WolfesBlogArchives: May 2007

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

IN HARDYVILLE (in case you missed it yesterday when I wasn't online) it is "Showtime" for the resistance fighters in their battle to drive the feds from Hardy County.

Posted by Claire @ 01:49 PM CST [Link]

TWO PALADIN-PRESS FIREARMS-TRAINING DVDS free to the most creative respondent. Gopherit.

Posted by Claire @ 01:35 PM CST [Link]

Sunday, May 27, 2007

TSA INSPECTION TARGETS Debra here. The last time I flew was September 20, 2001 (we had expensive, non-refundable tickets that even the horrific events a week earlier couldn't dissuade me from using). But recently, a 2-week cross-country training class for my new job at Globex required me to brave the gauntlet.

I won't go into the well-documented security procedures (except to note that all the TSA agents wore blue latex gloves. "Two by two, hands of blue..."). I wasn't pulled aside for any special attention, even after I committed the grievous faux pas of placing both my notebook computers (one personal, one business) in the same gray plastic bin.

Upon arrival at my hotel room, I unpacked my suitcases (which had been checked through airline baggage), and found a card in one stating that it had been selected randomly for TSA inspection. Having a deep and abiding streak of cynicism (especially of all things government), I began comparing the two bags for clues on what could have prompted one to be inspected and not the other. [more]

Posted by Debra @ 01:54 PM CST [Link]

Saturday, May 26, 2007

REMEMBER THE STRIKING GRAPHIC FROM JPFO that inspired a blog entry a while back? Aaron Zelman just sent me a couple of copies of it in the form of good-sized 18 x 24 posters. It's even more in-your-face BIG.

The graphic now serves as a promo poster for JPFO's movie The Gang, which has been in production for more than a year and should be be released right about now.

I saw a rough-cut of The Gang and I'm impressed. No, it's not as lively as a Michael Moore anti-gun alleged documentary. But it has the distinct advantage of being factual -- and very revealing. It had facts about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Tobacco that I didn't know -- and I've been hanging around the gun-rights world for a long time. The Gang is a feature-length film that, in a just world, would blow the evil BATFE right out of our lives. If enough people see and show this film, Congress should be shamed into calling that vicious, anti-Bill-of-Rights gang off our rights and getting its boot off our necks.

Posted by Claire @ 03:41 PM CST [Link]

OH DRAT. I COMPLETELY MISSED NATIONAL POLICE WEEK. I guess that's the price one pays for not enjoying the blessings of Washington, DC, where most of the annual festivities take place.

Jim Bovard, however, works and bicycles in Our Nation's Glorious Capital and experienced These Noble Protectors of Our Persons and Our Liberties innocently disporting themselves in the cause of Celebrating Their Fallen Comrades.

For those of us who missed the party:

http://jimbovard.com/blog/2007/05/21/another-police-rampage-in-dc/
and
http://jimbovard.com/blog/2007/05/23/police-rampage-update-contact-info/

Posted by Claire @ 02:33 PM CST [Link]

THE HUMAN BEING IS A STRANGE BEAST. At least creative ones are. At least this one is.

Here's one of those little personal, non-freedom-related writer-revelations you can skip if you're only visiting Wolfesblog for the political rants: [more]

Posted by Claire @ 02:21 PM CST [Link]

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

HM. Didn't Google once declare a policy of "doing no harm"? How times have changed ...

(Thanks, SJ.)

Posted by Claire @ 03:59 PM CST [Link]

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

SNORT. CHORTLE. The New York Times commits lèse majesté against all those American czars (including the new -- ugh! -- "war czar"). And quotes freedom's good friend and great wit Jim Bovard.

Posted by Claire @ 01:53 PM CST [Link]

HARDYVILLE HAS ITS FIRST ADVERTISER! And it's none other than our good, principled friends from the Jim Zumbo flap, Hi Mountain Seasonings. If you read my latest Hardyville adventure and if you like good jerky, please click on the Hi Mountain banner and try Hans and Kimberly Hummel's excellent products. They really are wonderful, as both blogista Silver and I have attested from personal experience. AND you'll be supporting liberty-loving small-business owners (not to mention my column).

Thank you, Hummels!

Thanks also to Thunder, who blogged yesterday's Hardyville column more enthusiastically than I'd have dared. I was offline all day, finishing up the "Under Siege" series and starting the next ...

Posted by Claire @ 12:27 PM CST [Link]

Monday, May 21, 2007

Latest Hardyville column is out!

And it's a nail-biter! Claire keeps the suspense up in the ongoing saga.

It's keeping me on the edge of my keyboard just like those daytime soap operas would if I watched them.

What will Carty do next? Will the communards make it out alive or will the JBT's unleash upon them certain doom?

Find out next week in the following hotly anticipated installment of Hardyville!

Posted by Thunder @ 06:59 PM CST [Link]

Saturday, May 19, 2007

YOUR SHREDDER MAY NO LONGER BE ENOUGH. Beware. (Though you gotta admit that the initial use for this new gadget is a damnfine one.)

(Thank you to Simon Jester for the heads up.)

Posted by Claire @ 01:08 PM CST [Link]

I APOLOGIZE FOR MY LACK OF BLOGITUDE LATELY and kiss the feet of my fellow blogistas for keeping up the good work. I love the way each blogista adds his own style and specialty. (Although I must admit, Silver, that you just gave me shivers that even this chilly day couldn't otherwise evoke.)

I've been thinking profound thoughts about mundane matters. But none of these musings has struck me as good blog material. Something will ferment. Just not yet.

However, Netflix did deliver two stunningly good movies in a row this week, and if you haven't seen them I recommend that you rush right out. Both are tales of good and evil in human action -- although otherwise the only trait they share is their astonishing excellence.

[more]

Posted by Claire @ 12:43 PM CST [Link]

RARELY HAVE I SEEN SUCH A DISCONNECT
Silver here, but those words are by Morgan Stanley Managing Director and Chief Economist Stephen S. Roach. His brief essay Denial on Protectionism is a must-read if you have any investments in stocks or bonds. Mr. Roach reports that "The US Congress is moving full steam ahead on anti-China protectionism, and no one seems to care."

This is eerily reminiscent of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff, enacted in 1929. "The stock market broke sharply on the day that Hoover agreed to sign the Smoot–Hawley Bill."

In 1929, the bill was supposed to "help" farmers. Rothbard reports that "It was at a precarious time of depression that the Hoover administration chose to hobble international trade, injure the American consumer, and cripple the American farmers' export markets by raising tariffs higher than their already high levels." Today congress plans to "help" the American consumer by hobbling international trade, raising the price of imported Chinese consumer goods, and crippling what little manufacturing export trade remains in America.

There is no reason to think the outcome will be any better this time, and plenty of reasons to fear it will be much worse. We have been in a recession since the collapse of the fed-fueled dot-com bubble. According to Shadow Government Statistics, consumer price inflation is above 10% while GDP growth is -2%. All the while, the fed creates new money at a pace unmatched in history, with growth of the money supply hitting 12.8%. Our current account balance of minus $862 billion is not only the largest in the world and in history, it is almost twice as large as that of all other debtor nations combined. In 1929 the US was an economic power, today we are bankrupt. In 1929 we were at peace, today we are bleeding trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of casualties into a pointless war. In 1929 people had savings accounts with gold and silver coins, today they have electronic bits on computer hard drives telling how much debt they owe.

"Are we headed for another Great Depression" has an interesting analogy by Elaine Meinel Supkis. It is worth reading if you want to understand why all this is happening. Speaking of currency reserves and national solvency, she states that

It may sound trite but thinking about great banking matters as if it is one's own bank account no matter how small, works. Namely, it is dangerous for anyone to live life where everything is juggled and there isn't a penny to spare. Then something bad happens and boom. You go bankrupt. This is why savings accounts matter and why inflation is so deadly.
...
if we think of these funds (national currency reserves) as boats, then China has Noah's Ark, Japan has an aircraft carrier, Europe has a holiday cruise liner, Russia has a very fancy yacht and the USA has a rowboat made out of an old bathtub. That is leaking.

We are in a recession, and congress is doing all it can to repeat the mistakes that led to the crash of 1929. Inflation is eating middle-class and poor Americans literally out of house and home, so congress plans to raise prices with new tariffs and lower wages by legalizing a flood of new immigrants. The fed is creating money at rates that have led to hyperinflations. Any one of 4 or more countries could sink our boat by selling their hordes of dollars. So we threaten to make war on yet another country that has done nothing to harm us, but unlike Iraq has the means to fight back.

This insanity, and it won't end well.

Posted by Silver @ 08:35 AM CST [Link]

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

MEANWHILE, BACK IN HARDYVILLE, we chomp at the bit, awaiting action.

Posted by Claire @ 12:54 PM CST [Link]

NOW HERE'S AN ELEGANT LITTLE SOLUTION that shows exactly how life in a truly cooperative (rather than coercive and bureaucratic) society could work.

If you're an urban dog person (which I have been in my past), you know what hell it is to try to find a good place to walk your dog off-leash. You sneak into public parks or school grounds at the crack of dawn, hoping to play a little fetch and let Fido poop (and you scoop!) before the world awakens. But you still sometimes get caught. Or you run into fearful and/or hostile visitors, who can rightly tell you you're breaking the law, merely being there. Even when you bother nobody, you're acutely aware that you're a criminal.

I was once stopped -- at 7:00, in the rain, in a lonely forested area of one of the nation's huge municipal parks (like Golden Gate or Central Park), by two -- count 'em, 2 -- cops in two -- count 'em, 2 patrol cars for the crime of having my dog off-leash at my side. (And this in a city that wouldn't even dust for fingerprints when my car was recovered totalled after being stolen by gang-bangers.)

Sure, now there are a few dog parks. But a decent-sized city may have only one. Or none.

So think about this. In Washington, DC, 600 local residents pay annual dues to the historic Congressional Cemetary -- which bills itself as a private and privately funded cemetary, despite being polluted by the bones of dozens of politicians. The agreement gives the live humans a right to walk their dogs among the gravestones and on paths strewn with cherry blossoms.

But the good isn't only for the dog people. According to one of the human members of this "K9 Corps" of Cemetery Dogs: [more]

Posted by Claire @ 12:20 PM CST [Link]

RUMORS THAT I HAVE ESCAPED TO A TROPICAL ISLE are unfortunately premature. As -- more fortunately -- are rumors that I've been Wacoed, hit by a truck, or died on the floor of Cabin Sweet Cabin and been consumed by dogs.

I've been mostly off-line (and completely without regular email) for a week due to a combination of circumstances. Clairewolfe.com was down for a while, and when I finally got access today, I discovered that my hosting service had eaten an entire week's worth of mail. So if you've mailed anything really good to my clairewolfe.com email in the last week ... sigh ... please re-send.

ADDENDUM: I also hear from PSM that the host-service's problems resulted in recent blog entries disappearing. Several people also told me that their emails to clairewolfe.com bounced. Sigh. My apologies.

Posted by Claire @ 12:12 PM CST [Link]

What business is it of theirs?

It's me, PSM. Hi.

My older child is outgrowing her required-by-law car seat. Now we have to buy her a required-by-law booster seat.

Malarkey, I say. I'm NOT saying it's a bad idea to put her in a booster seat. I'm NOT saying her safety isn't important to me. I AM saying, how in hell is that anyone's business but mine? God made her MY responsibility, not the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's, not the New Hampshire Department of Transportation's. MINE. Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. My kids. My decisions. My responsibilities. My life. My car.

Okay, I know it doesn't have the moral weight of, say, the war in Iraq, or the excitement of a federal siege in Hardyville. This is just my perspective, the only perspective I can give.

Posted by Penguinsscareme @ 10:39 AM CST [Link]

Never! Voting is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner!

It's me, PSM. Hi.

Why do I feel like I wrote these exact same words just a few days ago? Are there renewed perturbations within the spacetime continuum surrounding Wolfesblog?

No matter. As I said previously, the reality is that we don't live in a world where each person is his own sovereign; voting, for all its many, many disappointments, both inherent and man-made, is the currency of the realm.

And this Ron Paul guy, dammitall, he's messing with my ideology. As much as I hate to say it, I have to admit that I'm falling him. Will I vote for him? Probably not. Don't want to validate the system, you know. But what's more likely? Or should I say, what's less likely? That by not voting, I'll somehow weaken this deeply flawed system and advance one more step toward a peaceful anarchy? Or that my one vote for a good candidate in a bad system will be counted?

In the end, I probably won't do it. I die a little inside each time I concede ground to the grand failure that is American democracy. But I'm surprised at myself for even considering it.

Posted by Penguinsscareme @ 10:08 AM CST [Link]

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

THE WORLD'S GREATEST UNDER-REPORTED HYPERINFLATION. Next to this one, the Weimar catastrophe was a walk in the park.

For a sense of the impact on the local population, imagine the value of your bank accounts in dollars and then move the decimal point 22 places to the left. Then try to buy something.

Posted by Claire @ 05:27 PM CST [Link]

EMAIL YOUR COMMENTS ON THE REAL ID LAW TO DHS

Silver here. I much prefer Garrison Keillor's phrase, the Achtung people. Whatever you call them, they claim that there is little or no opposition to REAL ID.

Bruce Schneier says it best.

Please, please, please, go to this Privacy Coalition site and submit your comments. The DHS has been making a big deal about the fact that so few people are commenting, and we need to prove them wrong.
...
It's time to rethink some of the security decisions made during the emotional aftermath of 9/11 and determine whether they're still a good idea for homeland security and America. After all, if Real ID was such a well-conceived plan, Maine and 22 other states wouldn't be challenging it in their legislatures or rejecting the Real ID concept for any number of reasons. But they are.

And we as citizens should, too. Let the debate begin.

They offfically stopped accepting email comments at 5 PM yesterday. I never read or heard about a comment period, and I generally pay pretty close attention to this stuff. I decided to send comments anyway. The Actung people can ignore them today just as well as they will ignore those sent yesterday. You must include "DHS-2006-0030" in the subject line.

If you don't want to read Schneier, at least click Privacy Coalition and send a pre-written email. I recommend changing a few words so that the Achtung people can't devise a simple filter to screen out identical comments.

If you prefer, go to the EFF's comment's page.

I've lost most of my hope (or perhaps it was nothing more than naivete) about political action. I sent an email, even after the deadline, because I want to put the lie to the claim that no one objects.

Posted by Silver @ 10:48 AM CST [Link]

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

I'VE BEEN TRYING TO WRITE A CREDO. Don't ask me why; I know it's a rather pretentious thing to do. But a few days ago, while reading Brian Doherty's walk-down-memory-lane tome, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement, it suddenly became important to me to come up with a brief, concise statement of my political beliefs.

My draft version is ... um, well, pretentious. And wordy. So I've decided to ask for your help. I'm going to start a Credo thread over at TCF, then steal plagiarize rip off generously adopt portions of the best statements.

BTW, Radicals for Capitalism is a great book for anybody who remembers any early days of libertarianism or who doesn't recall those days but wants a colorful and pretty darned acurate glimpse of the players and events. Whoo, talk about flashbacks. People. Places. Things. Events. Some are from "my day" -- the teen years in which I came to understand my nascent political views. Some are from long before that, like the dark days when three women -- Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand -- almost single-handedly extracted liberty from the crushing jaws of statism.

In the book's summation of where the movement's heading now, Doherty even includes a paragraph devoted to moi. (Yeah, I ego-surfed the index, first thing. Don't tell anybody.) But that reference is actually devoted to you -- you guys out there reading this or participating on TCF -- more than me. Pat yourselves on the back.

Posted by Claire @ 02:40 PM CST [Link]

SHOOTING THE DOG. GovThugs are now doing it -- and worse -- under the claim of "code enforcement". Someday we will have to end this reign of terror.

Posted by Claire @ 02:00 PM CST [Link]

Monday, May 7, 2007

IN HARDYVILLE the plot thickens. It gets so thick, in fact, that one federal agent steps into something resembling La Brea tar.

Posted by Claire @ 01:14 PM CST [Link]

Saturday, May 5, 2007

ONE MAN STOOD OUT IN THURSDAY'S "DEBATE."

Silver here, and I confess that I watched this staged press conference masquerading as a debate. As expected, nine bloodthirsty, thieving fascists postured and preened as they were spoon-fed pabulum from a paid shill.

One man stood out.
One man was against the war in Iraq, and noted that 70% of Americans want us out NOW.
One man wants to abolish the income tax and the IRS.
One man dared to mention the stealth tax of inflation, robbing from the poor to give to the rich.
One man was against the Real ID card.
One man talked about the proper role of government in a free society.
One man believed in strict interpretation of the severe limits placed on government by the constitution.
One man mentioned the free market as the best way to resolve difficult issues.
One man spoke about freedom, liberty, privacy, and peace.

That man was Ron Paul. You can watch the 5 minutes he was allowed to speak on Youtube.

Ron Paul is clearly different, and clearly dangerous. So dangerous, that when ABC "News" put up an on-line poll with 11 choices for a debate with 10 people, Ron Paul alone was excluded from the list.

I fear that we are beyond the point where voting can change anything in this country. Change will come. But peaceful change via voting can come only if we are allowed a candidate who is truly different. ABC "News" doesn't want people to have that choice. They are not alone.

Will the power of the internet be sufficient to advance the one candidate who offers a real choice? Will he be silenced or will he be heard? I don't know. But I am certain that if the heavy-handed tactics of network shills and power brokers go unchallenged, our future is dark indeed, and when change finally does come, it will be violent and bloody in ways that none of us want.

Posted by Silver @ 07:19 AM CST [Link]

Thursday, May 3, 2007

THERE ARE GOOD COPS IN THE WORLD. The LEAP blog hosts some of them. Gotta appreciate the comments about those Kathryn Johnston killer cops "not winning the big teddy bear" for their shooting skills. Thirty-nine shots. Hitting three fellow officers. Sheesh. Where are the "only police and soldiers should have guns" crowd when things like this happen?

Posted by Claire @ 02:45 PM CST [Link]

HELP THE BRADY CAMPAIGN! Randall the Dreamer writes to suggest that we all help the Brady Bunch with their efforts to rid the world of those mean, evil, horrible guns. Order their free literature for your ... ahem, organization. Order lots of free literature and spread it around.

I'm confident we can all think of many interesting and appropriate places to utilize these packets that our anti-gun friends are so graciously providing at their own expense.

Posted by Claire @ 01:21 PM CST [Link]

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

WITH TWO MONTHS TO GO on the six-month experiment in weekly Hardyville columns, Backwoods Home has dropped the advertising rates WAY down. Check it out. My column is one of the most popular features on the BHM website. If you have a business to advertise and want to see weekly Hardyvilles (and Hardyville serials, with actual plots!) continue, please v*te with your budget. I'd love to keep writing these stories & I hope you'd love to keep reading them.

Posted by Claire @ 03:08 PM CST [Link]

THINK ABOUT MAFIA ENFORCERS. They don't just roam the streets looking for doors to kick in. Consider the thugs who work for Columbian drug lords. Nope, they don't roam around at random, either, seeking homes to invade.

Not because they're paragons of morality, of course. But because they receive no benefit from random violence. Even freelance home-invasion burglars, truly the scum of the earth, must be selective in choosing victims. They want a house where valuables can be found, where owners of those valuables are submissive enough not to fire upon burglars pretending to be cops.

Now think about the three cops who slaughtered Kathryn Johnston last November. Consider the enormity of the facts finally coming out this week.

Those cop-thugs -- who shot an 88-year-old (or 92-year-old, depending on who you believe) great grandmother, then left her handcuffed and bleeding on the floor while they cooly planted evidence to make her look like a small-time dope dealer (and remember, "small-time dope dealer" would have been enough, by the weird standards of the drug war, to justify massacring anybody in that house) -- were literally roaming the streets looking for victims.

Completely random victims. They prowled in search of doors to bust, humans to bust.

Guilty? Innocent? They didn't care. If there was no evidence of crime, they could always concoct some -- as they did to get their warrant. Or plant some. As they did at least twice on that single day. [more]

Posted by Claire @ 02:57 PM CST [Link]

Freedom IS free

Raving Reporter Thunder here.

In 2006, there were 2,176 secret search warrants issued according to (in)Justice Department records. Out of those search warrants, care to guess how many were denied by those secret courts?


One.


I just got back from flying across country to attend a family event. Having to go through the TSA gauntlet numerous times and seeing countless mindless followers of those in Mordor-on-the-Potomac walking around with their sloganized T-shirts stating "Freedom isn't free" and coming home to news such as the above, the words "We told you so" just don't cut it. Never trust the fox to guard the hen house.

Freedom is, and always has been, free. It's the politicians and their followers that keep jacking the price up.

Posted by Thunder @ 11:46 AM CST [Link]

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

BUT THERE IS SOME GOOD NEWS ... Today (Jim Bovard reminds us) is the fourth anniversary of "Mission Accomplished." We can all thank our stars that the war in Iraq ended so swiftly, so successfully, and with so little harm to a country, a culture, and innocent civilians.

Can't we ...?

Posted by Claire @ 12:11 PM CST [Link]

THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE KATHRYN JOHNSTON MURDER has finally come out. And it's worse than even the most cynical of us imagined.

Too bad that the officers plea-bargained and won't face life in prison. Too bad it wasn't Johnston's gunfire that wounded them. The only bright spot in the whole sordid fiasco (perhaps even in the whole drug war) was the belief -- wrong, it seems -- that an abused citizen had been able to fight back in the seconds before her government killed her.

As usual, Radley Balko found the right words to say about it:

While an innocent, elderly woman lay bleeding, handcuffed, and dying on the floor of her own home due to their malfeasance, these animals went about planting drugs to implicate her, and concocting a story to save their own hides. Every case these officers ever worked on needs to be reopened. And that's just getting started. A police department that could produce these three dirty cops, and allow them to operate, is a department that has almost certainly produced many more. It would be awfully coincidental if the only three bad drug cops at APD all happened to be working together this particular night, and happened to get caught on this particular raid.

Johnston's murder should also be a wake-up call for those who instinctively believe initial police accounts of what happened during one of these raids. I suspect that if Kathryn Johnston had been a 22-year old innocent man instead of an 88 (or 92, depending on who's reporting)-year old innocent woman, we may still not know exactly what happened in that house.

Posted by Claire @ 11:49 AM CST [Link]

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