Japan is Dying

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Here’s a 3 minute video which reports that at least one of the Japanese nuclear reactor damaged by the tsunami has suffered an actual “breach“.  A “breach” indicates that radiation is escaping uncontrollably into the atmosphere.

More, the breach involves plutonium–the most poisonous substance known to man.  1 millionth of a gram of plutonium is allegedly sufficient to cause cancer. It’s been estimated that a mass of plutonium about the size of a baseball, equally divided among all the people on earth, might be enough to wipe out our species.

The nuclear reactor in Japan includes some unknown but significant mass of plutonium.   Some of that plutonium is now escaping into the atmosphere.

It’s likely that the “breach” will cause workers who are currently pumping water onto the hot, radioactive core to flee.  If so, there’ll be no more cooling for three nuclear reactors, full-blown meltdowns are likely to follow, and God only knows what will happen then.

 

The Bright New Ideas are Idiotic

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Here’s a 5 minute video of Congressman Ted Poe (R-Texas) exposing the absurdity of congressional laws and EPA regulations concerning our newly required compact florescent light bulbs (CFLs).  Congressman Poe’s comments are  insightful, hilarious, sad–and dimly infuriating. This video offers one of the finest, most concise illustrations of  government absurdity and insanity that I’ve seen.

It’s clear from the EPA regulations concerning these light bulbs, that CFLs are so hazardous (they contain mercury) that you can cause a room or even building to be evacuated if you break just one of them.

Arguably, you may be able to hijack an airplane if you can smuggle a CFL onto the plane and threaten to break it and release its mercury into the cabin’s air.

Thanks to the EPA, the day is probably coming when anyone caught carrying a CFL can be charged as a “terrorist”.  You can bet that before long, you’ll need to hire a federally-licensed “light build technician” dressed in a Hazmat suit to install or remove the CFLs in your home.

 

Radley Balko on the 3 Worst Cases of Police Abuse in 2011

Two innocents shot and killed.  One forfeiture case.

Thanks to the public’s ability to make videos of police abuse, the problem may be diminishing.  Or maybe not.

video  00:05:36

 

Forfeiture Abuse by Police

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The Institute for Justice offers a nice, animated, 3-minute video on the abuses of forfeiture laws committed by the Georgia police.  Similar abuses are probably taking place nationwide.

The problem is that the cops are often entitled to seize property for their own use and with little or no accountability to the person who has just “forfeited” his property.

Video   00:02:58

http://www.ij.org/freedomflix/46-georgia-law-enforcement-often-refuses-to-report-forfeiture-funds-a-violation-of-ga-law

 

Court Trump Card: Mental Competency Exams

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I remember that, as a child in the 1950s and 1960s, I was taught a certain amount of disdain for the former Soviet Union.  The USA was better than the USSR because the Soviet government routinely abused its power to declare its dissidents to be “mentally unbalanced”.  Surely, the United States (home of “freedom of speech”) would never stoop so low as to declare all dissidence to be evidence of mental illness.  The freedom-loving USA was therefore clearly superior to the oppressive USSR.

That was 50 years ago.  Today, the US imprisons a higher percentage of the its citizens than any other country on earth.  By that measure, the US has become the world’s biggest police state and, today, and has far more in common with the former “Evil Empire” (USSR) than it does with the former “Land of the Free” (The United States of America).

 

English YouTube Interview

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About two weeks ago, Ben Lowrey sent me an email asking if he could interview me for an video to be placed on YouTube.  I said Sure.

When the interview took place, I was much surprised to actually hear Ben’s voice and learn that he’s English (I’d assumed he was American from his email).   I was slightly flattered to have someone in England take an interest in my work.

I was interviewed by CBS’ 60 Minutes on March 16th and a week later interviewed by someone from England.  Perhaps, after 28 years of trying to understand our “system,” I’m on the verge of becoming an “overnight success”.  Or maybe I’m about to get my 15 minutes of fame.  Or maybe life will pretty much continue as it has for the past two decades.

In any case, Ben interviewed me for about an hour and a half.  We (mostly I) talked about sovereignty, trust relationships, etc.

 

A Right to Ask Questions About Definitions?

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Title 18 United States Code (USC) Section 6001 (“Definitions”) begins with the phase “As used in this chapter”.  That phrase tells us that the four definitions found at 18 USC 6001 are only certain to apply in this chapter (Chapter 601; “Witness Immunity”) but might not apply in any other Chapters in the USC.

The USC has 50 Titles.  If we assume that each of the other 49 Titles also has 601 “Chapters,” then there may be over 30,000 “chapters” in the entire USC.  In theory, then, there could be 30,000 unique definitions (one or each Chapter in the USC) for each of the four terms defined at 18 USC 6001.

Of course, it’s virtually impossible that any word or phrase used by Congress could have 30,000 separate definitions.  Nevertheless, many word or phrases used by Congress do have multiple definitions.   More, these multiple definitions are often contrived by Congress to have meanings that, for ordinary Americans, are not only unknown and unimagined but are virtually incomprehensible.

This multiplicity of definitions goes to the heart of the following inquiry as to our right to ask to know the definitions of each of the words used in laws, instruments or testimony that are relied upon in our court cases and legal relations.

 

Low Tariffs & National Suicide

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Alan Tonelson is an author and research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council (a national business organization of small- and medium-sized domestic manufacturers). The Washington Times recently wrote about Mr. Tonelson in an article entitled “TONELSON: Obama doesn’t get trade finance”.

In that article, Mr. Tonelson observed that “President Obama wants to use international trade policy to generate a sustainable, private-sector-led recovery, and that’s a good idea.”

But Tonelson also argued that President Obama,

“. . . needs to learn some basic economics about how exports and imports affect growth and employment.  Otherwise . . . initiatives like his oft-repeated commitment to double U.S. exports by 2014 and his pursuit of new trade agreements won’t create a penny more of output or a single new job. In fact, as indicated by the new government data for 2010, this trade-policy approach is likeliest to undermine recovery and increase the nation’s already dangerous debt load.”

On the one hand, I agree with much of Mr. Tonelson’s evidence.  But on the other hand, I’m skeptical of Obama’s and Tonelson’s fundamental premise—that using international trade to bolster economic recovery is, or can be, a “good idea”. I think it’s, at best, a stupid idea–and, at worst, a treasonous idea.

 

Criminal Charges Against the Pope?!

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This is almost too fantastic to be believed.  But if you Google the phrase “Criminal charges were filed against Pope Benedict XVI” you’ll find scores of websites that apparently allege that criminal charges have, in fact, been filed in the International World Court against the Pope . . . !

Day-ahm! We truly live in interesting times.

The plaintiffs are alleging that Pope and/or Catholic Church are guilty of “crimes against humanity,” “the murderous forbiddance of condoms,” “patronage of sexual crimes”.  Some of this sounds silly, some sounds embarrassing, but I guarantee that–in the context it’s all potentially serious.

The plaintiffs’ lawsuit is available at the following link:

http://www.welcomethelight.com/2011/03/the-pope-indicted-at-the-icc-for-crimes-against-humanity/

 

War Without Reason

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If you’d like some insight into why we invaded Iraq (or Afghanistan), here’s an amazing excerpt from an interview of 4-star General (and former Rhodes Scholar) Wesley Clark.

The except is amazing because Clark makes admissions that I wouldn’t expect from a man of his stature.  Sure, he must have been in a position to know the truth, but few people achieve real power unless they can suppress the impulse to tell the truth.  General Clark has apparently forgotten his insider’s “vow of silence”.

Clark claims that even though we didn’t actually invade Iraq until A.D. 2003, the decision to do so was made within two weeks after the “9/11″ attack in A.D. 2001.  This implies that the whole “Saddam-has-Weapons-of- Mass-Destruction” pretext for invading Iraq was known to be a lie for most of 2 years before the invasion and “Hunt for WMDs” actually began.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died and the course of world history has been dramatically changed.  The former perception that the US is the world’s only “super-power” has been badly eroded.  Why?  Well, according to Clark, we invaded Iraq, world history changed, etc.,  simply because our government couldn’t think of anything else to do.  Clark implies that we invaded Iraq without reason.