Furl http://www.furl.net/ http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.furl.net/member/akrowne.rss Furl archive. Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:51:53 GMT http://www.furl.net/item/39267882/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39267882 Good grief. I don't know how conservatives can defend this woman. As it says in the article, obviously her understanding of the Constitution hovers around a third-grade level. Sun, 02 Nov 2008 14:45:46 GMT Politics 1st Amendment According to Palin, what the Founders intended with the First Amendment was that political candidates for the most powerful offices in the country and Governors of states would be free to say whatever they want without being criticized in the newspapers. In the Palin worldview, the First Amendment was meant to ensure that powerful political officials such as herself would not be "attacked" in the papers. Is it even possible to imagine more breathtaking ignorance from someone holding high office and running for even higher office? 4 http://www.furl.net/item/39243098/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39243098 Wow. Our banking system is really an embarassment. Sat, 01 Nov 2008 17:24:43 GMT Economics Security Banksters Nowadays almost everybody knows that it's dangerous to reveal your credit card number, or to have that full number on a printed document that somebody might find in the trash. Soon people will learn that it is equally dangerous to reveal the numbers that are printed in plain sight on every check. Forget signatures; banks have no time to verify them. The once venerable system of checking accounts is irretrievably broken. Before long, companies will find it impossible to give out paychecks without exposing themselves to unacceptable risk. 4 http://www.furl.net/item/38902699/forward http://www.furl.net/item/38902699 Sad, but makes the good point that Iraq's economic basis for stability has been destroyed. First by mis-management (dismantling of functioning structures, outright looting, and corrupt contractors), then by violence making rebuilding impossible. Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:46:44 GMT Economics Iraq War 5 http://www.furl.net/item/38614706/forward http://www.furl.net/item/38614706 They will be down and out for a long long time, until they reinvent themselves. I shudder to think what that might mean, as they've already defiled the slogans "freedom", "capitalism", and virtually everything else America is supposed to be great for. Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:52:52 GMT Politics Corrupted Democracy Elections Military Keynesianism In any case, the new reality – or, rather, the newly realized reality – imposes radical restraints on us that rule out foreign wars of aggression, or "liberation," and require a concentration of our resources at home. Yet such a sudden change is going to take some getting used to by the lords of Washington, who are accustomed to thinking of the world as their playground. In the wake of such a sea-change, very often people go right on acting as if absolutely nothing had occurred, oblivious to the new reality until they run right into it, head first. That's what's happened, so far: the imperial pretensions of our presidential candidates, for example, show no signs of abating. They're still talking about bailing out the Georgian economy (the one in the Caucasus), when people right here in this country are being foreclosed out of their homes. They don't understand the full implications of what's happening to their beloved empire, but they will soon enough. 5 http://www.furl.net/item/38186182/forward http://www.furl.net/item/38186182 Good little essay.. pair with reading of "The Mystery of Capitalism". I would add also that a problem is the common people actively *wanting* the state to intervene in their lives to bring advancement -- this is the cultural ingredient that is often left out of development efforts. Sometimes intervention by authorities is all the people know; they've always been lorded over by some despot or another. Fri, 03 Oct 2008 23:24:16 GMT Economics Government Markets Development How much poverty has endured because individual entrepreneurs were shunned in favor of the likes of the $5 billion state-owned Ajaokuta Steel Mill in Nigeria, which never produced a bar of steel? Or because African governments spend their time preparing World Bank-required national Poverty Reduction Strategy Reports instead of freeing space for innovators? 4 http://www.furl.net/item/38180694/forward http://www.furl.net/item/38180694 My sentiments, more or less (not that I'm enthralled with globalist water-carrying-boy Biden). Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:28:51 GMT Politics Culture Corrupted Democracy Elections The fact that the lead story this morning is that Palin "held her own" with Biden rather than that she was obviously completely out of her depth says a lot more about us than it does about her. It says that we haven't learned our lesson after choosing an intellectually inferior president for the last eight years, after rejecting Al Gore in 2000 for being "wooden" or a "policy wonk." I'm sorry, but when did being president require the office holder to be the life of the party? Shouldn't we want a smart person in the job? Wouldn't that be a good thing? 4 http://www.furl.net/item/37961394/forward http://www.furl.net/item/37961394 Scary, underhanded, and not unsurprising stuff. Though note there are some mitigating remarks in the comments, as to the magnitude of the impact (so far). Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:31:55 GMT Voting Corrupted Democracy Elections “For example, if I registered as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and yet my motor vehicle license said Robert Frances Kennedy Jr. I’d be removed from the rolls. If your initial is different, if you leave an initial out, if you leave a “Jr.” out, if you leave a hyphen out in your name. And what they’ve done is a study in New York that said 80% of the errors are errors that were done by state clerks who are taking down this information. And particularly immigrant communities that people tend to vote democratic, people have names…spell Muhammad with an “o” instead of a “u” (crosstalk) 3 http://www.furl.net/item/37543330/forward http://www.furl.net/item/37543330 The RNC is probably lucky they did not succeed. I'm not sure having 15,000 Ron Paulers show up in Minneapolis VERY angry would be preferably to having them all go to their own rally. Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:28:26 GMT Government Freedom Cronyism Libertarianism Corrupted Democracy Elections ... well-placed sources at City Hall and Target Center have confirmed to MnIndy that in the days before Ron Paul’s Rally for the Republic at Target Center was publicly announced, representatives of the RNC Host Committee contacted officials at Target Center and the city of Minneapolis (which oversees the facility) to push for the cancellation of the event. They also sought the cancellation of the Rage Against the Machine concert that took place at Target Center on September 3, the third night of the RNC. A City Haller familiar with the situation says that Mayor RT Rybak’s office was contacted by Host Committee members who wanted the mayor’s assistance in seeing to it that the events were canceled. He refused to cooperate, adds the source. I phoned Rybak’s office; he declined to be interviewed. But his communication director, Jeremy Hanson, had this to say: “We don’t dispute the characterization of events, but the mayor’s office doesn’t wish to comment further.” 5 http://www.furl.net/item/37542601/forward http://www.furl.net/item/37542601 Good stuff from Alex Jones. People need to realize that the Internet is becoming the main front on the battle against the globalists. Information is the most important thing for them to control, and the Internet and the Web are existentially threatening that. It appears they have long since begun to fight back with the usual dirty tactics. Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:39:26 GMT Government Freedom Big Brother Authoritarianism One World Government 5 http://www.furl.net/item/37541824/forward http://www.furl.net/item/37541824 A friend passed me this 2004 interview of Ralph Nader by Pat Buchanan (looks like Ron Paul's latest initiative has spurred some re-examination of third party candidates). Ralph seems eminently reasonable on most issues and there seems to be a lot of overlap with Ron Paul and true conservative positions -- especially the below characterization of corporatism vs. capitalism. Where I depart is on some of the permissive treatment of illegal immigration (though Ralph does over-archingly and correctly believe the problem is mostly with us, not "the illegals"), and on the issue of taxes. Why does it make sense to continue a strong Federal taxation regime, and even introduce taxes on things like "wealth" in the abstract? Besides, the Fed's inflation already *is* a tax on wealth -- and it is much greater than 1%. Hopefully his subsequent contact with Ron Paul has helped educate him about this point. Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:50:34 GMT Business Government Freedom Libertarianism Corrupted Democracy Concentrated corporate power violates many principles of capitalism. For example, under capitalism, owners control their property. Under multinational corporations, the shareholders don’t control their corporation. Under capitalism, if you can’t make the market respond, you sink. Under big business, you don’t go bankrupt; you go to Washington for a bailout. Under capitalism, there is supposed to be freedom of contract. When was the last time you negotiated a contract with banks or auto dealers? They are all fine-print contracts. The law of contracts has been wiped out for 99 percent of contracts that ordinary consumers sign on to. Capitalism is supposed to be based on law and order. Corporations get away with corporate crime, fraud, and abuse. And finally, capitalism is premised on a level playing field; the most meritorious is supposed to win. Tell that to a small inventor or a small business up against McDonald’s or a software programmer up against Microsoft. 5