Category: News You Need to Know

It was Bound to Happen

New York and California have demonstrated what happens when governments try to soak the wealthy for more taxes, the wealthy leave. Before Britain’s last general election the country’s government raised the top tax bracket to 50 percent. Needless to say the things went exactly as expected:

In the 2009-10 tax year, more than 16,000 people declared an annual income of more than £1 million to HM Revenue and Customs.

This number fell to just 6,000 after Gordon Brown introduced the new 50p top rate of income tax shortly before the last general election.

One of the reasons taxing the wealthy to makeup for government shortfalls doesn’t work is because the wealthy have the means to leave. What motivation does a person making $1,000,000 have to stay in a country if they are being forced to give $500,000 of it to the government?

Of course this only applies to declared income. As we agorists know the state can’t tax what it doesn’t know about.

Discriminating Based on Preexisting Conditions

Advocates of the Affordable Healthcare Act like to tout that the legislation prevents insurance companies from discriminating based on preexisting conditions. Those advocates better get busy because if they don’t believe discriminating based on preexisting conditions for insurance companies is right they’re going to have a field day with this story:

A California boy has been ordered to transfer to another middle school because he carries the gene for cystic fibrosis, even though he doesn’t actually have the incurable, life-threatening and non-infectious disease. His parents have gone to court to fight the move.

Their son, 11-year-old Colman Chadam, was told last week that he’d have to transfer from Jordan Middle School in Palo Alto, Calif., to a school three miles away because he posed a risk to another student at school who does have the disease, according to TODAY.

[…]

While it is not contagious, doctors say people with cystic fibrosis can pose a danger to each other through bacterial cross-contamination if they are in close contact.

Nobody should be surprised that the state is discriminating based on genetics. This country has a long history of discriminating against individuals based on genetics. From the genocide of the American Indians to the “separate by equal” public facilities for African Americans the United States government and the governments of the individual states have demonstrated a love for genetics based discrimination.

Here’s the real kicker: is it justified to remove a child from a school if he or she has a preexisting genetic condition? If so why it is justified for public schools but not insurance companies? If not how come (considering the school’s decision was backed by a doctor)?

Why I Stay Home on Black Friday

Black Friday is the magical day of the year where people rush the entryways of stores to combat one another over marked down goods. Those of us who don’t enjoy engaging in physical combat have learned to stay home and partake in the deals being offered online if we partake at all. Every year there is a story or two that reminds me why I stay home on Black Friday, this year was no exception:

Black Friday got off to a rowdy start at a San Antonio mall where police say one shopper pulled a gun on another who punched him in the face while they were waiting in line at a Sears store.

Why go through such stresses when discounted goods can be found online? I purchased a refurbished iPhone 5 for a good price without having to worry about getting punched in the face or having a gun pulled on me.

Disposing of Evidence

What’s the best way to dispose of evidence? It really depends on the evidence. If you need to dispose of a murder weapon you wait until the police offer to buy it back and destroy it. On the other hand if you’re a police state and want to dispose of some paper evidence you simply shred it and use it as confetti at a parade:

Some confetti at the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday in New York appears to have been made out of confidential police documents, a US media report says.

The documents, shredded but legible, belonged to the Nassau County Police Department, New York station WPIX says.

They included sensitive data such as social security numbers and banking information for police employees.

They were shredded horizontally, not vertically, leaving text visible.

Granted the papers may not actually be evidence of wrongdoing but I fail to see any other reason why a police state would shred documents and try to spread them around the city by tossing the shreds of paper as confetti. Regardless, something strange is going on here.

FBI Failing to Get Desired Sentence for the Terrorists it Created

Earlier this year the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) captured another one of their agency created terrorists. This time around the FBI armed a handful of supposed anarchists with a fake bomb and encouraged them to use it to blow up a bridge:

On April 30 — on the eve of major leftist rallies in Chicago and elsewhere around the U.S. to protest corporations and the government — five men affiliated with the Occupy movement tried to use an FBI-supplied dummy bomb to blow up a highway bridge in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

It appears a judge is taking away some of the FBI’s glory by handing down a lighter sentence because of the fact the FBI created the terrorists:

Prosecutors called it a dangerous anarchist plot that had to be severely punished to deter any would-be imitators.

The defense said a government-paid confidential informant manipulated five impressionable, down-on-their-luck men into an attack they never would have attempted without his help.

In the end, U.S. District Court Judge David D. Dowd Jr. split the difference: He agreed to strengthen three defendants’ sentences with a terror enhancement, but then handed down terms Tuesday in Akron significantly lighter than what federal prosecutors had sought.

I only wish the judge would have completely thrown the case out. If it wasn’t for agency created terrorists the FBI probably wouldn’t have captured any terrorists. The FBI needs to be taught that simply creating terrorists and then capturing them is unacceptable. Unfortunately no judge is likely to take such action because it would make them appear to be soft on terror.

Know Your History Palestine and Israel Edition

Something that gets lost in most national conflicts is that every story has two sides. In the United States and much of the European world only one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is presented. We’re expected to believe that Israel is the benevolent angel who spread all good things throughout the Middle East while Palestine is the satanic demon who spreads plague and destruction. Whenever the two nations get into a pissing competition everybody blames Palestine or Hamas and never even acknowledges that possibility that Israel plays a great part in the hostilities.

I’m not going to spend a great deal of time discussing the conflict, instead I’m going to present Wikipedia articles that cover the history of Israel and Palestine. Why Wikipedia? I know people like to dismiss anything on Wikipedia as horribly inaccurate but it’s generally a decent source of information for topics that aren’t horribly controversial. While the conflict itself is controversial the history of what has occurred generally isn’t. Furthermore Wikipedia free and generally cited making it more useful to link to than books. It’s almost guaranteed that somebody will dismiss everything I’m about to link to as being inaccurate because it doesn’t fit their view of reality. If that’s what you want to do so be it, I’m posting this information primarily for the sake of those looking to do some reading on the precursors to recent events.

Events occurring today were really put into motion after World War I. In the aftermath of World War I the region we now know as Palestine was put under control of the British who had defeated the Ottoman. From the beginning things didn’t go well as the Arab and Jewish populations of Palestine didn’t like each other. The animosity between both peoples eventually lead to the United Nations (UN) looking at splitting Palestine into two states.

The UN Partition Plan wasn’t well received by Palestine’s Arab population. Even though the major of Palestinians were Arab the UN Partition Plan would grant the Jewish state 56 percent of the land, including two thirds of the coastline and sole access to the Red Sea. Granting the smaller Jewish population the majority of Palestine was justified by claiming that extra territory would be necessary for the immigrating Jewish population. As one can expect the Arab population didn’t like this plan and opposed it, claiming that the plan was not in the best interest of the majority of Palestinians (who were Arab).

Ignoring the Arab’s opposition the UN voted in favor of the Partition Plan, after some underhanded tactics were used to guarantee votes. This sparked the Arab-Israeli War. Internal conflict between the various involved Arab nations eventually lead Israeli to victory and they claimed ownership over the areas delineated by the UN Partition Plan.

Fast forward to 1967 when the Six Day War broke out. The Six Day War was a conflict between Israel and a coalition consisting of Jordan, Syria, and the United Arab Republic (what is now called Egypt). By the end of the war Israel seized the West Bank, Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip. Israel implemented an Iron Fist strategy where it ruthlessly suppressed Palestinian nationalism. Needless to say a Palestinian uprising was inevitable and it happened 1987 as the First Intifada in Palestine began.

The First Intifada was a campaign consisting primarily of nonviolent actions including civil disobedience, general strikes, and boycotts of Israeli products with some violence thrown in for good measure (you can’t have a peaceful revolution without some asshole throwing a Molotov cocktail). Israel responded to the First Intifada by killing over 1,000 Palestinians and arresting 120,000 more. Intra-Palestinian violence claimed the lives of some 1,100 Palestinians so they still managed to kill more of their own people than Israel did.

Relations between the Palestinians and Israelis didn’t improve. A Second Intifada began in 2000. Unlike the First Intifada, which relied heavily on nonviolent actions, the Second Intifada was marked with violence conflicts between the the Palestinians and Israelis. During this conflict the Israelis implemented a strategy of destroying homes of Palestinians. When a member of a family performed a violent attack against Israeli forces the Israelis would demolish the entire family’s home. Most people would state that this action is prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention but Israel says it’s perfectly legal because Palestine isn’t a recognized state (apparently the Israelis believe only recognized states are protected by the Geneva Conventions). Regardless you can see how the strategy of destroying homes could create some hard feelings with Palestinians.

In 2006 Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election and Israel responded by blockading the Gaza Strip. This brings us to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. The blockade is seldom discussed in the news and when it is there are very few details given. Israel’s blockage of the Gaza Strip includes restrictions on travel and severe restrictions on what goods can enter the region. Foodstuffs, tin cans, crayons, musical instruments, and all manners of construction materials are on the blacklist. It’s not hard to see how resentment could develop under such sanctions. When you can’t even get basic construction materials such as concrete into your region things are not going to go well, especially when homes are being bulldozed. Israel also maintains a naval blockade that restricts both importing goods and fishing (fishing is only allowed 3 nautical miles from shore).

To understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of today one must look to the history of the conflicted region. What I’ve provided here is a bare minimum thumbnail overview of what has lead to the current conflict. My goal was to give you launching points to start your research. Whether you want to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a black and white issue or as shades of gray is your business. I just feel the vast simplification that is generally presented by modern news outlets is a disservice and needs to be corrected.

Adding Fuel to the Fire

As if things weren’t bad enough in Israel and the Gaza Strip the United States had decided to send Hillary Clinton to the region:

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — President Barack Obama dispatched Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Middle East on Tuesday as the U.S. urgently seeks to end a conflict between Israel and Hamas that has killed more than 100 in the last week.

Sending Hillary Clinton as an envoy of peace is like sending the Grim Reaper as an envoy to a pro-life rally. I mean this is the same lady that actually laughed at Gaddafi’s death:

The State’s War Against the Homeless Continues

When the state’s not busy creating new homeless individuals it’s waging war against them. Continuing in this fine tradition Nevada City now requires individuals to obtain a permit before becoming homeless:

A police chief says he’s found a one-of-a-kind way to manage a growing problem in his city, and it’s putting the homeless on the hot seat.

A new law would give Nevada City the power to hand out permits to a small group of homeless, which would give them permission to sleep in public. While the new ordinance would give some homeless a place to stay, it would tell others, mostly the troublemakers and the criminals, to stay away.

I’m not sure what message the police chief is trying to send. Homeless people, by definition, are relegated to sleeping in public places. They don’t have homes and generally can’t afford to pay rent on even a modest apartment. What is a homeless person without a permit supposed to do?

It’s ideas like this that make me rage whenever somebody claims that the state helps the poor. How is forcing homeless individuals out of major metropolitan areas helping them? At most it makes those individuals somebody else’s problem. Lawmakers and law enforcement agents don’t even stop and think long enough to determine if the rules they’re making and enforcing are logical. Telling a homeless person they can’t sleep in public is like telling paraplegic to get up and walk around.

Terrorist Food Trucks

Thanks to Bruce Schneier’s blog I now know that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has gone off the deep end:

Public Intelligence recently posted a Powerpoint presentation from the NYC fire department (FDNY) discussing the unique safety issues mobile food trucks present. Along with some actual concerns (many food trucks use propane and/or gasoline-powered generators to cook; some *gasp* aren’t properly licensed food vendors), the presenter decided to toss in some DHS speculation on yet another way terrorists might be killing us in the near future.

That’s right. Instead of serving up a quick hot meal, these food trucks will be serving up death, and lots of it! Under the heading “Terrorist Implications,” the FDNY lists the exact reasons we should be concerned, most of which begin with the word “high.”

I hope you’re afraid of food trucks now because they may actually be terrorists in disguise! This is another case of the state creating fear to justify itself.

They Hate Us for Our Freedom

I can’t imagine why so many people in the Middle East hate the United States:

From McChrystal’s remarks:

We really ask a lot of our young service people out on the checkpoints because there’s danger, they’re asked to make very rapid decisions in often very unclear situations. However, to my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I’ve been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it. That doesn’t mean I’m criticizing the people who are executing. I’m just giving you perspective. We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.

Emphasis mine. They must hate us for our freedom, it couldn’t be because our government is killing innocent people left and right.