2046

A perfect example of reversing cause and effect: Europe's New Debt Solution: Create Their Own Ratings Agency That Only Gives Friendly Ratings http://www.businessinsider.com/europe-dose...heir-own-2010-3 Look at the mystic mentality of this Der Spiegel propaganda piece, thinking that a credit rating has the voodoo power to make companies go broke or prosper, so clearly the government must nationalize them or create their own ratings company to harness this power and protect the public: Euro-Zone Covernments Want to Curb Power of Ratings Agencies http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe...,681486,00.html

The problem is his belief in God. There's no way to convince someone that rejects reason as the only means to knowledge of anything he doesn't feel like believing, much less to provide him with a reason to stop rejecting reason, or a fact you can point to to make him start accepting facts. He has to accept reality and reason as a precondition of being able to discuss anything, otherwise it's a mistake to debate anything with these people and you can't win. God exists and if I don't serve him I will go to Hell. What possible "Facts" about "athiest utility" could I possibly give a damn about?

AS has a sizeable amount of text devoted to proving exactly that there is no self-esteem to be derived from religion, certainly not the religion of Original Sin. Wow, your debate opponent knows that you need empirical evidence to say things? He demands a serious study of "the Facts" to justify nonbelief in non-Facts? Waste of time imo.

I don't know how believing that you are born inherently evil and being commanded to beg forgiveness to an all powerful cosmic dictator for the guilt of your existence lest you be thrown into fire and tortue "for all eternity" and practice a morality that teaches you self-sacrifice can by any stretch of the imagination impart a shred of self-esteem to you. Tell them to read Atlas Shrugged, if they don't understand the case for self-esteem as a rational value then there's no amount of studies or statistics that are going to convince them.

What about the old "but government provides you with an attorney if you can't afford one, so why shouldn't government provide you with XYZ if you can't afford that also" mantra?

Yep. Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. The overal attitude does seem to be used car salesman style of "propaganda for dummies." The other videos on their YT page are pretty horrendous too. Lol @ all the comments.

PS. Without us, bad things would happen, so don't audit us or even think about abolishing us. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=aZjQKyLci1AM Fed Intends to Hire Lobbyist in Campaign to Buttress Its Image June 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve intends to hire a veteran lobbyist as it seeks to counter skepticism in Congress about the central bank’s growing power over the U.S. financial system, people familiar with the matter said. Linda Robertson currently handles government, community and public affairs at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and headed the Washington lobbying office of Enron Corp., the energy trading company that collapsed in 2002 after an accounting scandal. She was also an adviser to all three of the Clinton administration’s Treasury secretaries. Robertson would help the Fed manage relations with lawmakers seeking greater oversight of a central bank that has used emergency powers to prevent Wall Street’s demise. While she wasn’t tied to Enron’s fraud, her association with the firm may raise questions, analysts said. “Some members of Congress think there are votes in attacking the Fed” after it “unnecessarily and unwisely entangled monetary policy with fiscal policy,” said former St. Louis Fed President William Poole. “The Fed is going to have a tricky time of unwinding what has been done” and will need to “keep in touch with members of Congress more thoroughly,” said Poole, now senior fellow with the Cato Institute in Washington.

May be, but not necessarily. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity

Why would it be a violation of an axiom? A man who feels like a woman is a man who feels like a woman, not a man and non-man at the same time. His feelings are real, his body is real. There are no contradictions.

Part 3 Part 4 part 5

I don't know if it helps, but there's that line from AS: If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something. If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness.

Oh well, it's gone now. It's better that he has a Youtube version, I just didn't think anyone would bother dealing with that shitty Fox/Courant/Whatever-it-was site's video player.

Nevermind, you beat me to it, Lol.

That's a good question and I don't think so, but I did find a story about a tax informant who, after ratting out his employer, the IRS turned around and sent him to jail for tax evasion too. Lol! http://whistleblower.org/press/gap-in-the-news/2009/338 UBS informant files complaint against prosecutors MIAMI (AP) - The key whistleblower in the tax evasion case against Swiss bank UBS AG claims prosecutors made false statements to a judge who sentenced him to prison. Attorneys for informant Bradley Birkenfeld filed a complaint Tuesday with the Justice Department. The complaint seeks an investigation and that the record be corrected. Prosecutors say Birkenfeld didn't disclose his own illegal conduct when he first revealed UBS tax evasion details. Birkenfeld insists that is not true. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Birkenfeld on Friday begins serving more than three years in prison. Based on his disclosures, UBS will turn over names of thousands of suspected American tax cheaters.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/02/pf/taxes/rat_out_tax_cheat/ NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- If you knew coworkers, former bosses or exes who cheated on their taxes, would you turn them in? The Internal Revenue Service can make it worth your while. As tax season nears, we all want to get as much money back from the IRS as possible. And while taking advantage of this year's new tax breaks will put some extra money in your pocket, snitching on a tax cheat could make you rich. In a recent poll from the IRS Oversight Board, 13% of those surveyed think cheating is acceptable, up from 9% in 2008. As the recession puts the squeeze on household finances, the lure of fudging on a tax return is even greater. "In a down economy, the temptation to cheat on taxes is much stronger because people are in more desperate situations more often," said Bill Raabe, a tax expert at Ohio State University's business school. More people may be just as desperate to turn in a business, rat out an ex-spouse or report a colleague to collect a reward. Small-time crooks: The IRS's informant program has been around for more than 140 years. If you suspect a person is committing tax fraud and report it, you could receive up to 15% of the amount that has been underpaid, with a maximum award of $10 million. Informants are required to complete a claim, which is available on the IRS Web site, and mail it to the agency or call the IRS tip line at 1-800-829-0433. While you must reveal your identity to the IRS, your name will not be made public. Because there is no minimum requirement for the amount in question, anyone can file a report in hopes of making an extra buck off of a cheating boyfriend or obnoxious neighbor. "You probably get a mix of people with the informant program. You'll have spouses -- or ex-spouses probably -- as well as ex-employees turning in their employers," said Raabe. "But you really have to think, 'is it worth my time to report that guy?'" To weed out the bogus reports from bitter ex-husbands and disgruntled employees, the IRS requires informants to fill out a detailed form and provide intimate information about the tax evader, including the person's social security number, address and date of birth. "That's a lot of information that I'm not sure the average person has available," said Gagnon. "They're kind of asking the person to be a detective or work for them and go hunt all this information down, and I don't know how comfortable people would feel trying to do that." Big cheaters: In 2006, the IRS really started cracking down on big time cheaters and introduced a new whistle-blower program, in which informants are paid a minimum of 15% and a maximum of 30% of the amount owed. But there's a catch: In order to collect a reward, the taxes, penalties and interest in dispute must add up to at least $2 million. And if the suspected tax evader is an individual, his or her annual gross income must exceed $200,000. So far, the new incentives have been effective. The IRS has received tips from about 476 informants identifying 1,246 taxpayers in fiscal year 2008, the first full year the program was implemented. "The program is already attracting an enormous number of quality tips," said Paul Scott, a former Department of Justice trial attorney and current owner of law firm Paul D. Scott, where he represents whistle-blowers. "The volume of claims and/or tips they have been receiving with really substantial documentation or support has increased dramatically since the inception of this program." Scott said that since the new program began, his firm has received claims from whistle-blowers involving billions of dollars in taxes, penalties and interest. Who snitches?: In this program, the most common informants tend to be dissatisfied middle-ranking employees in big companies, said Tim Gagnon, an academic specialist of accounting at Northeastern University. "I think it happens more in middle management than upper management," he said. "They're workers in the middle ranks who feel frustrated about what's going on and are not advancing or don't think they have a shot of moving up, because otherwise, it's hard to break loyalty." Stephen Whitlock, director of the IRS Whistleblower Office, said that informants have had some connection to the taxpayer but they are not always close acquaintances. They have typically been employees, investors or business associates. He also said many claims are for substantially more than the $2 million threshold and involve businesses or very wealthy individuals. While the names of informants aren't made public, Gagnon said that a person's identity often becomes obvious based on the proof provided. "Certain records show up and they can figure out where they're coming from," he said. "It's gotten a lot more anonymous and there's a lot more hiding in the shadows, but can you really stay in the shadows when you come forward to claim your rewards?" Despite the program's success and generous rewards, the exhaustive information required and fear of retaliation are still huge deterrents in recruiting IRS informants. "Once you blow the whistle on your employer, yeah, they can't fire you for retaliation, but I'm not sure how many people are going to hire you after that," said Gagnon. But it's not always just a hefty reward that motivates people, said Scott of his whistle-blowing clients, and not all of them are jilted employees. Some feel angry about other people being above the law and getting away with it. "They want to stop the fat cats from getting rich at the taxpayer's expense," he said. Others simply feel morally obligated to let someone know what's going on, said Scott. "They really feel like they're doing the right thing," he said. "When they look back on their lives, they will know they made the right move."

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/greenslade.htm Title 13, United States Code 221 still states that the maximum fine is $100. This section of the code is still on the books. However, Title 18 U.S.C. Section 3571 and Section 3559 states that the fine for anyone over 18 years old who refuses or willfully neglects to complete the questionnaire or answer questions posed by census takers from a fine of not more than $100 to not more than $5,000. But, Section 3571 states that The $5,000.00 fine referenced in section 3571 is a post conviction fine that only applies to an individual who has been charged and convicted of a criminal infraction as defined in section 3559. Unless an individual has been charged and convicted of some criminal offense connected to the Census and the crime is classified as an infraction, this $5,000.00 fine does not apply.

According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, an Argentine couple shot both of their kids and killed themselves because of their terror of global warming: Baby Survives 3 Days in Argentina with Bullet Wound in Chest http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=...ategoryId=14093 BUENOS AIRES – A 7-month-old baby survived alone for three days with a bullet wound in its chest beside the bodies of its parents and brother, who died in an apparent suicide pact brought on by the couple’s terror of global warming, the Argentine press said Saturday. The incident, reported by the daily Clarin, occurred in a modest dwelling in the city of Goya in the northeastern province of Corrientes, where Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 22, lived with their two small children. According to sources cited by the Buenos Aires morning paper, the couple’s neighbors smelled a strong odor coming from the Lotero’s house on Thursday. Police entered the home and found a Dantesque scene: the lifeless bodies of the couple, each shot in the chest, and their 2-year-old son, who had been shot in the back. In another room, police found a 7-month-old baby still alive but covered in blood from a bullet wound in the chest. It was taken to hospital immediately and its condition is improving hourly, according to doctors’ reports. The cops found a letter on the table alluding to the couple’s worry about global warming and their anger at the government’s lack of interest in the matter.

During a Q and A session, some college libertarian gets Moore to admit we do not have capitalism and the problem is acutally corporatism, but he doesn't want to "get hung up on the labels," so just don't think and accept communism. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwQ41Yo60og

I know most of you have lives and don't bother with this kind of nonsense generally, but for the last half hour at least CNN has been running a program called "We Were Warned: Cyber Shockwave," in which they run a simulated cyber attack from some unknown enemy against the United States. http://www.newsonnews.net/cnn/1968-nationa...ely-on-cnn.html I can't believe some of the stuff I'm hearing from this panel. Thus far they have discussed mobilizing the national guard in American cities, imposing martial law, nationalizing the energy industry, nationalizing the telecommunications industry, seizing control of the internet, imposing rationing, and suspending the constitution. They constantly ask the person playing the role of Attorney General whether or not they have authority to do any of this, she says no not really, then they all agree that they can't afford to "second guess," waste time, or worry about the statues, we can't argue about things like legal authority, we're in a state of panic, we just have to act! "Better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission!" Then CNN chimes in and basically says 'see! look how unprepared we are! we need to pass laws, legislation is needed right now, we need to give the government power in case of an emergency! Aren't you glad we're doing this?' They literally said "we need to scare the public. That's a good thing. When the public is scared, there's a demand for government to serve them." Then Chertoff says 'we're just going to send guys to the private sector and tell them to do whatever we say, or else.' Then CNN chimes in and says 'oh we're not for a dictatorship, this is a partnership between public and private! This is a team! We wouldn't dream of dictatorship! This is a crisis! We just want to restore normalcy.' I can almost hear Dr. Floyd Ferris go, "We are for free enterprise!" Chertoff literally says 'we have to get the public to buy into it! We have to remind the public that it's an emergency and convince them to trust us, so we can act on both statutory and non-statutory grounds. Just like Lincoln. Which means we have to tell Congress to grow up and just do whatever we need to do without them.' Yes just say the magic word "Lincoln" and every bit of tyranny and oppression is justified. “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and peace, and it covers with its shield of protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of men that any of its great provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of Government” (Chief Justice Salmon P Chase, majority decision in Ex parte Mulligan, 1866.) Anyone else seeing this?

Yeah I know, it just seemed like he had an egaliarian streak, he mentioned anarchism, and the comment at the end was kind of vague and open to interpretation, but I guess there wasn't anything explicitly promoting statism now that I've re-read it. I just don't get why the logical conclusion is to try to kill your family and commit mass murder on a bunch of strangers. Of course all the comments on the news sites are loving this "anti-tax = terrorism" and anyone who opposes the regime is now officially "on the side" of the pilot. ————————————- “This is a right-wing domestic terror act. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY – THIS SHOULD CONCERN YOU!” ————————————- “Looks like one of the Teabaggers woke up on the wrong side of the bed. LOL. You nuts better not start doing this regularly.” ————————————- “Not a single one of you is concerned that one of your own just committed an act of domestic terror. You are already attacking the messenger and they have not even brought the message in yet.” ————————————- “YOU need to take an ounce of responsibility. All you repubbers are complaining about Bush but still putting all the blame for Bush’s errors on Obama or “The Government”. This plane guy decided to attack the Government. Pilot-guy sounds like a thousand posts I have read on thee boards.” ————————————- “His “manifesto” is rank and file conservative/tea party/ repub rhetoric. I’ve read the same thing on these since before Obama was inaugurated. That dude would fit right in here, and maybe he did.” ————————————- “These “anti-government” right wing hate machines really need to realize that violence will be done by their followers. People like Beck think about ratings, but when you tell enough people that the “government is out to get them” , sooner or later some of these people will decide to strike first. We will see more domestic terrorism. People like the posters here need to accept responsibility to police themselves. You preach hate and destroying your enemies “foreign or domestic” and people will start blowing up innocent people because of the message you preach. YOU did this, and I;ve no doubt more blood will be spilled because of you. Right wingers have a terrible (actually worse the dems) record of fiscal responsibility, small government, and unobtrusive gov: yet you are yelling that America is being attacked by democrats in this area. STOP IT! ————————————- There is no point in “dialogue” with you right wingers, you guys are the taliban of america.” “Accept responsibility. One of YOU committed a domestic terror act. You should be thinking about that rather than insulting democrats as usual.” “Another terrorist attack by the GOP/FOXZI/Aryan Nation, and there Teabagger storm troopers.”

I'm not getting that, it seemed semi-pro-communist to me, but maybe I am misunderstanding what he meant by that.

I don't mean to change the subject, but since someone has asked the question, Ralph Raico, an Austrian economist who was a friend of Ayn Rand's (and recently defended her on the Mises website) wrote an article about Hiroshima and Nagasaki in which he claimed that the bombings were unecessary and made Truman a war criminal. Is there any Objectivists which are interested in critiquing it? http://www.lewrockwell.com/raico/raico22.html

Interesting article from Time's Online regarding US-China relations. Didn't feel like making a new thread for it, so I'll just post it here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle7017951.ece China’s hawks demand cold war on the US MORE than half of Chinese people questioned in a poll believe China and America are heading for a new “cold war”. The finding came after battles over Taiwan, Tibet, trade, climate change, internet freedom and human rights which have poisoned relations in the three months since President Barack Obama made a fruitless visit to Beijing. According to diplomatic sources, a rancorous postmortem examination is under way inside the US government, led by officials who think the president was badly advised and was made to appear weak. In China’s eyes, the American response — which includes a pledge by Obama to get tougher on trade — is a reaction against its rising power. Now almost 55% of those questioned for Global Times, a state-run newspaper, agree that “a cold war will break out between the US and China”. An independent survey of Chinese-language media for The Sunday Times has found army and navy officers predicting a military showdown and political leaders calling for China to sell more arms to America’s foes. The trigger for their fury was Obama’s decision to sell $6.4 billion (£4 billion) worth of weapons to Taiwan, the thriving democratic island that has ruled itself since 1949. “We should retaliate with an eye for an eye and sell arms to Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela,” declared Liu Menxiong, a member of the Chinese people’s political consultative conference. He added: “We have nothing to be afraid of. The North Koreans have stood up to America and has anything happened to them? No. Iran stands up to America and does disaster befall it? No.” Officially, China has reacted by threatening sanctions against American companies selling arms to Taiwan and cancelling military visits. But Chinese analysts think the leadership, riding a wave of patriotism as the year of the tiger dawns, may go further. “This time China must punish the US,” said Major-General Yang Yi, a naval officer. “We must make them hurt.” A major-general in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Luo Yuan, told a television audience that more missiles would be deployed against Taiwan. And a PLA strategist, Colonel Meng Xianging, said China would “qualitatively upgrade” its military over the next 10 years to force a showdown “when we’re strong enough for a hand-to-hand fight with the US”. Chinese indignation was compounded when the White House said Obama would meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, in the next few weeks. “When someone spits on you, you have to get back,” said Huang Xiangyang, a commentator in the China Daily newspaper, usually seen as a showcase for moderate opinion. An internal publication at the elite Qinghua University last week predicted the strains would get worse because “core interests” were at risk. It said battles over exports, technology transfer, copyright piracy and the value of China’s currency, the yuan, would be fierce. As a crescendo of strident nationalistic rhetoric swirls through the Chinese media and blogosphere, American officials seem baffled by what has gone wrong and how fast it has happened. During Obama’s visit, the US ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, claimed relations were “really at an all-time high in terms of the bilateral atmosphere ... a cruising altitude that is higher than any other time in recent memory”, according to an official transcript. The ambassador must have been the only person at his embassy to think so, said a diplomat close to the talks. “The truth was that the atmosphere was cold and intransigent when the president went to Beijing yet his China team went on pretending that everything was fine,” the diplomat said. In reality, Chinese officials argued over every item of protocol, rigged a town hall meeting with a pre-selected audience, censored the only interview Obama gave to a Chinese newspaper and forbade the Americans to use their own helicopters to fly him to the Great Wall. President Hu Jintao refused to give an inch on Obama’s plea to raise the value of the Chinese currency, while his vague promises of co-operation on climate change led the Americans to blunder into a fiasco at the Copenhagen summit three weeks later. Diplomats say they have been told that there was “frigid” personal chemistry between Obama and the Chinese president, with none of the superficial friendship struck up by previous leaders of the two nations. Yet after their meeting Obama’s China adviser, Jeff Bader, said: “It’s been highly successful in setting out and accomplishing the objectives we set ourselves.” Then came Copenhagen, where Obama virtually had to force his way with his bodyguards into a conference room where the urbane Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, was trying to strike a deal behind his back. The Americans were also livid at what they saw as deliberate Chinese attempts to humiliate the president by sending lower-level officials to deal with him. “They thought Obama was weak and they were testing him,” said a European diplomat based in China. In Beijing, some diplomats even claim to detect a condescending attitude towards Obama, noting that Yang Jiechi, the foreign minister, prides himself on knowing the Bush dynasty and others among America’s traditional white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant elite. But there are a few voices urging caution on Chinese public opinion. “China will look unreal if it behaves aggressively and competes for global leadership,” wrote Wang Yusheng, a retired diplomat, in the China Daily. He warned that China was not as rich or as powerful as America or Japan and therefore such a move could be “hazardous”. It is not clear whether anyone in Beijing is listening.

I agree that that would be absurd, but as a recovering anarchocapitalist, I can say that isn't necessarily the case for anarchy. In Jarret B. Wollstein's "Society Without Coercion," which is better than those articles previously posted imo, the argument isn't necessarily that there should be no law, no state functions, or justice, but most anarchocapitalists of the Rothbardian tradition agree that objective law is necessary for a moral society: There is simply no obligation on the part of the individual to obey laws simply because the laws exist. If the individual's rights are violated by laws, he is morally justified in regarding the unjust laws as a criminal invasion of his privacy and in retaliating accordingly. There is, however, one type of law which is morally binding on all men — objective law. An objective law is one which is based on the objective facts of reality and on principles derived from those facts. In general, objective social laws are those which prohibit the initiation of force and protect the rights of men. Laws against theft, rape, embezzlement, arson, larceny, assault, fraud, and murder are examples of objective social laws. The issue they have is that that as long as objective laws are being enforced, the state has no moral right to prevent market-based competition for the enforement of those objective laws, thus ceasing to become a state: In short, the state has no moral right to prevent competitive agencies of retaliatory force from existing. In a free society, men are at liberty to form those agencies of retaliatory force which they wish to form in order to protect their rights. The form, number, and relationship between such agencies in any given geographical area can be variable. There may be one or many such agencies in any given area, and they may be functionally distinct or operationally integrated. What their form and number will be is for the free market to decide, which means it is for the voluntary judgment of each individual who participates in the market to decide. If the state intervenes, if it tells men that they cannot form such agencies under penalty of fine, imprisonment, or death, then the state is violating the rights of men to associate freely, and has in fact assumed the status of a coercive monopoly. In a truly free society there would then be nothing to prevent the formation of competing agencies of retaliatory force, nor would there be anything to fear from them so long as they operated on the basis of objective law. http://mises.org/daily/4078 While I don't necessarily disagree that people in a given geographical area can decide to use a different police agency to enforce objective laws, I don't think the desired result is anarchism in the subjectivist sense, rather just a form of confederation or secession, as long as force is not initiated against the original government.

Oh but you see, that is exactly the point here. If there is no "true" communism in reality then it is actually a waste of time to pretend as if the pointless ramblings you made regarding Venezuela or Soviet Russia or Cuba being non-communist and tantamount to capitalist dictatorships or any of the sentences you've been constructing in this thread is anything but senseless fantasizing about the irrational. Socialism is based on a systematic rejection of reality, so it is rather pointless to postulate and make projections about the nature of "true communism" versus those false Bolsheviks who weren't "democratic" enough for you to allow them to be called communists. If words have to stand for things in reality, then those states are communist states operating as they were according to Marxist-Leninist-Maoist doctrines and those property-rights hating "libertarian socialists" and their apologists who don't like that should be ostracized as irrationalists making senseless schemes about how best to go about the "proper" way to enslave men and you can commit to stop ejaculating about anarcho-communism in every thread that someone makes references to various the various Marxist/Maoist dictatorships and socialist juntas around the world. Anyone who calls for socialism, the prohibition of private property, and prohibition of private ownership in the means of production is a communist and any system based on socialism, communism, or "anarchism" or anything involving the abolition of private property positively requires totalitarian dictatorship. (In fact, the self-proclaimed libertarian socialists of 1930's Spain instituted the death penalty for anyone attempting to use money. But of course we will be told that isn't real, true, proper communism, that's just the capitalist bourgeois exploitation machine at work.)