Quotes

"Fascism and communism both promise "social welfare," "social justice," and "fairness" to justify authoritarian means and extensive arbitrary and discretionary governmental powers." - F. A. Hayek"

"Life is a Bungling process and in no way educational." in James M. Cain

Jean Giraudoux who first said, “Only the mediocre are always at their best.”

If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. Sir Winston Churchill

"summum ius summa iniuria" ("More laws, more injustice.") Cicero

As Christopher Hitchens once put it, “The essence of tyranny is not iron law; it is capricious law.”

"Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." Ronald Reagan

"Law is where you buy it." Raymond Chandler

"Why did God make so many damn fools and Democrats?" Clarence Day

"If I feel like feeding squirrels to the nuts, this is the place for it." - Cluny Brown

"Oh, pshaw! When yu' can't have what you choose, yu' just choose what you have." Owen Wister "The Virginian"

Oscar Wilde said about the death scene in Little Nell, you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

Thomas More's definition of government as "a conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of a commonwealth.” ~ Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English Speaking Peoples

“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” ~ Jonathon Swift

Friday, September 30, 2011

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps

News from The Associated Press
Christie soon to decide on primary run
By BETH DeFALCO 9-30-11

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is reconsidering his decision to stay out of the race for the White House in 2012 and is expected to make a decision soon, according to several people close to the governor with knowledge of his thinking.

Christie has long said he won't run in 2012. But those close to the first-term governor, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the issue, say he is rethinking his hard stance.

A decision will have to come fast. Filing deadlines in primary states are weeks away.

Calls have been intensifying from top GOP donors and party elders for Christie to jump into the race. President Barack Obama's weak approval ratings and a Republican field that has been struggling to put forward a clear front-runner are also creating an opening for Christie.

-read on at link-


Triple-A Sues PATH, Its about time!

The Bridge and Tunnel Tolls were $2 when I first came to NYC (Cigarettes and subway tokens were 75¢).

The Antiplanner :: Triple-A Sues PATH :: http://ti.org/antiplanner
9-29-11

The American Automobile Association is suing the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (PATH) for raising bridge tolls. AAA doesn’t oppose tolls, but it does oppose tolls whose revenues won’t be spent on activities that have a “functional relationship to transportation.” Since these bridge tolls will be used to subsidize the new World Trade Center, AAA argues they are illegal under federal law.

The Antiplanner cheers AAA’s suit, but wonders why the association didn’t sue PATH years ago when the original World Trade Center was also being subsidized by bridge tolls. Maybe the current political environment has emboldened AAA to be a little stronger in representing its members’ interests.

How About One for All of US! Google Joins Apple in Push for Tax Holiday

And a Debt Jubilee Year too!

Google Joins Apple in Push for Tax Holiday - Bloomberg
By Richard Rubin and Jesse Drucker - Sep 29, 2011

As a coalition led by Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc. (GOOG), andCisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) presses for a tax holiday on more than $1 trillion in offshore profits, it is turning to a well-positioned lobbyist: Jeffrey Forbes, once chief of staff to Max Baucus, chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee.

Data compiled by Bloomberg News show that Forbes is part of an army of more than 160 lobbyists, including at least 60 who once worked for a sitting member of the House or Senate, pushing for the repatriation holiday. Their job is to persuade Congress to establish a tax break estimated to cost the U.S. government $78.7 billion over the next decade.

We have been Sliced and Diced! Ron Popeil and the Left

Vegomatic Nation, A late night Ah-Ha!

Ron Popeil and the Left - Ricochet.com
~Paules · Sep. 29, 2011

I was deeply shocked at age sixteen when I discovered that half of my relatives were complete idiots. I was just starting to develop my sense of discrimination. By that I mean the cognitive development that allows the human mind to affix a value on things and ideas. I was sitting in my uncle's basement apartment surrounded by the flotsam of his life. He owned at least one of everything ever marketed by Ron Popeil. Most of it was junk and all of it was broken. My uncle was a security guard who had chosen his profession so that he could get paid for watching late-night television.

A few years later I was assigned a college roommate majoring in business. His passion was advertising. It wasn't long before I understood most of the principles of the trade. "You see," he explained, "the secret to Ron Popeil is that the product doesn't matter. He's selling bargains to morons. Seriously, who do you suppose is watching Batman re-runs after midnight?" Um, my uncle. "But wait, there's more!" I stammered. Precisely. Only nothing Ron Popeil ever sold had any value, except for the concept of the bargain itself.

Today's leftist-progressive agenda relies on the same marketing technique that Ron Popeil pioneered so many decades ago. Only they've taken it one step better because there's no tangible product to fall apart in your hands right out of the box. Let's just cut to the chase and sell the idea instead! It won't matter if the idea is junk because indiscriminate people will buy anything. And it's harder to detect a broken idea than to know your salad spinner is busted.

-read on at above link before you dial 1-800----

Because they expose the B.S., Groups want 'John and Ken' show pulled after phone-number stunt

Groups want 'John and Ken' show pulled after phone-number stunt - latimes.com
The 'John and Ken' show is one of the most popular programs on one of the most popular radio stations in the region, and listeners seem to relish the hosts' anger and sense of outrage. While Illegal immigration has long been a particular focus of the show, it's only one of several favorite targets — the hosts have railed against taxes, labor unions and other pet causes for years with equally incendiary rhetoric.

The duo regularly uses cutting language to talk about legislators and often ask listeners to call the public phone lines of politicians who disagree with them.

Cabrera's numbers were read on air Sept. 1 during a campaign to defeat what the hosts call the "Illegal Alien California Dream Act," a reference to recently approved legislation that would extend state financial aid to college students who are in the U.S. illegally. Gov. Jerry Brown must still sign the bill before it becomes law.

John and Ken urged listeners to call Cabrera, saying he was planning a celebration "on the theft of tax money for illegal aliens." The phone calls started coming and, weeks later, still haven't completely stopped, Cabrera said.

Politics of Allah - Awlaki’s Death a Delayed Counterterrorism Success

When you lie to Allah and get away with it, it is written and your reward awaits in his garden.
Islam is politics and subjugation, not the religion of peace.
What happened to suspects?
Awlaki “was in contact with a number of persons of investigative interest.”
What happened to suspects?

Awlaki’s Death a Delayed Counterterrorism Success | The Weekly Standard
SEP 30, 2011 • BY THOMAS JOSCELYN
Awlaki had an especially strong appeal in the West, where an unknown (but surely significant) number of recruits joined al Qaeda’s jihad after viewing his sermons in English.

Awlaki was not merely an online instigator. Most notably, his dossier included ties to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In fact, one of the enduring mysteries of 9/11 surrounds Awlaki’s precise role in the events leading up to that day.

A full accounting of Awlaki’s involvement in 9/11, as well as other attacks, has been obscured by numerous intelligence failures.

-read on at above link-

Waste Beyond Comprehension - State Gets $5 Mil Bonus For Food Stamp Sign Up

This just crazy for us, but this is just another corrupt way for government to grow geometrically!

State Gets $5 Mil Bonus For Food Stamp Sign Up | Judicial Watch
Thu, 09/29/2011 - 8:54pm

In its quest to promote taxpayer-funded entitlement programs, the Obama Administration has actually rewarded one state with a $5 million bonus for its efficiency in adding food-stamp recipients to already bulging rolls.

It’s part of the administration’s campaign to eradicate “food insecure households” by improving access and increasing participation in the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Incidentally, the program was recently changed to SNAP to eliminate the stigma that comes with a name like food stamps. Just a few months ago the federal agency that administers the program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), launched a multi-million-dollar initiative to recruit more food-stamp participants even though the number of recipients has skyrocketed in the last few years.

-read on at link-

It is like we are married to a drunk or dope fiend who refuses treatment! DOE Pushing On With $5 Billion In Solar Energy Loans

An intervention on this administration is needed NOW!
It has taken all we've got and is stealing more by the hour.

DOE Pushing On With $5 Billion In Solar Energy Loans - CNBC
By: Eamon Javers 9-29-11
The U.S. Department of Energy said it plans to push ahead with as much as $5.3 billion in potential additional alternative energy loans by Friday, despite Republican complaints the money is going out too quickly to untested firms.
That comes against a backdrop of increasing political controversy overthe ill-fated loan recipient Solyndra, the company whose bankruptcy has prompted questions of who inside the Obama Administration knew of the company’s weak financial position and why they continued to pour taxpayer money into it.
The DOE has made seven conditional commitments for additional funding by the time the loan guarantee legally expires on Sept. 30. So far, it has made 23 loans totaling $11.2 billion, said a spokesman.
-read on at above link for the rest of this depressing story-

Time to Quit the UN!

Can't these bastards just die and be left to rot without honors?

News from The Associated Press
Sep 29, 2011

Tainted African ruler may get UN prize in his name


DAKAR, Senegal (AP) -- The African heads of state who converged on the capital of Equatorial Guinea this summer are used to life's finer things - yet even they were impressed.

The minuscule nation located on the coast of Central Africa spent several times its yearly education budget to build a new $800 million resort in which to house the presidents attending this summer's African Union summit.

Besides an 18-hole golf course, a five-star hotel and a spa, the country built a villa for each of the continent's 52 presidents. Each one came with a gourmet chef and a private elevator leading to a suite overlooking the mile-long artificial beach that had been sculpted out of the country's coast especially for them.

Western diplomats say that the charm offensive worked, and on Friday the United Nations' cultural arm may be forced to create a prize named after Equatorial Guinea's notoriously corrupt president, due to a resolution passed in June by the presidents staying at the lavish resort.

Obama: 'I Don't Think Ethics' Was My Favorite Subject

What was our first clue? Is ethics even taught today?

Obama: 'I Don't Think Ethics' Was My Favorite Subject | CNSnews.com
September 29, 2011 By Terence P. Jeffrey

Obama told an audience of high school students in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday that he was “not always the very best student” and that ethics “would not have made it on the list” of his favorite subjects.

Be on lookout for a really ugly Ms. Muammar? Gaddafi regime spokesman captured as he fled Sirte 'dressed as a woman' - Africa, World - The Independent


And he's had plastic surgery too!
Gaddafi regime spokesman captured as he fled Sirte 'dressed as a woman' - Africa, World - The Independent

Thursday, September 29, 2011

"Fast And Furious" Just Might Be President Obama's Watergate

Why did the administration devise such a scheme to undermine the Bill of Rights and the enforcement of our Mexican boarder frontier?
Why does the ATF botch up so many of their stunts to garner publicity and why is there an ATF for that matter?

"Fast And Furious" Just Might Be President Obama's Watergate - Forbes
9/28/2011

Frank Miniter, who wrote this piece, is the author ofSaving the Bill of Rights andThe Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide.

Why a gunrunning scandal codenamed “Fast and Furious,” a program run secretly by the U.S. government that sent thousands of firearms over an international border and directly into the hands of criminals, hasn’t been pursued by an army of reporters all trying to be the next Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein is a story in itself.

... Fast and Furious was an operation so cloak-and-dagger Mexican authorities weren’t even notified that thousands of semi-automatic firearms were being sold to people in Arizona thought to have links to Mexican drug cartels. According to ATF whistleblowers, in 2009 the U.S. government began instructing gun storeowners to break the law by selling firearms to suspected criminals. ATF agents then, again according to testimony by ATF agents turned whistleblowers, were ordered not to intercept the smugglers but rather to let the guns “walk” across the U.S.-Mexican border and into the hands of Mexican drug-trafficking organizations.

...For political context we now need to step back to April 16, 2009 — four or five months before we think Fast and Furious began. On this day President Barack Obama was visiting Mexico. While there he said, “This war is being waged with guns purchased not here but in the United States … more than 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that lay in our shared border.”
This 90% statistic was, to be kind, math so shoddy a third grader should know better.

... read on at the above link...


Students in the ever-expanding roster of official campus victim groups - Every weenie has hurt feelings

Half Baked by Heather Mac Donald - City Journal
UC Berkeley’s diversity machine loses its mind over cupcakes.
28 September 2011
...It has nevertheless served one useful function: it has clarified just what Berkeley’s vice chancellor for equity and diversity does for his whopping $194,000 annual salary.
...Students in the ever-expanding roster of official campus victim groups flatter themselves that by attending what is in fact the most caring, protective, and opportunity-rich institution in the history of the world, they are braving unspeakable threats to their ego and even to their physical safety. (Indeed, so desirable is this alleged threatened status that a gender and women’s studies major held a sign during Tuesday’s protest of the bake sale decrying the exclusion of “queer people” from the Republicans’ pricing structure.)
This supposedly toxic “campus climate” has engendered a nauseating rhetoric about the need for “creating safe spaces” for various endangered groups, who would otherwise risk utter obliteration in the tsunami of hatred and bias that daily washes over them. Reality check: no adult on today’s college campuses wishes for anything more than to see females and minority students succeed to the utmost of their capacities. The overwhelming majority of students, meanwhile, are indifferent to race and gender and simply want to get along. It is hard not to attribute bad faith to Basri for his stupendously misguided interpretation of the bake sale as “placing a higher value on white students.” If he really is incapable of understanding such a simple satire, he does not belong in an institution of higher learning—or at least what used to pass for one. One might think that a college administrator’s mission would be to work for enlightenment, diffusing whatever tensions may arise from ignorance and misunderstanding. Basri has, after all, been granted an enormous piece of taxpayer largesse, commanding an expensive office of 17 staffers.
-read on at above link-


SHAMELESS! Crony Capitalism: $737 Million Green Jobs Loan Given to Nancy Pelosi's Brother-In-Law

This amends the old saying: the two easiest was to get rich are have rich relatives or marry it.
Now, it is have relatives in government who pass legislation to make you rich (or marry them).

Crony Capitalism: $737 Million Green Jobs Loan Given to Nancy Pelosi's Brother-In-Law | The Weekly Standard
SEP 29, 2011 • BY MARK HEMINGWAY

Despite the growing Solyndra scandal, yesterday the Department of Energy approved $1 billion in new loans to green energy companies -- including a $737 million loan guarantee to a company known as SolarReserve:

SolarReserve LLC, a closely held renewable energy developer, received a $737 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee to build a solar-thermal project in Nevada.

The 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes project, near Tonopah, Nevada, will use the sun’s heat to create steam that drives a turbine, the agency said today in a e-mailed statement. SolarReserve is based in Santa Monica, California.

read on at link

New Meaning to the Mile High Club -Mark Halperin Appears on MSNBC From Airplane Lavatory (VIDEO)

MSNBC has found their appropriate venues, port-a-potties and 'ocupados.'

Mark Halperin Appears on MSNBC From Airplane Lavatory (VIDEO) - TVNewser

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Deaf and Dumbest, Energy Department Approves Two New Solar Power Loans

$1,074,000,000 more, just to prove how 'greenie' and generous Old 'Sol' Obama can be with his cronies?

AP 9-28-11
...The loans were approved under the same program that paid for a $528 million loan to Solyndra Inc., a California solar panel maker that went bankrupt after receiving the money and laid off 1,100 workers. Solyndra is under investigation by the FBI and is the focal point of House hearings on the program.

Energy Department Approves Two New Solar Power Loans | The Weekly Standard

One deal, a $737 million loan guarantee for Solar Reserve LLC, paves the way for construction of the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes Solar Energy facility, which will use an array of mirrors to focus the sun's heat and power a steam generator.

A second $337 million loan guarantee announced Wednesday will back Sempra Energy's Mesquite Solar I project in Arizona, about 45 miles west of Phoenix. That 150-megawatt facility will use U.S.-made solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity.

After Chris Christie's Speech, the New York Times Drips with Venom

After Speech, Chris Christie Revels in Pleas to Run - NYTimes.com

Video of Chris Christie's Speech at the Reagan Library

This appearance by NJ's Governor was the starkest in contrast to the staged, sycophantic campaign show put on by LinkedIn for Obama the night before.

Here, indeed, was an inspired speech by an informed politician, who says he is not going to run for president until he gets the calling, as he said, did Ronald Reagan. Compared to all the candidates and the President, he was the most eloquent, informed and straightforward.

But he still has a few weeks to change his mind.

I don't think he will.


Video of Chris Christie's Speech | The Weekly Standard
BY DANIEL HALPER SEP 28, 2011 •

John Podhoretz calls Chris Christie's speech last night at the Ronald Reagan Library a "brilliant performance." And one questioner last night said, "I've been listening to you tonight. You're a very powerful and eloquent speaker. You know how to tell the American people what they need to hear." The audience seemed to agree, as they gave Christie a standing ovation after the questioner finished asking Christie to run for president.

It is indeed a speech worth watching-

-go to the above link-

A Lesson in Good Science for Global Warming Faithful

A Lesson in Good Science for Global Warming Faithful | FrontPage Magazine
By Rich Trzupek On September 28, 2011

ast week a team of scientists working at CERN, the European scientific research organization, published a research paper that has rocked the scientific community. According to their data, gathered as part of a research projected named “OPERA,” neutrinos generated at the CERN research facility located on the Swiss-French border were found to travel faster than the speed of light.

Not a lot faster, mind you. The data shows that the particles made the 454 mile trip from the CERN facility to the INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy 61 billionths of a second faster than light in vacuum. That’s all of two thousandths of a percent difference, but in the weird world of sub-atomic physics, it’s quite a remarkable result.

Einsteinen physics set the universal speed limit at the speed of light over one hundred years ago. It quickly became one of the bedrocks of modern physics, a universally accepted fact as seemingly unshakable as the Newtonian relationship between gravity and mass. Anything that challenges that tenet will necessarily make physicists take another look at relativity theory.

The scientific method demands that the results must be independently verified, so it will likely be a while before we can definitively confirm or deny the finding. Still, the CERN scientists took many months to carefully check and recheck their data before publishing a result that was sure to upset the apple carts of so many physicists.

“After many months of studies and cross checks we have not found any instrumental effect that could explain the result of the measurement. While OPERA researchers will continue their studies, we are also looking forward to independent measurements to fully assess the nature of this observation,” said Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for OPERA and a professor a the University of Bern.

Could this finding have unexpected consequences in other fields, most notably in the field of climatology? Advocates of the theory that burning fossil fuels is causing catastrophic global warming have long claimed that there is consensus among scientists about that relationship. Many scientists would challenge that claim, including this one, for the complexity of climate science and the multitude of intertwined forces that affect the climate requires measured, necessarily nuanced, explanations of the role that greenhouse gases play in the system. Instead, many global warming proponents like to deal in absolutes and they thus pretend that the effect of greenhouse gases on the climate far outweighs all others. This is effectively the “consensus” they claim exists in the scientific community.

-read on at link-

What else could you expect from all-out arrogance! Facebook privacy issues: Social network is watching you even when you're logged out

These are a bunch of ego maniacal, amoral pervs who consider themselves better than others. They stole part of their ideas and coding from like minded lowlifes, got away with it, and so they think they have the right as masters over whomever signs on to their scheme.

Why not join, it's ostensibly free, with access to other people all over the place?

The problem is it isn't free, what really is?

You just end up selling bits of your identity. It is not quite as dark as selling your soul. It is just along the pathway to a personal hell for some, it is more like selling your shadow.


The East German Stasi took up where the SS left off after WWII. They fit into Stalin's Eastern Bloc totalitarianism seamlessly. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the East German police were even going as far as gathering and categorizing the personal odors of their citizens. There is a sinister part of our human hard-wiring that makes some of us need to control the lives others, completely. Unfortunately it tends to lead to the darkest of consequences.


Facebook privacy issues: Social network is watching you even when you're logged out | Mail Online
'We didn't mean to track you' says Facebook as social network giant admits to 'bugs' in new privacy row

By DANIEL BATES 9-28-11

Facebook has admitted that it has been watching the web pages its members visit – even when they have logged out.

In its latest privacy blunder, the social networking site was forced to confirm that it has been constantly tracking its 750million users, even when they are using other sites.

The social networking giant says the huge privacy breach was simply a mistake - that software automatically downloaded to users' computers when they logged in to Facebook 'inadvertently' sent information to the company, whether or not they were logged in at the time.

Most would assume that Facebook stops monitoring them after they leave its site, but technology bloggers discovered this was not the case.

In fact, data has been regularly sent back to the social network’s servers – data that could be worth billions when creating 'targeted' advertising based on the sites users visit.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2042573/Facebook-privacy-issues-Social-network-watching-youre-logged-out.html#ixzz1ZFjcHNFd


P.S. Google does this chronically. It follows key words used, then targets them to advertising and who knows where. We just have to keep aware of it and use it to our advantage if need be.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Time for More Elections and a Recall - NC governor: Suspend elections so Congress can focus on economy

Ironic, the democrat doesn't understand democracy!

NC governor: Suspend elections so Congress can focus on economy - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room
By Daniel Strauss - 09/27/11

North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue (D) proposed suspending congressional elections for a cycle so legislators could focus on fixing the economy.

"I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover," Perdue said Tuesday, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. "I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Ford pulls bailout ad after criticism from press, questions from White House | MLive.com

Report: Ford pulls bailout ad after criticism from press, questions from White House | MLive.com
Ford Motor Company has shelved a television commercial indirectly criticizing its competitors for accepting government bailouts to avoid bankruptcy in the wake of media criticism and, reportedly, a call from the White House.

It's tough when there are 57 States! Oops! White House fails basic geography test

Oops! White House fails basic geography test – The 1600 Report - CNN.com Blogs

Looks like someone in the White House press office needs to brush up on his or her U.S. geography.

The press office issued credentials to those reporters and photojournalists who are covering the president’s trip this week to Washington state, California, and Colorado. The credential even provides a handy graphic highlighting (in white) which states the president will visit.

The only problem?

Wyoming is highlighted, not Colorado. To be fair, both states are rectangular, nearly identical in size, and stacked next to each other. But we doubt our third grade teachers would buy that!

Video: The Google guy who wants to pay more taxes at Linked-in Campaign event for Obama

Video: The Google guy who wants to pay more taxes | Campaign 2012
byCharlie Spiering Commentary Staff Writer 9-27-11

Timothy P. Carney reports this rich liberal is Doug Edwards from the Obama-friendly and regulation-friendly Google.

Edwards has given $300,000 to politicians since 2000 -- every single dime to Democrats.

"After all, fairness is hardly an objective standard." John Steele Gordon: A Short History of the Income Tax

John Steele Gordon: A Short History of the Income Tax - WSJ.com
...Before the modern era, however, the federal tax system was manifestly unfair by any reasonable standard, grossly biased in favor of the well off. Ironically, attempting to fix that unfairness is what has brought us to the present moment, with a federal tax system that is grotesquely complex, often arbitrary, and corrupted by mutual back-scratching between members of Congress and influential lobbyists.After the Civil War, nearly all the wartime taxes—including the nation's first income tax—were repealed and the federal government relied mostly on the tariff for revenues. It provided the government with more than ample peacetime income. In 1882, the government had revenues of $403 million, but expenses were only $257 million, a staggering budget surplus of nearly 36%. The reason the tariff was so high was, ostensibly, to protect America's burgeoning industries from foreign competition.
...
read on at link

'Mens Rea' Legal Protection Erodes in U.S. as Federal Criminal Code Expands

4,500 Federal Crimes, plus Thousands more embedded in Federal Regulations. Then there are the State and Local Crimes and regulations, not to mention the twilight zone of various arbitrary codes and civil actions.
This is what my ancestors fled. Who brought this fresh hell with them? You get 300 million guesses.

'Mens Rea' Legal Protection Erodes in U.S. as Federal Criminal Code Expands - WSJ.com
For centuries, a bedrock principle of criminal law has held that people must know they are doing something wrong before they can be found guilty. The concept is known as mens rea, Latin for a "guilty mind.

This legal protection is now being eroded as the U.S. federal criminal code dramatically swells. In recent decades, Congress has repeatedly crafted laws that weaken or disregard the notion of criminal intent. Today not only are there thousands more criminal laws than before, but it is easier to fall afoul of them.

As a result, what once might have been considered simply a mistake is now sometimes punishable by jail time. When the police came to Wade Martin's home in Sitka, Alaska, in 2003, he says he had no idea why. Under an exemption to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, coastal Native Alaskans such as Mr. Martin are allowed to trap and hunt species that others can't. That included the 10 sea otters he had recently sold for $50 apiece.

..."I was thinking, damn, my life's over," Mr. Martin says.

Back in 1790, the first federal criminal law passed by Congress listed fewer than 20 federal crimes. Today there are an estimated 4,500 crimes in federal statutes, plus thousands more embedded in federal regulations, many of which have been added to the penal code since the 1970s...

-Read on at above link.-

The unfortunate bite of reality - Chased home: Mob attacks man in his house

Chased home: Mob attacks man in his house | Philadelphia Daily News | 09/27/2011
BY JULIE SHAW

ABOUT 11 P.M. on Sept. 9, dozens of youths with bats and pipes descended on a tidy residential area of Port Richmond looking for white teens who allegedly had attacked an African-American kid at Stokely Playground a couple of hours earlier.

Two fearful white teens spotted Mark LaVelle on Indiana Avenue near Belgrade Street and asked for help. Suddenly, the mob appeared. LaVelle, who said that he didn't know the two kids, who looked to be 13 or 14, ran with them into his nearby house.

" 'We got you, you white mother-------!' " LaVelle said he heard someone yell in the "mob" of black and Hispanic youths.....

They were standing on his steps. One shouted, " 'Something's going to happen now!' " LaVelle recalled in an interview Friday at his house. LaVelle got nervous and went back inside, locking his door with a deadbolt.
...

But the attackers pounded on his front windows and kicked his wooden door so hard, it flew open and some of them entered his house.

"The first guy hits me with a pipe. The second guy knocks me in the face. All I'm hearing is my wife and kids screaming," said LaVelle, who feared that the next time they saw him, he would be in a casket.

He said that he was able to push the attackers out the door, but then a third man - who had a gun - tried to extend his arm. LaVelle grabbed onto the gunman's lower arm and shoulder so he couldn't raise the weapon. Then, police sirens screamed in the neighborhood, and the mob turned and ran.

LaVelle was able to identify three of the people from the melee. He said he did not know if they had been chasing the white teenagers, or if they were just trying to find someone to attack.

Police arrested Bergson Morin, 21, of Rosehill Street near Wyoming Avenue, Feltonville, as the man with the gun. They arrested Enrique Delgado, 32, of Rockland and C streets, Feltonville, as the man who hit LaVelle with the pipe. And they arrested a 17-year-old juvenile as the one who punched LaVelle in the face, giving him a black eye.

aVelle said that the next day the mother of the juvenile came back with some other people, banging on his door, screaming. LaVelle, who was at a charity sports event, was called back to the house by one of his sons.
...

When he got home, LaVelle said, the mother yelled at him, " 'You white mother------, you got my kid locked up! You got my son locked up because he's black, you're white!' " The mother claimed that her son had been "a witness," not an attacker. To that, LaVelle said if that were true, it would come out in court.

But the mother, according to LaVelle, then yelled: " 'If you make it to court! I know where you live!' "

-read on at above link-

This doofus is delusional! $200K Per Job? Timothy Geithner Says White House Jobs Plan Is Still a Bargain

Geithner: 'Very Good Chance' Jobs Act Will Pass - ABC News

$200K Per Job? Timothy Geithner Says White House Jobs Plan is Still a Bargain

Sept. 26, 2011 by BEN FORER
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner didn't dispute a Harvard economist's estimate that each job in the White House's jobs plan would cost $200,000, but said the pricetag is the wrong way to measure the bill's worth.And he also pointed out, in an interview today with ABC News' David Muir, that there is no other option on the table for getting the economy moving and putting more people back to work.
"You've got to think about the costs of the alternatives," Geithner said when asked about Harvard economist Martin Feldstein's calculation that each job created by President Obama's American Jobs Act would cost taxpayers about $200,000.
-read on at link-

It is Affirmative Action, What Else could you expect?! Congresswoman found speech to blacks 'curious'

Congresswoman found speech to blacks 'curious' - Yahoo! News
9-27-11

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Maxine Waters says she's not sure who President Barack Obama was talking to when he told black Americans to quit complaining and follow him into the battle for jobs and opportunity.

The California Democrat, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, says she found the president's language "a bit curious." She says Obama didn't address Hispanics in such a blunt manner and would never use that language in a speech to a gathering of gays or Jews.

Linkedin should be boycotted for its fawning support of Obama

How can this business connection network honestly support the absolute failure as President, especially in our economy, by sponsoring a town-hall forum for Obama?

SEPTEMBER 26, 2011 By Shayndi Raice
... Obama stopped at professional networking site LinkedIn on Monday, taking questions about unemployment and the economy from LinkedIn members, employees and a live audience.

Most of the questions at the event, which was moderated by LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, came from laid-off workers asking Obama how he plans on getting unemployment figures down.

But one early Google employee, Doug Edwards, also asked the president to “please raise my taxes?” He said he’s now unemployed by choice.

Mr. Edwards said it “kills him” that the federal government has stopped investing in programs that helped him to become successful, such as Pell Grants.

When the president asked where Mr. Edwards worked, he played coy, only saying that he made his money at a start-up search engine down the street. Mr. Edwards recently published a book about his time at Google, “I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59.”

The president said he didn’t want to raise taxes on the rich to the point where it would become punitive and disincentivize people from trying to create new companies and make money. But he did say that he would like to revert to the tax rates that existed in the 1990s, “when Silicon Valley was doing pretty good.”

Obama is no stranger to social media sites in Silicon Valley. In April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hosted a town hall style meeting with Obama. The president also hosted a Twitter town hall in July, answering questions in the form of tweets.

;[What a waste!'