Kevin's home of interesting stuff

The Stupidity of Jeff Sessions Could Single-Handedly Bring Down Trump

The corporate media would have you believe that the key to resisting Trump lies in the embrace of heinous individuals and institutions such as themselves, George W. Bush, and the CIA, as well as clownish figures manufactured by neocons such as Evan McMullin (formerly of both Goldman Sachs and the CIA). Ironically enough, though Trump supporters see these nefarious outside forces as the biggest threat to his administration, I believe that if Trump’s Presidency goes up in total flames it most likely will be the fault of the ridiculous fossil he chose as Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.

Personally, I don’t think Trump cares one bit about recreational marijuana, but if he’s foolish enough to let Jeff Sessions run wild with his petty and moronic little Drug War, he runs a serious risk of having his administration destroyed from within. While the deep state and its various rent-seeking institutions are indeed very powerful, they are not popular amongst the American public for very good reasons. While they will continue to shamelessly and relentlessly target Trump for the most absurd of reasons (such as Russia conspiracy theories), I don’t think these tactics can bring Trump down. In fact, these blatant attacks tend to solidify Trump’s support amongst his base.

Trade Deficit Unexpectedly Widens: Exports Sink, Imports Up Sharpl

MishTalk

Economists are on a roll today. Not a single economist got 4th quarter GDP correct and not a single economist got the trade deficit correct. In both cases, economists were overly optimistic.

The Bloomberg Econoday consensus estimate for international trade was -66.0billion in a range of -68 billion to -64.8 billion. The report shows -69.2 billion.

Cont......

Retailing Is Bad And About To Get Worse

Investment Research Dynamics

Americans are filing for bankruptcy at the fastest rate in several years. In January 2017, 55,421 individuals filed bankruptcy. That’s a 5.4% increase over January 2016. In December 2016, 4.5% more individual bankruptcies were filed than in December 2015. It’s the first time in 7 years that personal bankruptcies have risen in successive months on a year over year basis.

Also notable, in 2016 the number of U.S. Corporate bankruptcies jumped by 26% over 2015. U.S. Corporations have issued $9.5 trillion in bonds. That’s 61% more than they borrowed in the eight years leading up to the 2008 de facto financial system collapse (aka “the great financial crisis”).

The Financial Times reported that over 1 million U.S. consumers – prime and subprime – were behind on their car loans and that the overall delinquency rate had reached its highest level since 2009. The FT also stated that “lending to consumers with weak credit scores has been one of the fastest growing parts of the [banking] industry.” It’s starting to smell like early 2008 out there.

‘There Are No Moderate Rebels’ – Tulsi Gabbard Destroys the Deep State’s Syria Narrative

Tulsi Gabbard has continued to impress ever since she came on the national scene last year with her courageous and very public support for Bernie Sanders in the rigged Democratic primary.

Most recently, she continued to demonstrate her knowledge of geopolitics and willingness to stand up to America’s unelected government, aka the Deep State, in a recent interview with CNN’s Jake Taper.

Note, the clip is about a month old, but important to watch if you haven’t.

If the Democrats have any hope of becoming a decent opposition party which not only resists the worst of Trump, but also rejects the perverted neoliberal/Deep State ideology currently embraced by establishment Dems, Tulsi Gabbard will have to play a key role.

Europe: Laughing at the Messenger

Gatestone Institute

Once again, an American has pointed to a failing in European society, and instead of focusing on the problem identified or even admitting that there is a problem, the European response has been to point at the American and blame him for creating the problem he has in fact merely identified.
We are being given an accurate representation of a serious problem.
If the response to every problem is denial, and the response to anyone pointing to the problem is opprobrium, legal threats or hilarity, it suggests that Europe is not going to make the softer-landing it could yet give itself in addressing these issues.
It might make us feel better, but every time we attack or laugh at the messenger, rather than addressing the message, we ensure that our own future will be less funny.

How can one excavate the minds of so many European officials and the extraordinary mental gymnastics of denial to which they have become prone?

One of the finest demonstrations of this trend occurred in January 2015, after France was assailed by Islamist gunmen in the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and then in a Jewish supermarket. In the days after those attacks, Fox News in the U.S. ran an interview with a guest who said that Paris, and France, as a whole, had "no-go zones" where the authorities -- including emergency services -- did not dare to go. In the wake of these comments, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, chose to make a stand. She announced that she was suing Fox News because the "honour of Paris" was at stake.

Cont.....

The Unrevolutionary Revolution

Mises Wire

February in Romania has brought 27 consecutive days of protests against the current government, at a scale unmatched since the Revolution in 1989. In a record day, more than 600,000 people gathered in the capital’s Victory Square and around the country to overturn a decision by the current ruling party to decriminalize some acts of corruption and abuse of office. This decision was especially self-serving given the high number of party members already serving suspended sentences for similar graft offenses. News outlets around the world have covered the events using flattering words, describing the peaceful riots as a “poetry of international resistance” and a “massive political awakening.”

The resilience—and moderate success—of protesters, in spite of the government digging its heels in and the temperatures dropping, has been undeniably impressive, and has demonstrated an energetic interest in pursuing justice, which, rightly employed, could become the driver of a much needed change in Romanian politics.

Here’s How the Deep State Is Trying to Lead Trump into a Nuclear War

SHTFplan

Before Donald trump took office, he promised to rebuild the US military by diverting a lot more funding into the armed forces. And when he made that promise, he wasn’t just talking about our conventional forces. He also proposed expanding America’s nuclear capability; a position he recently reiterated in an interview with Reuters. He stated that “It would be wonderful, a dream would be that no country would have nukes, but if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack.”

If Trump is really going to reinvigorate our nuclear program (a decision that many experts fear could spark another arms race), then he needs to be very careful about who he listens to. That’s because some of the high ranking officials in our government have some certifiably insane ideas on what a nuclear arsenal should look like. Recently a Pentagon panel known as The Defense Science Board, told the Trump administration that they need to remake our nuclear arsenal into a force that is capable of engaging in a “limited” nuclear war.

Cont....

The Cultural Purge Will Not Be Televised

easyDNS Blog

I’ve been trying not to write this post, because really, who needs a bunch of shrill, hysterical snowflakes calling you a racist nazi for committing the egregious sin of pointing out the many contradictions in the #deleteshopify boycott and the wider witch hunt mentality that pervades social discourse these days?

The main factor holding me back is not cynicism but actually fear. For the first time in my life I’m afraid to speak my mind. The possible ramifications of exercising my inalienable right to free speech frighten the crap out of me. So much so that I really don’t want to do it. I’ve become known as the type of person who speaks candidly and frankly about some tough issues and I’ve never had a problem doing that in the past. I’ve gone up against some pretty intimidating forces such as the City of London IPCU and the US FDA, but I’ve never been as scared as I am now to speak out. For that reason I’m just going to have to suck it up and do it.

Cont.....

France: Deradicalization of Jihadists a "Total Fiasco"

Gatestone Institute

The report implies that deradicalization, either in specialized centers or in prisons, does not work because most Islamic radicals do not want to be deradicalized.
Although France is home to an estimated 8,250 hardcore Islamic radicals, only 17 submitted applications and just nine arrived. Not a single resident has completed the full ten-month curriculum.
By housing Islamists in separate prison wings, they actually had become more violent because they were emboldened by "the group effect," according to Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas.
"Deradicalizing someone does not happen in six months. These people, who have not been given an ideal and who have clung to Islamic State's ideology, are not going to get rid of it just like that. There is no 'Open Sesame.'" — Senator Esther Benbassa.
"The deradicalization program is a total fiasco. Everything must be rethought, everything must be redesigned from scratch." — Senator Philippe Bas, the head of the Senate committee that commissioned the report.

The French government's flagship program to deradicalize jihadists is a "total failure" and must be "completely reconceptualized," according to the initial conclusions of a parliamentary fact-finding commission on deradicalization.

The preliminary report reveals that the government has nothing to show for the tens of millions of taxpayer euros it has spent over the past several years to combat Islamic radicalization in France, where 238 people have been killed in jihadist attacks since January 2015. The report implies that deradicalization, either in specialized centers or in prisons, does not work because most Islamic radicals do not want to be deradicalized.

Cont....

The Big Myth

Acting Man

Debunking a Lie

Don Watkins of the Ayn Rand Institute wrote an article, The Myth of Banking Deregulation, to debunk a lie. The lie is that bank regulation is good. That it helped stabilize the economy in the 1930’s. And that deregulation at the end of the century destabilized the economy and caused the crisis of 2008.
As of early 2015, Dodd-Frank had imposed altogether 27,670 new restrictions, more than all other laws passed under Obama combined (that is really saying something, considering the regulatory frenzy let loose by his administration. Note: the law may have “only” 2,300 pages, but more than 10 different regulatory agencies have been producing administrative laws for six years in a row to put it into practice – and they are not finished yet. Don’t you feel safer already?

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. – Albert Camus

I see many economists and entrepreneurs as opponents even if that is not the intention of the economists. Academic economists are most needed by those who have power and want to keep it. Multinational corporations, banks, and governments. The last thing those entities want is disruption, their principal and interlocking goals are stabilization and optimization of the existing order. They have an incentive to “optimize” the current system and extract rents.

I would argue that hyper focus on optimization is the enemy of creative beings such as ourselves and makes us very unhappy and leads to blow-back from human beings. And rightfully so. But that blow back can get ugly.

– From the piece: Energy, Money, and the Destruction of Equilibrium

Earlier today, a reader named Brett Maverick Musser, who works in Operations at Airbitz sent me an article he published on Medium, which I thought was excellent.

With permission, I have reposted the entire piece below:

Tomgram: William Astore, | TomDispatch

In Afghanistan, America's Biggest Foe Is Self-Deception

If you had asked Americans about Afghanistan before 1979, it’s a reasonable bet that most of us wouldn’t have known much about that country or even been able to locate it on a map. Perhaps only to the “freaks” of that era, in search of a superb hashish high, would its name have rung a special bell. It was, after all, a key stop -- considered particularly friendly and welcoming -- on what was then called “the hippy trail.” In those years, you would have been taken for either an idiot or a mad person if you had told any American, freak or not, that between 1979 and 2017, the United States would engage in two wars in that country, the first against the Soviet Union and the second against the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other terror outfits; that Washington would be at war there for more than a quarter of a century (with a decade-plus off during a brutal Afghan civil war and the rise of the Taliban); and that almost 16 years into its second Afghan War, its generals would be considering how many more U.S. troops to recommend that a new president send in to continue the conflict into the distant future.

And yet that’s a perfectly reasonable summary of the situation from the moment Washington dispatched the CIA (and piles of money) to that region to give the Soviet Union, which had sent the Red Army into Kabul in 1979, a “bloody nose” and its own “Vietnam.” The irony: they succeeded. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called his country’s war there “the bleeding wound” and when the Red Army finally limped out of Afghanistan in 1989, the Soviet Union itself was at the edge of implosion. From that experience, the political leadership in Washington seemed to draw only one lesson: it could never happen to us. Sending an American army of occupation into Kabul and then, like the Soviets, pouring money into the military and the wars that followed would never result in a “bleeding wound,” not for the “sole superpower” on planet Earth. The result, as TomDispatch regular and retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William Astore writes today, has been a bloody wound par excellence or at least one hell of a bloody nose. As once again an American commander there calls for yet more U.S. troops and Defense Secretary James Mattis, who as the head of Central Command once oversaw the Afghan War, considers just what Washington's next steps should be, rest assured of one thing: based on the record to date, they’re not likely to be steps in the direction the Russians took in 1989 -- not yet, anyway. Tom

Losing a War One Bad Metaphor at a Time
Thrashing About in the Afghan Petri Dish
By William J. Astore
America’s war in Afghanistan is now in its 16th year, the longest foreign war in our history. The phrase “no end in sight” barely covers the situation. Prospects of victory -- if victory is defined as eliminating that country as a haven for Islamist terrorists while creating a representative government in Kabul -- are arguably more tenuous today than at any point since the U.S. military invaded in 2001 and routed the Taliban. Such “progress” has, over the years, invariably proven “fragile” and “reversible,” to use the weasel words of General David Petraeus who oversaw the Afghan “surge” of 2010-2011 under President Obama. To cite just one recent data point: the Taliban now controls 15% more territory than it did in 2015.
That statistic came up in recent Senate testimony by the U.S. commanding general in Afghanistan, John "Mick" Nicholson Jr., who is (to give no-end-in-sight further context) the 12th U.S. commander since the war began. Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he called for several thousand more U.S. troops to break what he optimistically described as a "stalemate." Those troops would, he added, serve mainly as advisers and trainers to Afghan forces, facilitating what he labeled “hold-fight-disrupt” operations.

Jeff Sessions Just Confirmed He's Going to Go After States With Legalized Marijuana, Claims It Causes "Violence"

While Trump may claim he’s for states rights, Attorney General Jeff Sessions just pissed on the opinions of about 71% of Americans who do not believe the federal government should attempt to ram federal laws down the throats of states where voters have legalized marijuana.

After Press Secretary Sean Spicer essentially warned everyone last week that the Trump administration plans to crack down on states with recreational marijuana laws, AG Sessions backed that up on Monday with some bizarre statements that prove the guy actually believes Refer Madness was a documentary.

Immigration, Elections, and the Curley Effect: Why the Left wants Open Borders

Dissident Right

Have you ever gotten the feeling that “the Left,” however you personally define it, is trying to get rid of you? I’d advise you to trust your gut, because that’s exactly what they’re trying to do. Why? The answer lies in what is known as the Curley effect.

What is the Curley Effect?

In the early 1900’s, the Boston mayor James Michael Curley wanted to implement policies that would shore up his voting bloc and reduce the power of the opposition. He represented the poorest and most distinctly ethnic of Boston’s Irish population. Boston’s Brahmins despised him for his policies, his corruption, and his abrasive and confrontational rhetoric. They were his loyal opposition, they always worked against him. Curley’s share of Boston’s vote increased in the share of poor Irish among the Bostonians. Unsurprisingly, he (successfully) attempted to engineer Boston’s demographics into a voting bloc of citizens that would favor him, but did so through a series of moves that actually worked to impoverish Boston & hurt the people he was supposed to be representing. A politician or a political party can achieve long-term political dominance by tipping the balance of votes in their direction through the implementation of policies that strangle and stifle the economic health of the region. Counter-intuitively, making a city poorer can lead to political success for those who engineer the impoverishment.

Catastrophism is popular, but not necessarily right. Debunking the "Hill's Group" analysis of the future of the oil industry

Cassandra's Legacy

"The Hill's Group" has been arguing for the rapid demise of the world's oil industry on the basis of a calculation of the entropy of the oil extraction process. While it is true that the oil industry is in trouble, the calculations by the Hill's group are, at best, irrelevant and probably simply plain wrong. Entropy is an important concept, but it must be correctly understood to be useful. It is no good to use it as an excuse to pander unbridled catastrophism.

Catastrophism is popular. I can see that with the "Cassandra's Legacy" blog. Every time I publish something that says that we are all going to die soon, it gets many more hits than when I publish posts arguing that we can do something to avoid the incoming disaster. The latest confirmation of this trend came from three posts by Louis Arnoux that I published last summer (link to the first one). All three are in the list of the ten most successful posts ever published here.

Arnoux argues that the problems we have today are caused by the diminishing energy yield (or net energy, or EROI) of fossil fuels. This is a correct observation, but Arnoux bases his case on a report released by a rather obscure organization called "The Hill's Group." They use calculations based on the evaluation of the entropy of the extraction process in order to predict a dire future for the world's oil production. And they sell their report for $28 (shipping included).

Cont....

More Evidence Against Global Warming Surfaces

Armstrong Economics

While the Democrats are doing everything to block any alteration to the regulation and the tax scheme supported by Global Warming theories, the refreshing rise of Donald Trump in this arena is allowing free speech to be heard for the first time in more than a decade since Al Gore started this nonsense. This idea that man is the sole cause of climate change and CO2 is the devil, has been so seriously wrong. The Global Warming crowd has been attempting to silence any other research whatsoever.

I have sought to explain that the Sun is a thermal dynamic system, meaning it beats like your heart to a cycle of about 300 years. Even NASA has come out and had to admit: “[In] recent years, researchers have considered the possibility that the sun plays a role in global warming. After all, the sun is the main source of heat for our planet,” It is amazing for I attended a lecture by scientists from Harvard nearly 30 years ago where the finding of a study into the ice core samples from the North Pole were provided. When I studied the data, I was stunned. It aligned with the 309.6-year cycle of the Economic Confidence Model.

Lavrov vs. McCain: Is Russia an Enemy?

Patrick J. Buchanan

The founding fathers of the Munich Security Conference, said John McCain, would be “be alarmed by the turning away from universal values and toward old ties of blood, and race, and sectarianism.”

McCain was followed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who called for a “post-West world order.” Russia has “immense potential” for that said Lavrov, “we’re open for that inasmuch as the U.S. is open.”

LIMOUSINE LEFTISTS

Via Branco

Tucker Carlson Induces Cognitive Dissonance in...

Scott Adams' Blog

Here is the best (and weirdest) example of cognitive dissonance you will ever see. The set-up is that Bill Nye, an engineer by training, and a proponent of science, is defending climate science on Tucker’s show.

The first weird thing is that Bill Nye starts by talking about cognitive dissonance being the only reason that anyone would be skeptical of global warming. But he seems to not understand the concept of cognitive dissonance because he believes only the other side could be experiencing it. The nature of cognitive dissonance is that you don’t know you’re in it when you’re in it. It is only obvious to observers. If Nye had been objective, he would have noted two equal possibilities: Either the skeptics are experiencing cognitive dissonance or the proponents of climate science are experiencing it. But whoever is in it can’t know. It is only obvious to the other side. That’s how it works.

Cont...

The Hydrogen Economy – More Green Mythology

Energy Matters

The Scottish Government has launched a consultation on their new draft energy strategy and targets (links are top right on the page linked to). The new energy strategy in general terms has four main strands:

A four-fold increase in renewable energy production by 2030.
Embracing a hydrogen economy, especially in the areas of heat and transport.
Employing carbon capture and storage to decarbonise CCGT power stations required to balance the grid and H2 production from methane.
The phasing out of nuclear power by 2030.

This post will focus on the thermodynamics, efficiency and costs of making H2 via electrolysis of water and steam methane reforming. I calculate costs of £142 / MWh for electrolysis and £100 / MWh for steam methane reforming (SMR). These compare with industrial methane prices of £15 / MWh at odds with multiple claims made by the Scottish Government that hydrogen is a low cost option.

What is Homesteading?

ClubOrlov:

Prosperous Homesteading has been out for a little over a week now and has been selling extremely well. But based on the feedback so far, the concept of “homesteading,” as defined in this very practical book, needs to be better explained. Yes, you can register your house as a “homestead” to shield it from foreclosure or to lower your taxes; would you then be homesteading? No.

Homesteading is not a hobby, a business or an individual pursuit; it is the main activity of a family. It is an essential “lifehack”—a way to get around the strictures imposed on us by a crumbling society that is set in its ways and incapable of even considering absolutely essential changes. It is about insulating yourself and your family from the vagaries of a system that is running amok, and about regaining a viable future and peace of mind.

Cont....

Nothing to See Here, Folks

Scott Adams' Blog

I recently tweeted a link to my blog post that is unflattering to the proponents of climate science. I have 138,000 Twitter followers. My traffic from Twitter to my blog in a recent minute was only 14 people, while overall traffic from other sources was its usual robust self. For non-controversial topics, my Twitter-driven traffic for a tweet to my blog would be 200-300 per minute in the half-hour after a tweet. On this topic, it hovered between 10-14.

As many others have documented, Twitter throttles back the tweets of people who hold political views they don’t like.

Artist's Impression Of The Oscars

Source: Townhall.com

Google Records Everything You Say and Everything You Have Searched For — Here's How To See, Hear, and Delete Your Tracking

The Independent has previously reported that Google’s voice search function doesn’t just turn on when specifically asked to. It records anything and everything. This has been going on for years, but the public at large became generally aware of it back in the summer of 2015.

Google also carefully keeps track of every single thing you search for on the web… all of it in one nice long history strand that makes a Facebook wall look like peanuts by comparison. Depending on whether or not you have location data on, it can also show you a timeline of where you have physically been, broken out by year on a world map.

It Won't Be Like The Jetsons

EPautos - Libertarian Car Talk

What does it mean when people talk about self-driving cars? We really ought to be talking about programmed cars.

And about who does the programming.

The “self-driving” car doesn’t decide for itself how fast it goes or what route it takes – at least, it won’t until it becomes an autonomous thinking machine, an artificial intelligence. We are not quite there yet.

So, in the meanwhile, who decides?

Cont...

Plot Holes

Robert Gore | STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC

The Michael Flynn Affair is one of those movies where you figure out a jumble of things that don’t make sense as you walk out of the theater.

There has been a deluge of articles about the Michael Flynn affair from an array of political and ideological vantage points, and SLL has reposted some of them. What’s lacking are coherent and cohesive explanations for what would be, if this were a novel or movie, gaping plot holes. The upshot of many commentators is that Trump has underestimated the Deep State, he’s floundering, and so on. This article takes the opposite tack, out of innate contrariness and because President Trump has been so consistently underestimated by both friends and foes.

Why was Michael Flynn cashiered? The administration’s story is that he talked with a Russian diplomat and mentioned lifting sanctions, then lied about his conversations to Vice President Pence. What’s become the conventional subtext is that the intelligence agencies have launched a “soft coup” against Trump, he has been significantly weakened, and the Deep State has scored a major victory.

Cont...

A Trumpian Snapshot of America

Tomgram: Engelhardt, | TomDispatch

The Art of the Trumpaclysm
How the U.S. Invaded, Occupied, and Remade Itself
By Tom Engelhardt

It’s been epic! A cast of thousands! (Hundreds? Tens?) A spectacular production that, five weeks after opening on every screen of any sort in America (and possibly the world), shows no sign of ending. What a hit it's been! It’s driving people back to newspapers (online, if not in print) and ensuring that our everyday companions, the 24/7 cable news shows, never lack for “breaking news” or audiences. It’s a smash in both the Hollywood and car accident sense of the term, a phenomenon the likes of which we’ve simply never experienced. Think of Nero fiddling while Rome burned and the cameras rolled. It’s proved, in every way, to be a giant leak. A faucet. A spigot. An absolute flood of non-news, quarter-news, half-news, crazed news, fake news, and over-the-top actual news.

And you know exactly what -- and whom -- I’m talking about. No need to explain. I mean, you tell me: What doesn’t it have? Its lead actor is the closest we’ve come in our nation's capital to an action figure. Think of him as the Mar-a-Lego version of Batman and the Joker rolled into one, a president who, as he told us at a news conference recently, is “the least anti-Semitic person that you've ever seen in your entire life” and the “least racist person” as well. As report after report indicates, he attacks, lashes out, mocks, tweets, pummels, charges, and complains, showering calumny on others even as he praises his achievements without surcease. Think of him as the towering inferno of twenty-first-century American politics or a modern Godzilla eternally emerging from New York harbor.

Cont...

Gearing Up for More War? Trump Seeks "Historic" 10% Increase in Military Budget

It has just been announced ahead of Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress that the president plans to cut funding to the majority of other agencies in the government in order to boost the defense and national security budget by ten percent.

Congress has already approved $607 billion for defense, compared to $543 billion approved for non-defense discretionary funding. Social Security and Medicare have been spared from Trump’s new plan, but every other agency will see a 10% decrease to boost defense spending by another $54 billion.

Ernst & Young no longer Requires Degrees – No Evidence a Degree = Success

Armstrong Economics

I have warned that 2015.75 was the peak in government and the two many industries that government subsidizes has created the decay within our American society reducing disposable income – healthcare and education. Degrees I have warned are really worthless. About 60% of graduates cannot find employment in the degree they have paid for. Both education and healthcare have become the greatest violation of consumer laws to date, and nobody does anything about it. Hospitals are growing trying to put out of business the private local general practitioner aided by the lawyers driving up legal claims enticing people to file suits as if this is a lottery or casino to get rich quick.

Cont....

Protest is Increasingly Becoming Criminalized in America

The historical space available for Americans to engage in public protest has been declining for many years, and is a topic I covered on several occasions during the Obama administration. For instance in the post, The War on Free Speech – U.S. Department of Justice Subpoenas Reason.com Over Comment Section, I noted:

Readers of Liberty Blitzkrieg will be well aware of the gradual erosion by the state of the civil liberties of the American public. Such attacks are typically sufficiently under the radar, so that the average citizen has no idea what is happening until it’s too late. I have written about such calculated assaults on many occasions, but the holy grail target of the status quo is the First Amendment of the Constitution, which enshrines a right to the freedom of religion, speech, the press, and the right to peaceably assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Many aspects of the First Amendment have been neutered in practice. For example, the right to assemble peacefully and effectively is often prevented in practice by the need to secure permits and other hindrances (see “free speech cages” and “protest zones”) . Meanwhile, on college campuses, where activism is historically most vibrant, many schools have embraced the Orwellian concept of “free speech zones” in order to prevent free speech.

Unfortunately, it appears this trend is about to get a lot worse following the DAPL protests and increased activism we’ve seen since Trump’s election. As The Hill reports:

Trump to States with Recreational Pot: Drop Dead

Mises Wire

In the days following the 2016 election, there were already worrying signs that the Trump administration didn't merely view the War on Drugs as a useful source of rhetoric to please some Conservatives. With the appointment of Jeff Sessions — who appears to be a true believer in the War on Drugs — the threat to federalism, states's rights, and local control was all too real.

The fears continue to be stoked by the administration itself, and yesterday White House spokesman Sean Spicer announcing that "I do believe that you'll see greater enforcement of [federal law against marijuana]."

Monday 27 February 2017

Women’s Sports

The Z Blog

The other day, Steve Sailer had a post about the WNBA and various ways to make the sport more attractive to sports fans. I pointed out that the main issue is spatial awareness, as men are more abstract in modeling their environment, while women are more concrete. Knowing where the herd is going to be when going on a hunt is different than remembering where the berries are when going on a pick. The part of the brain, which controls the perception of speed and the mental ability to rotate 3-D objects, is larger in men as well.

Anyone who has tried to watch women’s basketball understands that it is terrible in just about every way imaginable. Basketball is about speed, jumping and obviously shooting. Fans go to NBA games to see freaks of nature, who can leap from the top of the key and dunk the ball over some other freak. The women’s game is described as low and slow, meaning the style of play is pretty much the opposite of what fans of basketball want to see. The girls look like they are nailed to the floor most of the time.

Deep State Neuroscientists Believe They Can Turn Off Free Will

by Nathaniel Mauka

Neuroscientists have argued whether we even have free will, but now they want to turn it off.

The Libet Experiment

In the 1980s scientist Benjamin Libet conducted an experiment. He ‘discovered’ that what seems to be free will or the conscious choice to do or not do something is really just the observance of something that has already happened. This completely rocked the foundations of what most thought of as a prerequisite for being human, and the long-held religious view that free-will must always be honored.