August 08, 2005

Zen and the Art of Iraqi Regime Change
by Sheldon Richman

What does it mean to overemphasize the presence of what is absent? That Zen-like question arises from an interview the Associated Press recently published with Douglas Feith, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s departing chief policy advisor. Feith told the AP the Bush administration “overemphasized” the matter of weapons of mass destruction as the rationale for invading Iraq and overthrowing the government of Saddam Hussein

That has to be the understatement not only of the young century, but of the last several centuries.

Reality to Mr. Feith: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Feith seems to have a clue to the problem: “Anything we said at all about stockpiles was overemphasis, given that we didn’t find them.” Yes, at the risk of sound Zen-like again, any emphasis would have been overemphasis. (Read the rest here)

The Real Deficit - Without Crooking The Books
By Ed Henry

The real deficit is the amount of money the government must borrow to make ends meet each year. So far this year, the national debt has gone up $508.5 billion and we’ve still got two more months before the end of the fiscal year on September 30th so we’re going to end up with an increase of more than $600 billion this year.

But this increase in debt does not mean that all of it is a deficit. A sizable chunk of it is nothing but interest that’s dumped into 151 trust fund accounts on the fraudulent “Intragovernmental Holdings” (IH) portion of the national debt, the side where entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, Military Retirement, and so forth, form more than 90 percent of these debt “holdings” and where it costs the government absolutely nothing to add this interest since they merely credit these black hole debt accounts with more obligations for you and your children to pay off. (Read the rest here)

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Libertarian Commentary on The News
By Nathan A. Barton © 2005

Well, sometimes we need to just pause and count our blessings. On Saturday this weekend, I spent 8 hours at the 2005 Eminent Domain Activists Conference in Denver, a conference that had been scheduled BEFORE the 23 June Supreme's Surprise redefining common English words to support theft by government. I'll have a more detailed (and exclusive, initially) report about what the 50 or so attendees discussed, but suffice to say, I had not realized HALF of what is going on and being proposed for massive theft-by-government just in Colorado! So if you and I still have control of our own land, we should count our blessings! And work to see that we keep control and end this madness. There are other reasons to count our blessings, too, as the first article shows.

South China Faces Fuel Crunch
BBC News
Petrol [gasoline; benzene, go-juice, car-beer, etc.] shortages are developing in Guangdong Province, the industrial belt that produces one third of China's manufacturing exports. Drivers are reportedly having to queue for rationed petrol and shortages are hurting petrol station profits. Refiners are also limiting output of some fuels in the face of soaring crude oil prices and domestic price caps, the official China Daily reported. But there is no sign of export truck traffic grinding to a halt. Shortages appear to involve the cheapest grades of petrol, which are being phased out by refiners as unprofitable, Reuters news agency reported.

Hmmm. Despite record gasoline prices here in the US, we are not having shortages or rationing - and the reason is right in this article: China, wonderful communist workers' paradise that it is, has "price caps." We had those, once, thankfully briefly, back in the 1970s, and it crunched us badly. We also had rationing once, back during WW2 - and again, it crunched us badly. Have we learned our lesson? Hardly, to listen to the various congrus-critters that moan and swear vengeance on petroleum corporations. (I saw gas prices ranging from $2.499 down to 2.099 (gallon of unleaded regular) on my 800 mile trip in the past 48 hours, but the only lines I saw were because you can only fuel one motorcycle or vehicle at a time, and it's RALLY WEEK in the Black Hills and for 200 miles around it.)

Mama's Note: California, with all its added taxes and regulations, now sports an average gas price of $2.59 to $2.65 for regular gas. Diesel fuel is even more expensive, so all the truckers are having an awful time of it. It never ceases to amaze me that almost nobody mentions the part government plays in this deal and can only scream at the oil companies as if they alone were to blame. Then they load up the kids in the big SUV and head out to McDonalds for supper or to the shopping malls anyway. (Read the rest here)

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