By now it is probably difficult to not have heard about that Teen USA beauty pageant in which Miss South Carolina answered the question why one fifth of the US population can’t locate the US on a world map in the most amazing and embarrassing fashion.

This fact alone in itself is not necessarily news-worthy - even though some might think so - but then by comes Larken Rose and compares this pretty girls dribble with the dribble that is usually called political speech.

And that was news for me!

I probably could paraphrase Larken’s words but I just love his writing style and as he has given permission to do with his newsletters as I please - - I just post it here.

My Fellow Americans,

Much amusement has been had over the recent incoherent, air-headed ramblings of Miss South Carolina during the recent Miss Teen USA pageant. (Actually, I feel a little sorry for her, since I highly doubt that her profound cluelessness was entirely her own doing. Usually it takes a lot of co-conspirators — teachers, parents, friends, etc. — to result in such extreme bimbo-ness.) For those who haven’t witnessed the gruesome event, when asked why a fifth of Americans couldn’t find the U.S. on a world map, Miss South Carolina responded with what sounded like the output of a random- word generator. (…[Ed.: here it is...])

Normally, words are used to convey thoughts between people. In her case, the words seemed designed to convey the ILLUSION of thought, but without much success. She was, no doubt, trained to include certain catch words and phrases: “I personally believe,” “such as,” “our future,” “Iraq,” “Africa,” etc. And she did. She just didn’t bother including anything in between, which might have formed an actual concept or idea.

But what disturbs me a lot more than that one display of ignorance - - - which is hardly unusual in modern America — is the fact that when people do EXACTLY what Miss South Carolina did, only with more confidence and steadiness, we Americans usually grant them unlimited power over us. These days the megalomaniacs — those who desire personal power and dominion over others — dupe most people without even having to make a half-decent effort. Consider, as a randomly-chosen example, the following clip of Barrack Obama:

Looking sincere and confident, he spends several minutes throwing out catch phrases which, taken as a whole, mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. If I have to watch someone spewing out words which convey no shred of thought, I’d much rather watch Miss South Carolina do it. Frankly, I’d also rather have her be the all-powerful ruler of the world than have what we have now, because no amount of good old-fashioned stupidity could ever do the damage which the love-of-dominion crowd does every day through its supposedly well- intentioned “solutions.”

In his sales pitch for himself, Mr. Obama spoke of wanting a “different kind of politics,” and wanting to see the “change and progress that we so desperately need.” He pretended to sympathize with the common folk who face concerns about health care costs, pensions and college bills, and said that partisanship was preventing people from “working together in a practical, common sense way.” (Actually, “GOVERNMENT” is what prevents that.) He said he wanted us to “come together around our common interests and concerns as Americans.” He said that engaged citizens working together can accomplish extraordinary things, and that he has great hope for the future, because he believes in you. Isn’t that sweet?

So what did we learn from all that? We learned that Mr. Obama knows how to echo the same meaningless rhetoric that all politicians in all countries throughout all of history have used. When’s the last time you heard a politician say, “Ya know, I don’t much care about your stupid concerns. You’re a bunch of worthless twits who couldn’t wipe your noses if not for government. I have no intention of changing the system at all, I just want to be the one in charge of it for as long as it lasts, before the poop really hits the fan and this whole silly charade comes crashing down”? (Come to think of it, I might vote for someone who said that.)

And I picked Mr. Obama’s stupid ramblings at random. The same could be said about the rhetoric of anyone else in government: Hillary, McCain, Giuliani, Bush, Kerry, Gore, Cheney, and so on, ad infinitum. EVERY politician in Washington (with the possible exception of Ron Paul) spews the same meaningless drivel, and it WORKS–as demonstrated by the fact that they’re STILL THERE.

So before you laugh too loudly at poor Miss South Carolina, who merely sought to win a pageant, look how many of your fellow Americans are eager to give unbridled power, over everyone and everything in the country, to people who do nothing more than parrot the same old meaningless catch-phrases that tyrants have used forever. The ignorance of Miss South Carolina doesn’t hurt anyone but herself. The ignorance of the American voters, on the other hand, results in the robbery, extortion, harassment, terrorization, assault, wrongful imprisonment, and/or murder of MILLIONS of innocent human beings. And those same voters have the gall and hypocrisy to laugh at Miss South Carolina. Amazing.

Sincerely,
Larken Rose

Maybe I’m allowed to expound on one of Larken’s thoughts. If - just IF - we would become able to recognize dribble as dribble whatever the form, we also might be able to see that instead of Hillary Clinton we elect Lauren Caitlin Upton for president and have at least something nice to look at during the speeches.

Posted by Merlin Silk - August 31st, 2007

Pink Floyd albums where very early members of my album collection, and they were plentiful. It all started in college where some smart marketer started to sell music albums for sometimes up to 25% cheaper than the going price in music stores.

At this time of growing up, hanging with friends, drinking beer and listening to music, being cool, Pink Floyd was definitely one of the favorite musics. The right stuff to totally space out.

Running into a video of  a Pink Floyd concert from 1988 on YouTube today brought these memories back and for all of you who like their music, here is what I found…

Believe it or not, up to now I never listened to the lyrics of the songs except some snippets that you could not miss, like “Teachers, leave us kids alone” from The Wall.

That shall be remedied today with the lyrics of the song above,  “On The Turning Away”

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won’t understand
“Don’t accept that what’s happening
Is just a case of others’ suffering
Or you’ll find that you’re joining in
The turning away”
It’s a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting it’s shroud
Over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we’re all alone
In the dream of the proud
On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord
Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerised as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night
No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It’s not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there’ll be
No more turning away?

Blows your mind, doesn’t it?

And, by the way, I still have those vinyl albums.

Posted by Merlin Silk - August 30th, 2007

I never heard of Michel Gondry before, so when I saw the title “Michel Gondry Solves a Rubiks Cube with his Nose” on YouTube I was not particularly intrigued. But I knew the Rubiks Cube even though I never owned one myself and thus never spent the hours on hours to solve the puzzle.

But the idea of solving this puzzle with the nose - hmmm - that started be be attention grabbing.

So I looked …

… and I was fascinated, but instinctively I felt there was something wrong with that. I could feel it in my bones there was something not quite kosher.

And sure enough, thanks to the distributed intelligence of the internet I found the information I had a gut feeling to exist.

This video is a fake!

There you have it! And learn that not everything you see on the internet is true.

Posted by Merlin Silk - August 28th, 2007

I got one of these email (Thanks, Beverly!) that is somewhere in the middle - it’s too good to just have a quick smirk and delete and not quite good enough to find a place in the permanent collection of photos, prose and other snippets.

Not that this collection is particularly useful. I think I have stored away so many things in my collection that I would most likely not be able to find anything even if I would remember that I had it.

So, what do you do in cases like this? - Good that we have the World Wide Web!

Without further ado, here are those picture of this nice sports cabriolet…

Just wondering - what car is that - looks like a Porsche, doesn’t it. Too bad that you cant see the whole car. But I guess there are some people who just can’t take proper pictures. Oh, well!

Posted by Merlin Silk - August 28th, 2007

I have the idea that anarchy is a scary thing for many people. But if we look at some of the dictionary definition we are getting a bit smarter.

One definition we find here is simply “a state of society without government or law.” This is pretty neural.

But the we also have “political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control.” This is a rather interesting definition for a dictionary because it packs the conclusion that there will be disorder if there is no government control. But this definition surely reflects the idea of many members of our species, so maybe the definition has a place in a dictionary.

Another definition is a bit more matter of fact: “a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.”

The wildest one, and the one that probably most of us have in mind: “confusion; chaos; disorder.”

As my son is growing up fast and it seems time to put this seed of criticism of government into his heart, I had noticed the need recently to really question what this government is actually good for.

Do I need it to put up stop signs on each intersection in our very quiet neighborhood with no accidents? No, not really, it just makes me use more gas because I have to stop the car completely and then accelerate again while before I could just roll slowly by that intersection. But then again, I suppose somebody had some money left in his budget and needed to get rid of it otherwise it would be cut the next year - or something to that effect.

And when I was thinking about all those interesting aspect of government or no government, who comes to the rescue?

Larken Rose!

I have posted several of his email letters here on these pages (with his permission) and I just have to do this again. It will be lengthy as even Larken had divided his thoughts on the subject into three parts, but I will put them all together here in one post for you to enjoy.

The series of his email letters carries the title:

Opening the Cage - Part 1:

Dear Subscriber,

If one accepts the fundamental truth that each of us owns himself, and ponders all the things which logically follow from that simple concept, the way the world looks suddenly changes drastically. Concepts like “government,” “law,” “authority,” “countries,” and so on, fall apart like a house of cards. Because that scares the heck out of people, however, many go to great lengths to DENY that they own themselves. The ramifications are just too weird, and too scary, for most people to even think about.

Here is just one example:

I own me. Imagine that the me I own is standing ten feet south of the border between Montana and Canada, looking at the nifty scenery. While I stand there, some people way over in Washington think they have the RIGHT to rule me: to impose taxes, regulations, commands, requirements, prohibitions, and so on, which (they think) I am obligated to obey. But I own me, and they don’t, so I have exactly ZERO obligation to obey any of their proclamations and legislation.

(I do, however, have an obligation to refrain from doing anything which would impinge upon someone ELSE’S self-ownership, such as robbing, defrauding, murdering, vandalizing, assaulting, and so on. But that obligation does not come from any “legislation,” nor could any “law” or “rule” alter that obligation one bit.)

Now, if I step over that imaginary line, into Canada, then a DIFFERENT set of megalomaniacs imagine themselves to have the right to tax me, regulate me, command me, control me, and so on. (In fact, they also think they have the right to prohibit me from stepping over the line in the first place.) Their claim is equally bogus: I own me no matter where I am. What I am obligated to do doesn’t depend one bit upon who thinks they have the right to rule me. None of them do.

That being the case, what is the significance of that border to me? What difference is there between one “country” and the next, if I actually own myself? Yes, what might HAPPEN to me in different places will be different (many foreign megalomaniacs are a lot more overtly vicious to the noncompliant than the ones here), and what the people there will think, and how they will behave, will be different, but what I am OBLIGATED to do, and obligated to REFRAIN from doing, doesn’t change one bit.

Some people have asked me, without borders, how could we have a country? I gave them the disturbing answer: we shouldn’t have a country. No one should. (Please don’t be so silly as to read that as an agreement with the “New World Order” fascists.) Today, “countries” are defined solely by WHICH group of megalomaniacs claim the right to rule a certain piece of dirt. Sure, cultures and places are real, and I can see feeling a loyalty or attachment to that. But imaginary lines drawn by people who believe they own me? Why on earth should I care about that?

When I walk from the place in Montana, to the place that looks exactly the same in Canada, what did I leave behind? Why should I feel any differently? What actually changed? Did morality CHANGE, because a different set of tyrants claim to be in charge here? Unless you think that politicians outrank nature, the universe, or God (or whatever you believe to be the origin of right and wrong), the “law” cannot possibly ALTER morality. If I still own me, what difference does a “border” make?

Again, people often go flying off to all sorts of tangents when faced with these concepts. They start pontificating about what we need, what works for society, all the nasty things that will happen if we don’t all bow to an authority, and so on. But again, I’m just talking about what IS. If I own myself–and I do–what possible meaning can “countries” have to me? I might like a group of people, or a place, or a culture, but that is NOT what a “country” is. (I bet everyone on this list can think of a LOT of places in the U.S., and a LOT of people in the U.S., who they feel no attachment to and no comradery with.)

The path to accepting freedom is really disturbing to almost everyone (it sure was to me), which is why most people desperately fish for an excuse for NOT going down that path. “THERE WOULD BE CHAOS! WE NEED GOVERNMENT! DEATH, MAYHEM, ANARCHY!” But no such dire predictions or emotional tantrums can alter the painfully simple logic involved: either I own me, or I am the property of someone else. And if I simply accept that I own me, the world looks like a VERY different place.

The feeling is exactly like that of an animal that has been in a small cage all its life, suddenly being shown a vast expanse of open wilderness (like Montana, for example). Unfortunately, most caged animals, when they catch a glimpse of freedom, cower into the back corner of their cage, and snarl and whimper until the door is shut again.

How about you?

Part 2:

Once again, let’s peek out the open door of the “authority” cage, and see what there is to see out in the world of “I own me.” It’s drastically different from how the world looks from inside the locked cage. “Countries” are but one concept that falls apart once we accept that we own ourselves.

In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass (former slave) described how a lot of slaves back in those days were completely convinced that slaves are what they SHOULD be. Many, if not most, would even look down upon any slave who would be so despicable as to try to run away. To the radical like Mr. Douglass, however, who realized that no amount of whips, chains, or cages could change the fact that he rightfully owned HIMSELF, the world looked drastically difference. To him, the supposed “owner” was the enemy–an evil thief committing both assault and theft on a daily basis.

The world looks very different depending upon one’s ideas about who he belonged to: himself or someone else. In hindsight, most of us look back at that time and sympathize with the lawless, disobedient “slaves” who were willing to break the LAW in order to assert their rights to be free. But most people refuse to accept the same principle as it applies today.

It was not too many years ago that, when I heard the term “law enforcement,” it had a positive connotation for me. The cops were the good guys, enforcing “the law” against those nasty criminals (defined as anyone who disobeys the “law”). However, now that I realize that I own myself, and that the same is true of every other individual, “police” appear to me as what they really are: people who commit evil far more often than they commit good. I’m not talking about when they break the law, which happens often, too– I’m talking about when they enforce an immoral, unjustified “law,” which is MOST of the time. The number of “laws” which simply formalize the use of inherently justified defensive force (such as “laws” against theft, murder, assault, etc.) are far outnumbered by the so-called “laws” which ADVOCATE theft, murder, and assault.

(Warning: If you like your view from inside the cage, you may not want to continue reading.)

I own me. You own you. Every person owns himself. If some guy wants to fry his brain, it is HIS to fry. So long as he doesn’t go around messing with someone else’s self-ownership–whether out of malice or negligence–NO ONE has the right to use force to stop him from frying his brain (though we have every right to try to talk him out of it, to call him a moron, etc.). And calling violence “law” has NO bearing on whether it is justified.

When someone hiding behind the label of “authority” or “law enforcement” forces his way into someone’s home, with the intention of catching the homeowner with an unapproved LEAF (e.g., marijuana), in order to drag that person away and put him in a cage for several years, the leaf-smoker has the absolute right to use any means necessary, including killing the intruder (the “cop”), to protect himself.

The same holds true of the victims of ALL non-defensive “law enforcement.” For example, Ed and Elaine Brown up in New Hampshire have the absolute moral right to use any means necessary, including deadly force, to prevent the authoritarian thugs from taking them hostage and putting them in cages. Even if they were guilty of the “crime” of “tax evasion,” which I believe they are NOT, the Browns would still own themselves, and still have the absolute right to defend their self-ownership from thieves and terrorists, regardless of whether the theft and terrorism is “legal” or not.

Surely I’m not defending the “cop-killer” mentality?! Actually, I am doing precisely that, when the so-called “cops” are the ones doing the robbery, assault, or kidnapping. Despite how radical that may sound, it was not at all an usual attitude among those who started this country. The Declaration of Independence says that the only legitimate purpose of government is to protect the unalienable rights of the individual, and when it “becomes destructive of those ends,” it is both the right and duty of the people to overthrow it and start over. Here are a few other radical things Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration, also said:

“No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.”

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.”

(In other messages I’ll explain why even “legitimate government” is impossible.)

And when “government” force is used, not to defend those rights, but to infringe upon them, then what? Then, according to me and Thomas Jefferson, we have the right to FORCIBLY RESIST. Oddly, almost everyone agrees, when they’re talking about some “authority” they DON’T worship, but they believe it’s the ultimate blasphemy to suggest the same regarding the “authority” THEY bow to. For example, it was ILLEGAL in 1940’s Germany for the various “undesirables” to hide from the Nazis. Those who did were law- breakers; those who found them and dragged them away were “law enforcers.” And those “law enforcers” all deserved to have their damn heads blown off. And us modern Americans don’t mind saying that out loud, and in public. How about Stalin’s “law enforcers”? How about Mao’s? How about the “law enforcers” of King George III? We dang near deify the lawless, traitorous rebels who resisted George’s laws, and don’t mind at all the idea of his “law enforcers” getting gunned down. Heck, we have a big celebration about
it every July 4th.

How about today? When thugs and terrorists put a MILLION people in cages for possessing a SUBSTANCE, who should we be cheering for? It depends who owns the individual. If each individual owns himself, then those horrible “drug dealers” are the GOOD GUYS, and the “cops” are the BAD GUYS. (If the drug dealers happened to also have committed a REAL crime–the kind with an actual victim–like theft or murder, then they are the bad guys, too, but NOT because they had some “illegal” stuff.)

I warned you, if you accept the idea that you own yourself, the way the world looks changes drastically. Most people don’t like to think, and don’t like to face disturbing truths, so they look for excuses to REJECT the idea that they own themselves. They revere “authority” and “the law”–superstitions which serve as a sort of philosophical crutch to help people not have to think and judge for themselves. Again, they see the open cage door, and they back away from it, thus guaranteeing their perpetual enslavement, in body and mind. (Those people then vigorously and passionately argue in favor of their own enslavement, which I find rather depressing.) But some of us choose something else. It’s called freedom.

Part 3:

(Note: Regarding my last message, don’t confuse rights with abilities. Even when completely justified, having a shootout with the cops is almost always hazardous to one’s health. My prior message wasn’t a suggestion; it was a statement about moral justification. As long as most people insist on believing that the collective owns them–via “government”–it will be really dangerous to be one of the crazies who thinks he owns himself. The other sheep don’t take kindly to those who resist being fleeced.)

Almost everyone is a part-time collectivist. Most people have a few things which THEY want imposed on everyone else via “authority,” but when something they don’t like is imposed upon THEM, they get all self-righteous and indignant about it. Well, to paraphrase (and slightly mangle) the “golden rule,” if you don’t want other people doing it to you, DON’T DO IT TO THEM!

If I go around randomly killing people, others have the right to stop me by force, not because they own me, but because they own THEMSELVES, which logically implies the right of self-preservation. But if I’m not stomping on someone else’s self-ownership, NO ONE has the right to use force to control me. If I want to smoke pot (I don’t), have a rifle (I do), wear women’s underwear (I don’t), eat cheeseburgers (I sometimes do), marry an aardvark (I don’t), say nasty things about politicians (I do), or hit myself in the head with a baseball bat (I’ve felt like it on occasion, but haven’t yet), no one has the right to forcibly stop me. And calling the control “law” makes exactly NO difference to whether the control is justified. If the “government” doesn’t OWN me, it has exactly ZERO right to do a thing to me, unless it’s defending someone ELSE’S self-ownership (in which case, anyone would have the right to stop me).

“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” [Thomas Jefferson]

Sadly, people rarely think from principles, so they play both sides of the fence. Your average “liberal” will holler about his rights to smoke pot if he wants to, and then turn around and advocate the robbery of almost everyone in the country, in order to fund things HE likes (art, welfare, whatever). Meanwhile, the average “conservative” insists that he has a right to own firearms and drink his beer, but wants the “law” to forcibly stop someone else from doing LSD.

“Boo hoo! My rights are being infringed!” Well, if you’re advocating that anyone ELSE’S rights be infringed, serves you right! If you think it’s just fine for the “legal” thugs to kick down doors, drag people away, and put them in cages, because they had a LEAF the politicians don’t approve of, then when those same thugs rob and control YOU, don’t whine about it. Or, to quote a far more eloquent expression of the same sentiment:

“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.” [Frederick Douglass]

Sadly, things are discussed in terms of legislation so often these days that most people have a hard time differentiating between “That’s a bad idea” and “That should be illegal.” There are LOTS of choices people make that are stupid or dangerous (physically or otherwise)–everything from eating too much junk food, to snorting coke, to skateboarding, to sitting in front of a computer too much (that’s me), to sleeping around, to watching too much TV, to drinking too much beer–the list goes on and on. Acknowledging that you have no right to use VIOLENCE to stop those things is worlds away from saying you CONDONE such choices. But if you want to be allowed the responsibility to make your own choices, and you don’t want to be a complete hypocrite (and a fascist), you have to also allow other people to make choices you think are stupid.

My advice: Treat everyone as if he owns himself. Because he does. Don’t advocate that he be forced, “legally” or otherwise, to do ANYTHING, except for refraining from infringing on someone else’s self-ownership. And if you do advocate using non-defense force, don’t pretend to believe in freedom; and when you then find such unjustified force aimed at YOU, you damn well deserve it.

Sincerely,
Larken Rose

Posted by Merlin Silk - August 27th, 2007

We are so used to the ‘correct’ size of things that we normally don’t really think about size (OK, except in that one area, but that will be a different discussion.)

The first time I had my nose stubbed on the fact that sizes are not god-given was through a little reader sci-fi story in one of those weekly novellas. For all of you German speaker - is was Perry Rhodan. This little short story described a race that mobilized all it’s resources to attack its perceived enemy - Terra - and crossed space to reach it with it’s flotilla of war vessels. The command ship then was, on landing, mistaken for a can and playfully kicked by a boy and destroyed.

This obviously had quite some impact on me as I still remember that little story after so many years.

Men in Black II also tackles this idea nicely in the last scene.

I was reminded of this today by some interesting photos of sculptures by Ron Mueck that dribbled into my email box. This artist started out as a creator of props for movie studios and apparently learned a lot about the creation of life like figures. For the movies he had to build his creation so that they looked right only from one angle, but when he started to use his talents to create fine art he was able to create his props, that are now art, so that they looked right from all angles.

Just not from the size-angle. And this is what makes his work so interesting. He does not deviate from the god-given size too much, as in the two examples given above.

They are just different enough to feel that things can be indeed different than we are used to.

He sometimes goes bigger…

and sometimes smaller…

 Interesting what that does to you, isn’t it?

Posted by Merlin Silk - August 20th, 2007

(Re-posted with permission from February 2005)

It must be about 15 years ago that a friend gave me a two dollar bill as a present. Obviously I first thought if was one of this fake one million dollar bills but she could convince me that it was the real McCoy.

Naturally I did not spend it. Somehow, I don’t remember how, I got another one and both of them stayed with me. I did not even part with one despite my son’s convincing argument that there are two bills and he and I are two, so he should have one - Nope - I stayed tough.

I printed one out for him though right now and will give it to him later, maybe that will do.

Today, Gigi, on going through old mail, found another one, and I could not help a WOW! - 1928!

When I got the first bill my eyes were 20/20 but this time I needed to use a magnifying class to peruse the bills.

You can do more or less the same because I put a high res scan for the world to see. Here is the 1928…

and here the newer one from 1976…

Click on the images for the full size - sorry for the long download over a slow line but I think it’s worth it.

The text on the bills individually are not that suspicious but seeing them in comparison is eye-opening.

OK, so this green stuff turned from a UNITED STATES NOTE into a FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE, but we all know that already, right? Considering the constitution would that mean that it’s all fake money we are running after all our life - kinda silly. But then again, even if it’s fake, if nobody knows, what’s the difference.

But sometimes I wonder. These guys trying to fool us are criminals - kinda like a con-artist. But why do they try to say the truth then. I could only imagine that’s the laugh-value, like ‘SUCKERRR!’, when the people find out the hard way. The old bill said “The United States of America will pay to the bearer on demand TWO DOLLARS” and the new one says “The United States of America TWO DOLLARS”. We know it’s not a sentence anymore, but - hey - you suckers didn’t even notice, did you?

And then the other one: “This note is a legal tender at its face value for all debts public and private” versus “This note is legal tender for all debts public and private”. See, we say right here that we might not give you back what you paid for that note, and it’s not really our fault that a 1926 Model-T Tudor Sedan cost $580 and a comparable car today cost $58,000 - but hey you also earn a lot more, right.

And that the tax increases progressively with the money you make - now - for that you have to go to your government!

Should we be angry with these guys - no way - that would only give them power. But are we willing to give up all the goodies that the crooks gave us to keep us content? Imagine, you would actually need money first before you can buy a car or a house, and I guess you would have to have very sturdy pockets for all that gold you have to carry around as the government does not seem to be willing to give up on it’s biggest hidden tax - - inflation.

Accumulated Comments for This Post

7 comments

24 Feb 2005 @ 16:05 by Ed Dawson @68.136.84.246 : Money, money, money
I just read a book which has quite a bit of discussion of the fed reserve and the nature of money. The book was the newly discovered, long lost first novel of Robert Heinlein: “For Us, The Living”. It has quite a bit of discussion of economic systems embedded in it.

The fed bank has a lot of power. It is a corporation which is owned by other banks. And it seems to protect its interests quite well. With all the speculation about JFK being assasinated because he did various things, such as annoy the Mob or Castro, hardly anyone seems to notice that he attempted to take control of the monetary supply away from the Fed and print money produced by the US government directly. Not long after that, he died…

What was it Geoffrey Filbert said, that anyone can be killed for a quarter billion or more at stake?
Ed

PS: in the continuing spirit of delenda est cartago, I again ask the musical question “What’s a skookum”? ;-))))

24 Feb 2005 @ 17:41 by jmarc : i think that between the 2
there should be one with a blue seal too. It would be interesting to see if there were any language morphs on the blue silver certificates. Now we’re getting all kinds of funky colours on the new bills, salmon on the 20s (somethings fishy), pinks on the 50s.. LINK

24 Feb 2005 @ 21:06 by skookum : oh kayyyyy
Skookum is a Chinook word meaning big and strong.

Chinook is a trade language that combines French and native speaking words. It originates in the Northwest where my family is from. My grandfather could speak some of it and it was the name of my cat. I took this name due to the fact it wasn’t very common and well.. I liked that cat..

25 Feb 2005 @ 01:44 by Ed Dawson @66.245.207.108 : Washington State
Yeah, Chinook! Cool! I graduated from high school in Tumwater Washington, lots of tribes up there. I dated a Macah (native tribe) girl in high school. She was a Macah, and I a Davidson. Not really all that different….

As for the cat.. if country music star Buck Owens can name himself Buck after the family dog, then you can certainly call yourself after your cat! ;)))

thanks for the reply, Skookum.
cheers
Ed

PS: Back to the money subject, Heinlein really talks bad about banks in that book. He cites them as a leading cause of economic collapses.

25 Feb 2005 @ 04:51 by skookum : let us not forget
Indiana Jones….

25 Feb 2005 @ 07:12 by vaxen : Ed…
wasn’t Heinlein one of Rawls’ friends? I mean where does Mish fit into all of this anyway? Is there any real ‘need’ to revisit Excalibur? I think so but, then, I’m only a class 9 implanter and our opinions don’t count for much. You might want to do a little bit of re-search (auditing of?) ‘the City.’ The real ‘London’ within London.

“The Temple Bar is comprised of four Inns of Court. They are: The Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincolns Inn and Grays Inn. The entry point to these closed secret societies is only to be found when one is called to their Bar.”

“The Bar attorneys in the United States owe their allegiences and pledge their oaths to ‘The Crown.’ All Bar Associations throughout the world are signatories and franchises to the International Bar Association located at the Inns of Court of the Crown Temple.”

By The Crown, in the above, I do not mean the ‘Queen of England,’ a mere satrap, either…

Are you a ‘denizen’ or a ‘citizen?’ And if so why? And if not now then when? I revisit Excalibur everyday. Y tu?

Don’t forget that XENU and Yatrus always work together but Yatrus is actually a much wilier opponent. Teegeeack was Yatruscan before incident II. There is still a lot of hidden animosity between the two overlords. It shows. Ah, the jolly old ‘Bank’ of England. (Eng-Land = Yngwies Land)

25 Feb 2005 @ 21:58 by Ed Dawson @66.245.208.209 : Owen and Jones/Yngwie?
Owen and Jones. Two fine Welsh (Briton) names. :))

Yngwie???? I think I’ve read far too much sci-fi (if that is possible) because a line from De Camp comes to mind:

“Ingvi is a louse!”

Ed

Posted by Merlin Silk - August 16th, 2007

I have to admit that Ming in his article ‘I see, therefore I blog’ indeed got deeply philosophical.

That inspired me and caused me to think about the ideal way of communication with the world around us. As a scientist I have the mantra that you don’t throw away any data, bad as it might be. Therefore we first of all need to collect all information. It might not be here quite here yet, but with some tera byte memory sticks it should be possible to record everything that goes on around each of us.

That’s the pure raw data. Then we can certainly annotate and tag elements in this data flow. I can review and comment on a situation I just experienced, thus getting a very fresh witness account. Or I can go back later, cuing through the recordings and adding tags like today I do with del.icio.us.

So far, all data is private, very private.

Then comes the decision what do I open up to whom. One tag is certainly something like ‘friends only.’ This would be equivalent to the private profiles on MySpace - first you have to become a friend before I open up to you.

At the other end of the spectrum would be ‘World’ - this is going out onto the widest distribution. pretty much what are todays web pages, and as with web pages, there are good ones and there are bad not so good ones. We can even enter the eBay effect at this point and attempt to charge for content, probably some private currency which at one point will have an exchange rate with the government money.

I have to use the opportunity here to show one example from last category under ‘good ones.’ This is one whirlwind of a video blog…

Webb Alert

I probably get all the tech news Morgan Webb tells about through other channels but it is still well worth the download and time to watch this expressionist - expressionist because of such lively expressions during her presentation that I just have to live all the stories with her. Beside this she was rated the 51st sexiest woman in the world in 2007 by the readers of FHM. 51st does not seem to sound much, but…

Hmmm, Ming, some form you might consider as a medium for your next generation blogging - Ming Alert - wondering though how you could beat that ’51st sexiest woman’ thingy.

Posted by Merlin Silk - August 16th, 2007

While driving down the 101 here in Los Angeles I noticed the following sign…

 

 … and it made me think.

NO - Come on! There is no such sign in Los Angeles - - - yet!

But you can find bad surprises in places where they are really surprising - - huh?

Anyways, I want to tell about an old friend of mine. A friend I had hung out with during the last year of high school and most of the college days, and I thought we really knew each other well.

Me moving to the US of A interrupted that friendship somewhat, but meeting each other after both our divorces and a few year of hardly hearing from each other, the spark was there again immediately and we could talk as if no time had passed when we met on one of my visits to Germany.

But I went back to California, we both got married again and had kids - OK, our wifes had. Then it was his time to visit us here with the whole family.

During on of our long talks he told me that his daughter had become so difficult in school that she was now on ritalin. That blew my mind! I mean I hear all those bad stories about our school kids being drugged into obedience but I had never met any such kid. I guess because my reality is so that this stuff does not enter it. But then the only first degree of separation person to introduce me to ritalin is my old best buddy from the college days.

I guess our realities did develop into different directions.  Even though I don’t really think in his case it was a replacement for parenting because he was and is a loving father. He must have gotten some really bad information, and that’s the danger of it, that if you are not actively looking for the correct information and trust ‘experts’ you might be traveling down the wrong path.

I know how that is!

Posted by Merlin Silk - August 14th, 2007

Robert Heinlein in his “Time Enough for Love” tells the story of the man who was too lazy to fail. The basic idea behind this story is that if you fail in something you want to do, you have to do it over again - double the work - thus not the right thing for a truly lazy person.

I remembered this story when the article A Guide to Hiring Programmers: The High Cost of Low Quality crossed my desk. A little bit of an excerpt…

I was invited to a wonderful dinner party (I swear it wasn’t too spicy Sarah!) with some St. Louis Perl peoples this week while I’m here on business. At one point we were talking about hiring programmers, specifically Perl programmers.

We agreed on the following:

• Finding good programmers is hard in any language. And that a good programmer can be as effective as 5-10 average programmers.
• Average pay rates between equivalent programmers are out of sync and are based more on the language used than the skill of the programmer.
• You don’t need to hire an expert in language X, you can and should look for expert programmers that are willing to learn language X. An expert can easily cross over from being a novice in any language in a matter of a few weeks.
• You should seriously consider allowing your expert developers to telecommute full-time. Restricting your search to programmers who live in your area or are willing to move limits the talent you can acquire. Arguments regarding “face time”, productivity, etc. can easily be nullified when you look at how some of the largest and most successful Open Source projects such as Linux, Apache, and Firefox are developed by individuals rarely living in the same time zone or even country.

That is something I could agree with as well!

On the hand I had been always very curious why many bosses want bodies in the shop. It’s highly inefficient and certainly does not raise the morale or anything in this arena.

On the other hand I can see that if there is a boss who does not really understand what is going on wants at least something he can measure and understand. And I am able to see that this could be a bunch of busy bodies in the cubicled office space.

Now, if you are in this business for a while you know that being busy is counter-productive in the field of programming. Maybe during the time when you type in some program the impression of a busy programmer is appropriate. But what is the percentage of time where a good programmer actually types some original code?

Five percent - four - less? Certainly not more.

We are talking about good programmers here, just to make sure. The not so good one will be typing a lot more because he will re-invent the wheel every time the task is a bit different. The good one will re-use already tested code. It might take him a while to find it - a time during which he might be looking lazy to a manager, but this the time where he is, in effect, 5 to 10 times more productive than the low quality programmer.

I remember this one guy - forgot his name, and if I did not would not tell anyways - was a little weasel, always busy running around and typing like a maniac. When he finally left, pretty much everything needed to be re-done.

And to imagine that he got paid nearly the same money I did!

It is, and I can truly appreciate this, very difficult for a manager to determine what is and what is not a good programmer. My principle has been “Let me show you!’ and that has worked very well during the days when I hired myself out as a labor slave.

I either offered to work a month for free but then asked for so much money that I made up for that loss, or I negotiated a deal where the contract amount was rather low, but a big bonus was to be paid if all the requirements of the slave master were met in time and on budget.

To close one more little excerpt from the above article…

What is an expert programmer?

Experience is key, but not necessarily in ways you might imagine. Time in the saddle, with a particular language is not as important as diversity of experience. Someone who has worked in several disparate industries, a generalist, is often a much better developer than one who has spent years in the same industry. There are exceptions to this, but in general I have found this to be the case. Bonus points if your developer was a systems administrator in a former life.

Some of the best developers I know were originally trained as journalists, mathmaticians, linguists, and other professions not normally associated with software development.

Posted by Merlin Silk - August 10th, 2007

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