Posted on

Another Great Ron Paul Interview

What is it that possesses anybody to think that governments, which (are) not trusted by anybody, should have the power to create money out of thin air and create runaway spending and allow the politicians to not worry about deficits in order to buy reelection?

The full interview is here.

The only area I really disagree with Dr. Paul is on immigration.  However, I do agree with him that the problem would basically solve itself if we ended entitlements.  The free (tax payer financed) services we offer are motivation enough for them to risk coming here illegally, especially when they know nothing will happen to them once they are here.  End the motivation and the problem would no longer be a problem…a nuisance at best.

Read the whole article.  Again, it is too bad that this kind of common sense (and Constitutional) talk isn’t en vogue in the big parties.

Posted on

What if We Payed Taxes All at Once?

I’ve been reading lots of articles today that are run every year at this time about “giving the government an interest free loan”, getting a refund, filing early if there is a refund, filing at the end if there isn’t, etc.

I wonder if there would be more of a public outcry over taxes if we had to pay a single bill at the end of the year.  It is pretty sneaky that the gov’ment takes taxes out of your check at every pay period.  Most people never miss it.  But what if we had to write a check out each April for $20,000 or so?  I bet people would notice then.

It’s funny how some people even go beyond the “convenience” of paying each pay period.  They make sure that they pay more so that they can get a refund at the end of the year…sort of like a negative interest savings account.  How sad is it that we, collectively, don’t have the discipline to save and are willing to pay the gov’ment to do it for us?

Posted on

Knox County School Rezoning

This one will stir the pot. There is an uproar going on right now over the rezoning of schools in Knox County to accomodate the new Hardin Valley High School. 3,400 students from Farragut, West, Bearden, Karns, Gibbs, Austin-East, Central, Carter, Fulton, Halls, and Powell are going to be affected.

Let me get this straight…

You had no problem paying for failing public schools before you had children attending them. You will have no problem continuing to pay for these failing schools long after your child has graduated. You have no problem allowing the state/county to decide when your children will go to a failing school. You have no problem allowing the state to decide on the failing curriculum. You have no problem allowing the state to lump your child (an individual) into this failing curriculum that is geared towards the masses. You have no problem with the state using funds (tax money) to support athletic programs instead of actual education. You have no problem with teachers’ unions and tenure which potentially allow incompetent and lazy teachers to continue “educating” your children. You have no problem with teachers “teaching to the test” to achieve high scores on state mandated standardized tests for the purpose of getting a raise instead of teaching your child to reason and think for themselves.

But you do have a problem with the state deciding which of these failing schools your child must attend?

Isn’t lack of choice and control an expected part of socialism? Was the fact that public schools, social security, etc are socialist institutions conveniently left out of the failing public education most of us received?

Sounds to me like we are getting precisely what we deserve for turning so much control over to the state in the first place.

**UPDATE**

I stand corrected.  There are very important angles of this story I haven’t considered.  Luckily, the News Sentinel is on the job.

Posted on

Helping People Avoid Foreclosures the Right Way

Brad Warbiany has it right when he talks about the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America:

…these guys (a private group) are helping people, so I’m not going to criticize them in any way.

This is how people are helped in a free market.  Those with a vested interest in the success of the individuals who borrowed money from them try to make the best of a bad situation. 

Unforunately, there are plenty of other people, Charles Schumer for instance, who want the federal government to bail out people who borrowed money they can’t pay back, which is basically helping the companies who shouldn’t have loaned them in the first place.  Never mind the fact that the federal government itself already runs at a deficit.

I’ll spell it out for you on simpler terms, with the middle man removed.  You and I will be forced to provide someone else with housing by paying back a loan they took out with a bank who shouldn’t have loaned them the money in the first place.

Surely the banks will expect this money back with no interest.  Right.  Here’s an article that tells the whole story without the common sense slant I just provided.

Posted on

Dollars – The American Language

One of the big issues surrounding the illegal immigration debate is language. Here in Tennessee, legislation has been sponsored to limit the languages of state documents to English only, and there have been other issues involving foreign language books in public school libraries. It seems to be old reliable for anti-immigration people–attack the fact that immigrants can’t/don’t/won’t speak English.

Continue reading “Dollars – The American Language”

Posted on

Google’s PPA Program

Search Engine Journal has a great article on this program, which is still in beta–typical Google.  This should be a huge boost as a money maker for bloggers, and provides even more incentive to push good, original content.

More content should mean more links and more money.  Site owners will have the ability to create text based blogs, just like the ones you can create as an Amazon affiliate.  This will allow the ads to be integrated right into the content instead of as a separate section of the site, so it shouldn’t be as difficult to draw the reader’s attention to the ads.

Posted on

The Most Disappointing Movies of the 80s

I was born in the early 70s, and like a lot of my contemporaries, I spent a lot of time during my middle school years at the mall/movies. One of the worst memories I have from my childhood is being all amped up to see a movie, only for it to be a complete waste of time and money. Looking back as an adult and admitted movie snob, it’s pretty obvious that most of these films never had a chance at being worth $4 to see. At the time, however, I was excited about all of them.

With a couple of exceptions, these aren’t the worst movies of the 80s, just the most disappointing.

Star Wars Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983)

Why I couldn’t wait to see it: Wasn’t everybody excited about this movie? I was too young to really understand the first Star Warsmovie, but I thought it was really “neat”, had the lunchbox, the action figures, and was Darth Vader for Halloween. With The Empire Strikes Back, I understood a lot more about what was happening and was sucked in by the story. I couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen next.

Why I was disappointed:Just as I was starting to like the Star Wars series for the story, not just because things were getting blown up in space, someone got wise to the fact that they could make more money on merchandise than box office. Consequently, we got cuddly little teddy bears that kids would love–Ewoks. This wasn’t a bad movie at all, but it wasn’t as good as it could have and should have been. I can’t help but think that some of the story was traded in for merchandising efforts.

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

Why I couldn’t wait to see it:Unless you were living on another planet in 1985, you knew all about Madonna. Now, imagine you’re a 13 year old boy. You see my point.

Why I was disappointed:I was expecting to see basically an hour and a half of Madonna’s videos. Yeah, she looked hot in this movie, but this was our first clue that she can’t act. Remarkably, this didn’t stop her from starring in several movies later in her career. They were all pretty disappointing too.

Quicksilver (1986)

Why I Couldn’t Wait to See It: Badass BMX tricks–on TEN SPEEDS!!!

Why I was Disappointed:This one actually is one of the worst movies ever. Probably the only thing that keeps this from being the absolute worst I’ve ever seen is that my cousin and I were asked to leave before the end of the movie. From what I remember, we got bored watching Kevin Bacon working as a bicycle messenger and started throwing popcorn at people. Look, there were plenty of movies in the 80s that featured bad acting, no plot, and horrible writing. However, they delivered cool stuff like tons of skateboarding and breakdancing, so we were all okay with it. This movie had nothing.

The All Nighter (1987)

Why I Couldn’t Wait to See It:  Susanna Hoffs.  The previews for this movie made it look like it was going to be nothing but her and her hottie friends having a tickle fight that lasted into the wee hours of the morning and culminated in all of them going out the next day and looking for a redneck eighth grader (me) to hook up with.

Why I was Disappointed:  Maybe they should have hired the guys who edited and marketed the trailer to do the whole movie, because I bought it hook, line, and sinker.  All they did in this movie was talk!  Maybe if I’d known anything about girls at the time I would have paid enough attention to somehow gain some knowledge in picking up some chicks on my own.  Instead, I sat there and watched them talk about who knows what for the whole movie.  I honestly don’t remember anything about it except that there was no tickling.  Pam Grier was in it, but I didn’t know at the time how cool she is.

Light of Day (1987)

Why I Couldn’t Wait to See It:  Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett.  I love rock ‘n’ roll, and Teen Wolf and Back to the Future were cool too.  This seemed like it would be cool because Michael J. Fox actually was into playing guitar, and the idea of Joan Jett playing his sister and rocking out for an hour and a half was AWESOME.

Why I was Disappointed:  That’s not at all what this movie was about.  I was expecting something like what we see on Behind the Music…rock and roll craziness, drinking, drugs, boobs.  Instead it was about stuff like relationships, personal struggles, etc.  Instead of the cookie-cutter 80s rocker movie, this one had a real plot and was a unique story.  Sounds like something I’d really like now.  Now that I think about it, I should probably rent it and see if it’s really any good.

Posted on

Why the National Libertarian Party Should Pack It In

It’s very interesting to read so much on the web about the buzz Ron Paul is creating in his presidential run. Sure, it’s early still, and I’m not unrealistic about his chances, but I’ve heard more people mention his name already this year than I heard discussing Badnarik in 2004. Although many hardline libertarians would disagree, the fact that he’s a libertarian (basically) running as a Republican is all the more encouraging to me. I believe the Libertarian Party should cease pursuing offices at the national level.Like it or not, a great number of Americans think that there are only two political parties in this country, and that they are diametrically opposed to one another. Even those who are aware that other parties exist seem partial to believing that “other” parties are full of nuts/extremists. Most of those who don’t share this belief think that voting for anything other than a Democrat or a Republican is a wasted vote, since this vote cannot possibly contribute to a potential win for a candidate.

By running as a Republican, Ron Paul will do more for the libertarian movement than he could ever do by running as a libertarian candidate. First of all, he will not be shut out of nationally broadcast debates. This will give him the opportunity to not only get his own ideas across, but also give him the opportunity to call other candidates on their BS to be seen by a large audience. Remember when Alan Keyes got the opportunity to say this on Fox News in 1999:

And so what are we supposed to do again, get down on our knees and thank “Master Bush” now because he’s going to let us keep a little bit more of our own money? And we’ll thank “Master So-and-so” when they do it.

I think it’s time we realized that that kind of thinking is for slaves.

My ancestors were slaves. I abhor to think like one today.

The tax system for a free people is not a tax that gives the government a preemptive claim to a single penny of your income, and the right reform of this system is to get rid of the 16th Amendment, abolish the income tax, and return to the original Constitution of our country which funded the federal government with tariffs, duties, and excise taxes.

It would be tough to get a statement such as this out to such a broad audience without being affiliated with one of the two major parties.  Keyes didn’t get the nomination, but he did get that message across and made an attempt to push the tax debate in the right direction.

Another problem the LP has to overcome to win a national election is that this is a big nation with lots of people. Even if several libertarian strongholds like the Free State Project were established, it would be very difficult to win even one state, much less enough to compete for the presidency.  While some would argue that it is important to get the message out at the national level, wouldn’t it make more sense to concentrate efforts at the local level where the possibility of winning is reasonable?

Posted on

Education and Money Produce Terrorists

At least it produces more successful ones.

There is enough moral, psychological and sometimes financial payoff from the act of killing many people to offset the economic loss of their death. Therefore, the terrorist manager assigns the most deadly tasks to the highest-caliber people; otherwise, they will not bother. In an awful way, it makes sense, and it seems to be true. Caught and failed suicide bombers are conspicuously less educated than those who carry out their tasks.

The point of the article is that poverty doesn’t drive terrorism.  I’d have to agree with that, but I think it is pretty accurate to say that terrorism is driven by money.  I’m sure that most of the people who do the killing and dying are not motivated by money, but the people at the top almost assuredly are.  Religion is an easy sell to the masses to motivate them to do their bidding.