I'm going to add that pose to my pre-karate stretching routine. :cool:

Yes, there is a small percentage of the population that prays on young children. We live in a country of 310 Million people, what do you expect? The ones we hear about tend to be Catholic priests and schoolteachers. Perhaps 2-5 times a year we hear about an abducted child or college student that is later found dead after being sexually assaulted. Rape is rape. Murder is murder. "Statutory" rape is often not rape (forced). It's obscene when someone that violated another and released them gets more time than the person that took their life. The legal system is BROKEN!!!

Every 2-3 years we hear about the feds rounding up some pedo ring and bringing in 40-100 ppl worldwide (world population is around ~7 Billion...) I'm personally under the impression that there is a ton of "teen porn" (what did you think was going to happen when you gave your 12yo a smart phone w/ a camera...) and very little of the under-tween stuff. Sure, incest is probably more common than generally known. I've never found good numbers, but keep in mind that we are talking about "our culture". WTF is that??? We are a melting pot! In parts of Africa, our version of "the birds and the bees" chat, has a hands on "lab" component. For our US law abiding Muslim immigrants, their traditions of arraigned marriages to girls in the 9-16yo range must make the honeymoon a total bummer and a multi-year case of serious blue balls...

So you are both in HS, or close... but at least one of you is 16 or 17. That's legal in most states to have sex with. But try to "record the experience" and you are looking at spending the next 30 years of your life in a rape cage.

I posted a thread about how the 1982 movie VIDEODROME predicted the Internet and society a bit ago. I'd meant to go into this there. I highlighted one of their talking points: That now, seeing an image of a crime makes you a co-conspirator in that crime. It's funny how the camels nose under the tent thing works. The Internet didn't used to have cops. Then the cops came. And now we are a full time USSSTAZI type thing. OK, so this was all to "protect the children" (from a largely non-existent problem). But for a politician to denounce such hyped fear and go against "protecting the children" would be political suicide. OK, pretext established. Anyone noticed that filming the cops beating someones brains out has suddenly become a "crime"? Anyone notice that viewing "classified documents" of government criminal activities has become a crime as viewing a crime is as if you committed it, but some animals are more equal than others, so we walk while you rot in prison.

Isn't that about how it goes?

What about those 5,000+ DOD employee's that got caught not only accessing kiddy porn but PAYING FOR IT WITH THEIR CREDIT CARD???? WTF??? ATTENTION SOLDIER! Hold out your hand so I can lightly slap it! :rolleyes: Now get back to work.

-t

Here's an idea in development. I wrote it up at the request of a minister and the first deployment will most likely be among an evangelical congregation that is concerned about the US becoming a failed state.

Re-localization through technological advances in manufacturing (such as 3D printing), energy product (such as cold fusion) and education (such as Internet academies) will create a demand for correspondingly relocalized monetary, property rights and military systems.

A regime that can accomplish this is a mutual property insurance corporation, whose members can be called upon to perform duties ranging from enforcement of property rights to "barn raisings" in the event of natural disaster.

The role of demurrage with commodity backing is replaced by the insurance premium. Underwriting assessments take the form of escrowed bids for the insured properties -- bids accepted at the current owners discretion. The bids are denominated in currency issued by the mutual insurance corporation.

The shareholder/members of the mutual insurance corporation hold one voting share each which is issued at the time they join. They may proxy their votes, as in any corporation.

Delivery of social goods, and elimination of attendant problems corresponding to public sector rent-seeking, can be largely handled by purchasing power placed in the hands of the share holders from the regular payout of dividends.

Only the high bid in escrow for a given property right is charged no demurrage. This efficiently allocates the monetary base among the local economy's assets. By this means, the monetary base becomes the liquid value of the local economy's assets. In the theoretic ideal case, where all transactions are conducted electronically, a purchase consists of a change in the escrowed bids, transferring money from one person's escrowed bids to another person's escrowed bids. In this case, the role of the "investment expert" is essentially to act as an insurance underwriter who accepts a person's money and, on their behalf, places that money in one or more escrowed bid that, by being the highest, is not charged demurrage because it has served the purpose of insurance assessment at the liquidation value of the assets bid.

Hey, that could be a really successful business model, maybe in Vegas.... Hire some midgets (dwarves, whatever) who are really well trained fighters and then people could pay to get their ass kicked by a midget. Hire little people who can do flying cartwheel kicks, leg sweeps, and good stuff like that, and you could even sell tickets and have a show every night. Any big person ("customer") who manages to win the fight gets a free T-Shirt and bragging rights. LOL

Ron needs to quit playing defense and go on offense. It's not enough to say "the Soviet Union was worse than Iran." If he could point out the following documented facts it would shut the naysayer up for good or at least make them back-peddle.

1) In 2003 Iran was the only Muslim country to help us fight and remove the Taliban from power.

See: Jane's Defense Weekly India joins anti-Taliban coalition. "India is believed to have joined Russia, the USA and Iran in a concerted front against Afghanistan's Taliban regime.

See also: PBS Frontline - Showdown with Iran : A slap in the face from America

2) In 2003 Iran's previous president Mohammed Khatami sent through back channels an offer to end support for Hamas and Hezbollah, end its nuclear program and end hostility with Israel in exchange for security guarantees. The Bush administration never even responded to the fax.

See: PBS Frontline The Grand Bargain Fax - A missed opportunity?

See Also: NY Times Iran's proposal for a grand bargain

Lastly, I'm glad Dr. Paul keeps bringing up the coup. That's important to bring out. But he should add that the coup wasn't even for the benefit of American economic interests. It was done for the benefit of British Petroleum. (Yes the same BP responsible for the Gulf oil spill). I've heard half-wits on talk radio try to explain away the coup by saying "we had a right to get our oil". As dumb as that is (do they think China has a right to get its debt?) it's not even accurate. Dr. Paul needs to preemptively cut such stupid arguments off at the knees by fleshing out the history a wee bit more. But good job smacking down Pawlenty overall.

This parody is an attempt to "rewrite" the bill of rights in keeping with the current application by our criminal government. Original text will be in italics followed by a list of possible options.


Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.


Congress shall make no law establishing religion, but shall act as if it did; and shall make no laws abridging the freedom of speech, unless such speech can be construed as "commercial speech" or "irresponsible speech" or "offensive speech;" or shall abridge the right of the people to peaceably assemble where and when permitted; or shall abridge the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, under proper procedures.

It shall be unlawful to cry "Fire!" in a theater occupied by three or more persons, unless such persons shall belong to a class declared Protected by one or more divisions of Federal, State or Local government, in which case the number of persons shall be one or more.


Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.


A well regulated Blackwater goon squad, being necessary to the security of a police State, the right of the children to keep and play violent first person shooter video games, shall not be infringed.

A well-regulated military force shall be maintained under control of the President, and no political entity within the United States shall maintain a military force beyond Presidential control. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall be determined by the Congress and the States and the Cities and the Counties and the Towns (and someone named Brady.)


Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.


No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. Nor shall he or she be quartered in a decent hospital, nor shall any provision be made that he or she will be quartered at all after discharge.

The government will, however, reserve the right to temporarily commandeer your home, business or personal computer network for the purposes of homeland security.


Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.


The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, unless the government decides otherwise, and then it may commit said violations and no Warrant being issued, in cooperation with any telecommunication companies that want special favors, regardless of probable cause, in which case they need not be supported by Oath or affirmation, nor shall it be required to describe the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.


The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures may not be suspended except to protect public welfare. Any place or conveyance shall be subject to search by law enforcement forces of any political entity, and any such places or conveyances, or any property within them, may be confiscated without judicial proceeding if believed to be used in a manner contrary to law.


Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.


No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury or a ham sandwich, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb unless the government loses the first time; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself except where physical pain is involved in the compulsion, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation unless a few marijuana seeds are found within or unless the government decides that someone else would generate more tax revenue.


Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.


Any person accused of a crime has a right to a fair and speedy torture, and if he or she wants a lawyer, he or she may select an ACLU attorney to share his or her torture. All other rights of one so accused are abridged forthwith immediately the powerful determine that said accused is against us, not with us.

The accused shall have a right to speedy imprisonment. Police shall have the right to arrest and imprison without bringing accused to a magistrate first for an examining trial. Prosecutors and Judges shall have the right to ex parte communications. Judges shall have the right to instruct fully uninformed Juries as to the Law. It shall be unlawful to bar or deter an incompetent person from service on a jury.


Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.



Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.


Excessive bail shall not be required unless a runaway judge deems necessary, nor excessive fines imposed except under the direction of the IRS, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted unless it is needed to get a prisoner to confess to a crime that happened after he was incarcerated in solitary confinement.



Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.


The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, until the federal government can grow sufficiently to ursurp them unto itself.


Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.


The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, shall be assumed as deemed necessary by the United States for the good of the union, and as a last resort the powers are reserved to the States respectively, or maybe to the people.

I ran across this information by accident (providence?) while looking for something else. The first link is an essay from Jude Wanniski who went with fed governor Wayne Angell to Moscow right after the collapse of the soviet union. Note that Angell advocated the new Russia to go to a gold backed currency! The second link is an online Google book from the Mises institute that talks about the same essay. I've excerpted the essay bellow. (It's too long to post directly). It's interesting to note that the tension in the Baltics really resulted from monetary policy. (It really is the economy stupid). Also note that the writer advocated an eventual international gold backed standard! Is that what we are facing? Remember Medvedev recently showed the prototype international coin. Is the plan to finish off the dollar and advocate a new gold backed international currency? Why not simply back the dollar with gold and keep our own currency? Anyway, interesting read. I may write this up for a blog post at some point.

http://www.polyconomics.com/essays/esy-890914.htm
http://tinyurl.com/luktrm


Mission to Moscow
Jude Wanniski
September 14, 1989

Executive Summary: Fed Governor Wayne Angell and I spent the first ten days of September in the Soviet Union at the invitation of the government, to offer advice on the deteriorating state of the economy. We went thinking Moscow had a year or two to work things out, but quickly realized the economy is on the verge of a serious inflation that could accelerate geometrically. We advised an immediate government commitment to gold convertibility of the ruble, at a gold/ruble exchange rate that would have immediate credibility with the Soviet people and international community. The USSR has neither a central bank, in our sense, nor a bond market, so cannot manage the forces that have ironically been put into play by Gorbachev's moves toward market socialism. Receptivity was very high because the economic and financial officials in Moscow are despairing of the approaches they have taken thus far. Angell argued that a gold-convertible ruble, a credible unit of account, is the first thing the government must do, not the last in a chain of policy moves. It could then issue gold/ruble bonds that would be in such demand in the USSR and foreign markets that the budget deficit could be financed with 3% interest rates instead of printing press money. There is no alternative we could recommend if they wish to prevent either the break-up of the Soviet Union, civil war, or a return to a fascist command economy. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's October trip to Moscow now becomes extremely important.

Mission to Moscow

Federal Reserve Board Governor Wayne Angell and I spent the first ten days of September in Moscow and Leningrad at the invitation of the Soviet Government and state bank, Gosbank. We were urged to speak frankly with economic advice, and as the visit unfolded, the central theme became our insistence that only by going immediately to a fully convertible gold ruble can the nation avoid economic disaster, which is almost upon it.

...

We told them in separate meetings that we found the situation worse than we anticipated, the state enterprise ruble economy on the verge of collapse. Its arithmetic deterioration is approaching geometric deterioration, as a result, ironically, of the market forces Gorbachev put into play in the last eighteen months.

...

The political unrest in the Baltic states is directly related to this banking issue, with Estonia recently asking for its own central bank and currency. Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, where there is still a "market memory" compared to the rest of the USSR, are angry at seeing their shelves stripped by Soviets coming from other republics with the increasingly worthless rubles. The Soviets in Moscow insist the Baltic states are able to produce more because their raw materials are so heavily subsidized by the state. The Baltics have specialized in clothing co-ops, pulling in subsidized fabrics and threads from the other republics and peddling apparel at prices only other co-opers can afford. Petroleum, for example, is sold by the state at 3 rubles per barrel, which at the street exchange rate would be the equivalent of 30 cents a barrel. The high-income co-op employes and black marketeers pay the same 35 cents a gallon at the state gas pumps as the low-income state employes.

....

Angell also observed that the Soviet Union has no history at all of a "full-bodied money," as he put it. The United States has its roots in a gold standard, with elaborate mechanisms now in place to manage the dollar value of other currencies and commodities, including gold. Except for a very brief period in 1921-22, when the USSR had side-by-side gold notes and fiat rubles, the entire Soviet experiment over 72 years has been burdened by the absence of a predictable unit of account. In this connection, I advised our hosts that a gold convertible ruble might permit perestroika to proceed without privatization of property, as Gorbachev now insists. Angell emphatically agreed, although we of course said we were biased toward private property. Our relative neutrality on this point was a great relief to our hosts, who had been hearing from other visiting "conservatives" from the U.S. that private property was the essential key.

But neither a capitalist system nor a socialist system can do without a recognized, predictable money, we insisted. Operating without one, I said to several of the dozen groups we met with, was like trying to build a building with a meter that meant different things to the architect, the engineers, and the construction workers, sometimes six inches, sometimes between 15 and 30, sometimes 39 or more. Angell used as a metaphor a thermometer with lines but no numbers and no mercury. Such is the current uselessness of today's ruble, he said. Instead of being the last thing on the list of things to do, the cherry atop the cake, he urged the gold ruble be the first. He did so with great passion and intensity, believing after several days in Moscow that the Soviet Union is now on a course fraught with danger to its own citizens and the rest of the world. "You have to excuse my passion," he told Gosbank officials. "I'm becoming a little bit audacious and I'm almost embarrassed at my audaciousness, but I want you to know how strongly I feel about your present position."

In a speech Gorbachev delivered Saturday, September 9, which we read about upon our return, he himself warned of the prospect of civil war in the Soviet Union should the ethnic regions persist in pressing for independence. We addressed this specifically in our Soviet audiences, pointing out that the one economic tool a central government cannot decentralize is the value of its money. A gold ruble would set up centripetal forces, binding the outlying regions to Moscow, offsetting the centrifugal forces now working to tear the Soviet Union apart.

....

There were questions to us on how we could be recommending gold to Moscow while the United States has demonetized gold. I advised that I favored monetization of gold for the United States, and said I believed we have been moving toward a new international gold-based system in recent years. The Fed has increasingly paid careful attention to the price of gold, Treasury Secretary James Baker in 1987 proposed a currency link to a commodity basket that would include gold. Angell simply argued that it was far easier for the USSR to achieve immediate credibility in its monetary unit by tying it to gold. The US already has a mature bond market and mechanisms to manage money. There is no way for the Soviet Union to replicate these quickly, even within years. A gold standard is the only realistic option.

....

The better solution is Wayne Angell's supply-side prescription. Is there time? Can it happen? We will know more in October, when our Mission to Moscow is followed up by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's. Leonid Abalkin, who stood up Wayne Angell, has promised to meet with Greenspan. Greenspan, at one time a fervid advocate of a gold standard may in fact advise that he agrees with Angell, that a gold standard may not be quite appropriate for the U.S. at the moment, but that it is the only monetary option open to Moscow. Angell hopes he will do just that. It would be nice if the Fed Chairman did.

http://mises.org/daily/6340/Where-Is-the-Inflation
Critics of the Austrian School of economics have been throwing barbs at Austrians like Robert Murphy because there is very little inflation in the economy. Of course, these critics are speaking about the mainstream concept of the price level as measured by the Consumer Price Index (i.e., CPI).
Let us ignore the problems with the concept of the price level and all the technical problems with CPI. Let us further ignore the fact that this has little to do with the Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT), as the critics would like to suggest. The basic notion that more money, i.e., inflation, causes higher prices, i.e., price inflation, is not a uniquely Austrian view. It is a very old and commonly held view by professional economists and is presented in nearly every textbook that I have examined.
This common view is often labeled the quantity theory of money. Only economists with a Mercantilist or Keynesian ideology even challenge this view. However, only Austrians can explain the current dilemma: why hasn’t the massive money printing by the central banks of the world resulted in higher prices.
Austrian economists like Ludwig von Mises, Benjamin Anderson, and F.A. Hayek saw that commodity prices were stable in the 1920s, but that other prices in the structure of production indicated problems related to the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve. Mises, in particular, warned that Fisher’s “stable dollar” policy, employed at the Fed, was going to result in severe ramifications. Absent the Fed’s easy money policies of the Roaring Twenties, prices would have fallen throughout that decade.
So let’s look at the prices that most economists ignore and see what we find. There are some obvious prices to look at like oil. Mainstream economists really do not like looking at oil prices, they want them taken out of CPI along with food prices, Ben Bernanke says that oil prices have nothing to do with monetary policy and that oil prices are governed by other factors.
As an Austrian economist, I would speculate that in a free market economy, with no central bank, that the price of oil would be stable. I would further speculate, that in the actual economy with a central bank, that the price of oil would be unstable, and that oil prices would reflect monetary policy in a manner informed by ABCT.
That is, artificially low interest rates generated by the Fed would encourage entrepreneurs to start new investment projects. This in turn would stimulate the demand for oil (where supply is relatively inelastic) leading to higher oil prices. As these entrepreneurs would have to pay higher prices for oil, gasoline, and energy (and many other inputs) and as their customers cut back on demand for the entrepreneurs’ goods (in order to pay higher gasoline prices), some of their new investment projects turn from profitable to unprofitable. Therefore, you should see oil prices rise in a boom and fall during the bust. That is pretty much how things work as shown below.
As you can see, the price of oil was very stable when we were on the pseudo Gold Standard. The data also shows dramatic instability during the fiat paper dollar standard (post-1971). Furthermore, in general, the price of oil moves roughly as Austrians would suggest, although monetary policy is not the sole determinant of oil prices, and obviously there is no stable numerical relationship between the two variables.
Another commodity that is noteworthy for its high price is gold. The price of gold also rises in the boom, and falls during the bust. However, since the last recession officially ended in 2009, the price of gold has actually doubled. The Fed’s zero interest rate policy has made the opportunity cost of gold extraordinarily low. The Fed’s massive monetary pumping has created an enormous upside in the price of gold. No surprise here.
Actually, commodity prices increased across the board. The Producer Price Index for commodities shows a similar pattern to oil and gold. The PPI-Commodities was more stable during the pseudo Gold Standard with more volatility during the post-1971 fiat paper standard. The index tends to spike before a recession and then recede during and after the recession. However, the PPI-Commodity Index has returned to all-time record levels.
High prices seem to be the norm. The US stock and bond markets are at, or near, all-time highs. Agricultural land in the US is at all time highs. The Contemporary Art market in New York is booming with record sales and high prices. The real estate markets in Manhattan and Washington, DC, are both at all-time highs as the Austrians would predict. That is, after all, where the money is being created, and the place where much of it is injected into the economy.
This doesn’t even consider what prices would be like if the Fed and world central banks had not acted as they did. Housing prices would be lower, commodity prices would be lower, CPI and PPI would be running negative. Low-income families would have seen a surge in their standard of living. Savers would get a decent return on their savings.
Of course, the stock market and the bond market would also see significantly lower prices. Bank stocks would collapse and the bad banks would close. Finance, hedge funds, and investment banks would have collapsed. Manhattan real estate would be in the tank. The market for fund managers, hedge fund operators, and bankers would evaporate.
In other words, what the Fed chose to do ended up making the rich, richer and the poor, poorer. If they had not embarked on the most extreme and unorthodox monetary policy in memory, the poor would have experienced a relative rise in their standard of living and the rich would have experienced a collective decrease in their standard of living.
There are other major reasons why consumer prices have not risen in tandem with the money supply in the dramatic fashion of oil, gold, stocks and bonds. It would seem that the inflationary and Keynesian policies followed by the US, Europe, China, and Japan have resulted in an economic and financial environment where bankers are afraid to lend, entrepreneurs are afraid to invest, and where everyone is afraid of the currencies with which they are forced to endure.
In other words, the reason why price inflation predictions failed to materialize is that Keynesian policy prescriptions like bailouts, stimulus packages, and massive monetary inflation have failed to work and have indeed helped wreck the economy.

A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic;but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer&remains at large.

Health Freedom
War on Health the FDA's Cult of Tyranny
vodo.net/waronhealth
Food Inc
http://documentaryaddict.com/Food+In...cumentary.html
Energy
Tesla Free Energy
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcvaeUwz7eU
Thorium Dream
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ9Ll5EX1jc‎
Transportation
Taken For a Ride
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob2bYUtxlxs
Money
The Money Masters
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfpO-WBz_mw
The Secret of OZ
www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8msw
The American Dream
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGk5ioEXlIM
Overdose
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ECi6WJpbzE
Taxation
America Freedom to Fascism
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6ayb02bwp0
Large corporations do deserve their share of the blame for our problems but their power exists because of government protections and subsidies. The government is what creates these large corporations and through shady accounting techniques (that would get real private companies in trouble) the government owns all of them. Government and Banks are the cause of all the world's problems. Taxation and Usury are theft.