Month: December 2011

Occupy Oakland Now a Big Business Puppet

Occupy Oakland seems to be going all out in their attempt to win the title of Douchiest Occupation Ever. They’re supposedly protesting the wealthy and government corruption yet their solution is to disrupt business at ports on the West Coast:

Heady with their successful attempts to block trucks and curb business at busy ports up and down the West Coast, some Occupy Wall Street protesters plan to continue their blockades and keep staging similar protests despite requests to stop because they’re hurting wage earners.

[…]

Protesters are most upset by two West Coast companies: port operator SSA Marine and grain exporter EGT. Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc. owns a major stake in SSA Marine and has been a frequent target of protesters.

Demonstrators say they are standing up for workers against the port companies, which have had recent high-profile clashes with union workers. Longshoremen in Longview, for example, have had a longstanding dispute with EGT, which employs workers from a different union to staff its terminal. The longshoremen’s union says the jobs rightfully belong to them.

Emphasis mine. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that Occupy Oakland has been hijacked by unions. One thing I noticed numerous times at Occupy Minneapolis was the attempt by unions to co-opt the movement and turn it from a mostly aimless airing of grievances to another puppet in the machinery of the national unions. Occupy Minneapolis avoided the hijacking attempt, likely because it fizzled our pretty early, but Occupy Oakland appears to have fallen right into the union’s trap.

Many of the antics pulled by the various Occupy movements have been entertaining as they usually involve people screaming, chanting, and otherwise being politically disruptive without actually interfering with private entities. Blocking privately owned ports is not a peaceful protested but a direct violation against the port owner’s right to property. Were I the port owners I’d be demanding the local police force remove these protesters from my property and if they failed to act I would take action to exercise my right to defend my property. There is a vast supply of water at that port and high-pressure hoses are pretty effective means of making the lives of trespassers miserable enough to cause their retreat from the premises.

Unions in this country are not voluntarily cooperations of employees coming together to fight for better working conditions. Instead unions in this country are large national corporations where bigwigs at the top make six figure salaries by stirring up unnecessary trouble between employees at employers. I’m on record on this blog of brining up the fact that these national unions more often than not cause long term problems for the employees they supposedly represent. While they manage to get higher wages, pensions, and other benefits for union employees they are usually far above a sustainable level causing the company to eventually face bankruptcy or fire the union employees (because the unions will almost never accept reducing employee pay). Regardless of the direction taken by the floundering business jobs are lost. This problem heavily contributed to the destruction of auto manufacturing in this country.

The fact of the matter is national unions in this country are big businesses and by being puppets for these unions Occupy Oakland is now a puppet of big business. If you fight something too long you often risk becoming that thing you’re fighting.

FBI Collecting Carrier IQ Data

Every since the news about Carrier IQ broke the metaphorical shit has been hitting the metaphorical fan. People are understandably upset about the type of information carriers are collecting using the, until recently, little known software. In my original post related to Carrier IQ I stated:

Carrier iQ is likely one of the most dangerous pieces of software in common use today. I do understand the great amount of benefit it gives to cellular providers but we all know anything accessible by said providers can also be access by the government, often without so much as a court order.

I hate having my suspicions confirmed:

Michael Morisy, a journalist who founded an organization called MuckRock to ease the process of filing FOIA requests, wrote the FBI on Dec. 1 asking for “any manuals, documents or other written guidance used to access or analyze data gathered by programs developed or deployed by Carrier IQ…. In addition, I ask for expedited processing as this is a matter of immediate news interest: The existence of Carrier IQ’s software was recently disclosed and has immediate ramifications on constitutionally protected privacy rights.”

The FBI acknowledged receiving his request within a few days, and then issued a blanket denial, which cites a law exempting records from disclosure if releasing them could interfere with law enforcement proceedings. “In applying this exemption, I have determined that the records responsive to your request are law enforcement records; that there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records; and that release of the information contained in these responsive records could reasonably be expected to interfere with the enforcement proceedings,” an FBI records management official named David Hardy wrote to Morisy.

Notice that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) filed for an exemption, they didn’t claim to have no such data available. The only logical conclusion one can draw from this fact is that the FBI has data collected by Carrier IQ on hand but doesn’t want to disclose how much. I wouldn’t be surprised if the FBI has issued blanket requests for this data from carriers using National Security Letters (NSL). As targets of NSLs are legally prohibited from disclosing the mere fact that they received the letter we have no idea how much of this data has been collected by the FBI, they could have issued a demand that all data collected using the Carrier IQ software be turned over.

Paranoids are just people with all the facts.

Don’t Blame the Automobile Manufacturers

Once gain I ventured into the Letters to the Editor section of the Star Tribune and returned with blog fodder gold. This letter was penned by an individual wrongly blaming automobile manufacturers for the lack of available small trucks on the market:

After 190,000 miles of service, my 1998 Toyota Tacoma has come to the end of its life. A rusted frame has brought its use to an end. Concerned about liability, the Toyota Corp. has given me a rather generous sum to buy back my 13-year-old truck.

The bad news : Toyota no longer makes a small truck. If it did, I’m certain it would get well more than 30 miles per gallon.

My Tacoma averaged 27 mpg — not highway miles, mind you: 27-mpg average. I’m certain that 13 years of technology could easily push us into the 30-mpg range.

The small truck is gone; the question is: Why?

Why are we being dictated to by car companies? Why do we move backward rather than forward, and how much longer will such regression continue?

We are about to conclude one oil war; half of our trade deficit is petroleum, and winter no longer comes in November in Minnesota.

National strength comes from minimizing our liabilities, not ignoring them. All but a few suffer when the tail wags the dog, and it needs to end. Petroleum addiction and inaction challenges our future. Change should be parked in your garage.

MARK PALAS, ST. PAUL

Emphasis mine. Notice that Mark is blaming the automobile manufacturers for what is actually a fault of government policy. How so? It has to do with the method fuel efficiency is calculated by government busy bodies:

The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) are regulations in the United States, first enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1975,[1] and intended to improve the average fuel economy of cars and light trucks (trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles) sold in the US in the wake of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo. Historically, it is the sales-weighted harmonic mean fuel economy, expressed in miles per US gallon (mpg), of a manufacturer’s fleet of current model year passenger cars or light trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 8,500 pounds (3,856 kg) or less, manufactured for sale in the US. If the average fuel economy of a manufacturer’s annual fleet of vehicle production falls below the defined standard, the manufacturer must pay a penalty, currently $5.50 USD per 0.1 mpg under the standard, multiplied by the manufacturer’s total production for the U.S. domestic market.

In other words a car manufacturer is punished if the average fuel efficiency of their fleet is below a specified threshold. This threshold, measured in miles per gallon, is a moving target that has only ever increased (meaning the average miles per gallon of a company’s fleet must be higher).

Physics only allows for so much fuel efficiency to be squeezed out of a gasoline engine. Combine this, government regulations, and the fact that physics is a harsh bitch who also dictates that more fuel is required to produce more power and you have a formula that is just setting up small trucks for failure.

People who buy cars generally desire what they feel is acceptable acceleration and speed while people who buy trucks generally desire what they feel is acceptable towing capacity. Small trucks like the Ford Ranger are kind of an in between; they offer acceptable towing capacity without being gargantuan and therefore difficult to maneuver on small city streets. Unfortunately they’re not the most fuel efficient vehicles as people often will want to be able to pull their boat around with their small truck.

When the government increases the required average miles per gallon tough choices must be made. Increasing fuel efficiency requires decreasing power, which will irritate customers buying new vehicles (who generally assume their new vehicle will be equally or more power than their last). On the other hand if you eliminate one of the models that has a lower average miles per gallon your total corporate miles per gallon goes up. Thus in order to keep a majority of their customers happy and comply with the demands of government the automobile manufactures find they must make a handful of them unhappy.

You can’t rightfully blame automobile manufacturers for the lack of small trucks on the market, that blame is purely on the shoulders of government regulators.

Why I Hate Mothers Against Drunk Driving

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) may have had noble intentions when the organization was founded in 1980 but today they are nothing but a group of neo-prohibitionists. Instead of concerning themselves only with the problem of drink driving they’ve been expanding their focus to target anything related to alcohol. I stumbled across an interview with MADD California’s Executive Director Gary McDonald (how can he be a mother by the way) that demonstrates how idiotic this organization truly is:

GJEL: But you must be happy with the work California has done to prevent drunk driving.

MADD: Yes! I think the Office of Traffic Safety is doing an excellent job with the number of sobriety check points they’re holding–500 checkpoints in the last year, which far surpasses any other state. California is doing an excellent job and of course we thank and recognize our law enforcement in this effort and provide support to them with volunteer at D.U.I. checkpoints.

I will grant some leniency to Gary as checkpoints can be seen by authoritarians as a valid means of preventing drunk driving. Believing such malarkey can only be accomplished through willful ignorance though.

GJEL: What are some of the other long-term projects you’re working on?

MADD: We get involved with a lot of different legislation, some we’re for, some we’re against. For example, we were a sponsor of AB183, which requires face-to-face interaction for alcohol sales. That begins January 31, and that’s something we were behind and it passed.

Let me give a tip of the old hat to the author of this article for including links to the legislation mentioned in this interview. Now let me express my contempt of MADD’s support of this legislation. What does requiring face-to-face interaction to purchase alcohol accomplish? How will it prevent people from driving under the influence? The answer to both questions is nothing.

Let’s consider a simple fact, people often buy alcohol while sober so they can get drunk later. The chances of somebody driving to the liquor store already tanked out of their mind seems fairly low but we’ll humor that idea that it’s very common. In a case where such a scenario is common you’re basically putting the responsibility of enforcement onto the people selling liquor. How is the clerk at a liquor store supposed to determine whether or not a customer is above the legal limit? If the clerk has determined this what are they supposed to do? The answer to the first question is simple: they can’t, not legally at least. Were the clerk required to perform a breathalyzer test on everybody buying liquor then they may be able to determine such matters so long as they had the equipment and proper training on its use. Even if the clerk is able to determine a buyer is drunk they are unable to do anything more than call the purchaser’s license plate number into the police.

Requiring liquor store clerks to enforce drunk driving laws is just as idiotic as requiring gun store owners to enforce gun laws.

There’s also been some recent legislation that’s very concerning: AB353. This bill basically allows people without driver’s licenses to pass through D.U.I. checkpoints so that their car is not impounded. The car is moved over to the side until a licensed driver picks up the car and moves it.

It used to be that person could be impounded for up to 30 days, just held for safe keeping. So now they’re going to get their car back sooner and that starts January 31st.

What the hell does this have to do with drunk driving laws? Whether a person has a valid license or not holds no bearing that person’s level of intoxication. Ignoring the whole “papers please” aspect of these checkpoints we are still left with the fact that impounding vehicles because the peaceful driver being harassed lacks a valid license is nothing more than mission creep meant to increase funds for the local police department (anybody who has had to retrieve a vehicle from a police impound lot knows how much money departments make off of confiscating vehicles).

Stepping back and looking at the situation brings us to the fact that the act of impounding a vehicle at a sobriety checkpoint required the officer to first assume the innocent driver guilty of a crime. Everybody being checked at one of these checkpoints is assumed to be guilty of driving under the influence, which is the exact opposite of how our “guilty until proven innocent” justice system is supposed to work. Does MADD support officers randomly entering people’s homes without warrant or probably cause as well? If not then they shouldn’t support these checkpoints where officers interrogate drivers without warrant or probably cause.

GJEL: If the drunk person isn’t driving, why is that such a big deal?

MADD: Because people who don’t have drivers licenses are five times more likely to kill someone in a crash! It’s not just drunk driving, we’re also concerned with drugged driving and we’re also concerned with people without driver’s licenses. We don’t want people drunk on bikes or drunk pedestrians because people get killed.

In other words the name Mothers Against Drunk Driving is a deceptive name for the organization and it should be checked to something like Mothers Against Driving. Since they also have issue with drunk cyclists and drunk pedestrians they should further refine their name to Mothers Against…, and leave the reader to fill in the blank with whatever pet peeve they happen to have.

I get people’s opposition to drunk driving, it’s a valid and notable issue (one that could be better solved were the roads privatized I might add) but if you’re going to make it illegal to walk home under the influence you’re not giving people any options. I would much rather drunks walk home than drive home myself since it’s far less likely they’re going to hurt me. Sure they may hurt themselves but that’s a consequence of a choice they made and therefore isn’t my concern. Have these neo-prohibitionists ever read a history book about Prohibition in the United States? The amendment was repealed because it lead to nothing be a huge spike in violent crime rates and did nothing to combat alcohol production and consumption.

The bottom line is people are going to drink so you need to allow them options of getting from the bar back to their home. If you make driving and walking drunk illegal what do you think will happen? Drunks will most likely run risk benefits ratio through their heads and drive as they will get into trouble either way but driving gets them home sooner and therefore reduces the time they’re exposed to potential police interaction.

GJEL: That’s quite the statistic. So you guys are working on issues that go beyond drunk driving.

MADD: We’re concerned about human life. It’s important that people use common sense. Of course our mission is to stop drop drunk driving and support the victims of this violent crime and stop under-aged drinking. But it’s a broader spectrum than people realize with Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

That’s a broader spectrum than your name implies as well.

GJEL: Any special advice for the Holidays?

MADD: Well there will be more D.U.I. checkpoints during this time, which is one of the best drunk driving deterrents out there.

The previous link I posted shows this to be entirely false. Salt Lake City police reported that over 2,000 drivers were harassed at sobriety checkpoints and they managed to arrest zero, that’s right zero, drunk drivers.

We don’t really target any particular demo during this time. It’s more don’t drink and drive during the holidays. Don’t drive drunk. Make arrangements. The easiest one is to designate a driver.

So you guys are OK with designated drivers? How is a drunk person supposed to walk from the bar to the designated driver’s vehicle if it becomes illegal to walk while intoxicated? You idiots should think your ideas through more thoroughly before making statements about what you support and oppose.

MADD is so bat shit crazy that their founder, who had noble intentions, left the organization due to their movement away from fighting drunk driving to fighting alcohol consumption in general:

Candy Lightner, MADD’s founder, says she disassociated herself from the movement in 1985 because she believed the organization was headed in the wrong direction.

“It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned,” said Mrs. Lightner, who founded MADD after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. “I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving.”

When you can’t convince your founder, a mother who lost her daughter in an auto accident caused by a drunk driver, to stay on board then you’ve truly lost your way.

Watch Eric Holder Squirm

There are few things as sweet as watching Attorney General Eric Holder squirm:

What a pompous ass. He literally state his refusal to provide Congress with documents related to Fast and Furious. Thank Odin that Issa has a spine and refused to simply let Holder get away with pulling such a maneuver unchallenged. The Department of Justice knows they were caught trying to advance gun control by smuggling weapons into Mexica and they’re trying their damnedest to cover the entire mess up.

While many people are calling for Holder’s resignation or impeachment I want to see that asshole in prison. This video demonstrates his complete disregard for law and order by his blatant attempt to cover up his botched gun smuggling operation. Were you or I to withhold evidence during a trial we would likely be ruled in contempt of court and held in a cage until we finally provided the desired information.

Excuse Me While I Crap On Your Marxism

Behold an idiot standing in front of a Soviet flag babbling on about capitalism being a religion:

Why do I link to this video? Because I feel like decimating an idiot Maxist for personal amusement. First let me say that the advertisement that plays before this video is a great way to make some quick cash… you know like a dirty capitalist (but hey you have to fund that capitalist produced video camera somehow). Next let me urge the videographer to iron his Soviet flag, those creases are distracting and show a complete lack of professionalism. I’m also going to throw out the obvious point that having a flag of a country that killed millions of its own citizens hanging in the background doesn’t send a very positive message. At least most Marxists I talk to have the decency of disavowing the Soviet Union for the violent acts it unleashed upon the people unfortunate enough to live within its borders.

Honestly those are just petty complaints and avoid the message he’s trying to portray, which is the idea that capitalism is a religion. I’ve not actually heard the argument that Marxism is a religion before. In fact that seems a bit odd considering Marx was a self-proclaimed atheist and considered religion to be “the opiat of the people.” Still I will humor this accusation for the sake of quality argumentative decimation.

The videographer, who I’ll now refer to as Marxy Marxist, is claiming that capitalism is a religion because its proponents believe that some “magical” thing call the market will fix all ills in the world. This right here demonstrates Marxy Marxists’s complete ignorance on the capitalism economic system. Namely proponents of capitalism do not believe the free market will fix all ills in the world. For instance Marxy Marxist mentions inequality, a phenomenon the free market makes no attempt to correct.

The free market is nothing more than a system that allows individuals to compete in the providing of goods and services to consumers. Those who properly fulfill the needs of consumers are rewarded for their efforts, usually with money. Their reward is then reinvested to provide for additional consumer wants. Thus those who properly fulfill the wants of society are granted control of more resources as they have demonstrated a socially desirable use of those resources. The only problem a free market attempts to solve is providing consumers with the products and services they want.

It is true that free markets can have a hand in solving other social issues such as racism. For example a businessman who refused to sell his goods or services to a hispanic person loses out on their money. In addition to that many other people will boycot the person’s business because he’s being a racism asshole. Strictly speaking though, voluntary association dictates any person may chose to or not to interact with any other person. While the free market does punish an individual who refuses to do business with a specific group it does not force them to associate with anybody.

Marxy Marxist also brought up the name Adam Smith. Smith was an important early figure in free market economic theory but certainly wasn’t the be all end all. Smith, and later Menger, both missed a crucial piece of the free market puzzle, which is the understanding that value is subjective. Unfortunately Smith followed the labor theory of value limiting the potential of his works. It was Ludwig von Mises who first articulated the idea of subjective value so I would argue if you’re going to talk about capitalism it would be best to use Mises as the poster child as he was the one who provided the crucial missing piece of the puzzle. Again this demonstrates Marxy Marxist’s ignorance of the development of free market economic theory.

Marxy Marxist continues to refer to the free market as a magical being that can not be controlled. I can see how a Marxist would have a difficult time grasping the concept of something not tyrannically controlled. Truth be told the free market is controlled by the consumers. As stated above producers who fulfill the wants of consumers are rewarded. There is another side of the coin, producers who do not make products or provide services consumers want will fail. We as consumers control the market and producers are at our mercy (unless of course a violent state intervenes on the producer’s behalf, but that is not capitalism).

Right around the 2:10 mark Marxy Marxist makes his most ignorant claim, that those of us calling ourselves capitalist really aren’t because we don’t own any means of production. Guess what I’m writing this post on? A fucking computer. Guess what I, as a programmer, use to produce? A fucking computer. Holy shit I own means of production! Marxy Marxist is also a capitalist because he owns a video camera and a computer, which he uses to make money by producing advertisement supported videos on YouTube. Even a so-called Marxist can make money in a capitalist system.

Finally Marxy Marxist closes by accusing capitalists of not wanting to fix society’s problems but to profit from them. Interestingly enough by profiting off of society’s problems capitalists solve them. Case in point medical technology used to save millions of lives every year is developed by medical companies to generate profit. Automobiles solved a problem of personal transportation over long distances than horse drawn buggies could not and Henry Ford was certainly in the business to make money. Computers, a device that have helped solved an almost uncountable number of social issues, are built by profit seeking companies. Profiting off of society’s ills is not mutually exclusive to solving them regardless of what Marxy Marxist claims.

In closing I leave you with a question: why do all these Marxists wear military fatigues? If I was going to go on camera to preach about something I’d have the decency to wear a suit and tie because people are more apt to listen to a well dressed individual than a tactic-cool Internet commando.

My Dreams of a Write Mountable Dosimeter are In Sight

Earlier this year I blogged about a wristwatch that contains a built-in dosimeter. I’ve been trying to find one of these but so far every company that sells them requires you either make a bulk purchase or they only sell to scientific institutions.

Browsing through Marathon’s website I came across a familiar face, a rebranded PM1208M. Technically it looks to be an upgraded version (the one on Marathon’s website is called the GammaMaster II whereas the one I linked to earlier this year was merely the GammaMaster) but either way I threw myself on the notification list and hope to see a message in my inbox soon telling me the watch is available to order.

What am I going to do with it you ask? Hell if I know, it’ll basically be a conversation piece. The bottom line is I have a love of cramming gizmos into wristwatches and this device does that exceptionally well.

What’s In a Name

The mercenary company everybody loves to hate has once again changed its name in the hopes of avoiding all the bad press they’ve been accumulating. Say goodbye to Blackwater Xe and say hello to ACADEMI:

Renaming the company “ACADEMI” tops a number of changes that have been made by a private equity consortium that purchased the company from former owner Erik Prince last year.

“The message here is not that we’re changing the name,” said Ted Wright, who came on as the new company CEO in June. “The message is that we’re changing the company, and the name just reflects those changes. We have new owners, a new board of directors, a new management team, new location, new attitude on governance, new openness, new strategy – it’s a whole new company.”

From the bottom of my heart I hope the new owners are serious about the mentioned changes but I’m not an optimistic man. Either way update your terminology cards to reflect the new name when the next atrocity committed by members of this company comes to light.

Your Tax Dollars Working Hard to Fight Terrorism

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the absolute lack of fiscal responsibility exercised by government agencies. What our tax money is spent on in the so-called war on terror boggles the mind. For instance I would really like to know how snow cone machines are used to thwart the plans of terrorists:

The West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission (WMSRDC) is a federal- and state-designated agency responsible for managing and administrating the homeland security program in Montcalm County and 12 other counties.

The WMSRDC recently purchased and transferred homeland security equipment to these counties — including 13 snow cone machines at a total cost of $11,700.

The machines were funded by a grant from the Michigan Homeland Security Program. The request for a snow cone machine came from another county, but all 13 counties received them.

The purchase raised some questions at a recent Montcalm County Board of Commissioners meeting. Commissioners wondered about the machine and questioned its purpose.

The Michigan Homeland Security Grant Program’s Allowable Cost Justification document, dated May 9, 2011, says the snow cone machines can make ice to prevent heat-related illnesses during emergencies, treat injuries and provide snow cones as an outreach at promotional events.

Emphasis mine. You can justify anything so long as you’re willing to stretch definitions far enough. I’m curious what heat-related illnesses can be better avoided through the application of snow cones over regular crushed ice. While I’m not a biologist I believe human beings are capable of intaking ice whether it is flavored or not.

I’m also at a loss how consuming ice, flavored or not, will help with heat-related illness. The common complication related to heat is dehydration. Anybody who has studied winter survival techniques understand that the consumption of snow actually further dehydrates a person.

I wish government agencies would just be honest and say, “We want a snow cone machine because snow cones are fucking delicious.” If you’re going to piss away money on frivolous gear at least have the decency to be honest and not attempt to bullshit the public.

Making a Watch List and Checking it Twice

Our government appears to be taking a page from Santa Clause, they’re making a list and checking it twice. Unlike Santa who makes a list of children to bestow presents on, the federal government is making a list of people who may post any difficulty in the establishment of a totalitarian America. As Rand Paul explained in a speech people who store more than seven days of food are now considered potential terrorists by the Department of Motherland Homeland Security (DHS):

Some people may consider such accusations crazy but those accusations seem to be constantly reenforced by the actions of federal agents. For instance a recent action but government thugs reenforces Rand Paul’s claim that the DHS considers those who store food potential terrorists:

Oath Keepers, an association of active servicemen devoted to upholding their oath of guarding the republic and protecting individual liberty, has reported that federal agents recently paid a visit to a Latter Day Saints food storage cannery in Tennessee. Though they had no reason to be there, these agents allegedly interrogated the facility’s manager and demanded to see a list of customers that had purchased, and were storing, food there.

[…]

Oath Keepers suggests the government might be trying to gather intelligence on food-storing Americans in order to later come and confiscate that food, or worse — after all, freedom-loving patriots who are preparing for social upheaval are a threat to the power structure that seeks to tighten the noose of tyranny around the neck of society.

When Stalin came to power he implemented agriculture collectivization under the guise of increasing the Union’s food production. Before collectivization the Soviet Union was one of the largest grain exporters in the world, after implementation millions of the Union were starving. It became apparently very quickly to those living in the Soviet Union that collectivization wasn’t about increasing agriculture productivity but control over the food supply. Controlling the necessities of survival means control over the dependent populace.

It is possible that federal agents are trying to obtain a list of people storing food so that food can be confiscated during a declared emergency. On the other hand the government may have no plans of confiscating said food but merely desire a list of people who may be a barrier between the establishment of a totalitarian regime.

There was a time when I would have thought such ideas to be mere conspiracy theories subscribed to by overly paranoid individuals. Unfortunately with all that has been going on such as Fast and Furious being used to justify enhanced gun control, the authorized murder of American civilians without trial, the almost unhindered passage of the National Defense Authorization Act in the Senate, and many other enhancement of government power I can no longer ignore the obvious advancement of tyranny in this country. Our country appears to be following the textbook examples of other countries that moved from relative freedom into complete dictatorships.

If you believe the United States of America is still the land of liberty you’re not paying attention.