my joel smolen story

a while back i decided to check out the local libertarian party. i met joel smolen there. seems like an ok guy. not very politiciany, which is probably good. i offered to pay for a beer he was ordering. he said, no, he considered that a problem with the campaign finance rules. i consider that highly ethical. and that's something i look for in a candidate. if you're going to vote, please vote for smolen

trends, self-fulfilling prophecies, and palladium

i made a suggestion a while back that, while gold nominal value is increasing, there is no reason that it needs to be the currency. i then mentioned palladium. palladium recently had a rally

so far as i can tell, people who have a lot of (or print) the fiat currency are hedging their bets by buying what may become the next currency. but the reality is that currency is a convenience over barter. so they would need to corner the market on every possible exchange medium, which further hastens the fall of the fiat currency

but this got me thinking about trends and self-fulfilling prophecies. 'member that scene in the matrix where the oracle predicts that neo will break the vase? well, we cannot ignore the act of prophesy contributing to the future. so a prophet can only make accurate predictions that can exist with with that outcome. and they also influence outcome. by predicting that fiat currencies will crash and gold will be used as currency, it increases the probability that fiat currencies will crash and that gold values will increase

a prophet cannot discount the act of prophesy. an accurate prophet can only predict things that will happen regardless of the prophecy, that will occur despite the prophecy, or that will occur, at least in part because of the prophecy. but it is unlikely that a (true) prophet will be very accurate because, realizing their influence on future events, they would change their prophecies to affect outcome

are we a war-like people?

'member the baby boomers. big increase in population right after ww2. I was born after vietnam and believe there was a bulge there. we've been at war in iraq and afghanistan for 8 years or so, and even if it's not officially over, it's starting to feel over. and babies are popping out. i have 3 friends who are themselves or their wives are prego. so my question is - is the war/victory-defeat cycle ingrained into us and now part of our collective (ugh) reproductive cycle?

hijacking the message

one of the phenomenons of the modern age is the readiness those in power will take a message or movement and co-opt it to their ends. i mean - how much money has hollywood made on rebel movies? look at how the environmental movement has been used to justify taxes (gas, carbon) and intrusion into your privacy (in frisco they're going through your garbage to make sure you're recycling and composting). so the question is - how will/can the freedom message/tea party movement be corrupted?

to war: a brief dialog

np: neo-con politician
ne: neo-con "economist"

np: hey. we want to go to war. how do we finance it?

ne: blow a bubble. maybe in housing - that way both the lender and the borrower will finance our war. we do it all the time - we blew a tech bubble for clinton. we can pull in fannie and freddie. and use derivatives to mortgage just about everything. since a lot of people in the world still trust the US and the dollar, they will trust that our contracts are good. and we won't print money early, like nations in the past - keeping our economic partners (even if they're not our force partners) on board. then when we reach a good point we'll just print a lot of money and buy all those assets back. it might be tough on some of our bankers who get caught up in the leverage schemes, so be sure to promise them big bonuses in the end

np: sounds good, when can we start?

ne: we'll get the ninja liar loans started right away. but remember to publicly scorn if not ruin anyone who starts asking questions

np: will do - we're good at that

good artists immitate

i think stef and i are on the same page. him me

read his if you want to be a good parent. mine if you want to be pissed off

my ballot

wanted to share a few things about my voting. i voted for Libertarian candidates by default to send a message. some notable exceptions: i voted for nightengale for gov, cuz i know the Libertarian candidate is a nut job; i would have voted for john dennis if i could have (please, please look into him if you're in san francisco - he's a great option over pelosi). if you're in cali's 6th (marin) please consider smolen. i voted to end pot prohibition, and anything that lowered my taxes. if i hadn't done enough research on a measure or didn't know the candidates (and there was no Libertarian candidate - or non-partisan position) i didn't vote

i'm a bit dissolution with voting, but it may still be worth something

cheyenne oath keeper if branch

if("oath keeper" affiliation is considered a good reason by gov to take a child) {

// we have a conflict between freedom of association and gov
// we have a problem
}
else {

// oath keeper affiliation is not considered a good reason by gov to take child
// but was on affidavit
// t.f. gov is incompetent in its research/documentation/justifications for taking children
// since the gov should have all i's dotted and t's crossed before taking your children
// we have a problem
}


in other words - in any case, we have a problem

neo-con vader

liberals want us to treat obama like a violent girlie retard

it's 1987. i'm 12 years old, practicing my jump shot. the neighborhood hottie is talking to me

"my brother thinks the Celtics are gonna win the finals this year"
"your brother's a retard, the Lakers are gonna win"

you see, my friends and i called each other retarded. i didn't call my parents retarded because they would punish me. if i called my sister retarded i got a smack on the head from my dad with, "don't call girls retarded"

anyway, she ran away crying. her brother was mentally handicapped; down syndrome i think. he was 16

when i got home later my liberal mother was waiting. "you will treat him like a friend". but i couldn't, because i called my friends "retard". what she meant was, i needed to treat him special, like a girl. i didn't get dinner that night

i think the logic goes something like this: because he is incompetent but protected, and you are not incompetent nor protected, you are obligated to mask his incompetence so we can pretend to ignore it. it's like communism or something

another thing you should know, was that i was supposed to let girls beat on me. my sister could hit me whenever she wanted, but if i hit back i got punished: "don't hit girls". my sister used to punch me a lot. i finally learned to block her punches with my elbows, but i'd even get in trouble for that sometimes, too

anyway, the next day the brother comes at me. so i'm supposed to let him beat me, right? i let him get me into a headlock, but when he went to smash my face i ran away. not sure whether i hadn't done something wrong, again, i didn't tell anyone

that night mom asks, "i heard you let that boy beat on you. why'd you do that?". i looked at her for a moment. "isn't that what you wanted?". she doesn't respond

fast forward to 2008. she thinks i'm a democrat 'cause she hears me ripping into Bush every chance i get. she's so progressive to vote for Obama. "yes we can". she's loyal and part of the enlightened. Oprah will smile on her

i can't stand it and finally tell her i won't be voting for him. if you look back at my blog posts from that time, you can get the details, but i end with, "i think that if obama is elected it will be bad for me and bad for the country in general"

she thought for a moment, "do you remember that time you let that boy beat on you?"

"why" trumps might

in stephan's latest vlog he argues for philosophy over force. i've written "around" this before - i want to take it a step further: philosophy trumps force. "why" is a great power in human relations - we ask it constantly when we're young, and often only stop when authority forces us a that delicate age. however, when you try to beat "why" with force you become less powerful. so answers containing the ring of truth will trump violence when applied correctly - you cannot stop a truthful message with violence. violence is actually one of the most costly, least effective powers in the world, and i have little doubt that those who rely on it will soon find that out

switching gears slightly - imo, the only reason the fiat dollar still has power is because violence is being used to enforce its use. as the dollar looses strength, the ability to apply force will decrease and the dollar will fold. unlike many, i doubt gold will take its place. maybe for international trade. silver might be used in the US, though platinum and palladium are both viable.

natural leadership

Doug French discusses natural leadership



Rothbard on the Fed (from Schiff's site)

The Audacity of Pants