Adults only status update: Three awful things you learn as you get older — and while they don’t define life (which is overwhelming grand) they sure can put barriers in the way of individual and social progress. This is just some stuff you need to know.

1. No one is ever wrong. People will defend an opinion or an action until the end, even if every bit of logic and evidence runs contrary. Sincere apologies and genuine admissions of error and wrongdoing are the rarest things in this world. Meanwhile, there is no reward for being right. On the contrary, people will resent you and try to take you down, which leads to point two.

2. Excellence makes you a target of envy and can often harm your prospects for success. Meritocracy exists, and even prevails, but it is realized through your own initiative, and it is never just granted freely by some individual or institution. All progress comes about because you alone push through the attempts of everyone around you to stop it.

3. Average people will sacrifice every principle and every truth for the sake of security. This is because people, with very few exceptions, fear the uncertainty of a free and unknown future more than the seeming security of a known and unfree status quo. They will give up every right and every bit of their soul for the promise of security, even to the point of obeying wicked despots. You can break free of this tendency but it takes courage, risk taking, and a conscious act of defying the convention.

Love it. Very aristocratic.

R.I.P. forgotten millions

Just when you thought the religious right couldn’t get any crazier, with its personhood amendments and its attacks on contraception, here comes the academic left with an even crazier idea: after-birth abortion.

No, I didn’t make this up. “Partial-birth abortion” is a term invented by pro-lifers. But “after-birth abortion” is a term invented by two philosophers, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva. In the Journal of Medical Ethics, they propose:

[W]hen circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible. … [W]e propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide,’ to emphasize that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus … rather than to that of a child. Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk.

(Read more)

Sweden has a fairly good reputation around the world as a good place to live. However, this reputation comes from a previous era, and in a series of articles, I will point out how things have changed in recent years. Today: did you know that Sweden’s security authority FRA wiretaps all of Sweden’s population, all of the time?

In 2008, there was a huge battle for civil liberties in Sweden that shook the administration to its core, but in the end, the administration won and the civil liberties activists – from all colors of the political spectrum – lost. The battle concerned the so-called “FRA law”, named from the security agency that it concerned, the Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA).

As a background, the FRA had used a loophole in the law since 1976 that allowed it (maybe) to wiretap all phonecalls that were routed over satellites, by erecting their own receiver dishes next to the telco ones. This allowed them to receive all the satellite signals, in identical copies to what the intended receiver dish did. The law they used to justify this behavior was one that said that privacy cannot be expected over radio waves, and that anybody may listen to anything sent over radio – which makes sense with shortwave-type radio amateur equipment, but not necessarily with satellite links: when you pick up the phone, you expect privacy, regardless of the technical route of the phonecall. (Read more)

Germany will send a sixth nuclear-capable submarine to Israel and will subsidize the cost, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere announced on Tuesday after meeting his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak in Berlin.

The sale comes after years of negotiations that Israeli media reported were stalled due to tensions over Israel’s continued construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Berlin reportedly agreed to the sale after Israel released millions of dollars in withheld customs duties to the Palestinian Authority last year.

Three German-made Dolphin-class submarines are already in use in the Israeli navy, delivered in 1999 and 2000. Two other submarines have been ordered and are under construction, slated for delivery later this year.

De Maiziere, right, did not specify how much Germany would subsidize the submarine

De Maiziere confirmed that Germany would subsidize the cost of the sixth submarine but declined to give details on how much. Sources in Berlin said last November that a third of the cost would be covered, totaling a maximum of 135 billion euros ($178 million). (Read more)

This is a deviation from my usual themes. Posting it just because it’s so damn interesting:

Selkirk had grave concerns about the seaworthiness of this vessel. He tried to convince some of his crewmates to desert with him, remaining on the island; he was counting on an impending visit by another ship. No one else agreed to come along with him. Stradling declared that he would grant him his wish and leave him alone on Juan Fernández. Selkirk promptly regretted his decision. He chased and called after the boat, to no avail. Selkirk lived the next four years and four months without any human company. . . .

Hearing strange sounds from inland, which he feared were dangerous beasts, Selkirk remained at first along the shoreline. During this time he ate shellfish, and scanned the ocean daily for rescue, suffering all the while from loneliness, misery and remorse. Hordes of raucous sea lions, gathering on the beach for the mating season, eventually drove him to the island’s interior. Once there, his way of life took a turn for the better. More foods were now available: feral goats – introduced by earlier sailors – provided him with meat and milk and wild turnips, cabbage, and black pepper berries offered him variety and spice. Although rats would attack him at night, he was able, by domesticating and living near feral cats, to sleep soundly and in safety.

Selkirk proved resourceful in using equipment from the ship as well as materials that were native to the island. He built two huts[1] out of pimento trees. He used his musket to hunt goats and his knife to clean their carcasses. As his gunpowder dwindled, he had to chase prey on foot. During one such chase he was badly injured when he tumbled from a cliff, lying unconscious for about a day. (His prey had cushioned his fall, sparing him a broken back.)[2] He read from the Bible frequently, finding it a comfort to him in his condition and a mainstay for his English.

When Selkirk’s clothes wore out, he made new garments from goatskin using a nail for sewing. The lessons he had learned as a child from his father, a tanner, helped him greatly during his stay on the island. As his shoes became unusable, he had no need to make new ones, since his toughened, callused feet made protection unnecessary. He forged a new knife out of barrel rings left on the beach.

Two vessels had arrived and departed before his escape, but both were Spanish. As a Scotsman and privateer, he risked a terrible fate if captured and therefore he hid himself. At one point, his Spanish pursuers urinated at the bottom of a tree he was hiding in, but did not discover him.[3]
(Wikipedia)

Yes, the Utopian World Championships are real: http://utopianwc.com/info/main.asp

Scary.

Here’s an review I recently wrote about “Utopia in Four Movements,” which recently came to my local, tax-supported theater.

The Oklahoma Center for Conscience and Peace Research (OCCPR) announced on Tuesday that it has nominated US Army Private First Class Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In its nomination, OCCPR stated that it chose Bradley Manning because of his alleged role in leaking documents and other evidence of war crimes, corruption and lies related to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the notorious “collateral murder” video (downloadable online at http://www.opednews.com/populum/www.collateralmurder.org) which US forces firing on unarmed Iraqi civilians, members of the press and children.

“Bradley Manning should have received full whistle-blower protections for his actions but instead has served 19 months in prison without a trial, including 10 months spent in solitary confinement,” said James M. Branum, OCCPR Legal Director. (Read more)

For most of my three-decade career handling national security budgets in Congress, Iran was two or three years away from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The idea of an Islamic bomb exerts a peculiar fascination on American political culture and shines a searchlight on how the gross dysfunctionality of American politics emerges synergistically from the individual dysfunctions of its component parts: the military-industrial complex; oil addiction; the power of foreign-based lobbies; the apocalyptic fixation on the holy land by millions of fundamentalist Americans; US elected officials’ neurotic need to show toughness, especially in an election year.

. . . .

It is curious that the world already confronts over 100 Islamic bombs: those possessed by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It is even more curious that Pakistan may have had a maximum of 30 to 50 such weapons at the time of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on this country, which resulted in a shotgun marriage between Washington and Islamabad. A decade of partnership with the United States netted Pakistan about $20 billion in aid money and at least 50 more nuclear devices; anyone who knows anything about the fungibility of money will conclude that the United States partially funded Pakistan’s nuclear buildup, knowingly or not. Pakistan’s government has also been credibly linked to sponsorship of terrorist organizations that have operated outside its territory. But Iran, we are told, is different. A window is closing, and it is closing not in two years, but in six months.

. . . .

the government of Israel is attempting to force the pace with increasingly hyperbolic predictions. It is also evidently manipulating Congress (e.g., the director of Mossad meeting with the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee last week). Whether it is sources in Tel Aviv, sources in Washington, or both, that are feeding Iran stories to the US news media is unclear. Whoever they may be, they are playing much of the press – The Washington Post and CBS News are standout examples – like a Stradivarius. In Pentagon-speak, this is known as “prepping the psychological battlefield.”
(Read more)

In an online argument, I challenged someone to name one way in which government helps people. I was referred to the following three articles, which you can peruse for yourself. They all make easily refutable arguments. Most of the them rely on the logic that if government didn’t things (by force), nobody would do them. It’s like saying that if slaves didn’t pick cotton, nobody would pick cotton.

A Day in Your Life
Though we usually fail to notice it, government programs and policies improve our daily lives in innumerable ways.

Ask yourself this question: “What has government done for me lately?” If you are like most Americans, you will probably answer: “Not much.” Many people feel like they pay a lot in taxes but don’t really get anything back from government. Surveys show that 52% of Americans believe that “government programs have not really helped me and my family.”1 But let’s see if that is really true. Let’s examine a typical day in the life of an average middle-class American and try to identify some of the ways that government improves that person’s life during that 24-hour period.

6:30 a.m. You are awakened by your clock radio. You know it is actually 6:30 because the National Institute of Standards and Technology keeps the official time. And you can listen to your favorite radio station only because the Federal Communications Commission brings organization and coherence to our vast telecommunications system. It ensures, for example, that radio stations do not overlap and that stations signals are not interfered with by the numerous other devices – cell phones, satellite television, wireless computers, etc. – whose signals crowd our nation’s airwaves.

6:35 a.m. Like 17 million other Americans, you have asthma. But as you get out of bed you notice that you are breathing freely this morning. This is thanks in part to government clean air laws that reduce the air pollution that would otherwise greatly worsen your condition.

6:38 a.m. You go into the kitchen for breakfast. You pour some water into your coffeemaker. You simply take for granted that this water is safe to drink. (Read more)

The 10 best things government has done for us
1.) Protecting our freedoms. Our political and economic rights are the foundation of our democracy and capitalist economy. Without them, we’d be nothing.

We often think of our rights as a protection against the heavy hand of government, but we shouldn’t ignore the contribution that the people through their government have made in expanding those rights since the early days of the republic, when they applied only to white men with property.

Liberals who look fondly upon the government as a benevolent force often do so because the federal government was on their side in the great battles to abolish slavery and to extend rights to African-Americans, women, Native Americans, immigrants, workers, gays and many others. Liberals don’t like big government; they like a good and just government. For their part, conservatives want a government that enforces property rights and protects us against tyranny.

Slide Show: What the U.S. government has given us .

2.) Giving away the land. The United States developed as one of the most egalitarian nations in history, mostly because the government gave away millions of acres of land and sold more at rock-bottom prices to regular people who worked that land and made it productive. From the Land Ordinance of 1785 right on to the Homestead Act of 1862, the government offered cheap or free land to people who would have been serfs or indentured servants in any other society. The government gave poor but hard-working people a stake in their country. Other government programs gave away valuable mining and timber land for a pittance. Many a fortune owes its genesis to the government.

3.) Educating everybody. Our economy and democracy would be impossible without an educated, skilled populace. From the beginning of our nation, offering free and universal public education has been one of the most important functions of government. The federal government has always had a role, from the 1785 Land Act and the land-grant colleges established under Lincoln to the GI Bill and beyond. It’s no accident that America leads the world in technological innovation.

4.) Helping us retire with dignity. Social Security and Medicare keep millions of Americans out of poverty, allowing them to live out their lives in dignity. And these essential programs are provided by government at far less cost than would be possible from the private sector.

5) Improving public health. . . . (Read more)

Name 10 things the government does well

1. The FAA. Crashes are a rarity here, thanks to equipment safety tests and massively successful air flight controlling.

2. Medicaid: private sector insurance companies make money by ditching their customers when they get very sick. Medicaid picks up the castoffs.

3. Social Security: What if Mr. Bush had succeeded in privatizing SS before the markets crashed? Can you imagine how many old people would be working at WalMart, since their SS would have been cut in half? And did you know that before SS, thousands of older Americans simply starved to death?
(Read more)

An officer tried to use a Taser, but the device failed. A second Taser also failed after the man used the light sabers to break one of the wires, Simpson said. (Read more)

A group of customs employees at the Suez seaport have revealed that the Egyptian Ministry of Interior is in the process of receiving 21 tons of tear gas from the US. (Read more)

Do you love America? Snitch on your neighbor.

The war on drugs: when the CIA uses the DEA to eliminate competition.

and many more:

http://www.libertystickers.com/

Some of the debate about whether or not the bible is Libertarian can be found here. I’m not an expert in the scriptures. Nevertheless, I thought this essay was lovely:

(John 8: 3-11)

As we approach the new year with conservatism again ascendant in the political sphere, this story of Jesus’ uncompromising libertarianism seems even more timely than stories of his birth, despite the approach of his celebrated birthday. Nowhere does Jesus admonish “social conservatives” more harshly.

There is an important distinction here. By “social conservative,” I do not mean anyone who disapproves of certain human behavior. The freedom to follow the dictates of one’s conscience was the first inalienable right recognized by the founders of our nation. If one truly believes that homosexuality, adultery, or other “non-conservative” behavior violates the laws of God, it is that person’s inalienable right to disapprove of it, even to voice his disapproval of it, regardless of the anguished cries of the political correctness lobby on the left.

However, no one has a right to use violence against those who engage in behavior that does not harm another person, regardless of whether or not that behavior violates the laws of God. Since all laws are enforced under the threat of violence (as this story illustrates wonderfully), Jesus makes it clear in this passage that it is not for men to enforce the laws of God. With the exception of cases in which one human being has done injury to another, the right to punish human behavior is reserved for God.

It is important to recognize that Jesus does not condone the sin that the anonymous woman has committed. When he has shamed away the mob who would have stoned her, Jesus commands her to sin no more. Neither does he insinuate that her behavior might not have consequences for her soul. With flawless libertarian reasoning, Jesus teaches us the true meaning of freedom: that God grants us the liberty to do as we wish, even to reject him and his laws, but that we also bear the full consequences of our actions. If we harm another person, then we are subject to the laws of men. However, it is otherwise left to each individual to determine the will of God according to his conscience and to choose whether to act accordingly or not. There never has been nor can there ever be any body of corruptible men who can save an individual’s soul. (Read more from breakthematrix.com)