for life and liberty

Jim Bovard: How ‘Food for Peace’ Hurts Foreign Farmers

"The United States government is the world's largest food donor but its aid consistently wreaks havoc abroad. The Obama administration is pushing reforms that could slightly reduce the number of Third World farmers bushwhacked by American food dumped into their marketplaces. But there is scant enthusiasm in Washington for any fix of a program that is beloved by many special interests. The U.S. launched the Food for Peace program in 1954 during the Eisenhower administration, largely to dispose of embarrassing crop surpluses that had been encouraged by federal farm programs. The annual cost to taxpayers? Last year, it was roughly $1.5 billion." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJim Bovard: How ‘Food for Peace’ Hurts Foreign Farmers

A Modest Monetary Proposal

"We are not so interested in celebrating the demise of tax havens as we are in drawing the appropriate lessons from this event. The first lesson we can draw is that the world is a lot more coordinated than is ordinarily admitted. How is it possible that countries around the world have come up with the same legislation at the same time focused on destroying offshore banking once and for all? The idea of one coordinated world has long been scoffed at as a kind of conspiracy theory. But these days, conspiracy theory seems to be chasing actual facts. The facts – in fact – are not in doubt. Post-Cyprus is surely a different era." Continue reading →

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Spain: This Is What A Permanent Underclass Looks Like

"Spain is in a great depression, and it is one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. Five years after its housing boom turned to bust, Spanish unemployment hit a record high of 27.2 percent in the first quarter of 2013. It's almost too horrible to comprehend, but 19.5 percent of the total workforce has not had a job in the past six months; 15.3 percent have not in the past year; and 9.2 percent have not in the past two years. You can see this 1930s-style catastrophe in the chart below from the National Statistics Institute." Continue reading →

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The Cyprus Depositor Haircut

"The manager told him not to worry, saying the deposit insurance was per account, not per person. She added: ‘We just put your name on the account so your wife wouldn’t take money out without your consent.’ Remembering that in the 1980s his British building society had played down the risks of taking out an endowment mortgage, Demetriou asked if they were 100 per cent sure. He was told they were. The advice was 100 per cent wrong. The deposit insurance is per person, not per account. Soon afterwards, the banks closed for more than a week, and when they reopened, he’d been stripped of 44 per cent of his savings." Continue reading →

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State Department self-censors criticism of Eritrean diaspora tax in Human Rights Report

"With the release of the 2012 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices yesterday, it seems the U.S. State Department has finally realised its hypocrisy in condemning Eritrea for imposing tax on the Eritrean diaspora to fund wars in Africa, while aiding the IRS to impose tax on the American diaspora so that the US can also fund wars in Africa, and the Middle East, and Central Asia, and … Unfortunately, State’s response has not been to levy similar criticisms against the IRS or to stop cooperating with it, but instead to tone down their criticisms of Eritrea." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingState Department self-censors criticism of Eritrean diaspora tax in Human Rights Report

China hits back with report on U.S. human rights record

"China on Sunday retorted the U.S. criticism and distortions of its human rights situation by publishing a report of the U.S. human rights record. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012 was released by the Information Office of China's State Council, or the Cabinet, in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012 issued by the U.S. State Department. China in the report argued that there are serious human rights problems in the U.S. which incur extensive criticism in the world, as it has posed as 'the world judge of human rights' again." Continue reading →

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Ron Paul: Congress Exploits Our Fears to Take Our Liberty

"CISPA represents a troubling form of corporatism, where large companies cede their responsibility to protect their property to the federal government, at the expense of their customers' privacy and liberty. In this respect, CISPA can be thought of as an electronic version of the Transportation Security Administration, which has usurped the authority over airline security from private airlines. However, CISPA will prove to be far more invasive than even the most robust TSA screening. CISPA and the gun control bill are only the most recent examples of politicians manipulating fear to con the people into giving up their liberties." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRon Paul: Congress Exploits Our Fears to Take Our Liberty

Authorization for Use of Military Force: a blank check for war without end

"The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed after the attacks of 11 September 2001, provides the legal cornerstone for the so-called US 'war on terror'. It allows the US government to wage war at anytime, any place and on anyone deemed a threat to national security. The AUMF opened the doors to the US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya; attacks on Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Mali; the new drone bases in Niger and Djibouti; and the killing of American citizens, notably Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old noncombatant son. It is what now emboldens the hawks on the warpath to Syria, Iran and North Korea." Continue reading →

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Overcharge: 29 States Mandate High-Cost “Green” Power Generation

"Of the 50 states in the United States, 29 of them have state laws mandating renewable energy programs for local power generation plants. The trouble is, these alternative fuels are expensive. Natural gas costs have fallen by 70% since 2005. Fracking has made the difference. New supplies have lowered natural gas prices. This means that the 29 states are prohibited from buying low-cost, clean-burning natural gas. This raises the cost of electricity. In only 16 of these states have state legislators begun to discuss the possibility that these laws are economically foolish." Continue reading →

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Life on Mars to become a reality in 2023 according to Dutch firm

"A few months before he died, Carl Sagan recorded a message of hope to would-be Mars explorers, telling them: 'Whatever the reason you’re on Mars is, I’m glad you’re there. And I wish I was with you.' On Monday, 17 years after the pioneering astronomer set out his hopeful vision of the future in 1996, a company from the Netherlands is proposing to turn Sagan’s dreams of reaching Mars into reality. The company, Mars One, plans to send four astronauts on a trip to the Red Planet to set up a human colony in 2023. But there are a couple of serious snags." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingLife on Mars to become a reality in 2023 according to Dutch firm