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Synchronicities are always surprising and can, at times, be outright scary. Here is one that is somewhat in the middle.

Sometime last week I talked to somebody and the subject of Washington came up. The drives or walks along the impressive buildings oozing history, statesmanship and greatness of this nation. Did not really think much more about it and actually had the thought that I should take my son there and show him the sights that document how great this nation is.

This thought did not fit quite in with my latest subjects of study, my journey into the philosophy and realization of anarchy (*) but then again, I just had a chat with a friend who told me how she took her daughter to DC to show her the sights.

But the universe, or whoever that might have been, could not just let that sit there, no, it had to rub my nose into my glibness regarding this display of of state power, built in a way so that the people who actually build these temples for their masters, were even proud of their accomplishment.

So what did the universe (et al) do? – It threw this video into my general direction , so that I could not look past the facts any more…

Germania would have been bombastic, I’m sure, probably similar to how Washington, DC feels today to all the school children visiting the cradle of this greatest nation of the world, looking at the wonders and temples build to honor our politicians. I guess, as Hitler was not really a politician and lawyer, he was a lot more honest at what he was doing – Heil, Hitler! – for helping me to see a bit better what is going on and confirming the words of my two favorite anarchists (yes, I have two now!) – Larken Rose and Stefan Molyneux.

(*) anarchy: this word has two main meanings, one, that is often used in emotionally charged arguments, is a synonym for chaos and lawlessness, but the other one is the more objective definition of

1. a state of society without government or law
2. 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.

Today was an exciting day for me.

A few years back I realized that there was something missing on the world wide web, something essential – commenting without the consent of the site owner.

There are many web sites – including this one here – that allow comments on all articles. But these comments are definitely censored because the site owner can easily delete comments he does not like.  Good web sites will not misuse this power and allow opposition and controversy to stand, even though spammers and pure nuisances will be removed.

But imagine a site like that of the IRS. Could you imagine how the comment section of this site would look like if only spammers and flamers would be removed? Could the site speak of its ‘service’ and still be credible if you could read thousands of comments describing incompetence, evil and injustice?

That is where I started to plan a system that would allow – through a toolbar widget or similar – to attach comments on any website. One of the basic features of this mechanism would have to be that it could not be centrally shut down, but instead would have to be a distributed system where a part that went down would be replaced immediately by a redundant site on the other side of the planet – a kind of SETI for accountability.

I talked to some potential partners, as this was too big a project for a single fighter, but have to admit that I failed to get it off the ground.

Today I read about Google SideWiki! Could this be what I had felt was missing, could this be the one feature that would keep people away the dark side of the force?

The fact that it is Google is definitely a disadvantage, as Google has been bullied into doing things that were against the mantra of ‘doing good.” Let’s just hope for the best.

Besides hoping for the best, there is a nice test in progress that investigates the freedom of speech and opinion of this new feature. Somebody posted a pretty nasty post right on the main page of the IRS’s site, wondering how long it will be there. Let’s all go there and observe.

The post is not a nasty post in itself, it is just something that I could imagine the site owner would not want to be on his site. It talks about so-called tax protesters and gives the web site of one of the more grounded protagonists. In all fairness this post also mentions a site run by – probably – tax attorneys chastising the whole bunch of cooks calling themselves the tax honesty movement. But then again, we are talking about lawyers here and then those that deal in taxes and probably love the system as it feeds them.

This post goes even further and introduces the philosophy site Free Domain Radio, that introduces the idea of a society based on voluntary interaction instead of a government run bureaucracy that is backed up by violence, claiming a monopoly in initiating violence.

I will certainly keep an eye on the IRS web site to see if this article disappears. If this post stays there that would be akin to the wikipedia entry for the IRS containing a section about the tax honesty movement, the thoughts that the tax law as written might not apply to most American and thoughts on how society could work perfectly well without an IRS and a central government.

I learned it when I studied the Kabbalah, but many other philosophies say the same, that we are not presented with a problem, if there is not also a solution available – for us to find and use. I know this logic has a bit of a hole, as nobody who was presented with a problem for which there was no remedy is around any more to tell about it, but I like the first point of view better, so I take that.

The problem I am thinking of now, is the swine flu. Today, Ed (thanks Ed!) sent an e-mail presenting the solution for that problem. I know there is, or shortly will be, a pharmaceutical, and expensive, solution, but I always want to look at natural remedies first, in order not to get from the fire into the frying pan – fire being a deadly threat to the world and frying pan being dependency on the pharma-industry.

Science Daily has the following article:

Scientists in China have discovered that roots of a plant used a century ago during the great Spanish influenza pandemic contains substances with powerful effects in laboratory experiments in killing the H1N1 swine flu virus that now threatens the world. The plant has a pleasant onion-like taste when cooked, but when raw it has sap so foul-smelling that some call it the “Dung of the Devil” plant.

Kindly, Ed also supplied some more info about this plant in a Wikipedia article about ‘Dung of the Devil’ and he even passed on a source to buy Asafetida.

Now you have a solution for the time when the friendly government agent comes and wants to give you the mandatory swine flue vaccination – if you have a sample of asafetida in your pocket and let him smell, he will run and look for more gullible victims to thrust his benevolence upon.

With that sample of asafetida you might not have any friends, but let’s make that the subject of another article.

Got this very interesting and heart-warming story of Irena Sendler presented in an email today.

Here first the story, then I will tell what impressed me most:

There recently was a death of a 98 year old lady named Irena.

During WWII, Iliana, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an ulterior motive…

She KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews, (being German). Iliana smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids). She also had a dog in the back, that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in, and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi’s broke both her legs, and arms, and beat her severely. Iliana kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family. Most of course had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes, or adopted.

Last year Iliana was up for the Nobel Peace Prize….
She LOST.

Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.
Check it out: www.irenasendler.org

I will say nothing about the story itself as I have decided quite some time ago that it is not possible for me to decide what about all the atrocities during WWII is true and what’s not. There are indications that’s just the story the victors want to tell to look good, but there is also the other side which would indicate that there really is something to all this mass murder.

But the fact that I have no first hand information and no way to get them, combined with my solidifying conviction that there is no independent reality I have given up deciding what historical story might be true.

So, nothing about saving Jewish kids, but what caught my attention was the tone of the writer in the last sentence, that Al Gore won the Nobel price for a slide show.

I just love it when politicians are finally seen for what they really are. And if the population starts to laugh about these guys for giving themselves prizes in self-adoration then I have high hopes for all of us that we will get over this celebritizing (hey, Oxford dictionary editors, this is a new word for you!) of our tyrants, kick them out and finally build a non-violent stateless society – one in which Irena would get acknowledged for her brave action.