The Population Bomb Book

The Population Bomb was Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich’s dire and impatient warning to mankind. Ehrlich painted an apocalyptic picture of the future: Too many people were being born and too many resources were drying up. The professor believed this was a fatal scenario for both the planet and humanity. He even went so far as to compare humanity to cancer.

“A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells. The population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. Treating only the symptoms of cancer may make the victim more comfortable at first, but eventually he dies, often horribly. A similar fate awaits a world with a population explosion, if only the symptoms are treated,” Ehrlich said.

Ehrlich had many actual solutions on how to combat the disease of the surplus population. He was a staunch supporter of families having no more than two children, so much so that he outlined in The Population Bomb how to attack the media for promoting large families. Paul Ehrlich also floated the idea of creating a federal Department of Population and Environment (DPE), arguing that one of the DPE’s main focuses would be encouraging more research on human sex determination to ensure first born children were males.

The Population Bomb proved so popular Paul Ehrlich was able to co-found an activist group named Zero Population Growth (ZPG). Its members were passionate about decreasing the population and expert at using sympathy to get their talking points across. The group still exists as the re-branded Population Connection, continuing to spread their morbid fantasies about who should be born into this world — and who should not.

Source: Environmentalism Part II: The Population Bomb

I wonder if China’s gov’t got the idea of controlling their population from this guy because that’s almost what they are doing.

Hillary Clinton Literally Doesn’t Understand Why Obamacare Caused a $500 Increase in Small Business Owner’s Healthcare Costs

From The Blaze.com (May 10):

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton came clean about Obamacare during a town hall this week, telling one small business owner that she has no idea why the Affordable Care Act has raised her insurance costs by $500.

She was pressed on the issue by the business owner during a campaign stop in Lorton, Virginia, Monday afternoon.

“I have seen our health insurance for my own family go up $500 a month in the last two years, so we went from 400 something to 900 something,” the woman told Clinton. “We’re just fighting to keep benefits for ourselves. The thought of being able to provide benefits to your employees is almost secondary. Yet to keep your employees happy, that’s a question that comes across my desk all the time.”

Because of the large increase, the business owner told the Democratic hopeful that she is forced to keep most of her workers as contractors, adding that many leave for other employers who can provide more benefits.

She went on to say if she can’t provide benefits for herself, there’s no way she can cover her family. She said the reason her health insurance has increased by so much is because she “unfortunately” makes too much money to qualify for a subsidy under Obamacare.

“So, I guess my question to you is not only are you looking out for people that can’t afford health care,” she said. “I’m someone that can afford it, but it’s taking a big chunk out of the money I bring home for myself.”

Clinton responded, “What you’re saying is one of the real worries that we’re facing with the cost of health insurance because the costs are going up in a lot of markets — not all, but many markets. Right now, like with so many of these programs, there’s just a cut off instead of what I would like to see a kind of gradual diminishment.” [read more]

What?! What kind of answer is that? The real reason costs are going up is because that’s the plan—to eventually go to a single-payer system. But no dem candidate will ever say that. The Left want the masses to revolt and demand a single-payer system. The real reason health care costs go up is because when consumers don’t know or care about prices of services and medical products then prices will automatically go up. Obamacare doesn’t change that.

Then again Hillary is economically stupid. That’s why she wants her hubby to be her economic advisor—although he’s not much better.

The Trouble with Making Scientific Hypotheses into National Laws

From David Boaz on FEE.org:

As I wrote a few months ago in response to a Washington Post story on the possibility that decades of government warnings about whole milk may have been in error,

It’s understandable that some scientific studies turn out to be wrong. Science is a process of trial and error, hypothesis and testing. Some studies are bad, some turn out to have missed complicating factors, some just point in the wrong direction. I have no criticism of scientists’ efforts to find evidence about good nutrition and to report what they (think they) have learned.

My concern is that we not use government coercion to tip the scales either in research or in actual bans and mandates and Official Science. Let scientists conduct research, let other scientists examine it, let journalists report it, let doctors give us advice. But let’s keep nutrition – and much else – in the realm of persuasion, not force. First, because it’s wrong to use force against peaceful people, and second, because we might be wrong. ...

Today’s scientific hypotheses may be wrong. Better, then, not to make them law. [read more]

Mr. Boaz is exactly right. Science is never complete and even sometimes can be wrong because scientists are not perfect that’s why laws shouldn’t be based on science alone. In the 70’s scientists talked about global cooling not warming. Science is always influx.

Who Cares about Inequality?

Commentary from Don Watkins from FEE.org:

The division between classical and modern liberals is often represented as paralleling the tension between liberty and equality. Where classical liberalism saw individual liberty as the driving force behind peace and prosperity, the modern variety puts more emphasis on equality. But this is a false dichotomy. The only kind of equality that is possible is also the only kind that matters: political equality.

Political equality refers to equality of rights. Before the creation of the United States, every system of government had taken for granted that some people were entitled to rule others, taking away their freedom and property whenever some allegedly “greater good” demanded it. The Founders rejected that notion. Each individual, they held, is to be regarded by the government as having the same rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as any other individual. So long as he didn’t violate other people’s rights, he was free to set his own course and live on his own terms.

By making the government the guardian of our equal rights rather than a tool for the politically privileged to control and exploit the rest of society, the Founders transformed the state from an instrument of oppression into an instrument of liberation: it liberated the individual so that he was free to make the most of his life. (Unfortunately, they failed to fully implement that principle, above all by allowing the continued existence of slavery, which was a clash of principles that nearly tore the country apart in a civil war.)

Political equality is what made America a land of opportunity. In a world where there were no special privileges and no special obstacles, each individual was free to rise as high as his ability and ambition would take him. This political equality inevitably went hand in hand with economic inequality, as the ability and ambition of some people took them further than others. There was no contradiction in that fact. Political equality has to do with how the government treats individuals. It says that the government should treat all individuals the same — black or white, man or woman, rich or poor. But political equality says nothing about the differences that arise through the voluntary decisions of private individuals. Protecting people’s equal rights invariably leads to differences in economic condition, as some people use their freedom to create modest amounts of wealth while others reach the highest levels of financial success.

……………………………

When a bank or auto company that made irrational decisions gets bailed out at public expense, that is an outrage. But the root of the problem isn’t their executives’ ability to influence Washington; it’s Washington’s power to dispense bailouts.  [read more]

The modern liberals the author is talking about are also called progressives or what I call The Left since they might change their name again. Good article.

Donald Trump’s Idea to Cut National Debt: Get Creditors to Accept Less

From The New York Times (May 6):

After assuring Americans he is not running for president “to make things unstable for the country,” the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump, suggested that he might reduce the national debt by persuading creditors to accept something less than full payment.

Asked on Thursday whether the United States needed to pay its debts in full, or whether he could negotiate a partial repayment, Mr. Trump told the cable network CNBC, “I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal.”

He added, “And if the economy was good, it was good. So, therefore, you can’t lose.”

Such remarks by a major presidential candidate have no modern precedent. The United States government is able to borrow money at very low interest rates because Treasury securities are regarded as a safe investment, and any cracks in investor confidence have a long history of costing American taxpayers a lot of money. [read more]

Wow! Donald Trump really has confidence in his negotiating ability. We’ll see. Actually, according to FEE.org, Trump is not the first to threaten default on the debt. The first was Obama.

It’s actually better for the powers-to-be have displine and stop spending amd make cuts in gov’t programs than to default on the debt. Donald Trump hasn’t suggested any gov’t program to eliminate or to cut. Ted Cruz on the other hand suggested five programs. Maybe Trump should look at that list programs to cut or to eliminate. He wouldn’t have to choose all five but say two to three would be a good start. I’m sure Ted Cruz wouldn’t mind.

To be fair, Mr. Trump said he like the “penny plan” when Sean Hannity suggested this plan.

An Open Challenge to Liberals: Answer These 3 Questions

From Dan Bongino on Conservative Review.com:

We painfully learned during the presidency of Barack Obama that ideology matters more than words. And now that the 2016 primary season is coming to a close I think it’s appropriate to start asking the remaining candidates questions about the ideology that guides their decision-making. Barack Obama said a lot of things as a candidate but when it mattered (i.e. executive amnesty, Obamacare, foreign policy) he disregarded what he said and took actions guided by his big –government-knows-best ideology.

Here are three questions for liberal candidates I would like to see answered before the November elections.

1. Do you believe in the rule of law? This is an important question because liberals tend to give conflicting answers to this question when it involves specific legislative actions. For example, ask many liberals about Obamacare and they’ll insist that “it’s the law of the land” and can’t be ignored, even though it has imposed devastating penalties on millions of Americans in the form of higher premiums and cancelled insurance plans.But ask liberals about current immigration laws, which are being openly violated by millions of illegal immigrants, and liberals will insist that “the immigration laws are broken,” insinuating that this is a permission slip for people who don’t like immigration laws to ignore them. Which is it though? You can’t be consistent and say that you believe in the rule of law if that belief means you only recommend following the laws that comport with your ideology.
2. What is the safe limit for government debt?
3. What special knowledge do government bureaucrats have about the economy? The modern liberal candidate for public office has largely abandoned the idea that free markets create prosperity. Given this, I would like to hear from liberal candidates what special knowledge government bureaucrats have that enables them to manage the economy?

[read more]

These are good questions for any Left-leaning candidate running for office at any time. As for the questions let me pretend to be a Leftist and answer these questions:

Answer to the first question is no. The Left believes in the rule of elites progressives. The Constitution is a nuisance that gets in the way of the Left’s so-called “compassion.”

The answer to the 2nd question is:  Getting people dependent on gov’t—we (the Left) mean compassion—is the goal then we don’t worry about running out of other peoples money. We will just raise taxes on the rich to cover any expenses since the rich hoard all the money anyway and they don’t deserve to keep it.

The answer to the last question is Marxist economists with a Ph. D.

Southern San Andreas fault in California 'locked and loaded,' warns scientist

From Fox News.com (May 5):

The southern part of the San Andreas fault is "locked, loaded and ready to roll," according to Thomas Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center.

Jordan issued the warning during a keynote speech at the National Earthquake Conference in Long Beach, Calif. Wednesday, reports Fox 11.

"The pressure has been building on that part of the fault without being relieved for more than a hundred years," he said.

Parts toward the southeast of the San Andreas fault haven't moved since about 1680, according to the report.

"The springs on the San Andreas system have been wound very, very tight,”  Jordan said.

……………….

The L.A. Times cited a 2008 U.S. Geological Survey report, which warned that a 7.8-magnitude quake on the southern San Andreas fault could cause more than 1,800 deaths and 50,000 injuries. [read more]

Scary. Not good at all.

Trump Takes 'New Deal' Approach to Fixing Nation's Infrastructure

From News Max.com (May 5):

One of Donald Trump's campaign promises is one that involves fixing the nation's infrastructure, a claim he compares to the New Deal.

New York Magazine's Eric Levitz writes that Trump's plan to repair the United States' aging infrastructure — which includes roads, bridges, tunnels, and the power grid — could end up moving him left on the political spectrum because of the massive amount of government spending his plan would entail.
"Maybe my greatest strength is the economy, jobs, and building," Trump told CNBC Thursday. "We do have to rebuild our infrastructure."

Trump addressed the issue in his latest book, "Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again."

"Fixing our infrastructure will be one of the biggest projects this country has ever undertaken. There isn't going to be a second chance to get it right," Trump wrote in his book, according to an excerpt published by ABC News last fall. "Let me ask you, if your own house was falling down and you had to hire someone to fix it before it completely collapsed, who would you hire? A guy who tells you what he's planning to do, or a guy who has proven what he can do countless times before? [read more]

I thought Obama fixed the infrastructure already? I guess Trump is showing his progressive side making the infrastructure great again. He’s going to put people back to work by giving them gov’t jobs? Hmmm. Gov’t jobs never really revives the private sector.

Failure Made Disney Great

From Lawrence W. Reed on FEE.org:

What a phenomenal man Walt Disney was! A cartoonist and animator, businessman, filmmaker, theme park pioneer, and cultural icon, he may have manufactured more happiness in the world than any other man or woman of the 20th century. He was an American original and an American patriot, too. He deeply appreciated that liberty in America allowed him to invent, experiment, and ultimately succeed, as evidenced in this remark three years before his death: “To retreat from any of the principles handed down by our forefathers, who shed their blood for the ideals we still embrace, would be a complete victory for those who would destroy liberty and justice for the individual.”

Some people think that entrepreneurs build, innovate, and take risks just for the money they might make. To the imaginative Walt Disney, money was never the prime motivator. Not even close — though what could be wrong about that if it had been? Money paid the bills, but he hired his brother Roy to worry about it. Walt was driven by the sheer joy of creativity and the fulfillment that comes from bringing happiness to others. “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible,” he once said. These words from his dedication speech at the July 1955 opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California, encapsulate his amazing spirit:

To all who come to this happy place, Welcome! Disneyland is your land. Here, age relives fond memories of the past ... and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America ... with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.

No one could do justice to the life of Walt Disney in a short article, so I won’t even attempt to. Allow me to zero in on one particular aspect that underscores why he’s a hero: he knew failure and how to learn and prosper from it. As he put it himself, “All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me.… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”

In “The Importance of Failure” (Freeman, November 2011), economists Steven Horwitz and Jack Knych explained that permitting failure is just as important as allowing success:

For example, in 1921 Walt Disney started a company called the Laugh-O-Gram Corporation, which went bankrupt two years later. If a friend of Disney or the government hadn’t let him fail and move on, he might never have become the Walt Disney we know today.

More important than this individual learning process is the irreplaceable role failure plays in the social learning process of the competitive market. When we refuse to allow failure to happen, or we cushion its blow, we ultimately harm not only the person who failed but also all of society by denying ourselves a key way to learn how best to allocate resources. Without failure there’s no economic growth or improved human well-being.…

Failure drives change. While success is the engine that accelerates us toward our goals, it is failure that steers us toward the most valuable goals possible. Once failure is recognized as being just as important as success in the market process, it should be clear that the goal of a society should be to create an environment that not only allows people to succeed freely but to fail freely as well.

Disney heard a lot about failure at the family dinner table before he ever failed himself. His father, Elias, tried twice to be a successful orange grower in Florida but couldn’t make it work. He flopped as a professional fiddle player in Colorado. He didn’t do much better farming in Missouri. Elias tried a lot of things to keep his family fed. That he never quit trying left a deep impression on young Walt.  [read more]

Legislation Will Curb the Power of Unaccountable Bureaucracy

From The Daily Signal (Apr. 27):

Each year, regulators impose thousands of rules on the American people—over 20,000 during the Obama administration’s tenure alone. The cost is staggering: According to an upcoming Heritage study, the cost of Obama’s new rules alone is over $100 billion each year, and that only counts the biggest regulations.

There is a solution: make Congress approve new regulations before they become effective. That would shift responsibility back to where it belongs—in Congress. Regulators would no longer be able to legislate though rule-making without congressional action, and Congress would no longer be able to evade accountability for the rules that are imposed.

The REINS (“Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny”) Act would implement just such a system, requiring congressional approval for the hundred or so “major” rules each year that cost $100 million or more. Yet, that bill—first introduced seven years ago—has been stalled in Congress. While approved by the House multiple times, it failed to gain any traction in the Senate.

Part of the reason for the stalemate is critics’ concerns over how the system would work in practice. That’s where Lee’s amendment comes in. He would impose REINS Act requirements solely on major rules from the Department of Energy.  [read more]

A good start but the act should cover all gov’t agencies. Obama and Hillary would veto the act. But would Donald Trump sign the bill into law if he became the president? According to the American Commitment presidential survey he said he would and would work hard to get it passed. That’s good to hear.  First of course, the Senate has to pass it.

Why We Need to Make Mistakes

An article by Sandy Ikeda on FEE.org:

But I think innovation, not efficiency, is capitalism’s greatest strength. I’m not saying that the free market can’t be both efficient and innovative, but it does offer people a strong incentive to abandon the pursuit of efficiency in favor of innovation.

What Is Efficiency?

In its simplest form, economic efficiency is about given ends and given means. Economic efficiency requires that you know what end, among all possible ends, is the most worthwhile for you to pursue and what means to use, among all available means, to attain that end. You’re being efficient when you’re getting the highest possible benefit from an activity at the lowest possible cost. That’s a pretty heavy requirement.

What Is Innovation?

Innovation means doing something significantly novel. It could be doing an existing process in a brand new way, such as being the first to use a GPS tracking system in your fleet of taxis. Or, innovation could mean doing something that no one has ever done before, such as using smartphone technology to match car owners with spare time to carless people who need to get somewhere in a hurry, à la Uber.

Innovation, unlike efficiency, entails discovering novel means to achieve a given end, or discovering an entirely new end. And unlike efficiency, in which you already know about all possible ends and means, innovation takes place only when you lack knowledge of all means, all ends, or both.

Where’s the Conflict?

Starting a business that hasn’t been tried before involves a lot of trial and error. Most of the time the trials, no matter how well thought out, turn out to contain errors. The errors may lie in the means you use or in the particular end you’re pursuing.

In most cases, it takes quite a few trials and many, many errors before you hit on an outcome that has a high enough value and low enough costs to make the enterprise profitable.) Is that process of trial and error, of experimentation, an example of economic efficiency? It is not.

…………………………..

Both efficiency and innovation best take place in a free market. But the greatest rewards to buyers and sellers come not from efficiency, but from innovation.  [read more]

The reason why socialistic nations are not innovative is because they focus too much on efficiency at the expence of innovation. Socialists believe the market systems should be perfect (read: efficient) but they never will be perfect because people are not perfect. Also, when beurcrats run the economy they focus more on efficiency rather than innovation. Bureaucrats, let’s face it, are not very creative. Add to this fact that innovation involves risks which scares the crap out of socialists.

10 Reasons You Might Want to Leave North Korea

1. Life expectancy in the North is only 86 percent that of the South, 2013.
2. GDP per capita in the North is only 5 percent that of the South, 2008.
3. Infant mortality in the North is 679 percent that of the South, 2015.
4. Maternal mortality in the North is 322 percent that of the South, 2013.
5. Food consumption in the North was 63 percent that of the South, 2011.
6. Democracy in the South is comparable to Belgium, but non-existent in the North, 2014.
7. Environmental protection in the North lags behind that in the South.
8. Rule of law in the South is on par with Spain; in the North, with Afghanistan, 2014.
9. Internet access in the North is, well…[non-existence].
10. Last, but not least, the colonel's chance of being murdered was almost six times higher in the North than in the South, including on the orders of this psychopath: [Kim Jong-un].

[read more]

The article started with a N. Korean colonel defected to S. Korea for unknown reasons. Well, if I was placing a bet I would say the last reason sounds reasonable.

Top 5 Reasons Congress Should Reject Obama’s Climate Change Treaty

From Nicolas Loris on The Daily Signal.com (Apr. 19):

Secretary of State John Kerry will join leaders from around the world to sign the Paris Protocol global warming agreement this Friday at the United Nations headquarters.

Here are the top five reasons Congress and the next administration should withdraw from the accord:

1. Higher energy bills, fewer jobs and a weaker economy. The economic impact of domestic regulations associated with the Paris agreement will be severe.
2. No impact on climate. Regardless of one’s opinions on the degree to which climate change is occurring, regulations associated with the Paris accord will have no meaningful impact on the planet’s temperature. Even if the government closed the doors to every businesses and CO2-emitting activity in the U.S., there would be less than two-tenths of a degree Celsius reduction in global temperatures.
3. Massive taxpayer-funded wealth transfer for green initiatives. An important part of the Paris agreement for the developing world is money. More specifically, other peoples’ money. In Nov. 2014, President Barack Obama also pledged to commit $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, an international fund for green projects in the developing world.
4. Avoids review and consent from elected officials. The Paris agreement is in form, in substance, and in the nature of its commitments a treaty and should be submitted to the Senate for review and consent. The executive branch has shown contempt for the U.S. treaty-making process and the role of Congress, particularly the Senate.
5. A top-down, government controlled push for economic transformation. To achieve their global warming goals, international leaders want to control an economic transformation. Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has said that:

   This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.

[read more]

Just like the unaffordable no-care act this stupid treaty is just another way to control the American people’s lives. Period. It’s not about helping the environment at all.

 

Lessons For Law Enforcement

Following is a list of guidelines that emerged from the successful resolution of these cases of serial murder. While not exhaustive, it’s a start. Hopefully it will inspire both dedication and invention in current and future investigations.

1. Read widely in fields that might seem relevant but have not yet been used in law enforcement. It was a police officer not a scientist who introduced the discrimination of animal and human blood, DNA analysis, and brain fingerprinting into an investigation. This requires creative thinking and awareness of what’s available.
2. Be proactive. Detective William King kept planting items in newspapers, even years after the crime was committed, in order to bait the offender who’d kidnapped Grace Budd. Finally, his effort paid off. The Allentown police set up a sting operation, and Viktor Burakov read up on the FBI’s profiling methods, despite rebuke, to try to stop Chikatilo.
3. Become educated about psychological angles on criminal behavior, which get updated with research on a regular basis. This arena is not reserved for profilers or psychologists. Most good detectives already have a sense of criminal psychology, but psychopathic serial killers require greater savvy. No officer should believe he already knows enough from what he’s picked up on the streets.
4. Be flexible and, in particular, prepare to be wrong. In the Village Path murders in Britain, the interrogators were certain they’d nailed the man who’d killed two young girls, but they were wrong. It’s possible that their misplaced confidence influenced this suspect’s false confession. DNA analysis exonerated him and pointed to another man, but had this case happened only two years earlier, an innocent man would have gone to prison.
5. Be persistent. With cold cases, go over old ground and get a fresh perspective from others not familiar with the crime. Blind spots can trip up investigators who won’t let go. No investigation belongs to a single cop; it’s always a coordinated effort and others might contribute in surprising ways.
6. Be meticulous. Perhaps no case was more painstaking than the Pickton investigation, with all the forensic personnel sifting through piles of dirt and manure and underneath every building to locate fragments of human remains that would yield DNA.
7. Anticipate the future. Future investigations will involve cooperation among seemingly unrelated fields, especially the fields of technology and informatics.

Source: The Devil’s Dozen. How Cutting Edge Forensics Took Down 12 Notorious Serial Killers (2009) by Katherine Ramsland, Ph. D.

Good advice. The boldface highlights are mine.

19 Signs That American Families Are Being Economically Destroyed

From Tyler Durden on Zero Hedge.com:

Even as we stand at the precipice of the next great economic crisis, we continue to make the same mistakes.  In the end, all of us are going to pay a very great price for decades of incredibly foolish decisions.  Of course a tremendous amount of damage has already been done.  The numbers that I am about to share with you are staggering.  The following are 19 signs that American families are being economically destroyed…

1. The poorest 40 percent of all Americans now spend more than 50 percent of their incomes just on food and housing.
2. For those Americans that don’t own a home, 50 percent of them spend more than a third of their incomes just on rent.
3. The price of school lunches has risen to the 3 dollar mark at many public schools across the nation.
4. McDonald’s “Dollar Menu & More” now includes items that cost as much as 5 dollars.
5. The price of ground beef has doubled since 2009.
6. In 1986, child care expenses for families with employed mothers used up 6.3 percent of all income.  Today, that figure is up to 7.2 percent.
7. Incomes fell for the bottom 80 percent of all income earners in the United States during the 12 months leading up to June 2014.
8. At this point, more than 50 percent of all American workers bring home less than $30,000 a year in wages.
9. After adjusting for inflation, median household income has fallen by nearly $5,000 since 2007.
10. According to the New York Times, the “typical American household” is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.

[read more]

Not good at all. Thank you powers-that-be!

ISIS Wants To Attack With WMDs

From Washington Times.com (April 19):

EU and NATO officials confirmed today there is evidence that the Islamic State is plotting nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) attacks on the European continent and the United Kingdom. Jorge Berto Silva, deputy head of counterterrorism for the European Commission, said at a conference in London that ISIS is constantly evading established security measures and looking for new ways to get explosive and dangerous material into European cities, such as implanting the bombs in human bodies and using driverless cars to ram crowds. There is even evidence ISIS has obtained Iraqi short-range missiles and rockets to attack cities from outside the center.

Dr. Jamie Shea, deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security threats at Nato, reportedly added regarding NBC materials: “We know terrorists are trying to acquire these substances,” reported the Mirror. [read more]

Thank you Obama for making the world unsafer! If IS thugs wants to attack Europe then America is next on their hit list.

Rachel Carson and DDT

The most important day of the entire year is upon us — Earth Day on April 22nd. It’s a day in which environmentalists will overlook and dismiss earth’s inhabitants and literally choose to celebrate the dirt beneath our feet.

Earth Day isn’t really about picking trash in your local park or remembering to recycle your soda can. It isn’t even about hugging a tree. It has never been that innocent. Earth Day is a yearly reminder that humanity must be controlled, manipulated and even destroyed for the good of the planet.

…………………………..

In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, the book credited with igniting environmentalists in the United States. One hundred fifty thousand copies of “Silent Spring” were mailed to Book of the Month members and made their way into suburban America. With chapter titles such as “Elixirs of Death” and “Rivers of Death,” Carson successfully mixed eloquence and horror to instill fear about the popular insecticide Dichloride Diphenyl Triclorethane, better known as DDT.

DDT was considered to be a miracle powder that played an extraordinary role in winning World War II. During the Second World War, DDT was used to protect allied troops and civilians from malaria, typhus and other insect-born diseases.

…………………………….

Rachel Carson’s narrative that DDT was detrimental to both nature and human health was hungrily gobbled up by the public and government officials alike. Within eight years of its publication, Silent Spring was directly credited with the creation of the EPA.

In 1972, only ten years after Silent Spring was published, the U.S. banned DDT and other countries quickly followed suit. Once countries started falling prey to Carson’ misinformation about DDT, malaria ran rampant. The devastating insect-born disease once again ravaged South Africa and South American countries.

Robert Watts of the National Institutes of Health once remarked, “The ban on DDT may have killed 20 million children.”

Source: Environmentalism Part I: The EPA, Silent Spring and DDT

10 Things Leaders Should Never Do

These are behaviors that executives and business leaders should always avoid. They don't just diminish your leadership ability, your presence, your credibility, your reputation. They will come back to haunt you and, ultimately, be your undoing.

1. Kowtow to the status quo.
2. Whine.
3. Deceive.
4. Act like a dictator.
5. Make empty threats.
6. Crave power.
7. Ignore the truth.
8. Make commitments you don't intend to keep.
9. Be grandiose.
10. Do what you know is wrong.

Source: 10 Things Leaders Should Never Do from Inc.com.

Good advice not only for the private sector but for presidents and potential presidents. Obama does 2, 3, 4, and 6. Trump has to watch 2, 4, 6, and 9. When your narcisstic or egotistical 4, 6, 7, and 9 come into play.

Milton Friedman on the Great Depression

Milton Friedman at a conference of bankers:

There is hardly any view that is more widespread than the view that somehow or another the Great Depression was produced by a failure of private business. That view is held, not only by those who are in favor of greater role of government, it is held by almost everybody. I venture to suggest you that if you go to any bankers, the people who are here today at this banking conference, and if you talk to them, I’d venture to say, nine out of ten of them, if they didn’t, hadn’t heard what I’m going to say, that nine out of ten of them would say, “Well, of course, the Great Depression was a failure of private business. It was due to an overextension. Over speculation of the 1920s. Or it was due to an excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of the wealthy at the expense of the poor in the 1920s. Or it was due to speculative investment abroad or whatever. But it was a failure of private business. And government had to step in in order to rescue private business from its own failure.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. …The Great Depression was not [my emphasis] produced by a failure of business. On the contrary, it was [my emphasis]produced by a failure of government and a failure of government in an area in which responsibility had been assigned to governments since the founding of this country. The Constitution of the United States, it gives Congress the power to coin money and set the value thereof. And it was in the management of this fundamental function of government that governments failed and produced the Great Depression.

Source: Milton Friedman Part IV: Unapologetic & Unafraid

Mr. Friedman got it exactly right. The reader might want to refer to my blog entry “FDR, The Great Depression and The New Deal.”

A Peek Inside the IRS and Other Tax Stuff

The Four Protocols:

1. Find where they [the taxpayers] are.
2. Track what they do.
3. Learn what they have.
4. Execute what they fear.

The three Cs in ‘collection’:

• Cause- What did the TP [taxpayer] do—or not do—to fall behind or not file?
• Cure- What can the TP do—or not do—to bring the taxpayer back into compliance?
• Compliance- Is the TP current? If it’s a business, are the owners current? Is every entity they have an interest in current? Check everything, across the board.

Nine simple rules for not getting yourself killed [by a TP]:

1. Treat all taxpayers fairly and courteous.
2. Do not personalize collection efforts.
3. Listen carefully.
4. Do not threaten, scold, or patronize.
5. Recognize your own attitudes and eliminate those that are counterproductive.
6. Treat taxpayers as you would want to be treated.
7. Know where the exits are.
8. Avoid getting trapped.
9. Use force only sufficient to disengage.

Source: Confessions of a Tax Collector. One Man’s Tour of Duty Inside the IRS (2004) by Richard Yancey.

Taxpayer Bill of Rights:

1. The Right to Be Informed.
2. The Right to Quality Service.
3. The Right to Pay No More than the Correct Amount of Tax.
4. The Right to Challenge the IRS’s Position and Be Heard.
5. The Right to Appeal an IRS Decision in an Independent Forum
6. The Right to Finality.
7. The Right to Privacy.
8. The Right to Confidentiality.
9. The Right to Retain Representation.
10. The Right to a Fair and Just Tax System.

No taxation without respiration. –  Senator George Allen

Consider this, for starters. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which has defined the character of the nation, is all of 268 words. The Declaration of Independence runs about 1,300 words. The Constitution, which has served us for more than two centuries, comes to some 5,000 words. The Holy Bible has 773,000 words. The federal income tax code and all of its attendant rules and regulations: 9 million words and rising.  -- Steve Forbes

Taxation with representation ain't so hot either. - Gerald Barzan

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. – Calvin Coolidge

The people suffer from famine because of the multitude of taxes consumed by their superiors. It is through this that they suffer famine. - Lao-Tzu

Capital punishment is when Washington comes up with a new tax. - Van Panopoulos

Here’s a summary of the history of the tax rate:

• 1862-1863: The start of the national income tax. Two tier system. Upper tax rate 5%.
• 1864-1866: Three tier system. Upper tax rate 10%.  Tax rate still not too bad.
• 1867-1869: One tier system. Upper tax rate 5%. By one tier I mean if the income is over a certain amount the taxpayer pays a certain rate. Otherwise the taxpayer pays nothing.  Even better yet.
• 1870-1872: One tier system. Upper tax rate 2.5%. Nice.
• 1873-1893, 1895-1912. No national income tax. This is called the good old days. How did America ever survive? You mean the world for the average American didn’t stop?
• 1894: One tier system. Upper tax rate: 2%.
• 1913-1915: Seven tier system! Upper tax rate: 7%.
• 1916: 14 tier system!! WTF? Upper tax rate: 15%.
• 1917: 21 tier system!!! Upper tax rate: 67%!
• 1918-1921: 56 tier system!!!!  Upper tax rates: 77% and73%

I would go on but you get the idea. The tier system went somewhat down then in 1932 it went to 55. The highest tax rate overall was 94% in 1944. It wasn’t until 1987 the tier system went back to a smaller five tier system with the upper tax rate at 38.5%. The next year the the tax code was a two tier system with upper tax rate set at 28%. The two tier system only lasted until 1991. The upper tax rate went up too. Everyone paid the same rates regardless of marriage status until 1949 where single and head of household paid the same rates as married filing separately. Married filling jointly incomes was split to compare against the brackets. In 1971, every marriage status had different brackets.

It’s interesting to note that througout America’s tax code history there never has been one single flat rate for everyone regardless of income. Probably because if everyone pays the same rate it would be harder for Washington to raise the rate too high otherwise the poor would feel the effect.

I believe the reason the progressive tax system got created is because the progressives believed the more you earn, the more you should be taxed. In other words, they think they were following a law of economics that says “if a seller thinks a buyer has a lot of money to spend then he will raise the price of his product or service.” This is an actual economic law. The problem is when you apply this law to taxing someone they don’t have a choice. They have to pay the tax rate. Or got to jail. Unlike the free-market system where the buyer can choose to pay the price or go on to another seller. But the progs don’t care. They think the rich has an endless supply of money or they hoard all the money.

Glenn Beck series “History of Taxation”:

• Taxes Part I: How Income Tax Began
• Taxes Part II: What Is a ‘Fair’ Income Tax Rate?
• Taxes Part III: The Reagan Years
• Taxes Part IV: The 2016 Candidates

A Tax on Income Attacks Life Itself

9 Charts You Need to See for Tax Day

Some news:

Daily Signal.com (Mar. 18): H&R block Wants to Make It Harder for You to File Taxes. Can you say chrony capitalist?