Ray Bradbury said, ""

Liberty Dog's commenters on freedom

Liberty Dog posted a brief fisking of a couple commenters' statements about a supposed conflict between the "common good" and what they called "freedom."

One commenter said, "To live in a world of utter freedom would be to live in a world where every debased appetite could find expression, all in the name of liberty."

Another commenter said, "I believe I speak for the overwhelming majority of the nation as well as most of the Founding Fathers when I say that the Constitution was never meant to protect freedom of depriving rights to other citizens while realizing one's own."

This is a perversion of the words "freedom" and "liberty."

Here are the definitions which are adopted by our Founders and the vast majority of libertarians, whether Randian, Hayekian, Rothbardian, or Jeffersonian, or other variants. I will highlight those portions of the definitions which conform to the usage as limited by libertarians.

Funk and Wagnall's 1949 New Standard Dictionary of the English language:

Common: 1.  Belonging or pertaining equally to more than one, or to many indefinitely.  2. Belonging to all,  that is, either to the human race generally, or to all the people of a certain country, region, or locality; general; universal; public.

Liberty: 1. The state of being exempt from the domination of others, or from restricting circumstances: opposed to slavery, subjugation, or bondage; as Liberty of speech or trade

Webster's 1938 Universal Unabridged Dictionary

Free: 1. Being at liberty; not being under necessity or restraint, physical or moral. 2.  In government, not restrained; not in a state of vassalage or dependance; subject only to fixed laws, made by consent, and to a regular administration of such laws; not subject to the arbitrary will of some sovereign or lord. 3.  Instituted by a free people or by consent or choice of those who are to be subjects, and securing private rights and privileges set by fixed laws and principles; not arbitrary or despotic.

Webster's New Twentieth Century Unabridged Dictionary

Free: 1. Not under the control of  some other person or arbitrary power; able to act or think without compulsion or arbitrary restriction; having liberty; independant. 2. Having or existing under a government that does not impose arbitrary restrictions on the right to speak, assemble, petition, vote, etc.

Liberty: 1. Freedom or release from slavery, imprisonment, captivity, or any other form of arbitrary control. 2. The sum of rights and exemptions possessed in common by the people of a community, state, etc.

The phrase "common good," can only mean the universal welfare of each individual, the equal protection of rights, and is incompatible with the violation of the rights of some for the benefit of others.  It can have no other meaning unless one defines "common," so as not to mean equally applicable to each individual, that the good of each individual requires that harm come to some individuals. To do so is to transform the phrase into an arbitrary claim that some individuals are fodder for the violence and amusement of others, and to uphold this parasitic relation as a universal claim to liberty.

Liberty and freedom are negative principles: the absence of the initiation of coercion, the arbitrary will of another exerted by force; and the defense of this condition against those who would force their will on others. To claim that liberty is restricted by such a "common" good, is to maintain that liberty is applicable to only a portion of the society, and that some individuals can claim to initiate coercion against others. It is to divorce liberty from its origin in the nature of all men, and to redefine it in terms of what those privileged few view the "common good." It is to rob these words of their meaning and to use them in propagandistic fashion toward their antithesis: the use of coercion according to the arbitrary will of some, according to laws which are not fixed, but which flow from a mutable concept of "common good," which claims applicability to a limited portion of the population. It is a deceitful expropriation of the words of liberty toward what boils down to someone claiming a privilege to violence.

 "Utter freedom" could mean no more than the "utter lack of the initiation of violence against men by their fellow men, the utter limitation of force by fixed and isonomic laws toward the protection of rights." To expand the concept of "freedom" to include acts of coercion against others, is to include the antithesis of freedom, and to deprive it of all meaning. To use the word "freedom," where one means "infringing the freedom of others," is another attempt to limit the concept of freedom to be applicable only to a few by rendering it meaningless- to transform it from a negative concept to a positive concept, and to divorce it from its origin in the nature of man.

These limited usages are nonsensical and harmful. They advance violence in the name of peace, violation of rights in the name of protection of rights, and arbitrary, specific law in the name of fixed and isonomic law. They are useless in arguing with those who more honestly term their belief that humans can and should live under threat of force. You cannot argue for freedom proper with a communist if you use the word in the same way he does. It is not an excuse to plead carelessness with one's words.

If I err, drop a comment.

Update 2:11 am: I added a semicolon where needed, and restated "initiation of force," as "the arbitrary will of another exerted by force," for clarification.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 31, 2005 22:43 EST | Permalink | comments (4) |
libertarianism

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Finally back online

I spent yesterday watching Memorial Day celebrations on CSPAN and getting asphyxiated giving piggy-back rides to my mom's friend's kids. Besides that, blogging has been slow lately because my sister has been playing online games from about 8 in the morning to 3 am.

The next post on the Constitution, up to Article 1 section 3, is coming along soon. 

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 31, 2005 21:09 EST | Permalink | comments |
blogging

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Remember the Soldiers

Phin has a roundup of memorial posts, and Vince has a beautiful homage to the soldiers throughout history who have defended freedom.

Each memorial day, I look through Albert Leventhal's "War," a book of photos from each war since the invention of the camera to the Vietnam War. I reflect on the blood shed so that I could wake up, and I give thanks to every soldier on the side of freedom, every man who faced a horde, whether Mongol or National Socialist, and who fought for an unknown and unimaginable future. War is not hell. A world in which those brave men never existed, would be.

Photios, Basil, Harvey,  and all you milbloggers,  G-d bless you for your efforts. 

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 29, 2005 13:54 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
news

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Gratuitous late-night sexy llamablogging

I've been feeling a little down the last few days, until I found this beauty. I'll blend Liberty Dog's Girl Fridays, Ogre's llamaphilia, and Libertybob's remarks on beastiality, to make a post guaranteed to leave you feeling very uncomfortable about your sexuality.


Prettiest llama I've ever seen

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 29, 2005 01:55 EST | Permalink | comments (4) |
humor

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A problem

I have a problem. I am studying economics, but almost no one knows what economics is, and most schools don't teach it.

You've probably had at least one course called "economics." Did it use equations? Then it wasn't economics. Did it refer to aggregates, "interest rates," variables, "inflation is a rise in the average level of prices," and "functions"? Then it wasn't economics. Were none of its statements referred back to the decisions and values of individuals and the pricing system? Then it wasn't economics.

For the past eight decades, what has been taught as economics, has been the same tired fallacies advanced since the first man crawled out of a cave, and which have been refuted constantly over the course of the two and a half centuries previous to the 20th. The fallacies of Keynes, Gesell, and the Mercantalists have gained authority, new disguises, and have wormed their way into every class on economics. Those classes have, for over three generations, produced people who are remarkably consistent in rejecting economics. Look at any paper, and you will see the results. Paul Krugman, for instance, perhaps the most famous economist alive (How many words have been written about him, versus Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams combined?), applying the broken window fallacy to 9/11 three days after the attack in the New York Times. The world is awash in bullshit made even more pernicious because it is the same bullshit our forefathers died fighting against.

I cannot stand another dose of pseudo-mathematical voodoo masquerading as economics.  I am close to strangling the next person who talks about the "consumption function" with a serious face. If I see one more spurious non-mathematical equation drawn on a chalk board, I will beat someone unconscious with his own foot. I have had enough of it.

Understandably, this narrows down considerably my choices for continuing my college education. Canisius has nothing more to offer me. An ivy league education in bullshit, would still be bullshit, as would a cheap and affordable education in bad economics. Harvard, the London School of Economics, Yale- all offer the same pap that their students 120 years ago learned to refute. I cannot and will not spend another 6 years and over $100,000 imbibing bullshit. So far as I know, only a handful of schools teach real economics- George Mason University and Aurburn University, for instance. 

I must learn economics. I will throw aside everything else to learn it. I would prefer to study it in a formal environment, under the tutelage of a real economist, but I would be equally able to abandon formal education and teach myself, as I have been doing on my own time. This summer, I must decide. If I choose the former,  I will be lucky to find a real economics course and luckier still if I can get into it. If I choose the latter, my student loans will become due in four months, and I will have to spend the next several years working as hard as possible to pay them off and studying as fast as possible. This decision is a tough one, made more difficult by the shortness of time left to me. I have spent 20 years on this earth, and only have about 60 years of useful life ahead of me. I have no more time to learn the fallacies which I am to refute. I have no more time to learn what a sick, diseased body looks like; I must learn what health looks like.  Both time and my patience are short.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 28, 2005 19:20 EST | Permalink | comments (11) |
economics, scruffy college student life, best posts

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Another book meme

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs tagged me with the Book Meme, which she contracted from Harvey.

I once had a moderately big green U-Haul outside one of the trailers I lived in, full of boxes of books. I read as many as I could before the moisture destroyed them, and since my parents never read them, I assume I had ownership during that time. That was probably about 2,000 books.

Over the last decade, I've accumulated enough books to fill six bookshelves and some boxes. I'd estimate about 1,500 books.

One of my goals in life is own 10,000 books by the time I'm forty.


I buy books wherever and whenever I have the chance. On Wednesday I went to a thrift store and got a couple books:

• "The American Jew," compiled by Oscar Janowsky
• "A Social History of Madness," by Roy Porter
• Two revisionist history books: Arthur Schlesinger's fawning "The Coming of the New Deal," and his volume "The Irrepressible Conflict 1850-1865."

I read several books at once. I'm currently reading:

• Ludwig von Mises' "Human Action"
  
• Ludwig von Mises' "Omnipotent Government"
  
• Ludwig von Mises' "Economic Calculations in the Socialist Commonwealth"
• Murray Rothbard's "Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market"
• The Federalist Papers
• Robert Spencer's "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance:  How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims"
• Vol. 7. of Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events"
• Douglas Adams' "Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
• Kurt Vonnegurt's "Bagombo Snuffbox"
• Harold Berman and William Greiner's "The Nature and Functions of Law"
• David Hartwell's "World Treasury of Science Fiction"
• Sam Morison's "The Oxford History of the American People" and "The European Discovery of America: the Early Voyages 500-1600 A.D."
• Brian Wilkie and James Hurt's "The Literature of the Western World"
• Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species"
• David Kelley's "The Art of Reasoning"
• Steven King's "The Tommyknockers"

This is a tough one.  I'll make it easy for me and hard for you: guess.


Definitely not Ogre, he can bat these memes away better than a frightened goat in Osama's hideway.  I'll tag Liberty Dog, Old Whig,and Someguy.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 28, 2005 13:44 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
books, memery

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Kerry signed!

The world will soon collapse into chaos as people are forced to repay bets and fulfill promises.

"Loan schmoan. You can pay me back when Kerry signs the forms..."

"I'll fix the roof when Kerry signs the forms..."
Thousands of men suffer hernias and back injuries doing work around the house.

"Sure I'll go out with you. Right after Kerry signs the forms..."

"That man-stealing bitch. I'll beat her to the ground when Kerry signs his forms..."
Millions of women brawl, thousands die.

"Bobby! Don't you hit your sister! Boy, I'll sell you to a Thai whorehouse when Kerry signs his forms..."

"I'll use the handcuffs when Kerry signs the forms..."
Thousands of husbands, injured from housework, starve to death in bondage games while their wives go out to fight.

"Menage a trois with my sister?! Yeah, when Kerry signs his forms..."

"So I only have to sell my soul to Satan after Kerry signs his forms?"

"I'm innocent. Tee hee! I'll proclaim my innocence until Kerry signs his forms or the sun dies..."

"Bob, I like you as a friend, but I'm not gay. Tell you what- I'll go down on you when Kerry signs his forms..."

"Allahu Akbar. The Jihad will continue against the infidels until Kerry signs his forms..."

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 27, 2005 07:33 EST | Permalink | comments (6) |
humor, news

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A gripe

Why do liberals always seem to be in such a damn hurry?

I don't remember ever seeing a conservative or a libertarian preface an argument with something like "I don't have much time to argue, but..." or "I have to make this quick, so..." and I have to think pretty hard to remember the last time I saw a conservative or a libertarian end an argument half-way through with something like "I don't have time to debate this right now..." or "Gotta go back to work..." Think about it. When was the last time you heard a non-liberal use those techniques?

Why? Why do liberals never seem to have the time to argue? The closest guess I have is that by saying their arguments will be rushed, they hope to awe people with the speed with which they can chant "Halliburton," and that the constant retreats indicate exactly what you'd think: cowardice and lack of actual arguments.

Saying that you have no time to chant Abu Ghraib either indicates that you don't have the patience to wait until when you do have time to respond, or that you are so damn cocky that you feel able to chant Guantanomo fast enough to rebut my argument, like a guy in a bad movie saying, "give me 10 seconds to rip out his heart with a thimble."

Leaving an argument indicates that you either have a) no arguments, b) no balls, c) no patience to wait until after the errand is done to respond, or d) don't give enough of a shit about your position to say something like "I'll be back in a half hour," to keep me from thinking you chickened out. Whatever it means, it doesn't mean that I will respect your position, or that I will be even close to being persuaded by what can only be a half-assed argument.

Until liberals realize that half-assed arguments neither impress nor persuade anyone,  I'll have to live with constant invocations of "I don't have time..."

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 26, 2005 17:14 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
hateblogging

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Deadly hamster virus

This is why you should never put hamsters in your mouth. (hat tip: moehawk)

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 26, 2005 16:40 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
odd news

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Mediate Inferences of the Preamble

My phone got turned off, so I spent the last two days reading outside.

I posted the first part of what will be a thorough series of posts on the Constitution.

Previous posts:

1. Immediate Inferences of the Preamble and Definitions
   
2. On my interpretation.

The Preamble sets forth the outline of our government: impartial administration of isonomic law, established and operated on the authority of the people, toward the protection of individual rights, by a national government acting in cooperation with various state governments.

Liberty, justice, union, the general welfare, a common defence, and domestic tranquility, could not prevail if the state governments operated on a different basis than the national government ( e.g. if one state had a monarchical government, if one state warred against another, etc). Justice would not exist if at any level there existed laws administered to target specific individuals or groups. The state governments are therefore to be directed toward the same purpose, and in the same manner, as the national government: each level of government must be limited to the administration of isonomic laws. As inferred above, each level of government must also be limited to laws created through popular bodies. Liberty would not exist if at any level of government there existed laws which forcibly prevented individuals from acting so long as they did not infringe the rights of others: liberty requires laws which are bounded by equal freedom. The Constitution must therefore possess the power to regulate the state governments to conform to the outline of isonomic and impartial administration of law by civil government toward the protection of individual rights.

The Constitution limits each level of government to the administration of isonomic laws derived from popular consent, bounded by the individual rights of each. Only those laws which conform to isonomy, popular sovereignty, and equal freedom, are compatible with the Constitution and valid.

A digression. I have inferred above that the Constitution limits all laws, state and federal, to those which conform to isonomy, popular sovereignty, and equal freedom. Thus, no law directed toward a specific individual or group, or created outside of civil means, or which infringes the equal rights of peaceful citizens, is valid. Article VI, clause 2, establishes the Constitution as the "supreme law of the land."  No law is valid which does not conform to these limits. The Constitution thus prohibits laws passed by unelected bodies, laws which, even if created through popular bodies, target specific individuals or groups, and laws which infringe on the equal freedom of individuals. The Constitution therefore cannot be embedded within a supranational government that does not itself conform to isonomy, popular sovereignty, and equal freedom.

Notice that the structure of government I have inferred from those scant 52 words is one which has not existed. Within the Constitution itself, there existed law targeted toward one group, and from the moment the Constitution was ratified the government enforced as property rights the exchange of that which admits of only one owner: a human being. Innumerable laws on all levels of government accumulated which do not conform to isonomy, infringe on peaceful action, and which are given new meanings by unelected bodies. Yet, as I inferred, the form of government mandated by the Constitution is never perfect, yet always perfectible. Within these 52 words lays an outline for government which, even if grasped vaguely, will lead those transgressions of justice and liberty to be corrected. The Preamble is the filter through which the Constitution is to be seen. Even if it fails to sieve out all the chaff, it provides the means whereby the chaff can be seen as such. Each individual and generation has an opportunity, not to re-interpret the Constitution, but to check each power government has gained against the limits given it in the Preamble.

This is my judgment, my own interpretation. If you believe I erred, drop a comment. Read the definitions I posted, so you don't end up whining that "liberty," means "power to do something," or "freedom from want," or something other than the absence of coercion. I'll post some more on the Preamble if I get some good comments, before going onto the Constitution proper.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 26, 2005 15:59 EST | Permalink | comments |
constitutionalism, pooklekufr constitutionalism

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What the hell?

The Bear (pbuh) says I have 230 inbound links, am ranked #851, and am a large mammal. That can't be right. That is insane.

I'll check my Ecosystem details in a week to see if it's cleared up.

Update: I even showed up on the Mammal list. How the hell is that possible?

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 24, 2005 10:54 EST | Permalink | comments (16) |
blogging

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Babatoundeblogging

I think Babatounde eats too much. That's not all fluff.

What do you think? Is he too fat?

(click the images to see ones which are entirely too large)


Notice my mom's Wiccan bumperstickers on the fridge.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 24, 2005 09:31 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
cats

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Woohoo! Books!

My friend lent me Winston Churchill's "Their Finest Hour," Nick Breen's "The Koreans," and his copy of the Origin of the Species with an introduction by Julian Huxley.  He also returned my copy of Mises' "Omnipotent Government."

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 24, 2005 09:00 EST | Permalink | comments |
books

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10 things I've never done

V the K tagged me with the "10 things I've never done" meme, which he got from Another Gay Republican.

I have never

10. Gotten a fatwa called against me.

9. Strangled John Maynard Keynes with Joseph Stalin's entrails.

8. Locked Karl Marx in a cage full of aroused male gorillas on PCP and viagra.

7. Not wanted to exile environmentalists naked to a lonely salt desert or a disease-laden jungle hellhole.

6. Seen a single Star Wars movie

5. Discovered a door to hell in my backyard.

4. Fallen in love with an exotic dancer named Lin-Ling who turns out to be a Chicom spy.

3.  Jumped off a train onto a horse.

2. Been sexually aroused by a llama.

1. Trained a kitten to kill a man.

I'm going to tag Ogre (I wait with baited breath to see if #2 will be on his list),  moehawk, and Oddybobo.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 24, 2005 06:38 EST | Permalink | comments (5) |
memery

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On the Constitution: Interpretation

GeoBandy raised some objections to my method of interpreting the Constitution. He said:

By constructing your inferences based on the definitions of individual words, and using modern definitions and usages, haven't you introduced the same kind of temporal bias that the "living document" people introduce?

First, unless you have access to a 1787 dictionary, you are assuming that the meaning of the word was understood to be the same in 1787 as in 1949 (the year of your source), and that the idiomatic usage of those words also has not changed in any way. But the usages of words do change. For example, "prove" in the sense of "test", as in "the exception that proves the rule". Second, how many words do we read and write - and understand - every day, in ways that do not precisely match the dictionary definitions? How many of those words were understood in exactly the same way two hundred years ago? Or will be, two hundred years from now?

For example, your inference number 14 concerning domestic tranquility. You say it is the prevention of coercive interference with lawful rights. In historical context, it is at least as likely that they were referring to border squabbles between states, which had, within the memory of the framers, at times escalated to actual armed conflict; vigilante mobs, Indian raids, and trade and tariff disputes between states.

I think you have fallen into the trap of studying the trees so closely that you can not observe the forest. The guys who actually wrote the Constitution were for the most part professional politicians, not political philosophers, and I think the Constitution is much better understood in historical context than through word by word analysis using 20th century understandings of those words and reading into it the analyzer's philosophical application of those words.

In my judgment, the Preamble is really quite simple. "The Articles of Confederation stink, we need a more perfect union, in order to do all these things, which are the things a government should do."

The most important phrase is the first: "We the people of the United States". Thomas Jefferson, and southern Jeffersonians for years to come, never quite grasped the true significance of that phrase. Patrick Henry got it immediately, and was outraged. The Articles of Confederation were essentially an agreement between the states. The Constitution did not derive its authority from the states, but directly from the PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES.

The "Constitution" as understood in Anglo-American law at that time, was the collection of natural rights and duties with which government had no authority to interfere, even a duly elected government acting with the approval of the people being governed. (See James Otis' arguments on the Writs of Assistance case, for example). Hence, judicial review: a popular law enacted by a representative government can still be unconstitutional, because no goverment has the authority to interfere with the natural rights of the people, even with their consent.

What was novel, and led to the adamant demand for a Bill of Rights, was the idea of a written Constitution. The fear was that the rights in the Bill of Rights, if not also written, would come to be viewed as somehow less significant than the powers and duties which were written down.

I responded:

I can make no claim to absolute accuracy in the definitions, nor am I making one. I am only going on what I, as a native English speaker, view as the most common and unchanged meaning. I may error, in which case I have my handy glossary in the back of both my copies of the Federalist Papers explaining the changes various words have undergone, yet my error lies in a quite different manner than those who would invent new meanings of words to encompass their own agenda.

Must I point out that border squabbles, being violent trespass of property, are unlawful infringement of rights? Armed conflict is a disturbance whether between private citizens, state militias, or domestic and foreign powers; the definition also encompasses any infringement of lawful rights.

The historical context is acquired through the writings of the founders at the time. I assume that their choice of words and manner of speech is a product of their judgment and that while the words themselves are supplemented by external statements of intent, their meaning is such that they may be reasonably understood without those supplementary materials.

Your point about the Preamble is partly right. "Government can, and should do these things," but it it states it in such a way that the interaction between those functions can be inferred.

I will get to the arguments in the Federalist #84 and the Anti-Federalist arguments, concerning the existence of a Bill of Rights, after I have gotten through the Constitution.

He responded to that:

I'm also a big fan of the Federalist Papers...which were written after the fact by guys pushing their particular interpretation.

I don't necessarily disagree with any of your conclusions, but in your methodology I think you're doing a bit of what you object to. You're reading your understanding back into the language. My point on your inference no. 14 isn't that you can't interpret it as broadly as you have, it's that you don't HAVE TO, and it's very unlikely that everybody at the Convention did interpret it that broadly, or on that sort of philosophical level. And your statement that the preamble "states it in such a way that the interaction between those functions can be inferred" is correct. However, it's also stated in such a way that the interaction between those functions might well be inferred other than the way in which you have done so. Or they could be taken at face value without any further inference at all.

I must disagree with your statement that the historical context "is acquired through the writings of the founders at the time." I think the historical context has to be considered much more broadly. While the Federalist Papers are well known, and the voluminous writings of Thomas Jefferson (who in fact had no role in writing the Constitution) are well-known, have you ever heard of anyone studying the writings of Jacob Broom or Jared Ingersoll? Yet they were present, and since only one member is known to have broken faith with the other delegates and compiled a rather extensive set of notes, what we know of the actual thoughts and words of the individual delegates is very limited, and from only that one perspective.

The Constitution was not intended as an exercise in political philosophy, but as a generalized legal foundation for a civilized society, and I don't think it can be examined apart from the day to day events in that society, the events which led to its drafting and ultimately to its adoption.

Before the ink was dry there were varying interpretations as to what various clauses or phrases meant. And whether you call it "interpretation" or "inference" or "construction", it all amounts to the same thing. If the Constitution was, and is, to have any application, it has to be interpreted. The real issue is where the line is crossed, and "construction" becomes "invention". Considered in this context, is the absurd "penumbra" within which secret rights are suddenly discovered really any more of an invention than judicial review? Or the authority of the federal government to charter a bank? After all, you can't find those things in the Constitution, either, unless you apply a little "inference" and "interpretation".

His criticisms are well-founded.  My methodology is to interpret the Constitution according to my own judgment and understanding, neither of which I can claim perfect, and both of which are certain to error. I am applying my own judgment to what I believe our founders meant.

I see that there are two forms of error possible in interpreting the Constitution: to err by misunderstanding, and to err by invention. The former neither I nor anyone else can fully defend against, for doubtless we will attach different significance to various words. This form of error can be mitigated by relying on supplementary materials eludicating the Founders' own judgment and the understanding that the words they chose still preserve their original meaning with their evolution recorded in dictionaries and glossaries. This form of error is one of approximation. It is an approximation not from a blank understanding, admitting of arbitrary interpretations, however, but from a general and sometimes rough, sometimes clear, understanding of the Founders' judgment. This error can be reduced by keeping in mind that the meaning of the Constitution is not arbitrary, not nebulous, and not an unknown which we can fill in with our own fantasies.

The latter form of error involves invoking arbitrariness to some degree.  It may be intentional or unintentional. I may error in assigning a meaning to a word according to my 1949 dictionary which is completely different than our Founders used.  A man might error by literally inventing a new and novel meaning of a word. Yet notice the difference between the interpretation of these errors. If one accepts that the Constitution bears a meaning which is not arbitrary,  this form of error can be mitigated by constantly checking one's assumptions against a standard. If one believes the Constitution has no meaning but what he or his generation assign it, than he will have no standard against which to check his assumptions. If one treats the Constitution in one way, these errors can be spotted and dealt with, if one treats it the other way, these errors are not even noticed, and are in fact embraced. If one treats the Constitution as if it possesses an arbitrary meaning, the criteria for debate change.

I hold that the Constitution is not arbitrary, that I can understand its meaning as close as any human can get through reason, that my understanding of its language can be aided through supplementary texts, that the standard to which I must hold my judgment must be the meaning assigned to it by the Founders, and that for these reasons my errors can be spotted as such and admit of correction.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 24, 2005 05:52 EST | Permalink | comments |
constitutionalism, pooklekufr constitutionalism

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Ah, springtime!

You're blogging right now. Go outside! Enjoy the twilight!

Here's the stream by my house.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 23, 2005 17:08 EST | Permalink | comments |
hick life, beauty

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On the Constitution: Immediate Inferences of the Preamble

Preamble

We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America.

1. A government is a means of bringing about the conditions of union, justice, liberty, domestic tranquility, a common defence, and general welfare.

2. A government, its function, and its structure, derives all authority from the individuals who make up the public.

3. These conditions are understood to be, via the conjunctive structure of the sentence, undertaken simultaneously and mutually; or in other words, the existence of each is mutually dependent on the others.

4. The mutual dependence of each condition means that one is not possible without the other. Thus, there can be no domestic tranquility without a common defence, no justice without liberty, etc.

5. Union, justice, and liberty are formed/created/secured; while domestic tranquility, a common defence, and general welfare, are not created, but ensured/provided for/promoted. This difference in wording, establishment of a condition versus acting toward a goal, implies that the former three are prerequisites for the latter three, that union must first exist for a common defence to exist, etc.

6. The difference in wording noted in inference five, between the establishment of a condition versus the acting toward a desired condition, implies that the people aim toward the latter three conditions (domestic tranquility, a common defence, and general welfare) as ideals, but at any given time will have room for improvement.

7. The difference in wording noted in inference six implies that there is no "fixed" level of attainment of these conditions, that the form of government is perfectible, but never perfect.

8. Liberty is secured. This implies that liberty requires active defense, and is not a natural condition toward which humans tend.

9. Liberty is secured by government. This implies that liberty is not only compatible with, but only attainable by, the existence of a government.

10. Justice is established. This implies that government is framed (fixed firmly) upon positive law which admits of refinement, yet is inviolable in its end.

11. Justice is established as the foundation of government. This implies that each of the other conditions is not only compatible with, but require, the impartial administration of law.

12. Government aims toward the joint defence of its citizens against violence. This implies that government must not only defend against violence by foreign powers and private citizens, but violence committed by individuals within government, i.e. it must be bounded by the isonomic and impartial law noted in inference eleven.

13. The general welfare pertains to the well-being of each citizen. It therefore cannot be attained by selectively harming a few at the expense of the many, i.e. it must be bounded by the impartial isonomic law noted in inference eleven.

14. Domestic tranquility is the prevention of coercive interference with lawful rights. It is thus an outcome of there first existing justice, liberty, and the defense of these conditions.

I will post the mediate inferences of the Preamble later. Drop me a comment if you see where I left off something, or made a leap that you think is unjustified.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 22, 2005 08:08 EST | Permalink | comments (5) |
constitutionalism, pooklekufr constitutionalism

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Unseen motives

What is Vulture Face yelling?


what is Bongo looking at?

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 21, 2005 08:27 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
dogs, cats

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On the Constitution I

Consider these quotes:

The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary, as distinguished from technical meaning; where the intention is clear, there is no room for construction, and no excuse for interpolation or addition. — Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat 304; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat 419; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat 419; Craig v. Missouri, 4 Pet 10; Tennessee v. Whitworth, 117 U.S. 139; Lake County v. Rollins, 130 U.S. 662; Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1; Edwards v. Cuba R. Co., 268 U.S. 628; The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U.S. 655; (Justice) Story on the Constitution, 5th ed., Sec 451; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 2nd ed., p. 61, 70.

It cannot be assumed that the framers of the constitution and the people who adopted it, did not intend that which is the plain import of the language used. When the language of the constitution is positive and free of all ambiguity, all courts are not at liberty, by a resort to the refinements of legal learning, to restrict its obvious meaning to avoid the hardships of particular cases. We must accept the constitution as it reads when its language is unambiguous, for it is the mandate of the sovereign power. — Cook vs. Iverson, 122, N.M. 251.

Economic necessity cannot justify a disregard of cardinal constitutional guarantee. — Riley v. Carter, 165 Okal. 262; 25 P. 2d 666; 79 ALR 1018.

Where the words of a constitution are unambiguous and in their commonly received sense lead to a reasonable conclusion, it should be read according to the natural and most obvious import of the framers, without resorting to subtle and forced construction for the purpose of limiting or extending its operation. — A State Ex Rel. Torryson v. Grey, 21 Nev. 378, 32 P. 190.

It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect;... — Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 174 (1803).

The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now. — South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905).

History is clear that the first ten amendments to the Constitution were adopted to secure certain common law rights of the people, against invasion by the Federal Government. — Bell v. Hood, 71 F. Supp., 813, 816 (1947) U.S.D.C., So. Dist. CA.

The necessities which gave birth to the constitution, the controversies which precede its formation and the conflicts of opinion which were settled by its adoption, may properly be taken into view for the purposes of tracing to its source, any particular provision of the constitution, in order thereby, to be enabled to correctly interpret its meaning. — Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, 558.

When any court violates the clean and unambiguous language of the Constitution, a fraud is perpetrated and no one is bound to obey it. — (See 16 Ma. Jur. 2d 177, 178) State v. Sutton, 63 Minn. 147, 65 NW 262, 30 L.R.A. 630 Am. St. 459.

Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure. --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:450

Our tenet ever was... that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated, and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money. --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1817. ME 15:133

I hope our courts will never countenance the sweeping pretensions which have been set up under the words 'general defence and public welfare.' These words only express the motives which induced the Convention to give to the ordinary legislature certain specified powers which they enumerate, and which they thought might be trusted to the ordinary legislature, and not to give them the unspecified also; or why any specification? They could not be so awkward in language as to mean, as we say, 'all and some.' And should this construction prevail, all limits to the federal government are done away. --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1815. ME 14:350

This phrase,... by a mere grammatical quibble, has countenanced the General Government in a claim of universal power. For in the phrase, 'to lay taxes, to pay the debts and provide for the general welfare,' it is a mere question of syntax, whether the two last infinitives are governed by the first or are distinct and coordinate powers; a question unequivocally decided by the exact definition of powers immediately following. --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1817. ME 15:133

"It often happens that, the Legislature prescribing details of execution [of a law], some circumstance arises, unforeseen or unattended to by them, which would totally frustrate their intention, were their details scrupulously adhered to and deemed exclusive of all others. But constructions must not be favored which go to defeat instead of furthering the principal object of their law, and to sacrifice the end to the means. It being as evidently their intention that the end shall be attained as that it should be effected by any given means, if both cannot be observed, we are equally free to deviate from the one as the other, and more rational in postponing the means to the end." --Thomas Jefferson to William H. Cabell, 1807. ME 11:319

They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please... Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect. --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on National Bank, 1791. ME 3:148

Whenever the words of a law will bear two meanings, one of which will give effect to the law, and the other will defeat it, the former must be supposed to have been intended by the Legislature, because they could not intend that meaning, which would defeat their intention, in passing that law; and in a statute, as in a will, the intention of the party is to be sought after. --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808. ME 12:110

To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn aroung the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.- Thomas Jefferson

Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy. --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:386

To disregard such a deliberate choice of words and their natural meaning, would be a departure from the first principle of constitutional interpretation. "In expounding the Constitution of the United States," said Chief Justice Taney in Holmes v. Jennison, 14 U.S. 540, 570-1, "every word must have its due force and appropriate meaning; for it is evident from the whole instrument, that, no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added. The many discussions which have taken place upon the construction of the Constitution, have proved the correctness of this proposition; and shown the high talent, the caution and the foresight of the illustrious men who framed it. Every word appears to have been weighed with the utmost deliberation and its force and effect to have been fully understood. — Wright v. United States, 302 U.S. 583 (1938).

Ask yourself if the concepts expressed in these quotes have been popular in the last century. Ask yourself whether our government has abandoned the principle of a law conforming to an unmoving standard, a standard defined by its protection of inviolable and unalterable rights as derived from the very nature of man.

I'm going to start a series of posts on the Constitution, clause by clause, word-by-word if I must. I will reclaim it for my own mind,  which no other man can. It was written to be understood and implemented by the common man, I am that man. 

Cleaving to the principles implicitly stated in our Constitution (and its very existence), and explicitly stated by our Founders, I am certain to err in a far less destructive and pernicious manner than any politician in the past century, and more than a few of the supposedly strict Supreme Court justices.


Update: Unless I find a better method, I'll begin each post of the series by posting the clause in question, the definitions of the words in the clause, the implications as I understand them, and the manner in which the government has subverted the common-sense understanding of the Constitution in favor of a subjective, omnipotent interpretation. 

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 20, 2005 07:55 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
constitutionalism, pooklekufr constitutionalism

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Not nearly as mouth-watering as the Bricker Amendment, but still good

From the AP:

A U.S. congressional committee has drafted a bill that threatens to withhold tens of millions of dollars in dues from the United Nations unless the world body conducts wide-ranging reforms, possibly setting the stage for a funding battle like the one that plunged the U.N. into financial crisis a decade ago.

The "United Nations Reform Act of 2005" targets a panoply of issues that have troubled critics of the United Nations, particularly Republicans, for years. Among other things, it would seek to cut funding for programs seen as useless and bar human rights violators from serving on U.N. human rights bodies.

The 80-page bill, from Illinois Republican Henry Hyde's House International Relations Committee, is still in an early form and has only recently been distributed to Democrats, who are likely to oppose several elements. It was sent to a few U.N. officials Thursday night, when a copy was obtained by The Associated Press.

One of the bill's most controversial proposals will be linking dues to the changes it spells out. The document stipulates that if the reforms are not carried out, Congress will withhold 50 percent of U.S. dues to the U.N. general budget, taking the money from programs it deems inefficient and wasteful.

"No observer, be they passionate supporter or dismissive critic, can pretend that the current structure and operations of the U.N. represent an acceptable standard," Hyde said in a hearing on U.N. reform before the document was sent to a few U.N. officials.

The proposed changes would shake the U.N. system at its foundations. The United States, the biggest financial contributor to the United Nations, pays a little under 25 percent of the annual $2 billion general budget. That doesn't include money for peacekeeping, international tribunals, or programs like the U.N. Development Program and UNICEF, which are funded separately.

The Bricker Amendment notwithstanding, a bill like this will do alot to curb both the legitimacy and the ability of the Jew-hating genocidal pedophiles on the UN to perpetrate greater scandals on the oppressed populations of dictatorial cesspools. 

It will inherently fail, however. The UN is an unelected, unaccountable organization composed of dictators and appeasers of terrorism. Nothing short of hanging the majority of delegates and burning to ash all of its resolutions that violate our Constitutional rights, could possibly grant it moral status. Give a Jew-hating dictator half as much money with which to denounce Israel and siphon into his coiffers while stomping on his population, and he's still a Jew-hating oppressive dictator. The UN, founded by two nations which each slaughtered more people in the name of a Greater Good^tm than Hitler- China and Russia- never had moral legitimacy beyond what the U.S. conceded it as a fervently believed Leftist duty to help the poor nations- by treating the men stomping on their faces with respect and diplomacy rather than non-compromising hell-fury violence. The good intentions of American liberals sustained the UN throughout its history of failure and disgusting concessions to oppressive madmen. Until it is realized that no amount of good intentions will make supporting dictators yield peace and prosperity, the UN will continue to exemplify the nature of the road to hell. This bill is a step in the right direction, but until the UN is abolished, that walk will be soaked with the blood and sweat of people living under Sharia law, grinding socialism, and dictators granted legitimacy from their self-proclaimed enemies and support from their peers.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 20, 2005 03:00 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
news

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Filthy Lie: How will Evil Glenn handle the Huffington pseudo-blog?

A hundred llamas danced the can-can under a nebular night sky. The cityscape beyond the river blazed with neon. Charlie Mingus was hollering and thumping away at the bass, McCoy Tyner was skidding a melody across the keyboard, and John Coltrane stood crying into his sax. Another piano was crouched into the corner of the stage, Thelonious Monk stood popping out thoughts with splayed fingers.

Huffington is full of crap!

I listened more closely. Charlie was jabbering along with the thudding bass melody, pearls of bebop dripped off McCoy Tyner's keyboard. Coltrane ascended into a sobbing vamp. Thelonious was yelling, but it was all babble. Where did that come from?

G-ddamn that Gutfeld prick!

That definitely wasn't coming from the band. I waved to the baboon waitress.

"Martini, shaken like a chihuahua stashed in a freezer." She swung off toward the bar.

Bloggers my dainty fucking ass! Show me a single cat!

That sounded familiar and closer. I turned around in my seat and saw Laurence Simon stuffing a $20 bill into the g-string of a monstrously obese cat stripper. Drunk off his ass.

"Laurence?"

He looked up from the mound of seductively wiggling fur on his table. "Tom, Evil Glenn will do something horrible tomorrow. Wake up and stop him." He stuffed another $20 into the g-string.

"What do you mean? He does something horrible every day! What's so evil about tomorrow? By the way, what the hell are you doing in my dream?"

"Tom, if Glenn has his way, blogging as we know it will disappear. He's going to-" Laurence stopped, burped, and tried to pet the stripper. She wiggled away from his grasp and hissed. "Going to kidnap the authors at the Huffington Post," he continued. He started pawing at the cat again despite her swats at him.

"So? How will kidnapping a couple hundred idiot leftist celebrities who spout moonbatty crap and how-to guides to lure children with fake ice-cream trucks, end blogging? And again, what the hell are you and Edloe doing in my dream?"

The baboon waitress swung back over. Most of the martini had spilled, but there was still enough to drown the olive.

"Think, Tom. What would Glenn do with hundreds of vapid celebrity pseudo bloggers? Oh, I'm an oracle. Tech support, you know. The fever helps."

"Celebrity snuff film? Nah, he already tried that with most of the cast of Flipper."

"Think!" Laurence pounded his fist on the table for emphasis. Edloe crept to the other side of the table and waved her tail at a bouncer.

"Brainwash them with a hidden message to sign another contract with George 'Bush is worse than Hitler and Darth Vader' Lucas?"

Laurence smacked his fist onto the table again. "Dumbass. Evil Glenn is going to replace the best known bloggers with them! You'll go to IMAO and Frank J will be speaking Greek and talking about banging cabana boys! More than usual! Harvey will be nattering about Larry David's bathroom habits!"- Another fist smack- " He's going to turn the blogosphere into a warm mass of crap! Charles Johnson replaced with Greg Gutfeld's snarky pedophiliac how-to guides! The blogosphere will lose all credibility! All except for Evil Glenn!"

Laurence smacked the table again for good measure. Edloe waggled her tail more strongly.

"That's despicable! How can I stop it?!"

From across the room, I saw the musclebound chimp bouncer approach.

"He's going to be waiting for them at- argh!" The bouncer picked Laurence up by the throat and started dragging him away.

"Waiting where?" I ran after them.

"guzzz! Hurzle!"

"Where?"

"Gurgh!"

The chimp threw Laurence into a rickshaw. I ran after it.

"Where? When? How do I stop Evil Glenn from destroying the blogosphere?!"

Laurence's answer faded into the breeze and the smooth sound of night traffic.

Bahoooga! Beehooga! BEEP!

I turned around just in time to miss the hippopotamus on a tricycle, but got clipped by a jogging gorilla and slammed into the curb.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The curb turned into a pillow. I cracked open my eyes and tried to focus on the alarm clock. 5:23 in the morning. I scratched my balls and knew that the whole blogosphere depended on me acting on this omen.

I unplugged the clock and curled back up into sleep. Billie was up next.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 19, 2005 03:26 EST | Permalink | comments (5) |
humor, cats, evil glenn

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My hench-hamsters

must have scared off people. My traffic has dropped by over half in the last month. I better check my page in other browsers to see if I accidentally screwed it up for a chunk of readers. If that's not the problem, I will have to start littering my posts with phrases like "Lindsay Lohan and Sam Kinnison nude in a bathtub full of drunken communist hamsters." Don't make me do it. You know I'll bring down the smite of nude pudding kitten wrestling on my poor, defenseless readers (the six of you).

Oh-Read the first post of my blogosphere debate on reforming the Libertarian Party away from pot-smoking pacifist hippy utopians, into a party which could actually get limited-government candidates elected. I want to keep that post lingering around for a while.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 18, 2005 10:26 EST | Permalink | comments (6) |
blogging

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Ah, I finally updated my "What I'm Reading Section." I gave up on Amazon's boxes, I still can't get to the Build Links section.

Here are the books I'm reading:

• Human Action, Ludwig von Mises
  
• The Federalist Papers
• The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims, ed. Robert Spencer
• The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,Douglas Adams
• The Literature of the Western World Vol. 1, ed. Brian Wilkie and James Hurt
• The Nature and Functions of Law, Harold Berman and William Greiner
• Bagombo Snuff Box, Kurt Vonnegut
• The World Treasury of Science Fiction, ed. David Hartwell
• The Oxford History of the American People, Sam Morison
• The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages 500-1600 A.D., Sam Morison

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 18, 2005 03:21 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
books, blogging

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A blogosphere debate on the LP platform: the criteria for reform

A while ago, I proposed a blogosphere debate on the platform of the Libertarian Party, as part of a large effort to reform it from a pseudo-party which values "membership" more important than actually getting limited-government candidates elected, into a real political party capable of influencing public policy.

The platform must be reformed to become politically viable, to become a means by which limited-government candidates can actually get elected and begin reducing government. This means incremental reductions in government, and a prioritization in these policies.

No one will take a candidate seriously if he thinks that legalizing prostitution is as important as reducing taxes. No one will take a candidate seriously if he proposes immigration liberalization without a reduction in the welfare system and the vast majority of government policies which do not protect people's liberty and security. No candidate who seems to support legalizing drugs with more fervor than reducing taxes and idiotic government regulations, will be elected. No candidate who proposes a suicidal military disarmament plan, will even get near primaries.

There are several criteria by which the planks must be judged:

• Prioritization. Each plank must be arranged according to a scale of viability, importance, and necessity. Reducing taxes is viable, important, and necessary. Legalizing prostitution is not.
• Incremental. Long term plans must be segregated from short-term plans, which must be able to be implemented within a political term. Elimination of taxes, zoning laws, tariffs, will not occur instantaneously, and the short-term negative results for those who benefited from them at the expense of everyone else will be immediately visible- in short, the public will not be ready for massive changes. Reducing them is viable, can be accomplished within a term, and will yield gradual benefits both within the short-term and the longer term which will make further reductions more desirable.
• Compatible with security. The people will not vote for a candidate who seems more concerned with bureaucrats than with jihadis. The focus must be on how government intervention and bureaucracy makes government less able to protect rights. A candidate who advocates total disarmament would be suicidal, and would be downright treasonous, and neither could nor should be elected.  The public understands that every tax dollar spent on a bureaucrat is one less spent on a police man or a firefighter, one less spent on our military and courts. They understand that every minute spent debating the capacity of toilets is one minute not spent debating the threat posed by North Korea and islamofascism. The understanding that every diversion from the just purpose of government hinders its ability to protect rights, is a crucial element in libertarianism. And it is an element which the public does not associate with libertarianism because they associate libertarians with pot-smoking pacifist hippy utopians.
  

1. People will not vote for a candidate who seems to have no prioritization. The LP lacks prioritization, and presents, despite the consistent nature of its beliefs, an incoherent mess of long-term and short-term goals, goals which would in the short-term be suicide, and goals which act only to hamper the implementation of more important goals. A libertarian's electability is determined not by the most reasonable and common-sense position he holds, but the most eccentric.

2. People will not vote for a candidate who is unable to advocate policies which will immediately reduce the burden of government. This means that a libertarian mayoral candidate who promises to reduce zoning regulations is more electable and will do more to reduce government than a libertarian presidential candidate who runs on the full LP platform and appears like a drug-obsessed pacifist baring his neck to islamofascists. The election of a libertarian mayor or governor is more important and a greater opportunity to reduce government than a failed presidential campaign where the candidate himself says he does not plan on winning or even gaining a significant base. 

3. People will not vote for a candidate whose policies seem suicidal. Just as it is an error to sacrifice liberty for security, it is an error to sacrifice security for liberty. It is nonsensical to claim that there is a difference between the two. Liberty and security are both the absence of coercion. It is nonsensical to claim I must yield to coercion in one manner, in order to be free from coercion in another manner, or vice versa. In other words, a candidate who claims to increase freedom by reducing the ability of the government to protect rights, will be seen as a suicidal fool. A candidate who focuses on the threat of our government, and ignores the threat of bloodthirsty jihadis, will be seen to be a suicidal madman.

Are there any other criteria to be looked at before proceeding to the planks themselves? Are the criteria I propose too vague, or in error? Drop me a comment.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 17, 2005 17:06 EST | Permalink | comments (8) |
libertarianism

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Castro's Gulag

Frontpage Magazine has an excellent interview with Humberto Fontova on the nightmare of Cuba, and the willful acceptance of the mythic communist utopia by deluded Leftists.

FP: We believe you my friend. We are big fans of yours as well. So let’s start at the beginning, what inspired you to write this book?

Fontova: I was motivated by the avalanche of idiocies you hear in the mainstream media, academia and celebrity circles about Cuba and Castro. You know the ones: "Castro the benefactor of the poor, the oppressed, etc. Cuba, formerly a pesthole of poverty and oppression, now a Shangri-La of free healthcare, universal literacy and overall bliss for it's perpetually-smiling, rally-attending, flag- waving citizens.

Look, it's one thing to hear this bilge from a Danny Glover, Ed Asner, Dan Rather, etc. You expect that. It's quite another to hear it from my old college professor Stephen Ambrose (yes, THE Stephen Ambrose.) Back in the late seventies, I'd have to sit there in class and listen to Professor Ambrose sing the praises of Fidel and Che -- actually, I didn't just sit there. I'd try to correct him. My desk usually ended up covered in spittle as a result. Also, there's Colin Powell. At the SAME time he was making the case against Saddam Hussein at the UN he said, "Castro has done good things for Cuba." It's hard to know where to begin when you hear this stuff. I thought I'd begin with a book. In brief, I took a page from boxer Roberto Duran's script and finally said "NO-MAS!" to that blizzard of bilge.

FP: Tell us some of the horrifying ingredients of Castro’s Gulag.

Fontova: Let's start with its dimensions: Castro's gulag held more political prisoners, as a percentage of population, than pre-war Hitler's and --yes--even Stalin's. Also, the longest serving political prisoners OF THE CENTURY spent their hell in Castro's Gulag. Senores Mario Chanes de Armas, Angel de Fana and Eusebio Penalver all served thirty years in Castro's dungeons. To put this in proper perspective, Alexander Solzhenitsyn served 8 years in Stalin's Gulag. So here's men who served over THREE times as long-- and who's heard of them? They all live in Miami today. So where's the PBS documentary on them? Where's the 60 Minutes interview with them? Where were the rallies (outside of Miami's little Havana) for their release? Where were the U.N declarations for their release? (Instead their jailer's regime is appointed to the UN's Human Rights Commission!)

Where was the caterwauling by Democrats and Hollywood types? Well, these men, and many others like them, are showcased in my book as the heroes they are. Penalver is the longest serving black political prisoner OF THE CENTURY, by the way. He served longer in prison than Nelson Mandela. So where's the Congressional Black Caucus, Jesse Jackson, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, etc? I'll tell you where: they were hugging and hoisting the arm of Penalver's jailer, Fidel Castro!

You can't MAKE this stuff up, Jamie! Also, for months many of Castro's political prisoners are shoved naked into cells called gavetas (drawers), these measure six by four feet--and that's four feet high so they can't stand. This stuff is going on 90 miles away from our shores while celebrities and farm-state ward-healers chum it up with the mass jailer!

Also, for the first time in Cuba's (perhaps the hemisphere's) history, thousands of women were sent to prison and forced labor camps by Castro. Cuban women today are the most suicidal in the world. This doesn't stop Diane Saywer, Barbara Walters and Andrea Mitchell from fawning all over Fidel when in his glorious presence however.

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.
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FP: Who was the real Che Guevara?

Fontova: A bumbler, a fool, a coward and a mass--killer. He excelled in only one thing: the mass-murder of bound and blindfolded men. In "battle" such as these were (puerile skirmishes that would bore the Cripps and Bloods on any week-end night) his imbecilities defy belief. Che was Castro's chief executioner, a combination of Beria-Himmler. "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary," is a famous Guevara quote, "These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.

Che's slaughter of (bound and gagged) Cubans (Che was himself an Argentine) exceeded Heinrich Himmler's prewar slaughter of Germans–to scale, that is. So what happens today? Well, you see Che's face on t-shirts worn by people who oppose capital punishment! I devote an entire chapter to the gallant Che so please indulge me here, Jamie. I can't resist a few more quips. Because Che's lessons and history are fascinating and valuable, but only in light of Sigmund Freud or P.T. Barnum. "One born every minute," Mr. Barnum? If only you'd lived to see the Che phenomenon. Actually, 10 are born every second

Here's a "guerrilla hero" who in real life never fought in a guerrilla war. When he finally brushed up against one, he was routed.

Here's a cold-blooded murderer who executed thousands without trial, who stayed up till dawn for months at a time signing death warrants for innocent and honorable men, whose office in La Cabana had a window where he could watch the executions – and today his T-shirts adorn people who oppose capital punishment!

Here's communist Cuba's first "Minister of Industries," whose main slogan in 1960 was "Accelerated Industrialization!" Whose dream was converting Cuba (the hemisphere, actually) into a huge bureaucratic-industrial ant farm – and he's the poster boy for greens and anarchists who scream and rant against industrialization!

Here's a snivelling little suck-up, teacher's pet and momma's boy who was the constant pride of joy of his teacher (Alberto Bayo) and parents (the most obnoxious sort of Limousine Bolsheviks) – and he's idolized by millionaire delinquents such as Rage Against the Machine!

Here's a humorless teetotaler, a plodding paper-pusher, a notorious killjoy and all-around fuddy-duddy – and you see his T-shirt on MTV's Spring Break revelers!

Perhaps competent psychologists (if any exist) will explain this some day.

Che excelled in one thing: mass murder of defenseless men. He was a Stalinist to the core, a plodding bureaucrat and a calm, cold-blooded – but again, never in actual battle – killer.

Read it all.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 17, 2005 02:05 EST | Permalink | comments |
news, disguised tyranny

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Iconoclastic Monday catblogging

Catblogging on a Monday!

*gasp*

They look like crazy little juvenile delinquents, don't they?


Babatounde the Bestial



A fluffy and gruff Babatounde



Bongo the Vicious is not a morning cat.


Jinx is barely even a cat.


Slipped in Little Dog Golda Meir just for the hell of it.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 16, 2005 10:01 EST | Permalink | comments (5) |
dogs, cats

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A little on money

Protagonist at Wyatt's Torch stated:

In my travels in the conservative blogosphere, and the blogads therein, I stumbled across this gimmick.

One universal desire of "The Right" is the return to the gold/silver standard and rejection of fed-issued greenbacks. Be they conservative Christians hoarding up for the end-times, a paleo-conservative Idaho militiamen rejecting the "Zionist" economy, fiscal conservatives worried about deficits/inflation/interest rates, or Rand-worshipping libertarians fawning over d'Anconia's monologue on the glorious nature of money, their common belief is that we'd all be better off trading in silver talents and gold shekels. This is one of the “conservative” viewpoints I don’t agree with, simply because it contradicts logic and observable fact.

I responded:

The "return to a gold standard" is not a conservative position, or even a uniform position. What Friedman and the Supply-Siders advocated was a Bretton Woods centralized false gold standard in which the gold was only to be redeemed in large denominations by central banks, and thus ineffectual in preventing inflation. Furthermore, all speculation of a change in the monetary system is useless unless a change in the centralized banking system is proposed as well, and on this there is considerable disagreement- the Friedmanites and mainstream conservative public support a centralized banking system, while the Randians and Rothbardians oppose it.

By lumping the various groups into one ad hominem attack, and treating them as all advocating the same thing, it becomes impossible to compare the current monetary system with one which has actually been advocated.

He went on to state:

First off, the NORFED/Liberty Dollar people are selling silver at $10.00/oz, when its market price is $7.00/oz. To their defense, NORFED/Liberty Dollar admits this markup. Their defense is that it’s selling transferable currency and not metals; they openly tell people to go elsewhere if they simply want to invest in specie. Despite some of the odd claims by "Mr. von Nothaus" on his website and the high possibly this could be an outright scam, I'm going to assume that this is a legitimate business. Any google due diligence shows only positive praise for the company.

However, NORFED/Liberty Dollar claim that their currency is not subject to the inflation that greenbacks are, and that their money will maintain it value while the dollar collapses. True, paper money is decreasing in value. True, our currency could collapse. But gold and silver are inflating just as fast, if not fast. Nor is the collapse of the greenback nearly as certain as the value of “precious metals”.

In 1975, silver was worth $5.25/oz. Now it’s worth about $7.00/oz—falling from nosebleed peaks in early 80s. A 35% return on a 30-year investment is paltry. But the investment is a complete disaster when you consider in the inflation you were trying to hedge against. In 1975, $5.25 would have bought the equivalent of $20.00 in 2005. Now $7.00 will buy the equivalent of what $1.87 would’ve in 1975. You lost 65%!

Granted, the “investment” hedged somewhat against inflation. The $5.25 would be worth $1.40 if you had left it under the mattress. But there’s good reason to believe that gold and silver could become base metals overnight, faster than any currency crash. Consider the famous wager between population-bomb eco-nut Paul Ehrlich and economist Julian Simon. Values for precious metals dropped across the board, even disregarding inflation. The possibilities for more gold and silver are limitless: sea-mining, space-mining, mining at the core of the earth, and sub-atomic generation are all possibilities. These possibilities are made more possible by our exponentially growing technology.

I don’t know the future of our dollar, but I confidently say that goods and services that the dollar chases are becoming more plentiful everyday. Our future will be wealthy one, regardless of the form in which that wealth manifests itself.

I responded to this:

You may have mentioned that after the government repealed the 1933 act prohibiting monetary gold in the 1970's, in 1983 the government issued a $50 gold "New American Eagle" coin which weighed an ounce. When it came out, gold was at $420 an ounce. Each coin contained $420 worth of gold, yet was by force of law only valued at $50. The difference between the value the gold would receive on the market, as a commodity, and the value of the gold as legal tender, is the difference between a commodity money and a fiat money- the force of law. Such coins are fiat money made more dishonest by a golden sheen.

NORFed/Liberty Dollar, as you say, are not engaged in establishing a commodity currency. By divorcing the concept of a commodity money from "transferable currency," they are advocating the impossible: the exchange of metals for other than their market value by voluntary cooperation.

Those who advocate commodity money do not claim that it is a stable store of value- for they do not claim there is any such thing as a "stable price." What they do claim is that whereas a commodity currency alters its values according to the voluntary decisions of individuals, a fiat currency alters its values according to coercion and the interaction of this coercion with the fact that artificially overvalued currency will be driven out by artificially undervalued currency. The production of gold or whatever commodity is chosen by the vast majority of individuals, is determined by their scale of values, and "sub-atomic" gold production, like all other means of producing, will be determined by their weighing of costs and benefits as is only possible by means of a monetary economy. In other words, for the same reason we can produce trillions of pairs of shoes if we desire it, yet spend our resources on other ventures because we desire medical care, televisions, etc., and this desire is communicated by means of prices, so is the production of gold dictated by the will of consumers as transferred through price data. In yet other words, the continued production of gold is an entirely different phenomenon than the continued production of fiat money, and is indissolubly linked with all other production, lacking the very features of inflation that mark the production of fiat money.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 16, 2005 00:21 EST | Permalink | comments |
economics, best posts

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Still getting settled back in

My friend lent me a copy of Robert Spencer's "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance," and by this time in two weeks I will be working as the Shabbos goy for his company.

I got a shitload of German/Dutch/whatever linkspam mails over the weekend. "Multikultural=multi-krimenal," with a link to the NPD. Anti-semitic  foreign emails?

Now that I'm back, I plan on re-reading all my books over the summer, including the entire study guide section at the Mises Institute.

I am sick of the pseudo-mathematic voodoo nonsense that is passed off as economics, and am looking to enter Aurbury University in Alabama, George Mason University, or another free market economics department. How I long to be formally studying laissez-faire, rather than on my spare time between spurious neo-mercantalist hogwash.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 15, 2005 23:21 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
boredomblogging

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Back home

Among my loyal horde of cats and dogs (and Jinx the Schizophrenic Slasher). Catblogging will occur shortly. 

Passing through Binghamton, I noticed that someone had spraypainted "Geraldo Rivera" on a building a couple times.

Update 4:53 am: I love the sound of crickets. Listening to Robert Johnson and the crickets outside with Bongo the Vicious curled up on my lap.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 14, 2005 16:32 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
hick life, scruffy college student life

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Pooklekufr Pasta of Death

I raided the kitchen for one last meal before going back home, and used whatever I found that wasn't outright deadly in making this dish.

Ingredients:

• 3 packs of chicken flavored ramen soup
• The last couple splashes of Worcestershire sauce
• A pat of rancid butter
• 3 soy sauce packets, aged for flavor
• 3 packets of Chinese takeout mustard

Directions:

1. Get three coffee mugs full of water boiling.

2. Add the soy sauce to the water, then add the ramen soup sans flavoring.

3.  Boil for four minutes, drain.

4.  Squirt the mustard into a bowl. Pour in one packet of flavoring and mix.

5. Dump half the pasta in, then put the butter in. Put the rest of the pasta in and mix it around.

5. Splash some worcestershire sauce on top, and eat.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 13, 2005 23:57 EST | Permalink | comments (4) |

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Last minute...

Ok, I've got the following:

Carry-on

• 1 bookbag stuffed full
• lapttop case stuffed full of my laptop and more books
• 1 bag full of cds
• Guitar
• Amp

Stowage:

• 1 bin full of books, my coffee-maker, can-opener, bags of coffee, lamp, and my blanket
• 1 bag full of clothes, my sheets, my pillow, and my coffee-grinder

I'm leaving behind:

• printer
• frying pan
• plate
• my silverware ( two forks, spoon, and knife)
• the rest of my sugar
• a 12-pack of Ramen soup packets
• Jim Roger's "The Adventure Capitalist"
• a psychology book I found somewhere

Listening to Elaine Elias singing "One Note Samba," and trying to get everything ready.  My flat-mate went out, so I have to clean up the apartment. I've already found little stashes of rotten buffalo wing remains. 

I have to get the apartment cleaned, both papers (still unfinished!) finished, everything packed fully, before 7:30 am.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 13, 2005 22:57 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
scruffy college student life, boredomblogging

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Sound familiar?

Look at how much the Communists have  achieved in their agenda in the last 40 years.

Now think about how little the libertarians have achieved (hat tip: Free Republic and LGF's Ed Mahmoud)

Communist Goals (1963)

Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35

January 10, 1963

Current Communist Goals

EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Thursday, January 10, 1963

 

Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:

[From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen]

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.

Update: "Oh, anti-commie agitprop!" you say.

Four words: Alger. Hiss. Venona. Papers.

Booga booga!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 13, 2005 09:23 EST | Permalink | comments |
politics, economics, philosophy, disguised tyranny

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Friday llamablogging

You know you want it.



Oh yeah.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 13, 2005 08:32 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
humor, blogging

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The Huffington Post takes after NAMBLA

The Huffington Post pseudo-blog has been up for less than a week and one of its columnists has already given advice on how to lure children by constructing a fake ice-cream truck.

This snarky how-to guide for pedophiles includes advice like:

Get some steel. I'm referring, cutely, to a one piece dipping cabinet for the ice cream. But let's be blunt - it's really not about having ice cream - it's about the APPEARANCE of having ice cream. I suggest the 300 series - it's got a stainless steel exterior and all the corners are welded. It should come with a forced-air condensing unit. Most important: you'll want a wide interior - about 28 cubic ft. This is key, in case you get stopped by anybody. You'll need to point to the cabinet and say, "I sell ice cream."

.
.
.

So you've got the wheels, the decals, the dipping cabinet, the music, and the power. So what's left?

A mattress.
I suggest the aero mattress Topper. It's an air-filled adjustable sleep system with 100 percent cotton sleep surface.

Who the fuck does this snarking motherfucker think he is, the ACLU's darling NAMBLA?

This is the divide between the sane and the liberal. If this guy tried to pull this shit in any town in America outside of Massachusetts, he'd get his ass handed to him on a plate and his testicles served to the nearest dog. Only in the Blue fringe could this pass for witty humor. 

And guess what? No comments. This bastard can snark some advice for how anyone can violate as many children as an average UN peacekeeper, and he doesn't have to face the virtual wrath of pissed off parents.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 12, 2005 23:52 EST | Permalink | comments (5) |
discoveries, hateblogging

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Oy

My mom called.

The house is even worse than when I left, and the landlord is still refusing to repair the plumbing or foundation. It is ironic- I am the college student, and I'm the one who's supposed to be living in squalor.

The floor has finally stopped flooding, but it is now a disgusting mass of sludge, decaying wood, and broken tiles. The bathroom still doesn't work, so she's been taking "showers" in the kitchen sink, which now won't hook up to the washing machine, so she has to wash her clothes and bleach her uniforms by hand. She's also out of propane- my mom and sister have been eating pretty much nothing but microwaved Ramen noodles for three weeks, and have no hot water.

I've got half my bin full of books, and should be able to fit my lamp, alarm-clock, and bookbag into it. I'll then have my guitar, amp, laptop case, bag of clothes, and bag full of cds. I'll have to leave behind my frying pan and plate and maybe more. I don't know if I'll be able to bring my espresso maker. I most likely won't have room for my last case of Ramen noodles. I will bring my coffee even if I have to duct-tape the bags to my torso.

I'll have the following to bring:

Carry ons:

• Laptop case
• Guitar and amp
• bag of cds

Stowage:

• bin of books
• bag of clothes

Hopefully I'll be able to break Greyhound's "two carry-on" rule with four items. Otherwise I might have to leave behind my guitar and amp.

Update: Forgot about my printer. Definitely won't be able to bring it back with me.

Update 2:  I can only bring my blanket and sheets in the bin. I'll have to leave behind my lamp and espresso maker, and try to carry on my  bookbag.

Update 3:  The only things I am DEFINITELY going to bring back are my books and my laptop.  I'm going to try to bring all of it, because I may be lucky and get it all on. But on either of the two transfers I may either be forced to drop something, or forget something.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 12, 2005 20:25 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
hick life, scruffy college student life

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Serendipity

 A while ago I argued that the threat of Islamofascism carries with it the threat of nations adopting secular fascism in response to it.

Via Fjordman, I found a Faith Freedom post by Wolfgang Bruno on just that:

Some Americans have a stereotypical view of Europeans as being appeasers. There is definitely an appeasement instinct in Europe, but it is first and foremost a continent of extremes, sometimes changing in rapid succession. The pendulum will swing back. Europe right now has all the ingredients needed for the rise of something akin to a new Nazi movement. It is an extremely dangerous mix of suppressed nationalism, high unemployment and failed economies, democratic detachment and a widespread sense of being betrayed by the ruling elites. Tens of millions of immigrants pour into Europe, changing the face of the continent forever without any real debate about the issue. People feel like strangers in their own cities, but are being silenced as "racists" if they object to this. There is a widespread feeling that Europe is descending into chaos, and that the governments are unwilling or incapable of stopping this. If this situation continues, some people will cry out for a Strong Man to “cleanse Europe of foreigners" and restore its honour and wounded pride. And He will step forward. There is never any shortage of self-proclaimed Strong Men once you call for them. By then, you won’t have a “Clash of Civilizations” in Europe, but rather a Clash of Fascisms: Euro-Fascism vs. Islamo-Fascism.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 12, 2005 16:06 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
politics, islamomisia, predictions

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One day left in the semester!

 Agh. Must return library books today and frantically write the rest of the essay by 8:00 tonight.

I've also got to start packing up. I'm going back home via Greyhound, and have to be able to put all my possessions in two carry-on bags and two slightly bigger bags.

Update: Now I'm even less sure I'll be able to pack all my stuff. I don't want to have to leave anything behind. Considering that the only thing I could leave behind are my books, I'm going to cram everything as packed as possible. My Musicmatch software also died on me, and now I can only play cds through Windows' player.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 12, 2005 14:05 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
scruffy college student life

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Wrong, I tell you!

This is just wrong.

Rovian sex fantasies. Hundreds of them. For years. (Hat tip: Ferdy)

"Poor little Democrat girl. Well, this should warm you up. It's been in my pocket, next to Rovey's big, warm body for hours now." With that, he reaches into an inner pocket of his grease-stained trench coat, pulls out a crumpled paper sack and removes a foil packet. My back arches involuntarily as he rips the gleaming edge open with his yellowed teeth, and he…he…squeezes the body-warmed fast-food mayonnaise into the well of my navel. He plunges again into the bag, extracts a tepid chicken nugget, grips it gently with his mouth and slowly…oh so torturously slowly dips the breaded lump into the creamy condiment and then..ahhh…ahhh…between my famished lips. I savor and I swallow and he repeats this ecstatic oral ballet again and again until all half-dozen have been consumed. I lay back on the desk, satisfied for the moment until…no! It can't be! My Rovey is heading for the office door! I spring from the desk and cling to him, mashing my mayonnaise and crumb-slathered torso against the expanse of his hindquarters, and plead, "Mr. Rove, Mr. Rove, you can't just…feed me and leave like this! Have I done something that displeases you? Don't you still want me to…take your poll?"

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 11, 2005 22:59 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
humor

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Ah, Finals II

I've got alot more finagling and wiggling to do with the financial section of my business proposal, due at 9:00 tonight.

I am sleep deprived and coffee-soaked. I now have the ability curse blessing superpower to scare Jack Kerouac and Spiro Agnew into chiding me for surreal panda juxtapositions. Example: right off the top of my head I can now form the statement, "The electric midnight cheese flowered in the backyard llama circus." 

I have no finals tomorrow, and will spend all day studiously writing, reviewing Cicero for a Latin final on Friday, and avoiding the trashcan toss game like the damned plague.

Update 9:21 pm: Still not done. The absolute deadline is midnight, but I wanted to be able to send it in early. 

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 11, 2005 17:20 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
scruffy college student life

Comments open but moderated. I reserve permission to kill spammers on sight.

Woo hoo! My first obligatory spam post *updated!*

I got spam! Now, I'm no fancy pants like Two Dogs, so I'll just post it with some brief notes.

FROM THE DESK OF MR. PAUL HENRY SAMSON.
BILL AND EXCHANGE UNIT
BANK OF AFRICA COTONOU BENIN REPUBLIC
(B.O.A)
Dear Sir,

URGENT ASSISTANCE IN TRANSACTION

I am the manager at the bill and exchange department bank of african(B.O.A)here in COTONOU BENIN REPUBLIC.

We discovered an abandoned sum of US$10.5 dollars ( ten point five million USdollars) [Woah, $10.50's good enough for me, pal!] in an account that belonging to one of our foreign customer.Who died along with his entire family in Monday,31 July, 2000 in a plane crash in paris [damn Parisians!].

You can visit this site bellow [I WILL! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!]that is one of the evidence the directors brought in office http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm

Since we got information about his death, we have beenm expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless some body applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidlings and laws but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.

It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we don't want this money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill.

The banking law and guidline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after five years, the money will be transfered into the bank treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occassioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Benonise cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner.

I agree that 30% of this money will be for you as a respect to the provision of a foriegn account ,10%will be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and 60% would befor me Thereafter, I will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentage indicated Therefore, to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your desiggnited bank account ,you must apply first to the bank as a relation or next of kin of the deceased with a text of application that i will send to you,so i will like you to send to me your privatetelephone and faxnumber for easy and effective communication and location where in the money will be remitted.

Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of the application . I will not fail to bring to your notice this transaction is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer [What about laughing my ass off at you and anyone stupid enough to fall for this scam?]. You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter.Trusting to hear from you immediately.

Yours Faithfully,
MR.Paul Henry SAMSON.(b.o.a)

Update:

Here is my response to him:

I will have to discuss your proposal, which interests me very much,
with my business partner Dr. Logan McFluffles.

I wonder what I'll do with the $10.50. I may spend it all on some
coffee. Dr. McFluffles says he'll spend it all on booze and whores.

I do not have a telephone or a fax. You can contact me through my
website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com just leave a comment and I'll
contact you.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I am grateful for such
honest people as you.

 He responded! Even less articulate than his introduction! You can see he's practically shitting himself with excitement!

Dear Sir,

Thanks for prompt response to my business proposal I have gone through your website very beautiful [Huffy's got a fan!] please my dear [Woah woah! Only two people are allowed to call me dear, bub] i am not too known in computer operating ok I will be sending mails to your email address ok.

soon as i hear from you i will send to you a specimen of application form which you will send to my bank for the transfer of the fund direct to any of your given account.

please keep this busdiness wetin you alone.The desease account owner of this fund died in plane crash with his family and there is no relative of person who knows about this money that is why i contacted you to stans as the next of kin to claim this fund with the hole informations about the late account owner which i shall send to you as we move futher [Practically drooling at his spammy little mouth].

soon as my bank transfer this fund to any of your given account i will come over vto your country for the sharing of the fund and immediate invest of the fund to any business that you may advice to invest on.

I will be expecting your urgent reply for more details.

Best Regard to your family. MR PAUL HENRY.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 11, 2005 08:39 EST | Permalink | comments (7) |
humor, discoveries

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 Libertarian ferrets!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 11, 2005 01:33 EST | Permalink | comments |
discoveries, libertarianism

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The comments at Huffy's pseudo-blog

Are a bit... sane.

Take for example, this thread on Zimbabwe's re-election to the UN Human Rights Commission, to join other illustrious defenders of freedom like the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and Qatar.

Not at all a surprise...especially considering the other members of the Human Rights Commission. Posted by: Jamie at May 10, 2005 08:11 PM

The esteemed UN is in the midst of investigations into the largest money scam in history, a scandal involving sex and rape and they are led by the most corrupt man on the international stage now that Arafat has died. What the hell do you expect? Posted by: Scott at May 10, 2005 08:19 PM

What is the use of a UN Human Rights Commission to direct humanitarian missions as well as protect global citizens from tyrannical governments if the members themselves are from dictatorial authoritarian regimes??? The UN, with all its power and glory needs reformation. And the bureucratic inertia should not prevent the global organization from making amends for the better. One suggestion is sanctioning certain nations from such a commission. Isn't that just common sense? Posted by: Kevin Kumala at May 10, 2005 11:07 PM

Is it possible to invade the UN? They a country? Damn. Why are we still a part of the UN??? Not as if they truly accomplish much. Scandle after scandle shows that they are corrupt. We need to send in Arnold, not as governer but as Terminator and take em all out. Posted by: Thomas Phillips at May 10, 2005 11:18 PM

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 11, 2005 00:40 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
discoveries

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A blogosphere debate II

I emailed Dr. Milstead my idea, and he is interested. 

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 10, 2005 22:00 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
libertarianism

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Agitated Mental Patients For Unselfish Reparations!

The People's Cube group name picker. Genius. Create a name for a progressive movement/slogan.

Unemployed Aliens For Easy Children
Utopian Lawyers For Systematic Whatever
Starving Toddlers For Systematic Apology
Unemployed Mental Patients For Socialized Sex
Angry Housewives For Equitable Civilization
Disabled Muslims For Lower Aid
Progressive Dolphins For Human Humanity
Socialist Mental Patients For Systematic America
Poor Hippies For Non-Violent Welfare
Drugged Bush-haters For Spontaneous Drugs
Desperate Sex Workers For Vegetarian Rainforest

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 10, 2005 20:15 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
humor, discoveries

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A blogosphere debate

I had an idea at about 4:00 in the morning.

The Libertarian party platform states that "our goal is nothing more nor less than a world set free in our lifetime, and it is to this end that we take these stands."

Yet it has emphatically not achieved the rudiments of its goal. It has, rather than creating a politically viable position for limited government, run with a promise of a sudden revolution of public thought. It has laid its money on the hope that there will be a "revolutionary awakening," mirroring that of the Bolshevik revolution, yet embracing freedom instead. Rather than offering politically viable measures which will incrementally reduce government and persuade the public of the benefits of freedom, it has erected a political party whose policies are unmatched by arguments adequate to counter the short-run immediate results of reducing government intervention.

As Tim West said, "The old LP is, politically, a walking corpse that does not yet know it is dead."

Dr. Milsted of the Libertarian Reform Caucus is engaged in turning the Libertarian Party into an actual political party concerned with implementing policies, not with promising a "libertarian revolution."  He seeks to transform the self-enclosed pseudo-political party into a party which will garner votes and actually be able to implement limited government policies. Another organization doing this is the Neolibertarian Network.

I want to start a blogosphere debate on each of the planks of the Libertarian Party, each plank subjected to scrutiny from a political angle. Unless a plank can be transformed to be a viable political alternative to the current situation, and dependant on voters accepting it and not a miraculuous change of public conscience, it is an impediment to the rest of the measures and a burden for anyone who campaigns for limited government. The blogosphere is the perfect tool for honing arguments, and could accomplish quickly what Dr. Milsted is attempting through a limited medium.

Note: I am not registered in any party.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 10, 2005 16:26 EST | Permalink | comments (8) |
libertarianism

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One final down

Got back from the Roman History exam a while ago.

I, like an idiot, put down that Theodosius rejected the Nicene Creed, that the imperium galliarum was crushed by someone other than Aurelian, and a host of other mistakes.

 *Smacks self upside the head*

The essay part was interesting. I had to describe the obstacles to and the methods of the Augustan Principate and the Diocletian Tetrarchy. The problem both shared was the maintainence of internal order while at the same time defending the expanded borders. The methods differed: the Augustan Principate tried to alter the incentives of potential usurpers so that they would seek power by joining the government rather than opposing it. The Diocletian Tetrarchy, in contrast, regimented all of society to quell the disastrous effects of the hyperinflationary economy produced by previous emperors attempting to appease the military by debasement and increased taxation. Where the former attempted to change only the incentives of potential rebels, the latter attempted to change the nature of man himself, and erected the system of guild socialism known as feudalism which would solidify and stagnate Europe for a millenium.

I spent two pages describing the structure of government of the Augustan Principate, then five pages describing the effects of the increasing burden placed on society by an increasingly inefficient military during the Crisis of the Third Century, and the futility of Diocletian's intervention.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 10, 2005 15:42 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
economics, scruffy college student life

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A real hench-hamster!

I found a hench-hamster! A real hench-hamster!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 10, 2005 00:18 EST | Permalink | comments (6) |
humor

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Interesting

 According to Nedstat:

• Most of my visitors live in Pasadena.
• Most of them use the California Institute of Technology provider.
• I have more visitors from Uruguay than the UK.
• 37.2 percent of you use IE 6.x, while over 40 percent use Mozilla or Firefox.
• 70.9 percent of you have screen resolutions of 1024x768.
• 79.3 percent are using True Colour
• 45.7 percent of you are naked.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 09, 2005 21:30 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
blogging

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Notice the poll

That is all.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 09, 2005 20:53 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, blogging

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More search engine fun

I got  a hit from an MSN search for learn about evil hamsters. I'm ranked #2!

I got another MSN search hit for da danger having hamster pet. #1, baby!

I got an MSN search hit for gay guys giving hamster blowjobs. #1! (Maybe I shouldn't brag about that...)

I got a Google search hit for "Sam Kinnison." Second page.

Another Google search hit for Sam Kinnison giving hamsters blowjobs. #1!

I got an MSN search hit for stink man. #10. A hit called Ferret Stink beat me.

I got an MSN search for watch Blind Melon videos. Way down. How desperate was this guy for their videos?!

Last but not least, I am #1 in an MSN search for hench hamster.

Update: Also #1 in a Google search for moist gay penguin video.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 09, 2005 20:21 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, discoveries

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PC Little Red Riding Person

A PC Little Red Riding Hood. With copious violence!

"You know, my dear, it isn't safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone." Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop an alternative and yet entirely valid worldview. Now, if you'll excuse me, I would prefer to be on my way."

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 09, 2005 19:43 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, discoveries

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A Glenn Reynolds moment VIII

Nikki Finke at the LA Weekly chewed up Arianna Huffington and spat her out. Heh.

Brutal. Indeed.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 09, 2005 18:51 EST | Permalink | comments |
news, moonbats, evil glenn

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Thirteen books most influential to me

Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek posted a list of the 13 books most influential to him.

I'll try my hand at it.

1. Ludwig von Mises' Human Action. This book is the most thorough defense of capitalism and freedom ever written, and I am blessed to have found it when I still have decades left to study it. 

2. Atlas Shrugged.  The summer I found it, I devoured it, consumed it for weeks. Where Mises elaborates a positive defense of freedom, Ayn Rand elaborates the supplementary normative defense. Both are complementary.

3. Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.

4. Frederic Bastiat's The Law. Breathtakingly beautiful arguments

5. Frederic Bastiat's Economic Harmonies. Ditto.

6. Mises' Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth. The book that killed socialism, destroyed it at its very root.

7.  Mises' Liberalism. This book taught me to be wary of talking across others after the Great Language Perversion.

8. Henry Hazlitt's The Failure of the 'New Economics.' This book is the greatest fisking in history. Hazlitt's dissection of Keynes is what made me forever distrust mainstream economics.

9. Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression. The beautiful elaboration of Austrian theory and the application of it. This book demolishes both the spurious theories attributed the cause of the Great Depression, and the myth that Herbert Hoover was in any way laissez faire.

10.  The Federalist Papers. The framework behind the most perfect document man has created. I have both figuratively and literally used it in arguing over constitutional limits.

11. Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Annointed. A must for anyone who wonders why and how interventionists operate.

12. F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. I came across it, predictably, before I read Mises' Omnipotent Government. It is the seed of the latter book.

13. Mises' essay/speech Middle-of-the-Road Policies Lead to Socialism.  An eloquent application of Austrian reasoning.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 09, 2005 18:11 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
politics, books, economics, philosophy, pooklekufr constitutionalism, libertarianism

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Got back a while ago,

some random stuff:

- Ferdy is the master of the Carnival of the Cats. It takes a cat to do it right.

- Protagonist is also playing Not Pron.  I'm at level 16 now, and as far as I know he got to level 12 before he went to bed.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 09, 2005 13:59 EST | Permalink | comments |
discoveries

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Ah, finals

I'm staying up all night tonight reviewing 6 chapters of calculus for my final tomorrow, working on the rest of my business plan to hand in on Wednesday, and working on an essay on the comparison between the obstacles to and policies of the Augustan Principate and the Diocletion Tetrarchy for the Roman History final on Tuesday.

Loaded up on espresso and Red Bull, I am ready.

Calculus- we got up to three-variable optimization proplems, but only two-variable Lagrange multipliers will show up on the test. My main weakness is the small arithmetical stuff: public schooling has rendered me nearly innumerate. It is a sad thing to be able to perform three-step integration by parts, and lose points due to a stupid error. I'm focusing mostly on the small stuff.

Roman History: this is the most difficult because the period the test will cover is the most interesting. The decline of the Roman Empire into a welfare state suffering from hyperinflation and crime cartels, the collapse of a specialized economy into a feudal hierarchy, the setting of geopolitical trends which still resonate...

Entrepreneurship: My executive summary is close to complete. I will have to work most on figuring out about how much capital it will take in both stages. Luckily, the only important thing about the consulting firm will be the education my colleagues will have. One year of studying Austrian Economics is more valuable than all the computers we could buy. The accumulation of the data is insignificant compared to the amount of time invested in being able to properly interpret that data.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 08, 2005 22:03 EST | Permalink | comments (4) |
scruffy college student life

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Flash motherload!

Flash games for everyone!

I got your Kitten Cannon right here, buddy.  I got your annoying big red button. I got your Siamese Chow Mein right here, bub. Escape from Neverland or Gimp Roulette. Crazy Rabbit? Got that.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 08, 2005 18:46 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, discoveries

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If I were President...

Eddie Willers at Powers Not Delegated posted an outline of what he would do in his first two days as President.

It is an interesting example of the struggle libertarians face: selling freedom, the most frightening good there is. To paraphrase Bastiat, freedom is indeed a scary prospect, otherwise there would not be so much opposition to it. This opposition must be torn down by showing the public the difference between the seen and the unseen. 

Done inadequately, the short-run short-view consequences of freedom can be turned into sophistic arguments against it. Remember that behind every tariff or subsidy there is an industry that will surely collapse under free competition: what will be immediately seen is the suffering of the workers in this artificially bloated industry. What will not be seen is the diversion of its capital to more productive prospects and the increased standard of living for all. What will not be seen is the adjustment of prices away from their deviated constellations, which do not necessarily have to be on average higher than what they would have been absent the intervention.

Behind every act of government intervention, there are people who will in fact suffer from the removal of that which allowed them to be inefficient in satisfying the wants of consumers. 

What is seen in the short-run will make headlines. It will be the subject of frenetic news series. What will not be seen is the explanation for why an industry artificially propped up so that it could survive in spite of the will of the consumers, would crash down when it is finally exposed to their cumulative decisions.

In short, a culture raised to believe the epistemology of physics also governs human action, will be influenced by this short-run empirical evidence. "Your argument is just theory. While you argue, 20,000 people were laid off in this industry!" What is a libertarian to counter with? He cannot point to past historical data as proof of freedom's benefits in the future for two reasons, one abstract, and one prosaic: a) past historical data cannot prove the propositions of economics, and b) every generation claims it is a "new economy," and that the cumulative centuries of data are inapplicable. The former is as pointless as proving the laws of kinematics by tracing the path of a pebble in an avalanche; the latter is as pointless as arguing with a child about why "my friends have it!" is not a valid argument. Both are inadequate counters to the short-run short-view effects of removing government intervention.

The way to counter is not by pointing to past historical data. No matter how persuasive the contrast between America and the rest of the world is, or between South Korea and North Korea, this data is the result of a society conforming or not conforming to the implacable laws of economics. The only way to justify the propositions of freedom is to base them in a cohesive theory of human action, to show that a given act of intervention will by its nature produce effects which are as certain as mathematical truths.

This is the only sure way of arguing freedom. It is also the most cumbersome way. Half the time it will sound like unneeded redundancy, and the other half of the time it will sound like abstract theory. It is both: a theory based on the most irrefutable facts of man's nature, and extending to as much complexity as one can encompass.

Now, back to Eddie's list of actions. Read them, and think about the immediately observable results of his actions. Think about the principles behind them. Does he lay out an adequate case for them beyond the immediate negative consequences they will inevitably bear for certain people? If not, if it appears he is "surrendering security for liberty," as if such a thing is not a contradiction in terms, then his propositions will fail. They will repel a populace which has been raised on a spurious positivism, and reinforced in this positivism by an intellectual movement dedicated for decades to the rejection of principles and truth.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 08, 2005 15:10 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
libertarianism, best posts

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This Mother's Day post will make you cry. (via basil)

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 08, 2005 12:48 EST | Permalink | comments |
discoveries

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No feast

The shuttle to the store was cancelled today. No ginormous list of food. No feast.

Update: Going to a corner store about a block away to get soda and possibly real food.

Update 2: Got 2 2-liters of Pepsi, 3 cans of Red Bull, 4 Jolt "cherry bombs," a Sobe, some beef jerky, and some Tabasco sauce. Not quite what I was hoping to be able to get today, but better than Ramen.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 08, 2005 12:23 EST | Permalink | comments |
scruffy college student life

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A puzzle that will chew you up

I found this web game via Dodgeblogium through the Neolibertarian Network. It will seriously screw with you. As he says, "it's not your standard point and click."

It is said to be the toughest puzzle on the net. I made it to level four, of 123.

Update: level 5 now. I love this game!

update 2 12:30 pm: level 6 now!

Update 3 1:07 pm: level 7 now!

Update 4 6:38 pm: level 8 now!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 08, 2005 09:51 EST | Permalink | comments (10) |
discoveries

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The People's Glossary

Absolutely hilarious. If you haven't checked out the People's Cube (formerly Communists for Kerry), you are a Bulgarian. Here are some selections from their People's Glossary:

Hitler

Hitler is an important ideological weapon helping us win just about any argument with right-wingers. As such he must be viewed as pure evil at all times. This, of course, creates a philosophical paradox: it is common knowledge that morality is relative and there is no such thing as absolute good and evil. The answer is that Hitler is a necessary exception. If he didn't exist he'd have to be invented. What makes him so evil? It doesn't matter. He's evil, period. You needn't know unless you are an advanced student of the progressive theory. If you are, then you must know that Hitler was also building socialism, only it was for Arians only (National Socialism), in which minorities would slave for the White man. We the progressives want quite the opposite. Hitler's idea of uncompensated labor for The Greater Good™ (labor camps) was very different from our idea of uncompensated labor for The Greater Good™ (labor camps). That's where it gets tricky and any further discussions should only be allowed to Party-approved professors of progressive science.

Abortion

(see Choice). After the revolution all pro-choice debates, focus groups, and parental notifications will become obsolete. The only notification a woman will need is that of the local Commissar who will perform the abortion himself based on visual assessment. The expected post-revolutionary drop in labor productivity will call for more strong and healthy workers and peasants. To fight off enemies of the socialist Motherland the Party will need more strong soldiers in the Red Army. Breeding workers and soldiers will no longer be a choice but a grave responsibility of every female citizen. Commissar's decision will be based on the prospective mother's strong built and good proletarian stock. If the above conditions are met, abortion will be denied and violators thereof will be punished by various terms of corrective hard labor. For sickly individuals, substance abusers, and bourgeois offshoots abortions will be mandatory. It will be required of the Commissar to experience pleasure while extracting such uselessness from the ranks of future citizens of our caring society, and to submit the fetal matter to the nearest stem cell recycling center.

The Greater Good™

A metaphysical concept designating anything that undercuts capitalism and the frivolous American way of life, and/or promotes the new, progressive mode of being. Any action taken with altruistic intentions in mind, regardless of its practical result or purpose, or of the misery that it may produce, is considered a contribution to The Greater Good™. In various contexts may denote an opposite of capitalism, a euphemism for Communism, or an atheistic alternative to God. Also known as "Common Good." E.g. "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the Common Good." (Hillary Clinton) The masses invariably find this expression quite analgesic and convincing. Use liberally while enforcing wealth redistribution schemes.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 08, 2005 07:43 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
humor

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Happy Mother's Day!

G-d bless the mothers.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 07, 2005 20:02 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
discoveries, beauty

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2008, baby

For those of you who know me and my political beliefs, it will be no surprise for you to know who I will vote for in 2008 if Condi doesn't run. These guys are a strong libertarian alternative. Anything is better than Hillary.

I cast my vote in 2008 for the libertarian hamsters Diddley Squat and Bupkes (if Condi doesn't run).

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 07, 2005 16:00 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
politics, humor

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moehawk awareness day

Are you aware of moehawk?

Do you laugh at his headlines?

Do you bear his child? Then go over to his page!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 07, 2005 05:41 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |

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Search engine fun

I found I got a hit from an MSN Search for teenager pussy. I've got to be way, way, way, down in the rankings. How horny was this guy? That Persian shaving/bonsai kitten post is working like a charm. Soon my site will be the the last refuge of the hopelessly perverted.

Bwahahaha!

I got another hit from an MSN search for demented hamsters.  I'm ranked #8, but it picked up on the random quote code. Ranked right above me is a recipe page for a drink called the Purple Tropical Space Hamster.

I got another MSN search hit for hamster tricks. Way, way, way far down on that too. Not only will my site become a haven for the hopelessly horny, but also for the hamster obsessed multitudes!

I got another hit from an MSN search for alien fast motor. #5 on that.

I got another MSN search hit for Babaganoosh history. I'm ranked #4 on that.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 07, 2005 04:19 EST | Permalink | comments (4) |
blogging, discoveries

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In which I blatantly steal Jeff Goldstein's thunder in an anachronistic mock conversation between Noam Chomsky and Sam Kinnison

Noam Chomsky: What's happening [in Afghanistan in late 2001] is some sort of silent genocide...we [the U.S.] are in the midst of apparently trying to murder 3 or 4 million people.

Sam Kinnison: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! YOU SELF-HATING JIHADI-SUPPORTING ANTI-AMERICAN ANTI-SEMITIC NAZI-GLORIFYING INCOHERENT SCUMBAG! WHAT FUCKING SHROOMS DO YOU HAVE TO EAT TO COME UP WITH THAT KIND OF BULLSHIT?!! I DARE YOU TO SAY SOMETHING MORE DERANGED! THROW YOUR WORST SHIT AT ME, YOU CUNNILINGUIST COMMIE FUCK!

Chomsky: What’s called the left includes Leninism [i.e., Communism], which I consider ultra-right in many respects…. Leninism has nothing to do with the values of the left – in fact, it’s radically opposed to them.

Kinnison: GACK! MY FUCKING HEART! [clutches chest, keels over]

Chomsky: There’s a famous definition in the Gospels of the hypocrite, and the hypocrite is the person who refuses to apply to himself the standards he applies to others. By that standard, the entire commentary and discussion of the so-called War on Terror is pure hypocrisy, virtually without exception. Can anybody understand that? No, they can’t understand it.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 07, 2005 00:19 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
humor, moonbats, best posts

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Woo hoo! I could survive a zombie attack!

(hat tip: Manic Viking)

Official Survivor Congratulations! You scored 73%!

Whether through ferocity or quickness, you made it out. You made the right choice most of the time, but you probably screwed up somewhere. Nobody's perfect, at least you're alive.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 40% on survivalpoints

Link: The Zombie Scenario Survivor Test written by ci8db4uok on Ok Cupid

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 06, 2005 22:01 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
memery

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Economic order

Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek is trying to determine the appropriate language in which to speak of the order of a market economy.

He writes: 

When we talk about spontaneous order, the adjective is trying to capture the fact that no one is in charge, controlling the economic system—the order we see around us is spontaneous, organic, emergent, rather than controlled, directed or managed.

I've never liked the word spontaneous in that context.  It captures the unplanned aspect but there's an implication of suddenness and out of-the-blue that seems misleading.  Emergent order is a little better.  Hayek complains in the Fatal Conceit and elsewhere about our language not having phrases and words for things that are not directed or planned.

But I've been thinking lately about a different sense of the word spontaneous.  It's the ability of the modern economy to deal with our spontaneity as economic actors.  (Notice how that sentence suggests the economy is doing something consciously to cope with our spontaneity.  Try and reword it to get rid of that implied management.  How about this: It's how order re-emerges in the face of our spontaneity as economic actors.  Better.) 

Teleology permeates the language of economics for the simple reason that economics is concerned with human action. Human action is by nature both teleological and causal, and could not exist without either. Man acts to achieve ends, and believes that his action can bring about those results.

Economics must be constantly grounded in the individual decisions of men and the interaction of these decisions with a finite world in which all values must be achieved by labor. It must at all times be remembered that all praxeological phenomena concern humans, and that by their nature humans are teleological.

The problem Roberts and others face, is that the economy is in fact "controlled, directed or managed." It is not spontaneous. It is the product of the individual decisions of all economic actors, who all act to achieve their varied ends according to both telelology and causality. The sphere of economics is therefore bounded by both the decisions of individuals, and the interaction of those decisions with physical laws. It is not controlled in the sense of one person or a few enacting their plans- it is controlled in the sense that all individuals within it are acting on their plans. Given that it is literally impossible for one or a few individuals to make rational decisions for all actors in an economy, it is a contradiction to even speak of a "centralized plan" versus the plans of all the individuals who make up an economy.

The order arising out of this interaction is therefore of two forms: the a priori order that arises from the nature of the interaction, and the specific historical data. The a priori order is that which allows an economist to state with apodictic certainty that an expansion of the money supply will produce malinvestment. The specific historical order is the accumulated experience of centuries of such expansions within given historical settings.

I'll expand on this later.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 06, 2005 21:22 EST | Permalink | comments |
economics, philosophy

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Wow

Wow.

This blog is the most bizarre thing online I have ever seen, short of Glenn Reynolds' heaving and moist gay penguin videos. (hat tip: Patterico)

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 06, 2005 18:30 EST | Permalink | comments |

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Ogre started another meme.

Ogre redesigns his site every month.

In this month's change, he inspired me to change my own page.  Others have as well.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 06, 2005 17:47 EST | Permalink | comments |
blogging, memery

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It is a beautiful day out!

It may be the blossoms or the booze, but people are spontaneously yipping like aroused llamas.

I'm off to read some Rothbard on the stoop.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 06, 2005 11:27 EST | Permalink | comments |
scruffy college student life

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Travis Benning's banners

Travis Benning made some graphics for me, and let me use them for free. He made the twin blog hench-hamsters and the fluffy cat banners.

Go to his site and check out his web designing business.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 05, 2005 23:32 EST | Permalink | comments (7) |
blogging

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Drunken moonbats

My flat-mate brought a massive amount of beer- about five cases that look like they hold 20 cans each, and is now throwing some kind of drunken Finals party.

What's worse than a roomful of drunken college students? A roomful of drunken liberal college students. What's worse than a roomful of drunken moonbat college students? A roomful of drunken moonbat college students barging into my room.

Update: My room shares a wall with the bathroom. Now they've packed themselves in there and are singing. Damn hippies.

Update 2 12:05 am: Now they're talking about Rambo, fleece, and metaphysics.

Update 3 12:15 am: Conversation's shifted to blowjobs and Canada. Damn hippies.

Update 4 12:47 am: Now the guys (I think four) are talking about sports, and the girls (probably three) are doing their damnedest to go along.

Update 5 1:51 am:  I think there are twice as many people. At least two have been in the bathroom for an hour.

Update 6 2:06 am: Aha. They were smoking cigars out of the bathroom window. One of the guys had shaved off an eyebrow.

Update 7 days later: I misspelled frickin' beer!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 05, 2005 21:33 EST | Permalink | comments (7) |
hateblogging, scruffy college student life

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In which I blatantly steal Jeff Goldstein's thunder in a mock conversation between Che Guevara and Ajai Raj

Warning: Filthy language

Che: Many will call me an adventurer - and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.

Ajai: You SmirkyMcBushchimphalliburtonson apologist! Motherfucka don't know how to be revolutionary, be-yatch. 

Che: The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

Ajai: Fuck you, Karl Rove. I know a theocon when I see one.

Che:

Ajai: Quiet like your gay father last night, bitch. Had his mouth fuller than a muthafucka!

Che: Silence is argument carried out by other means.

Ajai: Fuck this. I don't have to argue with a regressive rightist theo-con neanderthal like you.

Che: Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!

Ajai: Please don't hurt me!

Update: Does this make me look fat?

 Read it

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 05, 2005 18:01 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor

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I'm 87% Republican, 99% asshole, and 5% hippie

I am: 87% Republican.

"You listen to a lot of AM talk radio, don't you?"

Are You A Republican?

In your face, ye salty dog!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 05, 2005 16:23 EST | Permalink | comments |
memery

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He's back!

Iowahawk's back!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 05, 2005 14:17 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor

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What the hell?

All my Photobucket images suddenly stopped working. I checked my account there, only using less than 5% of the space.

I replaced the ones on my mainpage with ones hosted at Imageshack.  Hopefully this is a temporary glitch. At least I started using photobucket after the Crash, so I'll be able to replace the images (if I can find the right ones).

Has anyone else been having problems with this (or Amazon's associates page), or is it just me?

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 05, 2005 13:03 EST | Permalink | comments |
blogging

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Never Forget

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 05, 2005 11:54 EST | Permalink | comments |
news

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"market failure"

If you haven't read Gil Guillory's article today on "market failure," you are an obese and flamboyantly gay gerbil.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 05, 2005 10:27 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, economics, discoveries

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The bill of non-rights

(hat tip: Wicked Thoughts)

Lewis Napper's 1993 Bill of No Rights:

"We, the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt-ridden, deluded, and other liberal bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim that they require a Bill of No Rights."

ARTICLE I:
You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II:
You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone - not just you! You may leave the room, change the channel, or express a different opinion, but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III:
You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV:
You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

ARTICLE V:
You do not have the right to free health care That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI:
You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII:
You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII:
You don't have the right to demand that our children risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your aching conscience [This is an opposition to the immorality of a draft, and I support it. The rest is garbled. I have the right to kill any genocidal dictator I can get close enough to, but no right to force others to help me gut him.- Tom]. We hate oppressive governments and won't lift a finger to stop you from going to fight if you'd like. However, we do not enjoy parenting the entire world and do not want to spend so much of our time battling each and every little tyrant with a military uniform and a funny hat.

ARTICLE IX:
You don't have the right to a job. Sure, all of us want all of you to have one, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE X:
You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to pursue happiness - which, by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an overabundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 05, 2005 09:33 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
humor, discoveries, libertarianism

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Interesting

This should be interesting. I have a test today in Keynesian fallacies. On nothing other than the "stabilization" policies of the Fed. I can feel my inner Rothbard waiting to lash out. He's dying to refuse to answer every question, and instead fill the test full of refutations. He's itching like a tourist who just caught a bout of herpes.

Man, I am eager to rip apart the test.  So much spurious pseudo-mathematics! To paraphrase Vince Vega, "It would be worth it to take a meaningless test, just so I could bash the lousy Keynesians."

Update: I just got back in. I restrained myself to answering the question, "what fiscal and monetary policies would you recommend the government take according to your previous answer," with a short explanation of how these policies degrade man's ability to perform economic calculation, producing repercussions which do not occur when the market naturally and peacefully adjusts itself.

I find again that my grade in that class is partly due to my rejection of the material, and my own errors. Thus, on my last quiz he took 10 points off because I answered a question on suggested Fed policy, by explaining the effects of bank credit expansion and, instead of chasing the rabbit and "calculating" how much the Fed should inflate, suggested the constitutional prohibition of open-market operations. In addition, since I have nothing but scorn for non-existent entities like the "consumption function," my ineptitude at mathematics is exaggerated by my not giving a shit whether my spurious pseudo-mathematics matches the suggested pseudo-mathematics.  

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 05, 2005 05:32 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
economics, scruffy college student life

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Holy shit that's funny

Put down your coffee.

Let go of the guinea pig.

And read Contagion's post.

Update: Ah hell,I'm not paying for the monitor. Go take a big sip of coffee and check this out.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 04, 2005 21:23 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
humor

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Freakonomics

I must buy this book.

The site is also interesting as hell.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 04, 2005 20:48 EST | Permalink | comments |
economics

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A political quiz

Hey! I scored as a radical libertarian on the enhanced precision political quiz.

The answers I chose:

1. Should the size of government spending be reduced over time? [I assumed it meant over the long-run of about 50 years]

2.  Should the FCC regulate the content of broadcast television?


3. Should the government help certain "important" industries using subsidies, quotas, and/or tariffs?


4. Should the government enforce laws regulating sex between consenting adults?

5. Should the Second Amendment stay in force?


6.  Should the war on drugs continue?


7. Should the public schools be privatized?


8.  Is illegal immigration a serious problem?


9. Should the government continue to regulate employment relations in the name of civil rights?


10. Should military service be voluntary, or should there be a draft?


11. Should Social Security be phased out?


Then followed a  list of issues that you have to rank according to their importance to you.

I ranked government spending, subsidies, retirement, immigration, education, guns,  and workplace, as the most important issues. Sex, censorship, and draft were the less important, and I ranked drugs the least important issue.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 04, 2005 18:12 EST | Permalink | comments (5) |
discoveries, libertarianism

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Liberty Dog's banners

Liberty Dog made some excellent banners for me, and gave them to me for free.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 04, 2005 16:01 EST | Permalink | comments |
blogging

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Holocaust Remembrance Day

Holocaust Remembrance day begins this evening.  Read the discussion over at LGF, and follow the links there.

I have a section on my sidebar, "never forget." Go to the sites there.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 04, 2005 15:14 EST | Permalink | comments |
news

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Entrepreneurship presentation

I just came back from my entrepreneurship presentation.

It went well. Out of the ten minutes allocated to me, I spent about six on the epistemological cohesiveness of praxeology, the burden intervention places on entrepreneurs, and the innate impossibility of econometry in discerning those consequences of government intervention which do not admit of measurement.

I made sure I didn't ramble, by making my presentation such that it would be impossible to understand out of context. Each part had to be elaborated.

I don't bother with powerpoints. Only three people were brave enough to ask questions.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 04, 2005 14:56 EST | Permalink | comments |
economics, scruffy college student life

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Hunting for pussy

takes on a whole new meaning.

Update: "The Passion of Bullwinkle"

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 04, 2005 07:42 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, cats

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Glad the espresso is coming along

I'll be spending the next couple hours working with optimization of three-variable functions and Lagrange multipliers, translating a couple of Catullus' whiny-ass poems, and preparing a presentation for my entrepreneurship class.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 04, 2005 05:25 EST | Permalink | comments |
scruffy college student life

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Be a Schizophrenic Gorilla in the TTLB Ecosystem

William Teach over at the Pirate's Cove has instructions on how to tweak your Ecosystem ranking so it appears as thus:

Well, I've got another little trick: random Ecosystem beasts.

Replace your Ecosystem script or manually inserted code with this:

Note: replace all apostrophes in your quotes with the html code for apostrophes. Replace the text with what you want.  Make sure you capitalize to lend authenticity. Also beware that the Bear (pbuh) has said that he'll eventually limit such tricks.

Update: moehawk added a banner to his site. Go check it out, and stay for his headlines.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 03, 2005 21:06 EST | Permalink | comments (6) |
blogging

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Amazing!

I found a site that lets you make your own free banners and buttons: Cooltext. Once you make your own, you just need to save it and upload it onto your own image-hosting server.

I'm trying to get a banner up now. Once I figure out how to align it right, it should be pretty cool.

Update: Voila! Tell me if it loads oddly, or if it looks out of place. I saved 4 backup copies of my template just in case. I also don't know how Imageshack handles such pictures.

Update 2: I can't decide.  I'll stick with this format until tomorrow night, see how I like it.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 03, 2005 19:49 EST | Permalink | comments (4) |
blogging

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As General Patton once said,

"Notice the flag, punk?"

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 03, 2005 18:43 EST | Permalink | comments |
blogging

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A feast!

This is the last actual week of the semester. Next week will be all finals.

I will have $100 on Friday. That's about three times as much as I normally have to spend. I spent a some time making a shopping list of the food I want to get now that I won't have to make it last for three weeks.

Remember that the only solid food I've eaten in weeks were two summer sausages, a half-pound of cheese, some eggs, and a handful of hamentaschen (I don't count the oranges).

Here is my list:

• 4 bags of salt and pepper chips
• 2 2-liters of soda
• a gallon of apple cider
• 3 summer sausages
• 2 lbs cheese
• wasabi peas
• 2 cans of collard greens
• 4 mangoes
• 18 oranges
• a loaf of bread and coldcuts- pound of salami and provolone
• A box of spaghetti
• Some kind of meat.  Must be cheap and microwaveable.

The rest, I'll spend on books.

I don't know how my stomach will handle it. My first day back during Spring break, I ended up vomiting after eating a bagel and some chinese food.  Either way, I'm going to spend the last week here with a full belly.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 03, 2005 15:50 EST | Permalink | comments (7) |
scruffy college student life

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Fun with Lorem Ipsum

I just installed a Lorem Ipsum generator!

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat:

Epsum factorial non deposit quid pro quo hic escorol. Olypian quarrels et gorilla congolium sic ad nauseum. Souvlaki ignitus carborundum e pluribus unum. Defacto lingo est igpay atinlay. Marquee selectus non provisio incongruous feline nolo contendre. Gratuitous octopus niacin, sodium glutimate. Quote meon an estimate et non interruptus stadium.

Funky

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 03, 2005 12:26 EST | Permalink | comments (5) |
blogging

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10 Political metaphors that never made it

Political rhetoric is steeped in metaphor. The most striking ones are the ones that are not only original, but convey the essence of the statement as it could not in more conventional language.

Yet some metaphors never became famous for various reasons. Some used imagery so strange the speaker was exiled to lonely salt deserts. Others have been quietly forgotten to adhere to a mythical image.

Here is a list of the top 10 political metaphors that never quite caught on. (Language warning)

10. "Squeeze the pug-belly of democracy in your hand, hold it against your nose, and snort in the musky fragrance of liberty!" A. Toqueville

9. "Communism is like a fat man trying to squeeze himself into a photo booth with a Thai whore. Someone's gonna get hurt."- F.A. Hayek.

8. "I will gut you and your tea-sipping effete imperial cocksmen with your pug-faced blow-up-love-doll wives. Take a jab, muthafucka." Muhatma Gandhi.

7. "The tentacles of communism are wooing us, sliding their octopus warmth around our penises. Waiting. Waiting to rip our manhoods away!" General Patton

6. "The Americans will never accept communism without first being made drunk on the whiskey of liberalism, laid out on the couch of socialism, and fondled with hands of dialectical materialism." Norman Thomas

5. "I am the fucking squid of the Revolution! Muthafucka." Muhatma Gandhi.

4.  "You dare question the saintly popcorn enlightment of global progressivism? We are all cheese-puffs on the galactic plane, being eaten one at a time by the lusty baboons of corporate greed! Do you not see this?" Jane Christensen

3. "I'll kill each and every last one of you imperial pigs before you get your hand on the mangina of liberty." Thomas Jefferson

2. "Liberty is not a beautiful, smiling woman. She is a dark, mysterious whore who will slice off your balls the moment you piss her off. And you'll deserve it, punk."- Ben Franklin

1. "He stole my 'precious bodily fluids line!' I came up with it! I did! That pinko rat bastard llama-biter! How dare he steal my phrase for the sweet vaginal fragrance of liberty?!"-Barry Goldwater
Read them

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 03, 2005 10:51 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
humor, best posts

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The perfect morning playlist

I developed the perfect playlist for mornings:

At least one of these songs is guaranteed to be flowing through your head at any moment during the day.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 03, 2005 06:09 EST | Permalink | comments (4) |
discoveries, scruffy college student life

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A beautiful fisking

Beth beautifully fisked Mike Whitney's heap of pathetic jihadi-sucking bullshit.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 02, 2005 22:07 EST | Permalink | comments |
moonbats, anti idiotarians

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Latin words for the day *Now with more flogging!*

Damn. I made a post containing thirty or so dirty or funny words in Latin. Then it got gobbled up.

Gemursa. It means a swelling between the toes.

Pytisma. That which has been spitten out.

Aqualiculus. It is composed of "basin," and "ass." Ass-basin. It means belly.

Potus. Drunk.

Verberabilis. Deserving a flogging.

Lorarius. He who flogs, flogger.

Lectisternatior. Arranger of couches.

Veretrum. Private parts.

Degrunire. To grunt hard while lifting a pig.

Praelambare. To lick first.

Lapidare. To rain stones.

Nasutus. Big-nosed, satirical.

Oblimare. It is to cover with mud.

Pergula. School, brothel.

Vermina. Stomach pains. Vermi- worm.

Milvinus. To resemble a kite, rapacious.

Pergraecor. To have a jolly good time.

Triscurria, orum. The playing with one's ass in public while shouting epitaphs at your father-in-law.

Asella is a young jackass.

Silvosus. Woody.

Pultiphagus. Porridge eater.

Deblatare. To blab.

Madidus. Absolutely piss-in-pants drunk off one's ass.

Lunavespertilio is a moonbat.

Lunavespertilio latratans. Barking moonbat.

Ecfutatictis is a sex-weasel.

Mustelasuffacatansnothus. Weasel-choking bastard.

Nothus. Bastard.

Ventriosus. Pot-bellied.

Lactescere is to turn something into milk.

Muliercula. "Woman" plus "asshole." Translated as "wench."

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 02, 2005 21:01 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, trivia

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Hostile Funny IV

Go!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 02, 2005 19:46 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor

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I love Condi!

Have I said how much I love Condi? (hat tip: the Babaganoush)

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 02, 2005 17:39 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, discoveries

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The Demonratbastard Underground

has reached a new low. Disgusting. (hat tip: basil)

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 02, 2005 16:41 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
moonbats, discoveries

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Atlas Consulting

I had a two hour conversation with my entrepreneurship professor today on my proposal for an Austrian Economics entrepreneurial consulting firm.

My business plan is in several stages:

1. Non-profit organization allied with the Mises Institute to extend research into entrepreneurs. Specifically, I wish to develop a model within the coherent framework of Austrian Economics to be able to advise industries and firms the costs they will incur from government interference in different regions. Financing will be through grants, the selling of books, and publishing.

The interpretation of past economic data, within the framework of Austrian economics, will expand the field of the Mises Institute. Within the logical implications of Austrian Economics, the effects of government interference will occur with apodictic certainty. It is a matter of the given historical conditions, in the manner in which they will appear. The existence of inflationary bank credit expansion, will inevitably produce a recession, regardless of whether there exists "inflation" in prices of consumer goods. All that is to be said, is that prices are different than what would prevail without the credit expansion. Empirical models, divorced from the core of economics- human action- cannot quantify this, and could not advise businesses of this invisible quantity. An Austrian model must take this into account, and be able to advise businesses both of the inevitability of the coming recession, and the manner in which the credit expansion is taking place- which will indicate the manner in which the recession will occur. Without this framework, econometric models are blind, ad hoc approximations of economic reasoning and limited in their application to a given historical setting. Austrian economics, in contrast, lays claim to the prediction with absolute certainty, under all variations, the implications of government interference. My idea is to compete with isolated econometric models, with a coherent interpretation of economic data that is founded on universal principles of human action and thus can lay claim to what they cannot: absolute certainty of the outcome, although the manner in which this outcome will appear will vary according to historical conditions which I will aim to interpret correctly.

At this stage, revenue will come from the development of the theory.

2. The sale of tailored consultation to entrepreneurs and firms. First, the consulting firm will focus on a given region- suppose, the East Coast. It will advise firms as to which towns, counties, and states, will be more hospitable environments for their businesses. This can then be expanded until international differences in government regulation are accounted for.

At this stage, revenue can come in from both the theory and the applications. The gestation period between the two stages will be one of different markets. I must first aim to show the Mises Institute the value I will produce, then I must be able to show the value of my proposition to businesses.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 02, 2005 14:36 EST | Permalink | comments (5) |
economics, scruffy college student life

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A Glenn Reynolds Moment VII

Heh.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 02, 2005 08:13 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
humor

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Some gripes

 -I hate the phrase, "at this point in time," when it is spoken by someone who is not referring to an equation. Particularly when it is used as a synonym for "when." Particularly when the person using it is detailing a biography. And even more, when the person uses it over five times per each damned sentence.

-I hate the phrase, "it is a function of," when the person using it is not speaking of mathematics. I must continually clutch at my head and refrain from beating him with my little Barron's mathematical dictionary.

-Ditto with "variable."

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 02, 2005 08:08 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
hateblogging, scruffy college student life

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I act 23!

You Are 23 Years Old

23 Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

Hat tip: Oddybobo the Mean

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 01, 2005 23:06 EST | Permalink | comments (6) |
memery

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Mayday: remember the victims of communism

Mayday blogburst: remember the victims of communism. Via Catallarchy.

Read the essays over there, and spread it.

Particularly this essay and this essay. Remember that the hundred-plus million murders are logical implications of the premises and ideals of socialism. The moment those premises are accepted, murder is inevitable.

Earlier today I posted a link to Mises' arguments on the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 01, 2005 17:05 EST | Permalink | comments |
economics, disguised tyranny

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Noam Chizomsky

Brnnnnnng.

I stepped out of the shower and answered the phone. "Tizzom, I need yo hizzy. One of them pod thugz be outizzling the shizzles," a familiar voice said.

"Which one? Soros? He's got some pretty well trained henchmen. We'll need to bring shotguns to take down those lisping ninjas."

"No, B-to-tha-izzitch. Chizomsky."

"Better bring the napalm as well," I said, and handed the towel over to Herman, my faithful chimpanzee servant.

Three hours later. A mist enshrouded the subway station.  I could hear voices from just behind the turnstile. Snoop didn't show up. I was on my own with nothing but a swiss army knife and a Beretta.

I crept closer and hid behind a pillar.

"Tell me why the U.S. is a fascist dictatorship and you'll get your whiskey, bum. I don't mean to impugn your proletariat desires, of course." I peeked from behind the pillar and saw Noam Chomsky dangling a bottle before a homeless man.

"It goes witout frontin' tizzle wizzle happens in tha US has an enormous impact on tha rest of tha world – n conversely so bow down to the bow wow: what happens in tha rest of tha world cannot fail ta have an impact on tha US, in several ways," the homeless man sputtered. He dangled at the bottle, but Noam pulled it away.

"More!" he yelled.

"First, it sets constraints on whiznat even tha most powerful state can do. And second, it influences tha domestic US component of “the second superpowa,” as tha New York Times ruefully described world public opinion crazy ass nigga tha huge protests before tha Iraq invasion like old skool shit. Those protests wizzle a critically important historizzles event, not only coz of they unprecedented scale, but also coz it was tha first time in hundreds of years of tha history of Europe n its North American offshoots thizzat a war was massively protested even before it was officially launched yeah yeah baby. We may recall, by comparizzles tha war against South Vietnam launched by JFK in 1962, brutal n barbaric frizzay tha outset ya feelin' me?: bomb'n, chemical warfare ta destroy food crops so as ta starve out tha civilian support fo` tha indigenous resistizzles programs ta drive millions of thugz ta virtual concentrizzles camps or urban slums ta eliminate its popular base." 

Noam handed the bottle over and walked off into the dark and windy tunnel.

I came from behind the pillar. The bum had already finished off a quater of the bottle. "Do you know who that was?" I asked.

"Fo sho. Tizzle was chizomsky fo' sheezy. He comes around here every couple weeks n asks me fo` mah opinions in exchange fo` whiskey." The bum curled back into a ball around his bottle and fell into a stupor.

I walked off in the direction Noam had taken. As I turned a corner, I heard behind me a terrified scream, a mechanical whirring, and a gurgling splash. Noam and I had gotten to the bum right before Glenn Reynolds.

I was lost. Black tunnels loomed on all sides. Occasional rats scurried around my feet as I pursued Noam. The rumbles of trains periodically pounded through the darkness, sending echoes roaring across the tiled walls.

I caught a wiff of Aqua Velva and caviar. I was close.

To be continued...

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 01, 2005 16:37 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, moonbats, evil glenn

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The Chernobyl Ninja

I found Chernobyl Ninja via Mich-again on LGF. She motorcycles through the dead-zone of Chernobyl, taking geiger-counter readings and reflecting on the the alien creepiness of the Ghosttown.

Go check out her site.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 01, 2005 13:48 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
discoveries

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Scriptor responds to Say's Law

Scriptor at Historium responded to my invocation of Say's Law:

I said that the improved technology would lead to more unemployment. Well, we had an exchange of a few comments and this is what I have to conclude with. Better technology can lead to more efficient industry, this means that people would look into this industry seeing that it can now be more profitable. They then start to invest in it and so the industry grows because of technology. My conclusion is that technology could mean more investment which would lead to industry expanding quickly. Well, in my example, there was no real investment. In the vilage I talked about there are many things needed to do for the people to survive.

To this I responded:

Investment is not only monetary. Investment occurs wherever an individual spends a portion of his time creating something that will allow him to later satisfy his wants. The creation of a flint chip to make other flint chips, is an investment.

He continued:

The invention and the enlargement of the industry would lead to a demand for skilled workers and ordinary laborers respectively. In an ancient village, this would not be possible. There was not a real labor pool where people can just hire from. Almost everybody was hard at work already at other jobs and since the population was not big and mortality rates would be high, you couldn't rely on drawing from the younger generation to get enough workers. Therefore, only one thing could be done, to use the invention in the first place the skilled workers would be first priority. This would take time to hire and train workers. Therefore most of the effort would be to just use the technology, the size of the industry, in here farming, would stay more or less the same. Even though the invention reduced labor need in one area, it was not enough.

I responded:

You are looking at profits as monetary. Money allows the measurement of the valuation of wants of individuals- it becomes possible to say more than just, "I like A more than B." And it becomes possible to measure the satisfaction of wants through monetary profit. But profit exists even without a monetary system- it just does not admit of economic calculation. All that can be said, is that the actor has made his environment less imperfect.

Now, who would experience this psychic profit? In the short-run, it is the man with the plough. He can now support a larger family, feed them better, bring in more food through barter.

In the slightly longer run, the people with whom he barters will benefit from his innovation: the time he has saved. He has shortened the time it would take them to achieve their goals. Every minute and drop of sweat he has saved, means that much less that they will have to labor for their goals. They are now incrementally farther away from scratching at bare ground with their hands. His innovation has literally given them time.

In the slightly longer run, they will have children, and they will have more children because the man with the plough has been able to liberate enough energy from the earth to support more humans. These children will be incrementally closer to their goals, and push off toward their goals from a point farthered by the man with the plough: the time he has saved has been inherited by them. His effort has made the effort they must expend, less than that which they would have had to expend without his effort. And they will have children unto children, each inheriting the capital accumulated, each inheriting the random minutes their forefathers spared them through their innovations.

Look at yourself now. If you had to make everything you possess now, it would take you centuries. You don't have to spend 20 years building and maintaining mines, foundries, farms, and workrooms, in order to acquire the barest fundamentals of your life. Each innovation has chipped off some more time for you.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 01, 2005 12:27 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
economics, best posts

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Mises on socialism : part of the Mayday Blogburst: remember the victims of communism

The impossibility of economic calculation under socialism.

You want to defend socialism? Nothing can help you. Your arguments are irrelevant.  Your invocations about different methods are tangential. Your objections are useless.  Your attempts to divorce the grisly murders of 170 million humans by socialist regimes from the system of coercion they believed in, is irrelevant.

And my own objections to socialism as a system whereby the most evil men can arise to the top of the apparatus of coercion and turn their nation into an abattoir as they seek to rip and tear their fellow men into their own image, are irrelevant.  My hatred of socialists for their treatment of their fellow men as clay to be molded by bloody force, is irrelevant.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at May 01, 2005 10:42 EST | Permalink | comments (22) |
economics

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