Thomas Woods [video]

It's always worth watching an iconoclastic historian. Enjoy!

You can take it to the bank huh?

Happy Birthday Mom

Today is my mom's 85th birthday. She's had a tough year regaining strength from a partial hip replacement, spending 8 weeks in a rehab facility, another 8 weeks at my house relearning how to walk...countless sessions of physical therapy and battling the memory problems that occur from having anesthetic at that age. She's back to reasonably good health now and deserves a good day.

Happy 85th mom!

Veteran's Day

Thanks to this November 11th holiday being renamed to Veteran's Day, the American people lose sight of the history of this day.

To all of you that look at Iraq and Afghanistan as the most horrific foreign policy debacle in our country's history, you'd probably be surprised to know that 2 million of your untrained great grandfathers were sent to Europe to fight in a war that was almost already over. In about a year, over 116,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in Europe primarily so Woodrow Wilson could have a seat at the bargaining table as the war was ending.

As the war ended the United States helped hold Germany responsible for the war. The treaty ended with Germany being responsible for paying large sums of money to other European countries. Germany was never able to pay back this money and ended up borrowing it from the United States. When they weren't able to borrow anymore they inflated their currency and caused a complete economic breakdown that ushered in the need for nationalistic leadership and eventually a second world war.

The War ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. All other participant countries in this war call today Remembrance Day or Armistice Day.

Remember a Vet today and thank them for their service but also remember the pain and suffering caused when our leaders needlessly seek adventure abroad with our uniformed sons and daughters.

30 Minutes

If you have it and care to listen...you can listen to Episode #88b of The Dangly Bits Show. Just stream it from the post. The The Dave and Steve Show is sort of my non-politics hobby on the interwebs. New shows every Tuesday and Friday.

No politics. PG-13. Have fun.

Who won last night

The swing was to the right. NY 23 aside it was pretty obvious that where it could swing, it did swing. With this I have to say it's pretty obvious who won:

President Obama

His approval ratings are still at 50% and there's a chance that the 2010 off election could be a measured disaster for his party...and having seen this before I can tell you exactly what that means.

It means the country still likes Obama and they like his optimism for America. If the country has misgivings about everything he stands for they will keep him in office and protect themselves with a bit more gridlock. I still believe that the great unwashed of independent voters in this country are satisfied with gridlock. Hell, I'd settle for it too.

If the Dems lose in large numbers in 2010 it means that Obama will be reelected easily. And given what the alternative may be, it may not be such a bad thing. He's been widely blamed for being radical though he has allowed congress (or congressional lobbyists more correctly) to write the healthcare bill(s). He has not been heavy handed with big egos in either party. He has backed off from any real changes in foreign policy and still pursues much of the aims of the Bush administration, although more intelligently. So what's the big deal about a full eight years of President Obama? Is it really so different that we can't survive?

So, I voted.

...and wow...in general it was a waste of time.

Oh I know...I fulfilled my civic duty...casting a vote for the two flavors of intervention that have been sanctioned as choices for me. I suppose I should be proud.

I'm not an interventionist though. I don't believe only those on the left or only those on the right have a monopoly on intervention. Whether it be over my behavior in my own home or in my wallet, both interventionist parties claim they know how much freedom I should have and how I should behave with what freedom they leave me.

I can't even vote for non-interventionists since my state has locked them out of the ballot. Non-interventionists don't believe in participating in publicly funded primaries and therefore don't appear on the primary ballot. Since they don't appear on the primary ballot they also don't appear on the general election ballot. Nice huh?

I don't even have the right to vote for someone who I'm told over and over has no chance to win...and even if I'm "wasting my vote" I'm not allowed to anymore. I can only cast a vote for someone who wants to intervene in my life.

So aside from the voter Initiative and Referendum that was on my ballot I cast a vote for write-in and left the line blank...since they won't count my write-in either.

Seriously...unless you actually file as a write-in candidate, any vote cast for someone who is not a registered write-in candidate will not be counted.

This must be all the freedom soldiers are dying for these days.

Instead I vote for a blank write-in so that my ballot isn't taken and filled in for me fraudulently since it would be under-voted for almost all of the races. So it turns out the only thing I have power over is to protect my ballot from fraud.

So yeah, I voted. Big deal. I tip my hat to those of you who didn't bother.

Politics has been boring lately

It's been great! Congress can't get anything done and they seem stuck on deciding on which failed policy to support...Republicans are offering nothing substantive and are only promising to vote "NO" on everything.

If the Democrats do indeed lose ground in the 2010 Congressional election we'll see the kind of gridlock that could make the dollar and economy recover.

My political wishlist would look like this:

1. No Federal public option for health insurance.
2. No more troops to Afghanistan.
3. No more contractors to Iraq to replace soldiers redeployed to Afghanistan.
4. Reduce spending and allow the dollar to take a breath.
5. Raise interest rates...please.

and...

I want President Obama to start focusing on the college basketball season.

Obama is thinking over Afghan Strategy

Since he's taking his time on this I'm really interested in what his final decision is going to be. My prediction:

We're sending more troops, but with a new style of uniform.

New Navy Slogan

This really gave me the creeps from the first time I saw it.



You can tell in this recruiting propaganda poster that our days of world intervention are far from over. I wonder how long our government believes this "force" for good will stay that way when they won't be able to pay them.

Buying Peace Futures

I don't have a problem with the President winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I think most people look at it like a bad call in a football game that favors your team...you realize it's lame but you still have to take advantage of it to be meaningful.

I think this is a nice way to demonstrate that the greatest potential for peace comes through President Obama. Does he deserve it? No, but he can potentially earn it.

Maybe he can reduce troops in Iraq significantly and stop replacing the soldiers with government contractors with guns.

Maybe he can stop the occupation of Afghanistan --The graveyard of empires.

Maybe he can stop war with Iran and even resist the temptation of levying worthless sanctions against them that only hurts the most vulnerable people there.

Maybe he'll want to earn this award and not consider it a free-ride to use the military to satisfy some strange sense of foreign adventurism like our previous president.

Maybe the Nobel Peace Prize will mean something once again. Yeah, I doubt it too.

The smartest conservative remaining.

No, not Bill Kristol...just watch.

Afghanistan

There has never been a clearer reason to get out of Afghanistan since the Soviets faced the same problem thirty years ago. If President Obama was wise, he'd stop the coming bloodshed in that country before it ever gets a chance to start.

Among some of the most important reasons is that unlike Iraq, the people of Afghanistan have no stomach for a national Army. Even their own government doesn't want an army greater than 60,000 troops. This is a force roughly the size of Canada's with a population of 30 million.

As the lack of direction continues our country now plans to send more troops to this country. Like every time we send more troops anywhere it won't be long before the existing population will see this as an occupying force. Once this sentiment has been established we will find ten new enemies for every one soldier we send there.

A young woman in my church just lost her husband of four months to an IED in Afghanistan. More families will become devestated with hurt and loss as we continue to be mired in fighting in the hills against an invisible enemy.

The United States no longer has the means to slay dragons all over the world. Hopefully some day we'll learn that our over-aggressiveness in foreign policy makes us less safe, not more.

Harry Reid explains how taxes are voluntary...sorta

I have to hand it to him though.  He did give it a try.

Jan over the years has asked politicians to think philosophically about the different aspects of government force. Some of his interviews have been traps but I think two people in particular were able to sit down with him and engage in thought experiments with good cheer. One being Harry Reid and the other being Joe Biden.

Happy Birthday Constitution

Sorry I didn't get you anything. I almost forgot about your birthday to be quite honest. Seems like we don't see you around much anymore. I don't want this to sound mean really so please try to understand the spirit of what I'm saying. We've kind of moved on.

Now sure, I know you're the law of the land and all that but aren't you really more symbolic than real these days? I mean you go on and on about enumerated powers and the protection of the individual at the expense of the collective but isn't that a little 19th Century?

We have really smart politicians who can fix things and they've promised not to abuse their power. I don't want to be a bummer on your birthday, because I really do like you. I'm just sayin' maybe you're not really that big of a deal anymore.

Happy Birthday anyway.

Defending ACORN

I can't defend the people that worked in these two ACORN offices in Baltimore and Brooklyn. It's pretty much indefensible. I also can't defend ANY tax money going to this organization.

I will defend the other works that ACORN has done in the inner-city to educate citizens about their rights. They've stopped the abuse of police power by telling citizens in many cities that they do not have to consent to unwarranted searches and be bullied into letting police into their houses.

They have worked side-by-side many libertarians educating citizens on their natural rights which government should be protecting, not infringing.

Like I said, I can't defend the indefensible. I will defend what I know of ACORN and much of what they do this country needs.

Veronica? Really?

I blame Archie's friends really. Reggie and Jughead have never become a trusted source of encouragement for Archie. He spends his life dragging these two bozos around and when he could really use some advice...where are they?



I'm not saying this can't last, but I'm worried where Archie will turn when it doesn't. Betty will likely pair up with someone else by the time it does...I could see it being Moose just to match the first awful pairing.

I predict a short engagement that gets broken off at the last minute and he can go back to just being friends with both.

I'd like to also add that President Obama probably was lying and if so...it's a good thing. You cannot have a public option to pay for people without including illegal immigrants. Hospitals will DEMAND to get paid for services and will be enrolling people in the public option to ensure payment...whether or not they're citizens.

I'm not more against this than I am the public option in particular. If you're going to offer benefits to people who live here, it will just happen. They're using public schools and they'll use public health insurance as well. Nobody, including the President should have to pretend it won't or shouldn't happen.

Sorry I fooled you into thinking about healthcare again. Congrats Archie.

Bathroom Scrawlings

Maybe the only thing redeeming about using a public restroom is that it is sure to have interesting writing on the wall.  I hesitate to call it graffiti because I see it as more than simply defacing a surface, but more like an open forum.  Like a toilet blog.

Some interesting tidbits I’ve found:

I’ve come to believe that Anarchists communicate with each other through public restrooms similar to how hobos used to leave signs for each other.   From two anarchists I found these two messages:

• Be free.  Live Free.
• Where there is no discord, there can only be order.

Another popular scrawling is the drawn (or in one case carved) penis with a set of testicles.  I’m not sure who these people are that see it as important to contribute to the public forum this way but I think the movie Superbad (don’t click on this if you don’t want hear swearing or crude language) gave us a clue.

Lastly I enjoy all types of religious discussions in the public restroom.  In Billings I found an ongoing discussion about the deity of Christ.

• Jesus is Alive!
• Jesus is Alive! Dead!
• Jesus is Alive! Dead! He’s alive moron.
• I wish you were both dead! (complete with arrows pointing to previous points)

I didn’t add to this conversation as I believe they’re both right in that order.  Think about it.

Maybe this blog and others can replace the low-tech bathroom alternative to public forums.

Missoula, Montana

Missoula is my favorite city in Montana without a doubt.

First of all it’s a college town.  Secondly it’s a football town.  Maybe most importantly, it’s a train town.  Missoula actually has a railroad turntable!  If you’re a train nerd like I am then you’re impressed.  If you’re not then I’ll say that is has a lot of college-aged women.

Missoula is not a big city but has decent big entertainment distractions.  Montana Griz football, excellent college basketball and minor league baseball.  They’re all fully supported by Missoula and the surrounding areas.

My family wandered around Missoula and was happy to see parts of its historic district, a great old train depot and steam engine, and a whole lot of stores to buy junk in.

Montana is a huge state and if you stick to the Interstate you’re missing an unimaginable amount of small side attractions.  That said its major cities are split apart perfectly for day trips ensuring you’ll always have a decent choice of a hotel while you look around.

Wallace, Idaho

Traveling west on Interstate 90 the family and I were still quite a few miles east of Spokane and a town we remembered days earlier on our Eastbound journey was on our minds as we went home.

Wallace, Idaho sits just off of Interstate 90 and is a fantastic historic town.  Plenty of old brick buildings and turn-of-the-last-century charm makes this a great place to stop and pee…or look at antiques.

One of the stops was an antique store that had a sort of creepy feel from the beginning.  I was immediately met by the store’s owner who sat in an old barber chair just inside the door.  He looked like he was in his 60’s and his silvery pony-tail indicated that his age and his decade of choice were the same.  There were lots of antiques that reflected the swinging, partying aspects of life from earlier decades. Some were cool and some just had a seedy vibe.

I talked to the owner briefly before leaving and he shared that he was from the same area where I live.  He said he used to run whorehouses and gambling houses in the area back in the 60’s.  If I'd had another 30 minutes I would’ve liked to have learned about his journey from…uh…the 60’s all the way to Wallace.  Next time.