Imputed Income Trap

Four years and three months ago, regular Roissy in D.C. comment contributor going by the handle of  Welmer, started The Spearhead. Many of us regular Roissy in D.C. commenter's and bloggers answered Welmer's initial call for contributors and helped him to establish The Spearhead as one of the central hubs of what was at that time, the early stages of the emergence of what we now know of today as the "manosphere" or "androsphere."

Since that time, Welmer decided to emerge from anonymity and start writing, editing and publishing all of The Spearhead's content under his real name, William Price. Many of us regular contributors and commenter's at The Spearhead, just call him Bill.

Since it's founding, Bill has written approximately 1340+ blog posts at The Spearhead,  generating almost 4+ years of near daily content, and many of those posts dealt extensively about the many personal details and circumstances of his life that motivated and inspired him to start and maintain The Spearhead.

The man is tireless and dedicated, and he's certainly played a huge part in raising awareness and helping others avoid or deal with the corrupted family court system that has subverted Fatherhood and the Patriarchal structure of our declining civilization.

He's never gone more than a few days at a time without at least posting a quick update or comment as to why he may be taking short breaks from writing and publishing content. But now it's been 23 days and counting since he's posted or commented at The Spearhead or anywhere else for that matter.

He did give an update on December 5th, that may possibly explain what has happened to him:

Hi folks, I’ve been forced to take something of an extended delay past the holiday due to circumstance. Unfortunately, problems from divorce do not just go away after it’s over, and mine have once again caught up to me. In short, I’m in trouble with DCS (child support), and this time it’s pretty serious. This is because I was unemployed and had my income imputed on divorce (this means that they force you to pay at a previous income whether you have it or not), which led to accumulation of arrears. If you haven’t read it before, here’s the background on the situation. I was working it down for a couple years, but things have dried up lately, and I have to deal with it immediately if I want to see my kids for the holidays and stay out of the King County hotel.

Hopefully, I can come up with enough to do that and will be back to focusing on writing again soon. All in all, it’s just another day in the life of millions of non-custodial fathers, so it isn’t the end of the world. But it still sucks.

Looks like Bill got an indefinite check-in to the King County Hotel for arrears due to imputed income requirements and unemployment. I have no way of verifying this, but this long of a break of any activity at The Spearhead by Bill is highly unusual.

I can only deduce that unfortunately it appears the Title IV-D Family Destroyer Borg has gotten a hold of him and giving him some more of the truth, justice and the 'murican way that all men who are Fathers are entitled to, here in the land of the fee and home of the slaves.

But in the eyes of mainstream society, this is just due justice being meted out to a known criminal, guilty of the crime of being a DEADBEAT DAD.

It’s fairly taboo for guys to open up about how they end up in child support arrears, because so many of us still harbor old-fashioned ideas about our duty to provide for our family, whether it’s possible or not. In fact, it’s a huge source of shame for a lot of men, and there isn’t much in the way of pity out there, so the stories aren’t often told.

Well, I figure I ought to break the ice in this regard, as I am currently in arrears, and let people – young men in particular – know how it can happen.

Young men contemplating marriage in today's Brave New World Order, pay attention.

As is often the case, separation and divorce were a shock to me. I saw it coming out of the corner of my eye, and was resigned to it in a way, but like the typical man I was in deep denial and avoidance. When my ex finally ran off to begin her affair with the then-married man she now lives with in British Columbia together with my children, I was pretty much left prostrate. It turns out the event had been planned, and her mother was involved. Unfortunately, I had fostered a friendship between my boss and my ex-wife’s family after obtaining a job for my ex’s sister, and my ex mother in law used this relationship to my ex’s advantage, essentially cutting me off from employment at exactly the point my ex left me. She would later tell my own mother that she felt justified in this tactic, because “it was war.” Of course, for me it was more like Pearl Harbor, where you don’t know it’s war until the bombs are falling right on top of you, but people have all sorts of justifications for whatever they do.

Note the beginnings of this entire debacle of gross injustice at the hands of the law. His wife took his kids and left the country to start an affair with another married man. Remember folks...

No Fault Divorce = His-Fault Divorce.

This was the beginnings of the chain events that have now most likely ended up with Bill being incarcerated in the King County lock up.

The rest of Bill's sad recounting of the events of his Divorce are the increasingly common experiences we in the MAndrosphere are all familiar with... Father's whose wives decide to blow up their families for cash and prizes because they are unhaaaapppppyy. False police reports of child abuse. Loss of visitation with his children during proceedings, and loss of his job during our current Great Depression 2.0 economy. Faced with the prospects of losing everything in the final adjudication of the Divorce, Bill eventually decided to accept a deal from his Ex-Wife's parasitic feeder on familial destruction attorney:

I was shattered, broken, beaten down. An attorney friend suggested I go to trial pro se, since I couldn’t get a worse deal either way, and he was probably right, but I simply couldn’t handle it — I was spent. About this time my ex’s attorney approached me with what looked like a reasonable parenting plan with decent time with the kids and a minimal amount of conditions. I would have to attend a ten-hour parenting class (so would my ex) and sixteen hours of anger management, and there would be no supervised visitation following the parenting class. There was only one catch — I would be imputed with income I didn’t have and pay more child support than I could afford. Thinking of the alternative, which could mean six months of an expensive domestic violence program that would mark me as admitting guilt for something I never did and possibly compromise my parenting time permanently, I signed.

Presented such a choice, Bill did the only thing he could do to try and maintain some sort of normal contact with his children and make the best of his situation. He seemed to have lasted quite awhile in scraping enough money to meet his court ordered payment schedule, but eventually the imputed income requirements put him into arrears and making him classified now as a "Deadbeat Dad."

You know what....I actually have a picture of Bill committing the horrible crime for what he is most likely sitting in jail for at this very moment. Yep...a picture of him caught in the act, committing a most heinous crime against society:

Oh the horror.

Good thing we have a justice system that brings such deviant violators of the law to swift and merciful justice!

Deadbeats everywhere, look out!

You've been identified, and classified and you WILL be brought to justice.

By virtue of marrying and having children in today's Brave New World Order, you are now officially eligible to join the ranks of all the other peons called "deadbeat dads." All that needs happen is your wife to deem you no longer fit to share her domestic living space, and you too will become just another American peon.

What's a peon, you ask? Go to wiki and look up the term "peonage."

Modern day child support laws and the entire Family Court System, is nothing more than 21st century peonage.

Our current child support system in the USSA Inc., is a travesty of justice and a clear abrogation of the 13th amendment of the Constitutions abolition of involuntary servitude.

But remember, only Men are eligible to become Imputed Income Peons. As commenter Pugs Fugly noted:

And yet….my ex-wife hasn’t paid a dime in over a year, I’m talking 11K in arrears, and the state does nothing.

They talk a great deal; the people I have to deal with have explained that revoking her license or issuing a warrant for her arrest are only considered as a “last resort” but they won’t explain or even hint when we’ll finally get to that point.

To which Bill responded in one of his last comments made at The Spearhead:

That’s typical according to attorneys I’ve spoken with. 20k in arrears, refuses to pay a dime, and not even a judge will do a thing about it. Took me only two months before the threats started rolling in, and that was at the very beginning!

Well, 11 more years of this to go…

Bill, our prayers our with you. May you emerge from your State ordered trials and tribulations stronger than before.

 


UPDATE: Well, it appears Bill was just taking some time offline to deal with a hectic holiday schedule and family matters, and not in jail for child support arrears. That's certainly good news.

Glad to have him back in business over at the Spearhead.

Usury Cartel Centennial

Dec. 23, 1913 - President Wilson Condemns the Nation to a Century of Serfdom

100 years ago to the day, this nation was sold out, to a group of usurious Banksters and their cronies. The Federal Reserve Act was the result of a previous secret meeting on the privately owned Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia, to figure out the best way to institute a central banking system usury cartel to enslave the nation in perpetual debt.

100 years ago to the day, the Federal Reserve Act was signed into law and the former Republic was Incorporated into the largest Company Store the world has ever known.

No wonder THEY recently decided to release a new-look, up to date, hard to counterfeit, new $100 Scrip Wage C-note.

Not too many instances in history in which an exclusive, privately owned cartel, gets to commemorate 100 years of enjoying the establishment of a fractional-reserve, fiat currency-based, usury cartel to turn an entire nation into debt-driven consumers and tax slaves.

What's that you say? The Fed is not privately owned? It's a "Quasi-Governmental Agency?"

Check your facts:

Q: Who owns the Federal Reserve Bank? 

A: There are actually 12 different Federal Reserve Banks around the country, and they are owned by big private banks. But the banks don’t necessarily run the show.

Whoever "runs the show" is not the point. Many businesses have owners who don't "run the show." They just harvest the profits from operation.

The stockholders in the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks are the privately owned banks that fall under the Federal Reserve System. These include all national banks (chartered by the federal government) and those state-chartered banks that wish to join and meet certain requirements. About 38 percent of the nation’s more than 8,000 banks are members of the system, and thus own the Fed banks.

Federal Reserve stockholders hold a unique certificate of membership to an exclusive cartel. And that cartel's primary practice is indentured servitude of the masses via usury.

As the Federal Reserve Board website states (not directly linking to that fiendish corporate whores of the usury cartel - http://federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm#5):

"The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by Congress as the operating arms of the nation’s central banking system, are organized much like private corporations–possibly leading to some confusion about "ownership." For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year."

Let's take a closer look at the Fed's own answer to the question, "Who owns the Federal Reserve"

"However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company."

It might be "quite different" than owning stock in a private company, but the fact remains whether the stock is "different" or not, they still concede that the Federal Reserve is a privately owned central banking system.

 " For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks."

 These shares of stocks are really nothing more then certificates that signify membership to this exclusive usury cartel.

"The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System."

No, they're operated to leverage fractional reserve money creation powers (usurped from congress) to expand the scope of usurious financing at every level of economic activity in today's Brave New World Order.

The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year.

Member banks that buy Fed stocks, are not buying it for shareholder property rights, nor are they doing it to realize an annual 6% return by dividend payouts. What they are doing, is paying membership dues to belong to the exclusive usury cartel that holds the monopoly on fiat currency creation out of thin air.

Ever since the Federal Reserve Act was signed into law a century ago, the United States of America has been subjugated by the tyranny of usury.

What also indeed is, in substance, a loan, especially a foreign loan? A loan is - an issue of government bills of exchange containing a percentage obligation commensurate to the sum of the loan capital. If the loan bears a charge of 5 per cent, then in twenty years the State vainly pays away in interest a sum equal to the loan borrowed, in forty years it is paying a double sum, in sixty - treble, and all the while the debt remains an unpaid debt.

On the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Usury Cartel that holds us all in obligation to a perpetually unpaid debt, it would be good to recall the words of the man whose portrait adorns the $100 bill:

"Think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty."

Boys Will Be Girls

It appears Kay Hymowitz is once again concern trolling for the state of men and boys in our Brave New World Order.

In fact, signs that the nuclear-family meltdown of the past half-century has been particularly toxic to boys’ well-being are not new. By the 1970s and eighties, family researchers following the children of the divorce revolution noticed that, while both girls and boys showed distress when their parents split up, they had different ways of showing it. Girls tended to “internalize” their unhappiness: they became depressed and anxious, and many cut themselves, or got into drugs or alcohol. Boys, on the other hand, “externalized” or “acted out”: they became more impulsive, aggressive, and “antisocial.” Both reactions were worrisome, but boys’ behavior had the disadvantage of annoying and even frightening classmates, teachers, and neighbors.

Note her real concern here. While divorce's effects on children are worrisome, it's the boys of divorce who annoy or frighten other people that is her true concern. How touching.

Putting aside the snark for a moment, I must note that Hymowitz's article does highlight a lot of issues most of us in the MAndrosphere are aware of and focus much attention to the related issues....but her article still annoys because of her implicit definitions of what it means for boys to become men - her concern is entirely based upon the idea that boys will only become men when they get married and become providers...to paraphrase Rollo, "...in other words better serving the feminine imperative qualifies men to be adults."


Note the following:

So why do boys in single-mother families have a harder time of it than their sisters? If you were to ask the average person on the street, he would probably give some variation of the role-model theory: boys need fathers because that’s who teaches them how to be men. The theory makes intuitive sense.

So far, so good...

These findings can help us refine the role-model theory. Girls and boys have a better chance at thriving when their own father lives with them and their mother throughout their childhood—and for boys, this is especially the case. (Violent or abusive fathers are, of course, exceptions to the rule.)

I was with her up until her little caveat...because we all know exactly how violent and abusive fathers are defined: by how the female in the house feels about the Father in the home. Just like the definition of rape has been expanded to encompass a whole range of male sexual behavior in addition to female's feelings of post-coital regret, so too has violence and abuse been expanded to include any and every instance of a female (wife, girlfriend, daughter, sister etc.) feeling uncomfortable, or afraid of any expression of anger or annoyance by a male. But I digress.

From this point on, her article only gets worse.

On average, boys are more physically active and restless than girls. They have less self-control and are more easily distracted. They take longer to mature. They have a harder time sitting still, paying attention, and following rules, especially in the early years of school.

On average, boys are different from girls. They have a much lower threshold for the institutionalized values of feminized education. This idea that boys who are easily distracted and have a hard time sitting in a chair and paying attention to a teacher and following the myriad of rules in the schoolroom setting is what Hymowitz and her ilk defined as "mature." In other words, maturity is measured by conformity to the institution. This is definitely a female mode of thinking.

In Lord of the Flies terms, we might say that boys need more “civilizing” than girls. They require more cues, more reminders, and more punishment to learn to control their aggression and to mind their manners. Boys—not girls—often require remedial education to sit still, to look at the person speaking to them, to finish the task they were working on. These days, experts might put it this way: boys come into the world with less natural human capital than do girls.

And just who are these "Experts" to declare that boys have less "human capital" than girls? Why, these are the experts who've received credentialed certification for demonstrating excellence in conformity to feminized institutions. (Not that there's anything wrong with that...after all, I got my own institutional credential certifications.)

Let's take Kay's approach to defining "maturity" and "human capital" in swap genders and define "human capital" and "maturity" based on a metric of masculine ideals and see how it sounds:

"We might say that girls need more external "motivating" than boys. They require more encouragement and prodding to explore, apply themselves to hands on activities and attempt to do things on their own. They are far less likely to innovate, show a general lack of curiosity or look for new ways to achieve goals, but instead are content to sit still and do exactly as their teacher tells them in an effort to gain favor and approval from the institutional authority. Girls come into the world with less natural human capital than do boys."

That statement is just as ludicrous as Hymowitz defining "human capital" and "maturity" on a female-centered metric. The source for this idiocy is blank-slate, gender-is-a-social construct brainwashing from feminists that permeates our culture at large.

Girls and boys come into the world with different, gender specific "human capital," specific to their sex. But Hymowitz and her cohorts of concerned Conservatives are only concerned with boys growing up and achieving 'maturity' as defined by conformity to female-centric idealization of "civilization."

If the trends of the past 40 years continue—and there’s little reason to think that they won’t—the percentage of boys growing up with single mothers will keep on growing. No one knows how to stem that tide. But by understanding the way family instability interacts with boys’ restless natures, educators could experiment with approaches that might improve at least some lives. Educators and psychologists have often described boys as “needing clear rules” or “benefiting from structure.”

No one knows? Au contraire, plenty of us out in these fringes of teh Interwebz know exactly how to stem that tide. Boys need clear rules to benefit from the structure of a Father-headed household. We've already experienced decades of social engineering that has resulted in the outsourcing of structure and conformity training, and the transmission of cultural values from a Patriarchal home to society's collective institutions and organizations. The results? An epidemic of boys afflicted with ADD, ADHD and ODD, and the expansion of the prison industrial complex and police state to deal with the pathologies of the generations of  feral children that are spawned in our Brave New World Order's pandemic of single mother households.





My real criticism for Hymowitz's piece is not just based on her feminine-centric definition of maturity and "human capital." Much of what she does write about is an accurate description of how the Fatherless home leads to a cycle of male dysfunction and anti-social pathology. In many ways, she's correct - the absence of the Fathers in the home, removes all the positive aspects of masculinity as an influence and guide to his development.

It just may be that boys growing up where fathers—and men more generally—appear superfluous confront an existential problem: Where do I fit in? Who needs me, anyway? Boys see that men have become extras in the lives of many families and communities, and it can’t help but depress their aspirations. Solving that problem will take something much bigger than a good literacy program.

What she doesn't address (and is most likely completely incapable of even recognizing) is not only the absence of positive masculinity harming to his development....but how the negative feminine aspects of his Mother's influence plays a role in his pathological development.


Boys don't just need Fathers in the home to role model and provide guidance them on how to become Men.

Boys need Fathers in the home, to keep the mothering from becoming smothering.

Yes, the single mother household raises boys without a Father figure and a positive role model for the boy to aspire to...but what it also features, is a household for which a boy learns to deal with his world experiences in female-centric modes of thought and behavior.

Without a Father in the home, young boys only learn to deal with their external environment and internal emotions and fears by the behavior and attitudes of the only significant role model he's exposed to in his home, his Single Mother.

As a "Gen X'er," I grew up in the first generation of children for which divorce and the broken home reached pandemic proportions in the US. In my peer group in high school, more of my friends and acquaintances were the product of broken homes via divorce than were the number of kids who came from stable, two-parent homes. In hindsight, I recognize the differences in archetypal personalities of all these kids I know who came from the stable home versus the kids from the broken homes.

Boys raised by single moms are far more likely to be emotionally out-of-control, more prone to crying and usually allowing their emotions to paralyze them, or cause them to lash out instinctively and without restraint or careful consideration for potential consequences. Boys raised by single mothers are also more likely to be raised with an almost pathological need for female approval, thanks to the intermittent reward dynamic of having his only familial authority, an emotionally-fluctuating, passive-aggressive and manipulative female.

Another archetype I believe that emerges from the boys raised by single mothers, is the promiscuous player...what I called "naturals" long before I discovered the terminology of "Game" and PUA vernacular on teh Interwebz. In hindsight, I can recall two different kinds of 'players' in the Sexual Marketplace of High School and early adulthood - the successful guys who came from two parent families whose Father's were "alpha" themselves....

...and the boys raised in single mother households, whose mothers had a parade of lovers come in and out of their lives as she rode the post-divorce carousel. These are the boys who associate sexual promiscuity as 'normal.' They become "players" because they exhibit the so-called "dark triad" traits that females find sexually alluring...which is to say, nothing more than his masculine expression of the solipsism and hypergamy role modelling he was imprinted with in being raised by his single mother. Solipsism expressed by the male player, exhibits itself more aggressively as arrogant, over-confident narcissism...a dynamic the Chateau oft refer to as "dark triad traits = chic crack."

Boys raised by single mothers are also more likely to be raised with the attitude of being a consumer, rather than a producer, and that using emotional manipulations and intermittent rewards to gain sexual favors comes as second nature to him.

This makes him well equipped to game girls into sexual encounters and short-term relationships.

But the other aspect here I ascertain from my hindsight of observations is that all these "natural" players that went through girls like sticks of chewing gum, were also incapable of sustaining long term relationships. Worse yet, whenever they did encounter "THE ONE" girl they fell in love with and attempted to forge a long term relationship with, none that I can recall, ever ended well.

Not only do they lack the imprinted behavior of a Father and Mother balancing each others best and worst to make a family work with the complementary dynamics of a Father's Masculinity and Mother's Femininity, but they also have a deep seated insecurity and desire for female approval that can never be satisfied. It is an all-consuming hunger. It is the masculine expression of the feminine's equivalent "dark triad" traits.

A male raised with the feminine primal desire to consume is quite adept at manipulating females into sexual conquest...but once they decide to engage in a long term relationship, that desire to consume her is no longer just expressed in sexual need, but it extends further into the same needs he was programmed with being raised in a single mother household: expressed female approval. This turns into a needy, supplicating relationship modeled after his own relationship with his single mother. This neediness for emotional approval and validation inevitably leads to contempt and loss of attraction and desire from his long term partner...and at that point, the relationship is inevitably doomed.

Of course....all this is really just my attempt at analyzing the deeper behaviors and thought patterns behind the dysfunctional relationships I've observed from the boys I've known, raised in broken, single mother homes. It could all be explained by an even simpler and less complex dynamic - being imprinted by their Single Mother's behavior and attitudes towards sex and relationships, the only thing he knows is casual promiscuity, using members of the opposite sex for sexual gratification and knowing nothing other than unstable, short term, inter-gender relational dysfunction.

In other words, the psychological effects of boys raised in single mother homes, are boys who think and act without the influence of positive masculinity of an absent Father role model in conjunction with the worst influences of negative femininity. This is the aspect Hymowitz and other So Cons who lament the results of the broken homes fail to grok.

As Bob Wallace has frequently pointed out at his place:

"The word "bastard" means "a fatherless boy" and "a cruel, heartless man."

Where did this Fatherless boy learn how to be cruel and heartless? By imprinting his single mother's worst feminine traits and emotional stability causing an intermittent reward addiction for her approval, combined with his base masculine drive and aggressiveness.

Which is precisely why the lynch pin to destabilizing and destroying a civilization, is to remove the Father from his role at the head of his home.

Consensus Free Climate Science

"Sunspot activity is at its weakest for any solar maximum in a century or more."

That's a verifiable observation, easily fact checked. No computer models, hockey-stick graphs, or signed declarations from UN NGO's and various peer reviewed journals proclaiming consensus from highly credentialed climate scientist are necessary to check for yourself. Even the "pro-Global Warming/Climate Change" websites basically report the facts regarding the lack of sunspots during the present solar maximum.

Amateur solar enthusiasts who look at the sun themselves with solar telescopes, and have access to the historical record of sunspot activity can verify it for themselves.

But what does this really mean?

When the shit hits the fan, it's the end of the world as we know it.

Now, when dealing with Galactic time scales, "imminent" could mean 10, 20, several hundred or even a thousand years from now.

Or it could mean tomorrow.

But one thing is undeniable, and no scientific consensus is required to make the following statement: the history of the Earth's climate is cyclical, characterized by long periods of ice age climate conditions interspersed by short periods of warm weather called interglacials.

At the present, we are undoubtedly in an interglacial. Some would argue we are at the end of the latest interglacial.

Reports on sunspot activity lend some credence to this theory.

Consensus or not, one fact does remain...many of the supporters of human caused climate change have a record of making bold predictions in the past decade that have turned out completely wrong. This DailyMail article highlights one particularly egregious example of a BBC report that claimed the Arctic summers would be "ice-free" by 2013.

Only six years ago, the BBC reported that the Arctic would be ice-free in summer by 2013, citing a scientist in the US who claimed this was a ‘conservative’ forecast. Perhaps it was their confidence that led more than 20 yachts to try to sail the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific this summer. As of last week, all these vessels were stuck in the ice, some at the eastern end of the passage in Prince Regent Inlet, others further west at Cape Bathurst.

Shipping experts said the only way these vessels were likely to be freed was by the icebreakers of the Canadian coastguard. According to the official Canadian government website, the Northwest Passage has remained ice-bound and impassable all summer.

The BBC’s 2007 report quoted scientist Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, who based his views on super-computer models and the fact that ‘we use a high-resolution regional model for the Arctic Ocean and sea ice’.

He was confident his results were ‘much more realistic’ than other projections, which ‘underestimate the amount of heat delivered to the sea ice’. Also quoted was Cambridge University expert

Professor Peter Wadhams. He backed Professor Maslowski, saying his model was ‘more efficient’ than others because it ‘takes account of processes that happen internally in the ice’.

He added: ‘This is not a cycle; not just a fluctuation. In the end, it will all just melt away quite suddenly.’

Sure thing, Professor. Because computer models and fossil fuel! Note that another pro-man made global warming/climate change organization also reports on the current minimal sunspot activity is comparable to the last "mini-ice age" of the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

The combined data indicate that we may soon be headed into what's known as a grand minimum, a period of unusually low solar activity.

The predicted solar "sleep" is being compared to the last grand minimum on record, which occurred between 1645 and 1715.

Known as the Maunder Minimum, the roughly 70-year period coincided with the coldest spell of the Little Ice Age, when European canals regularly froze solid and Alpine glaciers encroached on mountain villages.

Hmmmm....think the Sun's activity may actually have something to do with the current record levels of cold wintry conditions all around the planet these past few months? Even here in Hawaii, with our year round tropical climate, we've had record lows in 2013.

It seems only common sense to conclude that the sun is THE primary driver of climate on Earth. Don't tell that to our (Government funded) experts...

"We have some interesting hints that solar activity is associated with climate, but we don't understand the association," said Dean Pesnell, project scientist for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

Also, even if there is a climate link, Pesnell doesn't think another grand minimum is likely to trigger a cold snap.

"With what's happening in current times—we've added considerable amounts of carbon dioxide and methane and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere," said Pesnell, who wasn't involved in the suite of new sun studies.

"I don't think you'd see the same cooling effects today if the sun went into another Maunder Minimum-type behavior."

Ah, so all these record low temperatures of 2013 are indicative of nothing significant, eh?

So it appears we DO have some sort of a consensus.

During the current phase of the solar cycle, the Sun appears to be entering a phase of minimal sunspot activity compared to the last mini-ice age.

But we still have a large number of scientists who are true believers in the infallibility of computer models predicting man made global warming...and they are all looking at the current solar cycle, and the reports of new record low temperatures all over the planet, and still trying to tell us all that Global Warming from man made causes is still a threat to humanity.

Remember...97% of scientists agree that man made climate change is real!

Where did that 97% number that has been touted over and over again as the holy grail of scientifically proven consensus actually come from anyhow? According to the leading website for "climate-change deniers," it was a dishonest and disingenuous "study" that came up with it. From  The 97% consensus myth – busted by a real survey:

So, the inconvenient truth here is that about half of the world’s largest organization of meteorological and climate professionals don’t think humans are “mostly” the cause of Anthropogenic Global Warming the rest will probably get smeared as “deniers”

 

It would be more accurate to say that 97% of the scientists who receive funding and grants to support the global warming propaganda industry agree.

As for me...I know what I think.

For the Children

"The best thing for a child is for their parents to be happy. That doesn't necessarily mean they should be together."

The preceding quote was taken from a random anonymous commenter from a reddit thread referenced by Rollo in his excellent post Maddonas and Whores. Rollo's analysis and breakdown of competing male and female mating strategies is well done, but I'm taking this one in a much different direction.

This quote "The best thing for a child is for their parents to be happy..." is one of the biggest loads of bullshit ever propagated by our regularly scheduled mass media programming. At it's root, this pervasive meme is based on myopic, narcissistic selfishness, and is steroids for both male and female rationalization hamsters everywhere.

It is one of the most pervasive and destructive memes, and is the single most influential whisper promulgated to effect the widespread destruction of families in order to shape our Brave New World Order's primary cultural paradigm. It is a primary contributor to the manufacturing of a populace weakened, damaged and dysfunctional, making them much easier to manipulate and control. Nothing creates the damaged psyche of easily manipulated and controlled people better than a family broken apart by a bitter, acrimonious divorce while the children involved are at a young age.

The entire rotten, crumbling edifice of what was once a civilized society, can be pinpointed to the promotion of leading people to think that the key to happiness is to focus on satisfying any and all of their selfish desires. In even simpler terms, it is a message influencing people to adopt a mindset focused on taking and receiving, and not giving and sharing. This attitude is especially corrosive in interpersonal relationships, of which marriage used to be one of the closest and strongest bonds ever created between two human beings....but it also applies to friendships and extended familial bonds as well.

This focus on selfishness is the very anti-thesis of true love.

That's because what most people think of as "LOVE" is nothing more than a feeling. Something you "experience." An abstraction. You'll know it when you feel it. And, oh  yeah, without love, you cannot be happy.

This is a corruption of what love really is. Love is not an abstract noun...an ephemeral feeling. An experience like an intoxicating drug that is somehow sold to us as THE key to human beings achieving  perpetual bliss.

Nope.

Love is a verb.

You can only receive true love by doing it yourself to people worthy of it...by loving people who will love you back. It cannot be forced, nor can it be something you do expecting it in return. And it doesn't only apply to marriages or "romantic" relationships. True friendships are founded on the exact same principle.

As the good Captain wrote in Enjoying the Decline:

What makes friends arguably the most important people in your life, is that they don’t have to hang out with you. They choose to hang out with you. Unlike the family you were born into, your friends aren’t “honor-bound” by blood or social mores requiring them to spend time with you. They consciously decide to spend some of their finite, precious time with you. That’s not only a great thing, that’s a very humbling thing. Out of everything in the world those people could be doing, out of everybody in the world they could be hanging out with, for whatever reason they consciously and purposely chose you over all those other things. This is why you should not only be incredibly grateful for your friends, but why they should play a pivotal role in your life. Because without friends, your life is quite hollow, which is all the more reason we need to learn how to appreciate them and incorporate them into our lives.

First, realize how unique and personalized your friends are. While you can’t pick your family, you can pick your friends. This effectively makes them your own “personally built family.” It also makes them the most important thing you’ll ever build.

What is true of friendship, is even more true for marriage. You want to "build" a family? Than you have to learn how to love, and to wisely and shrewdly pick someone to love, who will love you back in the same manner. And when you find that person to love, do they express gratitude? This is why some of the most popular advice for both men and women dating potential spouses are to watch how the other person treats waiting staff and service personnel. Carefully seeing how a person treats those "beneath" them when they are not consciously thinking about it will reveal their level of narcissism and lack of capacity to love another person more than they love themselves.

When Betty Friedan and her ilk spread their incredibly corrosive propaganda that a stay at home mother cooking and cleaning for her husband and her kids was a "slave" in a "comfortable concentration camp," she basically brainwashed generations of women that loving their families was slavery. That the key to "happiness" was to "love yourself first." This damnable lie has led millions of people into true slavery...enslavement to materialistic consumerism. That by "loving yourself" you can "have it all."

 


Want a good example of "true love?" Here it is, found in an old tale, The Gift of the Magi.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it's a tale of a young married couple who are in love but very poor. Both knows what the other really desires - she, a set of ornate, tortoise-shell combs for her long, beautiful hair, and he, a platinum chain fob for his expensive gold watch he had to use an old, worn out leather cord for a fob.

Unbeknown to each other, on the day before Christmas, she cut off her hair and sells it to a wig maker to get the money to buy the chain fob, while he goes and sells his watch to buy her the combs for her long, beautiful hair.

It's a tale of true love...love the VERB. A husband and a wife loving each other.

The best thing for a child -- or children -- is to have a Father and Mother who love each other. If they're fighting incessantly and constantly, and talking about divorce because it would be better for the kids to have two separated, but "happy" parents...chances are one or both of them are unhappy because they are not loving the other, but focused on "loving" themselves.

Remember JFK's most famous quote? "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

JFK was talking about love. Loving your country. It's the exact same thing in a marriage, or a friendship or any other relationship based on mutual love.

Ask not what your family can do for you, ask what you can do for your family.

THAT is the best thing you can do for the children...not getting a divorce and destroying your child's family because you're  unhaaaaaaapppppyy  focused on your own selfishness.

The Teetotaler's Lament

I'm sure the Tipplers of their era were heartbroken...

Of the several pieces I've written previously on the topic of the positive benefits of the consumption of alcohol, I'm actually a bit surprised that no teetotaler advocates have shown up before to register their objections to my assertions. Finally, one showed up.

"If alcohol was invented tomorrow it would , and rightfully so, be illegal." - Jace

To which my initial urge to respond to Jace with a short quip, referencing the picture at the top of this post: "You forget, Jace. We've been there and done that." However, I assume most people that read this blog, are aware of the history of the temperance movement and the results of the Prohibition era in USA Inc.'s history.

And oh...by the way, on this date in 1933, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment that instituted Prohibition. Now this is a date that should be declared a national holiday!

December 5th, 1933 Prohibition was repealed. CHEERS!

After reading Jace's list of pro-teetotaler arguments, I started to respond, but realized a short comment was not enough to respond adequately. And since I just learned that today was the 80th anniversary since prohibition was repealed, I thought this was the perfect topic for today's blog post.

"The myth that went around about a glass of wine being good for you was due to the grapes and not the alcohol itself."

Oh it's no myth, alright. But I recall the whole "anti-oxidants" argument that wine was good for you. That may or may not be true, but the real story here is that the alcohol itself is good for you, and the benefits of moderate consumption apply, regardless of your drink of choice - wine, beer and/or distilled spirits.

Alcohol lowers blood pressure, relieves stress and helps with relaxation. Studies also show it lowers the risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and osteoperosis...amongst other conditions. But don't take my word for it, have a look at this article and extensive footnotes citing research to make the case: Alcohol: Problems and Solutions

• The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has found that the lowest death rate from all causes occurs at the level of one to two drinks each day.¹⁰
• Drinking alcohol in moderation (1-2 drinks per day for women and 2-4 for men) was found to reduce risk of mortality significantly according to meta-analysis of 34 studies of alcohol and total mortality among 1,015,835 men and women around the world.¹¹
• An exhaustive review of all major heart disease studies found that "Alcohol consumption is related to total mortality in a U-shaped manner, where moderate consumers have a reduced total mortality compared with total non-consumers and heavy consumers."¹²
• A Harvard study found the risk of death from all causes to be 21% to 28% lower among men who drank alcohol moderately, compared with abstainers.¹³
• A large-scale study in China found that middle-aged men who drank moderately had a nearly 20% lower overall mortality compared with abstainers.¹⁴
• Harvard's Nurses' Health Study of over 85,000 women found reduced mortality among moderate drinkers.¹⁵
• A British analysis of 12,000 male physicians found that moderate drinkers had the lowest risk of death from all causes during the 13 year study.¹⁶
• A large study of about 88,000 people conducted over a period of ten years found that moderate drinkers were about 27% less likely to die during the period than were either abstainers or heavy drinkers. The superior longevity was largely due to a reduction of such diseases as coronary heart disease, cancer, and respiratory diseases.¹⁷
• A twelve year long prospective study of over 200,000 men found that subjects who had consumed alcohol in moderation were less likely to die during that period than those who abstained from alcohol.¹⁸
• A study of more than 40,000 people by the Cancer Research Center in Honolulu found that "persons with moderate alcohol intake appear to have a significantly lower risk of dying than nondrinkers."¹⁹
• An analysis of the 89,299 men in the Physicians' Health Study over a period of five and one-half years found that those who drink alcohol in moderation tend to live longer than those who either abstain or drink heavily.²⁰
• An Italian study of 1,536 men aged 45-65 found that about two years of life were gained by moderate drinkers (1-4 drinks per day) in comparison with occasional and heavy drinkers.²¹
• A study of 2,487 adults aged 70-79 years, who were followed for an average period of over five and one-half years, found that all-cause mortality was significantly lower in light to moderate drinkers than in abstainers or occasional drinkers (those who drank less than one drink per week).²²
• A large prospective study found that older men consuming up to about three drinks per day and older women consuming over one drink per day had a dramatically lower risk of dying than did non-drinkers.²³
• A large study found that moderate drinkers, even after controlling for or adjusting for numerous factors, maintain their high longevity or life survival advantage over alcohol abstainers.²⁴
• A Danish study of about 12,000 men and women over a period of 20 years found that abstaining from moderate alcohol consumption is a health and longevity risk factor. Choosing not to drink alcohol increases the risk of illness, disease and death.²⁵
• A 14-year study of nearly 3,000 residents of an Australian community found that abstainers were twice as likely to enter a nursing home as people who were moderate drinkers. Drinkers also spent less time in hospitals and were less likely to die during the period of the study.²⁶
• A prospective study of middle-aged Chinese men found that the consumption of two drinks per day was associated with a 19% reduction in mortality risk. This protective effect was not restricted to a specific type of alcoholic drink.²⁷
• Alcohol prevents more deaths than its abuse causes in the United Kingdom, according to research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.²⁸
• Scientists at the University of London concluded that light and moderate drinking saves more lives in England and Wales than are lost through the abuse of alcohol. If everyone abstained from alcohol, death rates would be significantly higher.²⁹
• The Cancer Council of New South Wales concludes that "If the net effect of total alcohol consumption on Australian society is considered, there is a net saving of lives due to the protective effect of low levels of consumption on cardiovascular disease."³⁰

Of course, and it can't be said enough, these benefits are based on moderate consumption, and not binge drinking in excess with the sole purpose of getting trashed. As Jace commented:

"Its bad for mental health and society as a whole. People will over indulge, no matter how many times you say moderation."

I'll quote the following from Alcohol is a medicine, in response:  

"When a chemical, either found in nature or made in a laboratory, has beneficial effects for the human body, but also, potentially damaging or dangerous effects, we call that chemical a “medicine” and entrust its use to licensed medical practitioners with governmental laws overseeing public access."

Here's where I disagree with that. Alcohol is one of the safest medicines there is in terms of self-medication.

Like any medicine, dosage determines  whether it is beneficial or detrimental to the person ingesting it. Take one or two Tylenol because you have aches and pains from a hard days work or a headache and you'll feel better.

Down 14 drinks in a single drinking session, and at worst, you have a hangover the next day.


Take 14 maximum strength OTC acetaminophen pills at one time, and you can literally die of liver failure.

So, while people regularly die from liver failure due to taking too much acetaminophen, your average person today who gets a headache or has muscle soreness thinks nothing of taking a couple of pills. Nor do they think anything bad of anyone else who relies on moderate doses of acetaminophen to deal with the aches and pains of life. (Caveat: many liver failure cases are caused by a combination of taking acetaminophen and drinking alcohol....so obviously, if take Tylenol, don't drink, and if you drink, don't take Tylenol).

Yet, because a minority of people abuse alcohol -- and yes, despite the mass media and Public Service Announcements by the Government constantly highlighting the negative effects of the abuse of alcohol - the public perception seems to ignore the fact that the vast majority of people that do drink alcohol, do so moderately.

There are barely any warnings to the negative effects of alcoholic beverages on the packaging, no caloric or nutritional information.

Despite that, you seem to know all about the negative effects of the abuse (over dosage) of alcoholic beverages, no?

Tell you what though, I'd much rather be more concerned with the effects of drinking 14 drinks in an ill advised night of binge drinking than take 14 maximum strength Tylenol pills over the same time period!

Also, for someone who portrays such an anti-government persona, alcohol companies have huge sway with lobby groups.

Anti-Government persona? Me?

Seriously, I'm glad you brought this up, Jace. I got a lot of thoughts on the topic of the Government and the alcohol industry.

For starters, I lament the continued vertical integration of the alcohol industry on a global scale. Giant multi-national corporations have been buying out many previously successful, micro-brewed beers. Same goes for craft distillers of quality spirits and wineries are all being bought out, or merged into larger corporate entities.

In most cases, the buy out of small, independent brands has not been good for we, the consumers of alcohol with discriminating palates. There are a handful of brands of beer that have been bought out/sold out or sub-contracted out to the giant Brewing corporations like InBev, for which I noticed a distinct change in the taste and quality of the final beverage has changed, and not for the better.

Just like so many other things in our Brave New World Order, the illusion of choice is presented to the average consumer, but the reality is that most brands that USED to be products of smaller, independent brewery's have been bought out by the multinational corporations, and the quality of the beverages are inevitably compromised. Just off the top of my head are the beer brands I used to regularly buy and drink, that are all now owned by InBev - Beck's, St. Pauli Girl, Red Hook, Bass, Lowenbrau, Spaten, Rolling Rock, Stella Artois, Corona, Modelo, Labatt. Before they were all bought out, co-opted and assimilated, all these beers used to be produced by independent companies.

Funny thing is, I stopped buying and drinking most of those brands for a few years now...and it was not really a conscious decision based on my anti-multi-national corporate stance, either. In every one of those cases, I perceived a change in the taste of the beer, and knew something was different, but I couldn't put my finger on what exactly was wrong. I even thought that perhaps my taste buds had changed. Only later when I did some research as to why Red Hook, which used to be one of my favorite micro-brews, did I discover why the taste of Red Hook had degraded so much.

My first clue was walking into the store to buy a 12-pack, and seeing Red Hook packaging had changed.

Here's what the beer looked like when I first discovered it in college, when it quickly became my drink of choice:

Then one day, I went to my local grocery store and went to beer aisle shelf where I had become accustomed to finding my usual, only to see this:

Huh? Ok....must be trying for a new look to create better marketing appeal. But then I noticed that the new bottles didn't taste exactly like I remembered it. It tasted less rich...a bit watery and less flavorful. At first, I thought it was simply my mind playing tricks on me. Perhaps it was just a psychosomatic effect because I preferred the old look of the packaging? But after drinking several six packs over the course of a few months, I couldn't help but realize the taste had indeed been changed. This was not my favorite beer!

So I logged on to teh Interwebz, fired up google and discovered exactly what happened. They got bought out by InBev. That's the first time I ever heard about that multi-national corporation that had been buying up breweries and brands all around the world.

Like almost any other consumable product,  when a small-time, local producer gets bought out by a large, multi-national corporation, the product is invariably changed to meet the goals of corporate conformity: standardization, homogenization, and up-scaling the volume of production at a centralized facility to realize higher profits from economies of sale. I knew I was right that the taste had changed! Red Hook the original Seattle Micro-Brew? Now a sad memory. This mass produced, slickly-packaged and marketed substitute just was not the same!

I haven't bought a Red Hook since. I began to buy and drink other micro-brewed beers instead.

Then one day, another favorite micro-brew of mine came out with brand new packaging - Kona Brew.
The moment I tasted the new-look Kona Fire rock Pale ale, I knew exactly what happened. DAMN YOU InBev!!!! I knew it before I googled it...

This is what the bottling and labels looked like when Kona Brew was still an independent micro-brew, produced, bottled and distributed entirely in the State of Hawaii:

Kona Brew was initially a micro-brew made at the Kona Brew Pub on the Big Island and the Hawaii Kai Brew Pub on O'ahu. And in fact, if you go to either restaurant (I've been to both, multiple times), you can still get the original beers brewed right there on-site. But go to the store and buy a six pack of the exact same brand (yes, even the stores here in Hawaii....imagine that, shipping "Hawaiian Craft Beer" to Hawaii from a West Coast Mainland Brew Facility), and you can taste a huge difference between the mass-produced InBev botled beer made at one of InBev production facilities on the mainland, and the draft micro-brew still being produced in small quantities locally.

Here's the new look:

Now you can find Kona Brew all over the US. That's what getting bought out by a multi-national mega brewer like InBev can do for you when it comes to distribution and marketing. But the quality of the original product just cannot be duplicated by the giant corporate behemoth.

When I looked further into the topic, I discovered something: Hawaii does not have a glass production plant anywhere in the islands. All bottles used in local beverage productions are imported empty on shipping containers. Empty bottles are more fragile than full bottles, so it costs more to ship empty bottles. So that's one reason to shift bottled beer production to the mainland. But throw in the fact that Hawaii has one of the highest excise tax per 93 cents a gallon for packaged beer, and it's no wonder the owners of Kona Brew sold their soul to the corporate devil.

Now, Kona Brew in the bottle is brewed and bottled in Oregon, Washington (the now InBev owned and run Red Hook facility) and New Hampshire for East Coast distribution. Isn't corporate expansion and distribution awesome?!?!? Now you can buy "Hawaiian" micro brewed beer in about 25 States! Except, it's not really made in Hawaii...

Anyhow, all of this is just a really long way around getting to my original point...I believe moderate alcohol consumption is good for you, a medicine. One for which you can abuse, but that doesn't mean the medicine itself is to blame, but the person who is abusing it. Personal responsibility and all that.

And having the government involved in the industry involves all sorts of corruptions in both production and sale of this medicine.

Mass production by global corporations is a fact of life in the 21st century. The only truly meaningful vote we have in our "Democratic" society, is the votes we make with our fiat-dollars.So when I go to the grocery store or liquor store and do my part to participate in the all important exercise in FREEDOM, I cast my vote for the locally owned, independent breweries.

Hawaiian Craft Beer...Actually Made in Hawaii. STAY AWAY, InBev!!

This is Just the Beginning

I told ya'all before.

If you read the Obamacare bill, and you pay close attention, you'll see that the new bill calls for a consolidation of personal information and documentation into a single, accessible record.

Take a look at page 161 of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

The standards and protocols for electronic enrollment in the Federal and State Programs described in sub-section (a) shall allow for the following:


(1) Electronic matching against existing Federal and State data, including vital records, employment history, enrollment systems, tax records and other date determined appropriate by the Secretary to serve as evidence of eligibility and in lieu of paper-based documentation.

Once you enroll, they will crosscheck your enrollment info with all other info the Government has on you in various computer systems.

(2) Simplification and submission of electronic documentation, digitization of documents, and systems verification of elegibility.

Once they cross check all of your enrollment info with all they data they can find in State and Federal computer systems, they'll compile it all - including digitizing documents that only exist in hard copy - and compile it all into a single record...all under the guise of "assessing eligibility."

(3) Reuse of stored eligibility information (including documentation) to assist with retention of eligible individuals.

See, that documentation - all of it that they used to cross check your enrollment info - will be available for "reuse."

(4) Capability of individuals to apply, recertify and manage their eligibility information online, including at home, at points of service, and other community based locations.

So if a person is able to access this compiled information from the internet...what do you think this will do in terms of identity theft? Or do you really TRUST the government will be able to securely keep all this compiled info private and secure?

Ah, but here's the real kicker:

(5) Ability to expand the enrollment system to integrate new programs, rule, and functionalities, to operate at increased volume, and to apply streamlined verification and eligibility processes to other Federal and State programs as appropriate.

Essentially other Federal and State programs will than be allowed to use all of that compiled private info as they "deem appropriate."

Do you think this is appropriate?  

That was 3 years ago. Now, the American Surveillance Death Star is undoubtedly complete, fully operational, and ready to process, collate and store compiled records of all the citizenry for near-instantaneous retrieval by any Government lackey and stooge with access to the network.

Orwell's total information awareness dystopia depicted in 1984 is already here.

Ellen Richardson was prevented from going on a March of Dimes organized cruise because the U.S. border agent said she was hospitalized for mental health issues in 2012 and she needed special clearance. Richardson was treated for clinical depression but she wonders how he accessed her medical records. 

This will be the first story in what will soon become the new normal for everyone living, working, vacationing and those who wish to enter, and eventually those who try to leave the good ole USA Inc.

Just what are the sheeple really signing up for over at healthcare.gov? Much has been made of how this website "doesn't work."

Don't be so sure it's "not working."

It may be doing precisely what it was designed to do. Get millions of Americans to log on from their personal computers and smartphones and create accounts. Check this out:

Mike Adams at Natural News.com posits a theory:

It is actually a government-run Trojan Horse that suckers people into creating accounts where they hand over:

• Name and address
• Email address and password
• Social security number
• Private bank account details
• Employer details and other information

During the enrollment process, your computer also hands over your IP address which is then tied to your social security number.

This IP address is then handed over to the NSA thanks to its new mega-black-hole data center in Utah, where your IP is cross-referenced with all website visits, including:

• "Anti-government" websites
• Porn sites
• Gambling sites
• File sharing sites
• "Terrorism" support sites
• Encryption service sites like Hushmail
• Chat rooms, message boards and more

Armed with this information, the NSA can then link your seemingly-anonymous online chats, comments and posts with your social security number.

Whether Adams is correct about the intentions or motivations of the Government declaring the website was ready for sign ups on October 1st despite not being "ready to handle the load," was to deliberately gather citizen data or not is debatable.

But the facts remain - when you fill out the account info on the site, unless you're using a proxy server or some other means of masking your IP address, you are giving the Government your social security number and the IP address (or even GPS coordinates if you have any GPS apps running on your device) directly linked with all the other private info you submit with your application, that they can then use to cross reference all other internet activities connected to that same IP address.

Speaking of which...

I saw very similar sign strung up on the wall of a fast food restaurant in a neighboring town the other day, here in Hawaii:

Now why would our government want to give "free" cell phones and "free" cell phone minutes to citizens who are on ANY FORM OF GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE?

Prior to seeing this PSA in real life, I had always thought the entire "Obama phone" story was just a FOXNews - right-wing-kool-aid exaggeration.

I should have known better.

With sign up for the healthcare exchange website "debacle" and "free" cell phones for welfare recipients, two goals of the omniscient and omnipresent surveillance State are accomplished.

Now the Sheeple's IP addresses on their home and work PC's can now be linked to their SSN's and all the other info they voluntarily submit when they sign up for their "affordable" health care...and they can also now sigh up for the free phone so that the physical location and recorded history of movement anywhere and everywhere they carry their Obama phones.

In 1948, this kind of scenario was considered science fiction:

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”

My fellow Americans...sign up for your affordable healthcare and free cell phones, and you can rest easy knowing the Government will be watching out for you.

Here's to Thanksdrinking

 

For people concerned with the impact on health our annual, national celebration of partially hydrogenated gluttony, I bring holiday tidings of joy!

Now these joyous tidings are essentially a rerun of a topic I've covered before....namely the idea that not only is drinking alcohol NOT bad for you (the caveat of moderation certainly applies), it is actually good for you.

Well, this post is not entirely a re-run, as I came across two different articles that corroborate the somewhat controversial ideas I've previously covered.

First up, a report in the UK paper, the dailymail: Drinking Doesn't Make You Fat

Anyone who’s ever gone on a diet is told to lay off the booze because it’s high in calories.
And that, of course, must make it very fattening indeed. Go onto the NHS Direct website, and you’ll be told a glass of wine contains as many calories as a slice of cake. Or if you prefer beer, the British Nutrition Foundation reminds you two pints are roughly the equivalent in calories to a full glass of single cream. So you may be surprised to learn that there’s no scientific evidence whatsoever to support the idea that alcohol makes you put on weight.

Does that notion surprise me? Not at all. That article is rather long (read the whole thing!), but it covers several different ideas I've written about before as well...namely that the reason why so many folks consider alcohol fattening is due to it's supposed high calorie content. Problem is, not all calories are equal. And alcohol appears to be one of those substances for which the human body does not metabolize/assimilate the calories in alcohol.

But of course, as I've pointed out many times before, weight gain and weight loss are not the be all, end all of health. Fat or skinny, most people can still gain the longevity benefits of moderate alcohol consumption. Here's the case for it made in another Dailymail article, Alcohol is good for your health:

A businessman goes to his GP. ‘My hands hurt, I get a bit of a pain in my chest sometimes, and I’m beginning to forget things,’ he complains.

The doctor examines him and says: ‘You’ve got a touch of arthritis, possibly mild heart disease, and you may be in the first stages of dementia. How much are you drinking?’

‘Never touch a drop, doctor,’ says the patient proudly.

‘Ah, that explains it,’ says the GP, wagging an admonishing finger. ‘Here’s a prescription for red wine — a quarter of a litre a day.’

Ridiculous? Absurd? A story from the Bumper Book of Jokes for Alcoholics? Absolutely not.

Let me tell you this: if GPs fail to recommend alcohol to at least some of their patients, they should be had up for medical negligence.

That, at least, is the logical conclusion I’ve drawn from an in-depth study of around half-a-million scientific papers about alcohol.

To my surprise, they contained findings that would make any pharmaceutical company uncork the champagne. Except they never will, of course, because alcohol can’t be patented as a drug.

Aaah. Therein lies the rub. Remember, moderate, daily consumption of alcohol is a known factor in increased longevity.

So, in the spirit of this holiday season, I raise my glass and make a toast to you, the readers of this blog and all the other participants out here in these fringes of the anti-establishment arena on teh Interwebz!

On our traditional day of giving thanks for all that is good in our lives, let us also give thanks for our daily dose of the world's best medicine!

It's Just Good Business

So, remember the third, terrible Pirates of the Caribbean movie? The big villain is Lord Cutler Beckett, a bigwig at the fictional East India Trading Company (any similarity to the East India Company purely coincidental).

His catch phrase, which he says whenever he is screwing someone over or doing something unethical, is "It's just good business." - J. Wilkins

I finally got around to reading a book I've always intended to for years,  The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. What I find most interesting was reading his critiques of the British Empire's Mercantilist system and extrapolating it to our current global economic paradigm.

Let's entitle this exercise in abstraction:

 The Wealth of Corporations at the Expense of the Health of Nations: A Treatise on the Extrapolation of 16th century Mercantilism to 21st century Globalization.

Of course, with the current state of Idiocracy amongst the general populace in today's Brave New World Order, that title may be a bit too comprehensively challenging to the average bleating sheeple, so we can just simplify the concept here: The More Things Change, The More They Stay They Same

Consider Smith's conclusions regarding the Mercantilist system:

Though the encouragement of exportation and the discouragement of importation are the two great engines by which the mercantile system proposes to enrich every country, yet with regard to some particular commodities it seems to follow an opposite plan: to discourage exportation and to encourage importation. Its ultimate object, however, it pretends, is always the same, to enrich the country by an advantageous balance of trade.

There currently exists only one real advantageous balance of trade in the 21st century, and it serves to enrich the international Banking establishment. This is done with the collusion of multi-national corporate cartels to provide goods and services procured from the corporation's sweat shops production facilities and natural resource mining operations in third world nations, and then sold to various first world nation-states.

In nearly all cases, these purchases are made on a macro level through debt-financing of the Government spending by the globalized central banking system. On the micro level, the same is accomplished via credit cards, signature and equity loans and other means of debt financing available to the individual consumer at the company store.

In both the macro and micro perspectives, the same end goals are achieved: enslavement of the global populace via the tyranny of usury.


The following indictment by Smith of Mercantilism also applies to our current paradigm of corporate collusion to benefit the cartel's profit margins at the expense of consumer health and well being:

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. But in the mercantile system the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all industry and commerce.

In the 21st century version of Mercantilism - Globalized Corporate Collusion -  this particular facet of Mercantilism has been taken to a whole new level. Big Government, Big Science, and Big Media promulgate lies and propaganda to brainwash the masses to the effect of making the average person believe that up is down, right is left, evil is good and good is evil. 

The mis-informed and dis-informed consumers then engages in commerce (People spending money they don't have on things they don't need, ) that essentially is harmful to their own health and well being, while the producers -- our multi-national corporate overlords and the financing Banksters 2Big2Fail -- continue to rake in the profits.

Another interesting aspect of Smith's critique of Mercantilism has been inverted to benefit the now Globally-based "producers."

In the restraints upon the importation of all foreign commodities which can come into competition with those of our own growth or manufacture, the interest of the home-consumer is evidently sacrificed to that of the producer. It is altogether for the benefit of the latter that the former is obliged to pay that enhancement of price which this monopoly almost always occasions.

Protectionism for home-grown products and services was the antiquated practice tied to patriotic notions of loyalty to your nation-state. But the multi-national corporations have no loyalty to any nation-state, only the state of their bottom line; their stock valuations and profit margins.

Now most everything consumers buy is foreign produced and the consumers of the first world nations pay a different price that is not measured in mere currency valuation....instead, the price we now pay is one of dependency and loss of self-sufficiency.

People used to know how to produce and manufacture a wide variety of goods, as well as repair and extend the useful life of various products. It was more economical to do so. People used to be able to sew, mend, and repair clothing and other textile products. Now, it's simply much easier and more economical to throw it away and go buy a new product manufactured cheaply in China or Mexico, available at your nearest Big Box Corporate Retailer.

Same goes for big ticket items like appliances and modern automotive vehicles. In many cases, parts break, and the replacement part and labor service fees may cost half or more of the price of a new product.

And even if you can't afford to just buy a new item to replace your old, broken and/or worn out product, why you can just go and get a loan from your local branch of the Usury Cartel and "buy" a new one.

As time progresses, knowledge to manufacture, maintain, repair and reuse many items of commerce becomes lost amongst the masses, increasing dependency on the Global Corporate Cartels and antiquating any formerly held notions of self-sufficiency and thrift. This is the very essence of our waste-driven, consumerist culture of materialistic consumption.

And that's exactly how our Corporate Overlords want it. In pursuit of improving their bottom line and overarching goals of global economic and political domination, it's just good business.