plunder to the looters. This strategy will not result in a good outcome for anyone.

The Nine Surges of Obama’s War

Despite the seeming specificity of the speech, it gave little sense of just how big and how expensive this surge will be. In fact, what is being portrayed in the media as the surge of November 2009 is but a modest part of an ongoing expansion of the U.S. war effort in many areas. Looked at another way, the media's focus on the president’s speech as the crucial moment of decision, and on those 30,000 new troops as the crucial piece of information, has distorted what’s actually underway.

In reality, the U.S. military, along with its civilian and intelligence counterparts, has been in an almost constant state of surge since the last days of the Bush administration.

There seem to be no limits on squandering money and manpower abroad. Our government assures us this is necessary because Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and wants to destroy us.

Life in a Mahogany Bubble

In our nation’s curious capital, people know nothing of uneducated young waitresses who juggle long hours and children, without having even one illegal nanny. DC is a world of secure jobs and money, where everyone has been to university, often to a Calvin Klein universities like Harvard, and brains in the ninety-ninth percentile seem unremarkable. We are making three hundred grand a year; why can’t they? This otherworldliness accounts I think for a certain surreal quality to Washington’s debates. For people with high-end Blue Cross, health care has something to do with Keynes and free enterprise and ideological catfights. For a young mother with a sick kid and no money, it doesn’t. But Washington doesn’t know this. Let them eat cake, but is there cake?

Fred Reed is ruminating in a bar in Texas - again.

YEARS OF DECEIT: US OPENLY ACCEPTS BIN LADEN LONG DEAD

Conservative commentator, former Marine Colonel Bob Pappas has been saying for years that bin Laden died at Tora Bora and that Senator Kerry's claim that bin Laden escaped with Bush help was a lie. Now we know that Pappas was correct. The embarassment of having Secretary of State Clinton talk about bin Laden in Pakistan was horrific. He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now, finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn't nuts is finally saying what they have known for years.

Did our government use Osama bin Laden as a reason to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when they knew he was dead - and are they still doing so?

Statement Introducing the Free Competition in Currency Act

Currency, or money, is what allows civilization to flourish. In the absence of money, barter is the name of the game; if the farmer needs shoes, he must trade his eggs and milk to the cobbler and hope that the cobbler needs eggs and milk. Money makes the transaction process far easier. Rather than having to search for someone with reciprocal wants, the farmer can exchange his milk and eggs for an agreed-upon medium of exchange with which he can then purchase shoes.

This medium of exchange should satisfy certain properties: it should be durable, that is to say, it does not wear out easily; it should be portable, that is, easily carried; it should be divisible into units usable for every-day transactions; it should be recognizable and uniform, so that one unit of money has the same properties as every other unit; it should be scarce, in the economic sense, so that the extant supply does not satisfy the wants of everyone demanding it; it should be stable, so that the value of its purchasing power does not fluctuate wildly; and it should be reproducible, so that enough units of money can be created to satisfy the needs of exchange.

Ron Paul explains the difference between honest money and fiat money and is offering a bill in Congress which would return government to its senses. Of course, it will never get past Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Harry Reid. Congress will be recalcitrant in yielding its stranglehold on the people.

We've Been Had

Last year, my column "Global Warming Rope-A-Dope" (12/24/08) started out: "Americans have been rope-a-doped into believing that global warming is going to destroy the planet. Scientists who have been skeptical about manmade global warming have been called traitors or handmaidens of big oil." New evidence proves that climatologists and environmental policy advocates have not only fed us lies, engaged in scientific and academic fraud but committed criminal acts as well.

Obama is going to Copenhagen to carry out his global warming agenda in spite of the fact that the "science" which supports it has been exposed as dishonest claptrap.

US government policy: If it ain’t broke, fix it until it is

Health care prices would drop like a lead balloon and become affordable, like other products and services not protected from competition in the free market place. Our lives would not be dominated by the fear of getting a serious illness and losing everything we have and have worked for in life!

Economics 101: People will take or use what is free, whether they need it or not.

People will waste and abuse what they do not own or work to pay for. Basically, people are not as concerned about how they spend other peoples, or “the insurances companies,” money as they are what comes out of their own bank account, even though the reality is, the insurance company and the government got the money from them in the first place!

Government cannot fix the health care problems it created by constructing more regulations as remedies.

The Bush-Obama War

In the name of "War," our government can record our phone calls, read our emails, monitor our financial transactions and movements, and even place an Army combat division (USNORTHCOM) on American soil to WATCH – OR EVEN FIGHT AGAINST – US! And some of you don't even give it a second thought. Why? WE ARE AT WAR!

I know! I know! Obama promises to "begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011." Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that we are going to spend trillions of dollars on the war effort, send more than 50,000 troops plus thousands of independent contractors, and ship millions of tons of equipment half way around the world, and then turn around and bring them all back home IN EIGHTEEN MONTHS? I might have been born in the morning, but it was not yesterday morning!

The people who hate us must be jumping for joy at our foolishness. Not only are we fighting wars against people who have not harmed us, we are also destroying freedom and liberty in this country with oppressive laws and burdensome debt.

The White House: Too Big for its Breaches Since 1792

Tareq And Michaele Salahi’s attendance at a White House dinner to which they hadn’t been invited was hardly the first “security breach” at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. According to the Washington Post, the Secret Service has documented at least 91 such events since 1980.

The moral of the story isn’t that you can’t trust the Salahis. It’s that you can’t trust the government. In the 220 years since “We The People” allegedly “ordained and established” the Constitution, the government created by that Constitution has continuously worked toward exempting itself from the rules, both explicit and implicit, that bind it.

Government is isolated and insulated from We the People.

Social Security Will Go Bust in 2010

We are floating down the fiscal river of no return. We are moving faster and faster. Some of us can hear the falls ahead. The sound gets louder and louder. But our companions on board say, "Let's party!" They head for the dining room. After that, they will head for the slot machines.

Americans respond favorably to these words: "Free" and "all you can eat." That is what politicians promise.

Either the falls will get us (deflationary depression) or else an explosion of the overheated engine will (hyperinflation).

Our companions are still in the dining room or heading toward the slot machines. You and I should begin to move toward the lifeboats.

Gary North exposes the gimmicky accounting tricks government uses to confuse us.

Who Wants War?

Perpetual war is not solving anything. Indeed continually seeking out monsters to destroy abroad only threatens our security here at home as international resentment against us builds. The people understand this and are becoming increasingly frustrated at not being heard by the decision-makers. The leaders say some things the people want to hear, but change never comes.

One has to ask, if the people who elected these leaders so obviously do not want these wars, who does? Eisenhower warned of the increasing power and influence of the military industrial complex and it seems his worst fears have come true. He believed in a strong national defense, as do I, but warned that the building up of permanent military and weapons industries could prove dangerous if their influence got out of hand. After all, if you make your money on war, peace does you no good.

Ron Paul nails it.

Say Something Mr. President!

Someone—a whistleblower or a hacker—got into the computers of University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit in England, also known as the Hadley Research Center, and revealed reams of e-mails showing that its leading climatologists had engaged in all kinds of scientific shenanigans including manipulating data, destroying evidence that didn't support their conclusions and keeping contrarian scientists from being published in peer-reviewed journals.

The revelations are significant because the Hadley Center is no marginal outfit. It is among the most influential research organizations in the field whose work forms the basis of all official global warming reports, including those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N. body that serves as the Vatican of global warming.

We've been had. Scientists manipulated data to please the politicians who provide the funding for their skulduggery. It's the scandal of the century. The media are outraged apoplectic silent.

Requiem for the Dollar

The dollar is faith-based. There's nothing behind it but Congress.

But now the world is losing faith, as well it might. It's not that the dollar is overvalued – economists at Deutsche Bank estimate it's 20% too cheap against the euro. The problem lies with its management. The greenback is a glorious old brand that's looking more and more like General Motors.

You get the strong impression that Mr. Bernanke fails to appreciate the tenuousness of the situation – fails to understand that the pure paper dollar is a contrivance only 38 years old, brand new, really, and that the experiment may yet come to naught. Indeed, history and mathematics agree that it will certainly come to naught. Paper currencies are wasting assets. In time, they lose all their value. Persistent inflation at even seemingly trifling amounts adds up over the course of half a century. Before you know it, that bill in your wallet won't buy a pack of gum.

Congress can't stop spending dollars they don't have and the Fed can't stop creating dollars out of thin air. These mischievous activities are creating a hostile environment for our paper money.

Call 911 Only After Your Shotgun is Pumped

Fifty miles west of Tulsa, a lady watched a man preying on her house, looking for a way to get in and do his thing. She called 911, where the dispatcher tried to keep her distracted from the real task at hand. Listen to the call and judge for yourself. Finally, this prepared woman said, “I can’t keep this gun and keep on the phone darling, it’s a big shotgun, it will break my arm.”

Some intoxicated maggot named Billy Dean Riley, with his drunken sister in the car with him, got into a car wreck. He left the scene and ended up at this lady’s house.

Read the rest...

The House That Uncle Sam Built

We do not live in a free market. We live in a mixed economy. The mixture varies by industry. Technology is primarily free. Financial Services is primarily government. It is not surprising that the most government regulated and controlled segment of the economy, financial services, experienced the biggest problems. These problems were created by actions by the Federal Reserve combined with government housing policy (especially the government- sponsored enterprises - Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae). Misguided government interference in the market is the real culprit in laying the foundation for the Great Recession.

Free markets make mistakes but they are corrected by the common sense of individuals. Government controlled markets make big mistakes and government solutions compound the problems.

The Enduring Legacy of Prohibition

Four years after the 21st amendment, Franklin Roosevelt signed the Marihuana Tax Act into law, prohibiting the drug. Whereas politicians had once respected the Constitution enough to recognize that it must be legally amended to federally ban alcohol, the war on other drugs continues without any constitutional justification.

Today's drug war is much worse than alcohol prohibition was. We have half a million people in prison, an overwhelmed judicial system, militarized enforcement, assaults on civil liberties, a foreign policy distorted by drug-war goals and, according to many economists, about twice as many homicides as we would expect if drugs were legal.

The Constitution is ignored by politicians. There is no restraint on their ambitions and their attempts to control our behavior often result in unintended consequences.

An Answer to Bernanke

During its 96 years of existence, the Federal Reserve has played havoc with our economy and brought great suffering to millions through unemployment and price escalation. In addition, it has achieved what only a central bank can: a steady depreciation of our currency. Today's dollar is now worth four cents compared to the dollar entrusted to the Federal Reserve in 1913.

Ninety-six years should have been plenty of time for the Fed to come up with a plan for preventing economic crises. Since the Fed is the source of all economic downturns, it is impossible for any central banker to regulate in such a manner to prevent the problems that are predictable consequences of his own monetary mismanagement.

Ron Paul's bill to audit the Fed has been attached to another bill - a s0-called financial reform bill which will inject government intrusions into businesses - putting Ron Paul in the position of probably being unable to vote for his own bill. This was no accident as Barney Frank is providing Congressional cover for the Fed.

Stay Tuned...

Updates will be sporadic (if not nonexistent) until Sunday. Other matters are requiring our attention. In the meantime, the following video is Ron Paul explaining why Obama is committing a blunder in Afghanistan, much to the consternation of pro-war Fox News reporters.

Tom Smith and His Incredible Bread Machine

This is a legend of success and plunder
And a man, Tom Smith, who squelched world
hunger.
Now, Smith, an inventor, had specialized
In toys. So, people were surprised
When they found that he instead
Of making toys, was BAKING BREAD!

The way to make bread he'd conceived
Cost less than people could believe.
And not just make it! This device
Could, in addition, wrap and slice!
The price per loaf, one loaf or many:
The miniscule sum of under a penny.

The free market vs. government meddling - a poem.

Healthcare Freedom or Healthcare Bureaucracy?

The U.S. Preventive Task Force caused quite a stir recently when they revised their recommendations on the frequency and age for women to get mammograms. Many have speculated on the timing for this government-funded report, with the Senate vote on health care looming, and cost estimates being watched closely. Just the hint that the government would risk women’s health to cut costs is causing outrage on both sides of the aisle.

Even the administration is alarmed at its own panel’s recommendation. One official, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius told women to ignore the new guidelines, keep doing what they are doing and make the best decisions for themselves after consulting with their doctors.

This sounds like an excellent idea to me.

Government cannot provide medical care better than physicians and medical care providers.