Mirage

Yes, we can hope for change, so long as it comes with smoke and mirrors

Thanks Karl Rove. Once again I find a reason to temper my distaste for your politics through your honest evaluation of a president who ignores economics.

Yo Mama

I saw this website and thought it was too good to be true. If you ever wanted to teach your children how to be lazy, uninformed voters who have nothing better to do than cook up ways to spend other people's money inefficiently and illegally, then you should buy these books with tax dollars. In fact, you could teach whole indoctrination sessions (read: public school classes) about how great this who scam is. I mean, look at the cover of this book, a diversity of color and size shows that more than Mama voted, and they are all so happy about this sign. By the way, bears can't fly and they are dangerous. Ask Dwight Schrute, or Stephen Colbert. Bears always make the Threat Down, because they are the most dangerous threat to America!

The video above is a neat history lesson, but the usefulness ends at about the 8th minute. If you have time, I recommend it because it will illustrate how government intervention and bad social policy created the financial "crisis" now in effect. A better statement of what happened is made by Thomas DiLorenzo, Professor of Economics at Loyola College.

I was discussing with someone earlier today that the same sort of social policy applies to college and making it more affordable. The price of college increases in response to forced lending and government intervention. Arguably, the product, a bachelor's degree-holding graduate, has declined in value as a direct result. Additionally, this accessibility leads to a change in attitude regarding such education causing the educated to sometimes feel entitled to the degree as a result of the payments and loans made. To compound the problem, the relative immaturity of college students, most of whom have just recently achieved the age of consent, sign contracts with little understanding of how their current state (attending classes and learning something) is to be paid for with interest by their future selves. They will often experience a significant wage increase upon achieving that degree, but the entitlement attitude coupled with financial immaturity can lead to excessive debt burden because the four-year degree takes more than four years.

Atrocities of the State

It seems as if the Dream World has disappeared. Thankfully, I have found it and sufficient illegal action on the part of our government has recalled the dream. In case you hadn't heard, our government is planning to reach to a new super-constitutional low in the form of a $700,000,000,000 bailout plan, also known as communal ownership.

This sort of thing has happened before in less "limited government" settings, such as the U.S.S.R. While writing to your Congressmen may dissuade them from taking the first step off the Communist cliff, I doubt there will be any preventing this disaster. Through a combination of bipartisan double-speak, and President Bush's fear politics, we require immediate action by Leviathan to stop the failure of our markets! The only failure here is our government's adherence to the Constitution.

I believe that November is the time to stave of financial disaster and elect only those who uphold their oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Who Owns My Rights?

Whew! It's been a while since any of us has written on our blog! I wonder if that has effected our readership?

A recent story peaked my interest and let me decide to get back here to the ol' trusty blog. The story comes from my birthplace in Atlanta, Georgia. The legislature, lead by Senator Doug Stoner (*giggles*), has recently passed a law that bans retailers from selling lollipops that taste like marijuana to minors. First of all, how addicted do you need to be to pot to have to have candy to taste like it. What's next, beer suckers? Actually, that sounds pretty good, nevermind.

The real absurdity comes from the ban in the first place. Apparently, people think that the pot suckers will lead people to do the real thing. My theory is that they have the exact oppisite effect. If I were a parent, I'd give a sucker to them at a young age and explain to them that this is what drugs taste like. After being revolted by the butt-tasting candy they'd never do drugs their entire life. Crisis averted.

The best part of the article has to be the gem of a quote by State Representative Judy Manning. After explaining that she had been recieving death threats about the bill, she explained the situation by saying, "Some people think their rights are their rights." Ah yes, silly me to think that I should have rights in a supposedly "free" society.

Just Woke Up

4/20 went off with a roaring success, both for me and for marijuana decriminalization/legalization activists throughout the states.

Just to clarify: you don't have to be a drug user to support drug decriminalization/legalization efforts.

Colorado University had over 10,000 smokers in attendance at a 4/20 celebration. Yet in this 10,000 strong crowd of stoners and first-timers alike were subject to absolutely no criminal penalties. It is also important to point out that police actually assisted with two cases of dehydration at the event (hopefully a bad case of cotton mouth) and there were no incidents of violent behavior (at least anything that attracted the attentions of the police). Read the whole article here.

Pot smokers know how to protest. There were even students selling food at the event, hoping to make a buck or two off those poor bastards suffering from the munchies. Capitalism! Doesn't the government realize the money they're missing out on by not decriminalizing marijuana? You'd think they would give us something else they could tax excessively.

In previous years, the police in the area did everything they could to catch smokers at the event, including video surveillance and spraying the smokers with water. This year, I believe, the massive numbers overwhelmed them. Only 5,000 were in attendance last year.

In any case, this is a victory for decriminalization/legalization efforts. Big event, no problems. Civil disobedience at its best.

Gay Scientists Isolate the Christian Gene