The Man vs. Adam

Some whacky stuff went on at a Philadelphia Pot Protest yesterday (yes, even whackier than normal). Adam Kokesh was there and ended up getting arrested. It appears that fellow organizer, pot activist, and LP candidate Don Dezarn (he gave a speech just before that you can see here at the 5 minute mark) was caught on video trying to hide a joint on Kokesh's person while both were being arrested. So either a.) Dezarn is a government plant and the goal was to get Adam arrested before his big open carry march on Washington or b.) Dezarn had the joint on him and tried to ditch it by putting it on Adam. Either way he's a shitty guy, and we live under a tyrannical police state that has no squabbles with putting human beings into cages for the rest of their lives for having the wrong plant in their pocket.

Watch the video for yourself.

This is What Winning Looks Like

Vice has a brilliant documentary on the impending withdrawal of US/UK troops from Afghanistan and the Afghan police force that will be replacing them. In contrast to the Western high command that describes the situation as "This is what winning looks like", this penetrating documentary from Ben Anderson puts on display the helplessness of the western forces to control/train/influence the pitiful Afghan police force. Americans have been funding and training an inept, corrupt band of thieves, murderers, drug addicts and child molesters that will be toppled over almost immediately after the departure of the westerners.

Watch part 1 below and be sure to watch Part 2 and Part 3 as well!

Central Planning, Price Controls, Credit Expansion = Chinese Ghost Towns

Liberty's Watchdog: Ben Swann

No matter your political persuasion, you have to give credit to Ben Swann at FOX19 in Cincinnati, an independently owned and operated network granting him the freedom to present what he wants to present. The quality and audaciousness of his reports have always been commendable, but it is not an overstatement to say that Ben has done more than any other journalist to expose the scandal involving the IRS targeting Tea Party groups. He first reported on the scandal a year ago, and now that the story is gaining traction, he is diving deeper into the story. The official story was that 2 low level IRS agents in Cincinnati are to blame - Ben has blown up the case to involving at least 5 IRS agents. Read all about his great journalism here.

Awesome Scandal Quote

"Scandal in government is like a pickpocket in a gang rape." says Liberty Maniacs founder and designer, Dan McCall. See his shop here for more!

Trouble in Paradise

What will be left of France if it loses its prestige as a culinary giant?

The raising cost of labor and food are driving many restauranteurs to serve their clients industrially produced frozen food products as opposed to the careful preparation of fresh ingredients that France is famous for.

And this is before President Hollande brings the hammer down and jerks the Value Added Tax on restaurant meals from 5.5% up to 10% (his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy had cut the VAT from 19.6% to 5.5% in 2009). Many socialists say the minimum wage should be even higher than what it is. And the European crisis has yet to totally devastate France and its dangerously unstable banks, which will rock people's disposable income even more.

If there was ever a moment in recent French history that could give the control-freak socialists pause, this is it. The quality of one's restaurant experience is a sacred thing over here that no one would dare endanger. Nevertheless, somehow I think the lesson will be lost on them.

Soon we'll all be paying 20 euros to sit down and eat microwaved horse meat and have overpaid waiters mock us behind our backs.

Meet Rob Ford

He is Toronto's mayor. He was recently caught in a video using cocaine, has a past of alcohol abuse, and has a penchant for making outrageous but hilarious, Mayor Quimby-esque gaffes. Finally the people are content -- they have elected a total buffoon as their mayor.

"Somebody Needs to Pay For My Kids"

The Government Hates When it's Spied On

The government craves more and more information about us - our phone records, our bank records, our private communications, our medical records, even our library records. All of this surveillance and subsequent storage of mass information requires a whole heck of a lot of servers and people working them. Which is why the federal government has spent $2 billion in creating the "Utah Data Center" just south of Salt Lake City to serve as the National Security Agency (NSA) data headquarters.

But as much as the government loves spying, it absolutely hates when anyone, however innocently, collects information about it.

When a Forbes journalist was in town, her curiosity led her and her lawyer/professor friend to make the drive to the site to see it for herself. To their surprise, there was nothing preventing them from driving right on in and taking pictures of the facility currently under construction (to be completed in 7 months). Then the security guards came out.

Find out what happened to them here.

A Good Time to Hate the Government

It's a good week to hate the government. We are seeing the convergence of a number of serious scandals, on the same level as the Monica Lewinsky Scandal or Nixon's Watergate. Can you imagine, all in one week:

• Under the Obama administration, since 2011, the IRS has been accused of targeting groups with "Tea Party" or "Patriot" in their names. These groups were flagged for additional audits, having to provide extra information, in an effort to deny them tax-exempt status. The White House has tried placing the blame on 2 low level IRS employees in the IRS's Cincinnati office, but in fact the Head of the IRS was aware of this. If it turns out that the White House was leaning on the IRS to target their political opponents, this would be the worst abuse of power against political opponents since Woodrow Wilson imprisoned Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs for criticizing American participation in World War I.
• The Associated Press was the victim of the federal government's Justice Department obtaining 2 months of its phone records spanning 20 phone lines including the AP line in the House of Representative phone gallery.
• The Benghazi scandal is heating up in the ongoing congressional hearings (albeit, the neocons are driven more by politican gain than a search for truth or justice). It would seem the Obama Administration fabricated and presented the excuse that the attack on the American embassy in Benghazi was a spontaneous, unpredictable response to a silly anti-Muslim Youtube video. They also seemingly had knowledge of the attack (that lasted for hours) as it was ongoing yet refused to send assistance, allowing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and 3 other Americans to perish in the attack.
• CIA Agent Ryan Fogle was using a secretary position in the American embassy in Russia as a cover to spy and recruit (bribe) Russian double agents. He was busted by Russian intelligence on Monday.
• The public has not forgotten the Fast and Furious scandal in which the US government smuggling illegal guns into Mexico to try to ensnare criminals, only to lose track of the guns.

Is it a reason to celebrate for libertarians? Sure. Any extra examples that history can generate where the government has failed, acted malevolently and stupidly, or abused its own people are extra ammunition in our arsenal. Maybe, on the margin, a few more people will become disillusioned with the Wizard of Oz charade they are fed everyday that is wise and caring government. The fiasco that was the Iraq War was what pushed me into libertarianism and I've never looked back. Maybe the fiascoes of this generation will push them into our camp as well.

But we must understand that the government was corrupt before these scandals emerged in the news. It was corrupt before committing these scandals. It was corrupt before anyone ever thought of commiting these scandals. This is not the first time we have seen scandals of this nature nor will it be the last.

We must understand that the problem with government is not a few bad apples, a few corrupt leaders, a few bad laws here and there. It's not a bad management problem. Change of management won't resolve the corruption. The corruption is the nature of the beast itself - it is malevolent from its tail to its snout.

The problem is much bigger than a simple dysfunction of the system. The system is structurally unsound; unfit for human beings to operate under.

Bad Idea of the Day

Don't have sex with a hornet's nest. It could be fatal.

Alex Jones likes Rand Paul

But Without The Government, Who Would Provide Police Services?

It would be provided in the same way as any other service like accounting or hairdressing - free individuals looking to exchange with and serve their clients to the best of their ability. This guy is an inspiration. As he says, how can anyone truly protect something or someone that they don't love? Why don't police officers seek the most non-violent outcomes when dealing with suspects? I'd pay for this guy's services.

American Dialects

As a professor of English, I have been thinking a lot recently about American dialects. Many of my French students and acquaintances complain that English spoken by Americans is much more difficult than English spoken by Englishmen and women. I disagree; I retort that the average American has a much simpler vocabulary and speaks slower albeit they do sometimes eat their words. Above all, Europeans are conditioned from a young age to accept that England has a monopoly on the English language and only their version is the correct way to say things.

This morning, I stumbled across something fantastic: a geographic map of the United States divided by dialect. There are 6 major dialects with differing local varieties. This isn't as impressive as a place like India or Papa New Guinea that has hundreds of different spoken languages, but the sophistication of it is interesting nonetheless.

When I return to Kentucky this August, I am eager to see if I can better distinguish the Kentucky accent from the general American accent. I am even more eager to have my friends quiz me to see if I have been forgetting my English, if I say things in weird ways, or try translating from French sometimes... there's a finite amount of space in my brain and it means I've been making room for my second language.

America's Greatest Diplomat

It's not Hillary Clinton. It's the only guy who rips Barack Obama for being too stubborn to negotiate peace talks with the puny hermit dictatorship, North Korea. That would be "The Worm" Dennis Rodman.

PS: Rodman and 3 Harlem Globetrotters were invited to North Korea in February of this year. HBO/Vice Media accompanied them and made a documentary about it. Can't wait to see it, I hope it's as good as Vice's other productions!