Left to right: Eric Cantor House Majority Leader, John Boehner the 61st Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy the Republican Majority Whip (DonkeyHotey CC)

Two-fer in the sense of being offensive on two fronts since the dollars doled out represent a subsidy to industrial agriculture, even as they serve to remind the indigent that, if they’re not compliant with the culture of obedience, they and their children may well starve.

Compliance can be gained via bribes or threats. Threats, even if they aren’t actually implemented, are still cheaper. Bribes have to be increased, if they are to continue to be effective. Fair compensation is out of the question since it means people aren’t coerced.

Heritage Action to House Leaders: Keep Focus on Scandals
May 16, 2013

The Honorable John Boehner
Speaker of the House
H-232, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Eric Cantor
House Majority Leader
H-329, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Speaker Boehner and Leader Cantor:

For the first time, the activities of the Obama administration are receiving a sustained public vetting. Americans’ outrage over Benghazi is amplified by the Internal Revenue Service’s intimidation of conservative grassroots organizations and a cascade of negative headlines. There is the real sense the Obama administration has been less than forthright with the American people, the press and lawmakers.

Recent events have rightly focused the nation’s attention squarely on the actions of the Obama administration. It is incumbent upon the House of Representatives to conduct oversight hearings on those actions, but it would be imprudent to do anything that shifts the focus from the Obama administration to the ideological differences within the House Republican Conference.

To that end, we urge you to avoid bringing any legislation to the House Floor that could expose or highlight major schisms within the conference. Legislation such as the Internet sales tax or the FARRM Act which contains nearly $800 billion in food stamp spending, would give the press a reason to shift their attention away from the failures of the Obama administration to write another “circular firing squad” article.

Make no mistake, principled conservatives will still oppose bad policy if it comes to the floor. Rather than scheduling such legislation for consideration, we urge you to keep the attention focused squarely on the Obama administration. As the public’s trust in their government continues to erode, it is incumbent upon those of us who support a smaller, less intrusive government to lead.

Sincerely,

Michael A. Needham
Chief Executive Officer
Heritage Action for America

Actually, there are many accounting problems. One has been discovered and and is now being addressed and will result in a revision to the GDP. That is, the Gross Domestic Product is going to take into account what dollars people invest in creative endeavors that don’t manifest in material products — i.e. the value incorporated in a CD over and above the cost of the disk itself. Put another way, creativity has been left out of our national accounts. Of course, that’s also true of basic reproduction. People making other people is not considered labor worth counting.

What we have is various economies, only one of which economists track and that badly. In addition to the formal economy mediated by dollars that enter official records, there’s the shadow economy or underground economy, which is also mediated by dollars, but they don’t get counted in the official records. Then there’s the economy that’s based on surreptitious theft and exploitation, using currency sporadically. Then there’s pure finance, in which currency is traded and exchanged regardless of any real goods and services. Perhaps we could call most of what happens on Wall Street the esoteric economy. In addition, there’s the economy of the household and the neighborhood where trade and exchange occur independent of formal accounts or even money changing hands.

Some economists are aware of the shadow economy to the extent of trying to calculate its size in terms of the currency it does or does not use. Edgar Feige’s latest estimate is that 19% of reportable income (not including legally exempted corporate revenues) is not being collected, accounting for a short-fall in IRS receipts of some $500 billion a year. While this estimate is derived from an analysis of things like the use of cash (growing) and retail sales (characteristic of an economy with a 5% unemployment rate), it seems logical to argue that the velocity of the dollar is higher in the underground economy and capturing the dollars would be counter-productive. If free enterprise is valued, then the shadow economy of freelancers would seem to be the only one doing things right, in terms of how they use money.

In that sense, the term “labor force” is telling. The only labor that counts is that which is forced or coerced. While this judgement is entirely consistent with the basic assumption that:

“man prefers leisure and must be bribed to work.”

This negative prejudice, although it accounts for economics being called the “dismal science,” is a distortion of reality. It makes no more sense to argue that humans are naturally unproductive, given their manual dexterity, than to argue that they are essentially sedentary, despite their essential mobility. So, that humans have to be told what to do and where to go is just so much wishful thinking by humans looking for an excuse to exercise control over their fellow man.

There is a logical fallacy known as “false attribution of agency.” It usually involves assigning action to inanimate substances. The plunging bus is a good example. But, what I wonder is if there is also a category which recognizes the false attribution of inaction or a claim of no agency. Is the omission of agency recognized as a logical flaw? Or is not doing considered such a virtue that it’s not even subject to analysis? Of course, the dead don’t do. That goes without saying. But what about the living that don’t do anything but talk?

Warren Stephens, owner of the Alotian Golf Course.

A lot of people are surprised when they come to Alotian and see how pretty it is. Golf Digest recently ranked the most beautiful courses in the country and ranked us 7th. The only one ahead of us not on a significant body of water was Augusta National. That’s pretty cool. Lake Maumelle may not be an ocean but it sure is pretty.
I had been all over that land when I was looking at buying it, climbing up in deer stands, getting views. We already had from [designer] Tom Fazio a routing that we knew would be the basis for the golf course. But I was out there a lot during the construction. Usually I’d just go on the weekends or late in the evening. I was out there a lot. We had a few things to suggest to Tom that he incorporate into the design, and most was agreed to.
For whatever reason, I could see what it was going to look like during those early construction days. But a lot of people I would drag out there would tell me they thought I had lost my mind. It was pretty rough out there. Not pretty rough, it was REALLY rough.

I have a certain affection to Mr. Stephens because he refers to himself as a middleman. Steve Forbes likes to interview him and commented on that designation, especially after Stephens came out in the Wall Street Journal with proposals to deal with the too big to fail banks, admitting that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was a mistake. Then, in a later interview, when Forbes asked about political ambitions, Stephens opined that he’s not cut out for that. He knows how to make money for his clients and himself. Apparently, he also knows how to spend it well. The Alotian Golf Club isn’t a vain enterprise. Stephens has an agenda.

It’s pretty clear we’re losing a lot of young people in the game of golf because there’s not an opportunity to caddie and be around the game and better players. Most people have gone to carts. At CCLR when I was learning to play golf, they had caddies. The caddies haven’t been there for 35 to 40 years, and that’s sad. You think about kids today, how beneficial it would be for them to be around older, good role models — not that their parents aren’t. But to be in a work environment to learn how to conduct yourself on a golf course — if you know how to conduct yourself on a golf course, you know how to conduct yourself anywhere….
I think the national First Tee organization is doing a great job of reaching kids that otherwise golf couldn’t reach. Just watching the growth of First Tee and where they’ve come from, with the number of facilities nationwide. And the kids they are reaching. … I’m very pleased, very excited about it. It will make a huge difference in the game of golf.

The Alotian is typically referred to as an “exclusive” golf course. However, the agenda for the Amateur Western doesn’t look like anyone’s being kept out. According to Arkansas Business, here’s how you get in:

Get Tickets
Event tickets cost $100, are transferrable and will get you into each day of the event. They go on sale at 9 a.m. April 15, the day after the Masters, at TheWesternAmateur.com. There are a limited number of tickets, so you’ll want to be online and ready to buy at 9 a.m. on the dot.
Volunteer
The tournament needs volunteers to help with registration, concessions, ball spotting, gallery control and more. Volunteers 18 and younger can sign up for free; everyone else can pay $100 to volunteer at TheWesternAmateur.com.
You can register to volunteer now. You’ll have to work at least three shifts, but you’ll get access to the tournament all week when you’re not working, a meal ticket and two Alotian shirts and a ball cap. In all, it’s a great chance to see world-class golf on one of the country’s top-ranked — and most exclusive — courses.

Even volunteering isn’t free, but it’s likely not about the money. If people have to buy a ticket, they’re more likely to show up.

Although Stephens, Inc. was sort of handed to him by his father, Warren Stephens seems to have an organizing bug. In addition to the Golf Club he had built up from scratch, he’s looking for redevelopment in downtown Little Rock.

Should Stephens decide that the time was right to build on Main, the streetscape could change almost overnight. As it happens, Stephens changed the streetscape in a matter of weeks in 2009 when he decided to demolish all the buildings on the west side of the 400 block of Main. He caught a lot of flak for tearing down the buildings, which included the 1916 Kempner building, once a lovely Neoclassical structure that was covered up by an ugly veneer of concrete panels after the 1950s.
But Stephens got much praise for the $6.1 million restoration of the Exchange Building at 423 Main, across the street from what is now being paved for a parking lot. Ghastly gold aluminum paneling that covered the National Historic Register building was removed, bronze double doors were added and damage to limestone architectural features was repaired. The building now houses the offices of the state Department of Higher Education.

Stephens is not a preservationist.

Stephens is no fan either of architectural studies of what could be (such as the Creative Corridor vision of Marlon Blackwell and Steve Luoni of the University of Arkansas), calling them a “complete waste of time and money.” He comes “unglued,” he said, at the city’s idea of “spending money on catching rainwater,” referring to a grant the city has gotten for a demonstration project to green up downtown.

But then, he changed his mind about Glass-Steagle, didn’t he. He wants the city to be “commercially viable,” but that means spending money, not hoarding it in some vault.

According to the abstract:

Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV dementia. Nonpsychoactive cannabinoids, such as cannabidoil, are particularly advantageous to use because they avoid toxicity that is encountered with psychoactive cannabinoids at high doses useful in the method of the present invention. A particular disclosed class of cannabinoids useful as neuroprotective antioxidants is formula (I) wherein the R group is independently selected from the group consisting of H, CH3, and COCH3. ##STR1##

So, wherefor the continuing war on marijuana? The issuance of a patent for canabinoids to the Department of Health and Human Services is either evidence of gross hypocrisy in the pursuit of the war on drugs or the war on marijuana aims to secure a monopoly for a public agency and its specialized clientele. It is widely suspected that public agencies have been subverted or “captured” for private corporate interests.

The truth, of course, is that most federal and state agencies were initially organized for just that purpose — i.e. to facilitate the enterprise of those entities whose operations they “regulate,” make regular and not subject to the vagaries and risks of random nature.

Individual human rights were always just an aspiration, a sop to make the elevation of property rights and ownership more palatable. But, depriving people of liberty for having a weed in their possession isn’t just a failure to recognize a right, it is a perversion of justice. Depriving the elderly and ill of potential healing is a crime.

This week’s summary:

Among this weeks GunFAILers, we have three who shot themselves removing their guns from their cars, which I suppose lends support to the guns = cars crowd. Two who accidentally discharged their weapons while supposedly practicing gun safety procedures. Two who experienced discharges on their way into or out of their holsters. Two who shot themselves with their own concealed weapons. Two who shot themselves and lied to police about having been attacked. Two road rage incidents. Two toddlers who shot themselves. Two dropped guns. One discharged in a public bathroom (again). Three who shot through the walls or windows of a neighbor’s home. One accidental discharge by a law enforcement officer. And of course, four who shot themselves cleaning loaded guns, bringing my running total to 17 for the month of March, and 72 for the year.

There are 48 entries. Two from Georgia.

RISING FAWN, GA, 3/08/13: Corey Williams accidentally shot himself with a 22 rifle. The good news for Williams: it’s a non-life threatening injury. The bad news: Williams is a convicted felon who is currently on probation. Williams was charged with one count of a felon in possession of a firearm. That is a felony charge and he is currently in the Dade County Jail.

MADISON CO., GA, 3/12/13: A 17-year-old shot himself in the hand. Responding officers find him to be an amateur horticulturalist, as well as a scale collector, apparently. How interesting!

The Bold Progressives want us to lobby our Senators.

Sen. Chambliss: (202) 224-3521
Sen. Isakson: (202) 224-3643

Tell them to ban the manufacture, importation and sale of automatic weapons and the amunition that goes with them. I have nothing against people owning armaments and carrying them around. It’s shooting them off that I want to stop. And that includes the shooting school in my neighborhood.

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
I think I’ll go eat worms!
Big fat juicy ones,
Eensie weensy squeensy ones,
See how they wiggle and squirm!

That nursery rhyme is about as good as any to explain how the Sequester, with which we are now wrestling, came about. The Congressional leadership had a hissy fit and the Sequester is the result.

Since there seems to be some confusion about what the word even means, let me suggest it’s just a fancy word for an age-old habit, one that the Congress has been indulging right along. To “sequester” means to hide, as in hiding one’s talents under a bushel basket or, in another version of the parable, burying them in the ground. (You’ll recall that Jesus decried that particular habit and berated the man who failed to invest and make his talents produce more – Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-28)

It seems that servants never change. Nor does the remedy. Unjust servants have to be dismissed. It is our misfortune that their masters did not see fit to dismiss the lot of the incompetents this past November. Perhaps because they did not realize where the problem lies. After all, the Congress and the media have consistently conspired to perpetrate the myth that the POTUS is in charge of the public purse.

Indeed, the drumbeat goes on — as has been quite successfully assembled in one video compilation. The title alone is worth dissecting.

Amazing – Obama Caught in Bald-Faced Lie on White House Sequester

• Amazing = a lie, because lies are such a constant that they no longer can amaze
• Obama Caught = a lie, because the POTUS was neither running nor hiding when he asserted that the idea to sequester public funds did not originate with him (though it may have been brought into discussions by the staff, as the press secretary admits)
• Bald-Faced = the truth, because the POTUS, unlike his hero Lincoln, is clearly clean-shaven
• Lie = false, because the Congress has been employing sequestration for a long time. As Steny Hoyer points out, it’s a Republican policy.
  

  The sequester now in play is actually an updated version of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985. There also was a small sequester in 1986, and a big one planned for 1990.

• White House= a half-truth and a “false attribution of agency.” Regardless the color, houses don’t act and failing to identify responsibile individuals is disengenuous and/or lazy. Republicans like worms; Obama’s staff offered them some.
• Sequester = a euphemism, a word used to make something unpleasant sound nice. In this case, what’s being disguised is that rationing the currency is a favorite strategy for trying to manipulate the economy, by people who routinely proclaim that the “free market” is automatic. Since everybody knows that rationing leads to hoarding, that word can’t be used. Neither can “cut,” because that’s a word that is now reserved to partner with “tax.” (One is tempted to speculate that, since he’s already clean-shaven, Obama might even qualify for perfect, if he went for the tax cuts).

The Republican obsession with tax cuts obviously has deep roots. Maybe there is some association with the barbershop and getting rewarded for sitting still and not squirming. If so, then associating reducing tax cuts with rich people is probably a really bad idea. It’s threatening to penalize the short hairs for having been good.

Besides, since Washington is where all the dollars come from, why they need to be collected and sent back requires a bit more explanation than that the people, who got them, aren’t deserving. After all, Jesus didn’t order the collection of what was left over from the feast of loaves and fishes, because he wanted to deprive the still hungry. No, the left-overs were to be collected, so they wouldn’t go to waste. And that, I’d argue, is precisely the same reason why dollars, that aren’t being used, should be collected and sent back to Washington to be recycled. We don’t collect taxes to penalize; we collect them to keep the currency moving. If you want evidence that the dollar is stuck, just look at this graph:

The dollar is now circulating or flowing through the economy more slowly than since they started keeping track in the nineteen fifties. Why? I’d say because everybody’s hoarding, following Congress’ example. They’re burying their talents instead of investing. They’re not giving to Caesar (us) what is Caesar’s. How to explain it? “They know not what they do.”

So, let’s all blame the President. Besides, there’s that irresistible gilt by association. (Gild = Cover thinly with gold. Give a specious or false brilliance to.)

No wonder “Yes, we can” was such a frightening anthem. It hit the nail on the head of the Cons’ problem — endemic incompetence. How does that happen? Well, if man is a tool using animal and a person is born “all thumbs,” then getting along is bound to be hard. “Poor eye/hand coordination” is what it’s called when children have a hard time learning how to write. Do they then run their mouths to compensate?

Compensation seems to be a Con constant. Being in a state of antagonism must be very draining. But which comes first? Perhaps the antagonism, which seems characteristic and can’t be missed, is actually a response to the incompetence resulting from deficits that aren’t readily perceived — or didn’t use to be. That would explain the almost palpable envy with which special education programs, designed to overcome minor developmental deficits, are perceived by older folk, whose impediments were probably ignored. The children are getting something their elders never got and that’s resented.

“Ask and you shall receive” is all fine and good advice, but it doesn’t help the person who doesn’t know what he lacks. Never mind that there’s no guarantee of getting what is asked; only that if one doesn’t ask, one is sure not to get. “Don’t ask” is how one achieves certainty. “Yes” is a risky proposition and “No” is a sure thing. So, the “Party of No” is like balm for the endemically insecure.

One more conundrum. Republicans, or at least modern day Republicans, seem unable to relate to “re,” the first syllable in their name. “Receive,” “represent,” “respect” and “recycle” all seem foreign to their way of thinking. Perhaps that’s because their “re” suggests something solid to them, a person of regal stature, rather than actions that occur over and over again. Perhaps that accounts for the opposition to recycling. Concrete thinkers simply don’t perceive a world in motion, things going ’round and ’round. If so, then it makes sense that taxes are seen as an imposition or extraction, for example, rather than as part of the process of recycling dollars from Washington and back.

The perception of process. That’s what seems to be missing in the binary mind — envisioning nothing but solid substances in a state of oppostion or antagonism, always on the verge of cancelling each other out to nothingness. But, if that’s the case, no wonder they’re scared. Anything but stasis spells disaster. On the other side of obstruction, the effort to maintain stasis, there is only nothing.

The funny thing about numbers, the symbols we use to count and compose our accounts, is that even the zero, which represents nothing, can tell a story (provide an account) whenever and wherever it is written down. In the records of Georgia’s assessors of land and the buildings people construct, for example, the designation of land as having zero value is particularly telling. Or perhaps more accurately, it raises questions about the composition and extent of what should properly be called the underground economy of Georgia–trade and exchange that doesn’t get registered in the official accounts, simply because zeros don’t add up.

Although I concluded some time ago that Georgia, with its 159 counties is in essence a socialist state. Indeed, though the residents are seemingly unaware, some practices even seem to lean towards the communistic — not really possible because we all know that communism is definitely godless. So, it can’t be, especially considering that establishments of religion and other eleemosynary institutions have sprouted across the state, in the wake of the recession, like mushrooms after a rain and, perhaps not incidentally, stripping the ground beneath them of monetary value as they go.

Frederica Baptist Condo Lease and Sale

To cite one example, there’s the thirteen plus commercially zoned acres, which the Sea Island Company donated to the Frederica Baptist Church. While the property, still designated as commercial in county records and still carrying a land value of over eight hundred thousand dollars in the County’s records, no doubt as a testament to the Company’s largess, no tax bill was sent. Everybody knows church property is tax exempt. Ditto for the 17 unit commercial condominium complex in which the Church actually has quarters, while the rental from the businesses pays off the mortgage to the bank. Lots of zeros on their cards.

But, establishments of religion aren’t the only ones whose land values disappear from the tax man’s books — apparently as a consequence of common use. Residential condominium complexes enjoy a similar substitution of zeros for land values, presumably in exchange for them being shared. So, the common areas for the Coast Cottages have a zero land value; not even the board walk across the dunes, which is inaccessible from the beach and excludes public access to the neighborhood, comes at a price. And the “worthless” twelve acres, on which the St. Simons Grand condominiums sit, are entirely fenced off–no doubt to ensure that no member of the public has an opportunity to drown in the pool.

On the other hand, not all zero value common areas aim to exclude the public. Shoppers are obviously welcome to visit and spend lots of dollars at the Retreat Plaza shopping mall across the road from the airport. Though the land it sits on is also appraised as having zero value, there’s no evidence that the prices at Retreat are any less than further up the road, where the Longview Center’s land value is definitely appraised ($2.3 total), assessed ($944,920) and taxed ($21,991). So, it seems fair to conclude that there is some inequity on the ground.

The Encyclopedia of Chicago tells us that:

The underground economy involves the exchange of goods and services which are hidden from official view.

Although the underground economy is generating more interest among academics, people who fancy themselves conservatives seem most interested. So, for example, the Washington Times opines that:

The underground or “black” economy is rapidly rising, and the fault is mainly due to government policies.

If they’re right, it should not come as a surprise that Georgia, a traditionally conservative state, has made it easy to hide all sorts of economic actitivy from public view. Or, perhaps more precisely, from the view and review by governmental entities, whose interest in things being transparent might not actually serve the interests of local constituents. But, it’s not, as the Washington Times wants to suggest, about the “unbanked.” Rather, on the state and local level it’s more about not letting on where the assets are and to whom they belong. When things go uncounted, it’s usually by design.

“We will take care of our own; just leave us alone. Oh, and send money.” I suspect that’s Georgia, and maybe some of the other southern states, in a nutshell. How do they get away with it? By letting much of the economy go underground. It’s been estimated that the underground economy in the U.S. amounts to about 10%. Greeks, on the other hand, admit to as much as 30% and the most recent news out of Russia levies the charge that fully 46% of the Gross Domestic Product in post-Soviety Russia is in the underground. We are supposed to be scandalized by this revelation about the host of the G-20 Summit. The economists funded by the Ford Foundation proclaim:

“So long as the Russian authorities fail to shrink the underground economy, Russia will continue to hemorrhage scarce capital, both illicit and licit, to the detriment of economic and political stability and undermining the nation-state,”

Kar and Freitas, economists for an outfit that calls itself Global Financial Integrity, are worried about the nation-state being undermined by what they perceive not as an alternative, but an antagonistic challenge to the bureaucratic status quo. And that’s it, isn’t it — the very same thing the citizens of our individual states look upon with considerable suspicion. The nation and, increasingly, that entity’s security are supposed to be our main concern, our primary focus and the impetus for sacrifice. Global Financial Integrity. Has a nice ring to it, but what does it mean? The Greeks might well tell us it means “pay the banksters first and then worry about what we’ll eat.”

Fact is, if we don’t have any money, we can’t pay. So, there’s a benefit to not admitting to having any money. I keep being reminded of the farmer’s wife in the Alps where I grew up. She had no money, but she had furs and fabrics and lord knows what other “treasures” all stored under her high bed.

The alpine farms, by the way, are still thriving. On the other hand, enterprise on the mainland of coastal Georgia is not thriving. How can a small business on a third of an acre with a thousand dollar tax bill compete with a ten acre shopping center that pays zero taxes on the land? Even more to the point, who’s going to make up for the redesignation of 600 acre planned development into the Cannon’s Point nature preserve and the loss of about $128 thousand in tax revenues? Never mind that on an appraised value of over $13 million, the speculators were only being taxed on five. Let’s hope the bird watchers and anglers drop some bucks in some palms.

Perhaps it is unfair to suggest that medical doctors, when they are lured into purchasing building lots on the edges of marshes and meandering streams, nature’s nurseries for crustaceans and fish, are investing ill-gotten gains. But, even as their participation in a scheme, where manicured laws and exotic vegetation are maintained via chemical additives and toxins, is going to have a negative consequence down stream, much of today’s profitable medical enterprise is largely a consequence of our natural and man-made environment having been poisoned by industrial pollutants long ago. The chronic illnesses and cancers being “managed” by doctors to put money in their purse didn’t just blossom out of nothing in the last two decades.

There is lots of culpability to go around. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that the crooks are looking for safety behind walls and electronic fences and fenestration that no longer opens to the no longer fresh air. “Gated community” is an oxymoron. Or would be, if it weren’t for the binary brain’s inability to comprehend modifiers. Just as a “commons” or common area in these enclaves doesn’t make them a community, the gates don’t specify. Rather, the gates represent antagonism towards the outside world and the “commons” stands for the segregation the residents enjoy. Perhaps “enjoy” is going too far. But, this self-segregation by the monetarily affluent, who get into their wheeled cages in their garages and, strapped and locked in, drive out on their private roads, is obviously designed to make them feel secure.

Now, while insecurity may be endemic, the ostentation displayed by the promoters and denizens of these secure enclaves suggests that they have reason to feel insecure, to be wary of the pitchforks of a resentful public, even as they can’t resist crowing about what they’ve pulled off. What leads me to that suggestion?

We need look no further than Hamilton Landing on St. Simons Island to find evidence of ostentation on the part of people whose expressed intentions are secretive. If they really wanted to be secluded, they wouldn’t put pictures of their interiors on the internet when it comes time to sell. Perhaps mere words are not persuasive enough:

This immaculate custom built Hamilton Landing home offers breathtaking marsh and water views. This property is a rare find as it offers frontage on Dunbar Creek , it’s own private dock with elevated deck to enjoy the views, a floating dock for easy water access, large covered porch, open patio and a beautifully landscaped yard all in mid-south SSI.

Perhaps the superficial optics are supposed to distract from the fact that the asking price, $1,650,000, seems just a tad out of line with the $528,000 assessed market value suggested by the county. Is there evidence of ostentation in the asking price? Perhaps; perhaps not. After all, the house next door was bought by a U.S. Senator for $900,000 just three years ago and, surely, that alone accounts for an increase in value. That the Senator acquired his house from HSBC BANK, in what was likely a foreclosure sale may also be relevant, or not. The Senator is obviously a shrewd buyer, having picked up two other neighboring parcels, which sold during the top of the bubble for $845,000, for a mere $482,500. Two for the price of one would be better, but this is close. How much is having a Senator in the neighborhood worth? Sometimes the gilt by association translates into real money.

It could turn out to be a real godsend. After all, according to the Georgia Secretary of State, the property is home to Life’s Answer Church, Inc., which C. Conrad Mershon, Jr. organized in 1997. Perhaps accessing the church in the gated community proved inconvenient for the congregation and accounts for the desire to sell and, undoubtedly, donate any profit to some worthy missionary cause.

We expect thieves to be secretive. Perhaps that’s their advantage. They perpetrate their schemes in plain sight, even waiting, perhaps, until somebody notices. Ostentation, it seems, ought not to be dismissed. On the other hand, there’s no point being envious, either. If they’re ostentatiously securing themselves, they’re probably doing us a favor, these job creators.

Anyway, the Vatican’s bank is in bad odor with the Bank of Italy, as the Economist reports

…a decision by Italy’s central bank, which doubles as the country’s banking regulator. Payment services in Vatican City have been provided by the Italian arm of Deutsche Bank since 1997, but it did so with out the necessary authorisation. So the Bank of Italy told it to stop processing the payments. It even refused Deutsche’s request for a moratorium.

There is a suspicion that money laundering is going on! Who would have guessed? For background, see this KOS post.

The irony of money is that it leaves no finger prints, but it can be traced. No wonder the Vatican is rumored to be buying gold. At least that can be reworked into sacred artifacts that don’t have to be surrendered to Caesar on demand.

For, if there aren’t any threats from other humans, then there’s no justification for “protection,” and if there’s no justification for “protection,” what are our overlords going to do? Go back to their obligation to provide for the general welfare, you say? That would be nice. It would be even nicer, if the stewards of our natural and man made resources made sure they actually served and provided for the welfare of the population. However, the people selected for those jobs in recent decades simply aren’t qualified. They are incompetent.

All the majority of elected representatives, at all levels, seem capable of is talk. They can verbalize a lot, but that’s all. “All hat, no cattle,” is another way of saying it.

Anyway, people who can’t manage things, if only because they are out of touch with their material environment, have little choice but to try to manage people. And that means relying on threats and persuasion and a whole heap of propaganda.

Spreading lies is actually hard work. The lie has to be constantly repeated, if reality is not to pop up and destroy it. The enemy of the lie is not the truth, as we might think. No, the enemy of the lie is reality. That’s why fictions have to be carefully maintained.

And, believe it or not, for the instinct-driven that’s easy because rote repetition is their constant mode. It is our misfortune, that the judicial system has become convinced consistency is evidence of truth. As a result, the habitual liar gets off.

The cons don’t need an enemy to define themselves. Just as the shepherd needs the wolf to keep the flock in line, cons need an enemy threat to justify rendering the majority subservient. The sheep, of course, do not know the shepherd intends to eat them bye and bye.

I am still tempted to conclude that the practitioners of human husbandry were defeated in the desert by the shepherds of Iraq.

The slave . . . cannot be a party in any civil action, either as a plaintiff or a defendant, except when he has to claim or prove his freedom. Article 177 of the Civil Code of the State of Louisiana

explains how it happened that the woman known as Sally Miller never had occasion to represent or mis-represent anything about herself during the five years the matter of her freedom was in the courts.

On the other hand, the importance of appearances (never mind that they might be deceiving) in judicial proceedings was pervasive, not just in Virginia, where it was enunciated by one Judge Tucker in 1806,

Suppose three persons . . . were brought together before a judge upon a writ of habeas corpus on the grounds of false imprisonment and detention in slavery. . . . How must a judge act in such a case? I answer he must judge from his own view. He must discharge the white person and the Indian out of custody . . . and he must redeliver the black or mulatto person, with the flat nose and wooly hair to the person claiming to hold him or her as a slave . . .

but to the jury in New Orleans, Louisiana, which could not come to a conclusion, as well as the judge who eventually determined Sally Miller should be free it also proved decisive.

But then, freedom was not the absolute good we might think.

The question of freedom should be determined, like every other question made before the courts, solely upon the legal aspects, without partiality to an applicant for freedom, because he may be defenseless, and a member of an inferior race, and certainly without prejudice to his kind and color, and without regard to the sincere conviction that all candid, observing men must emtertain, that a change from the condition of servitude and protection, to that of being free negroes, is injurious to the community, and more unfortunate to the emancipated negro than to any one else.

Indeed, freedom is downright “injurious,” and the rule of law, being totally impartial, not only makes it possible for men to wash their hands of such matters, but to determine that the “protection” being provided is a boon–notions that are with us to this day, only more widely applied. Equality demands that we all be “protected” for our own good. The impartial law is a recipe for total tyranny.

The slave, to remain a slave, must be made sensible, that there is no appeal from his master; that his power is no instance usurped; but is confirmed by the laws of man at least, if not the law of God. Judge Ruffin of North Carolina, 1829

It’s no wonder contemporary cons are strong proponents of the “rule of law.” It lets them, as individuals, off the hook for the subjugation of their fellow man. Moreover, unlike the law of God, the laws of man are much easier to change, even as the ruse of impartiality is maintained. If some are not to be unjustly deprived, universal deprivation is a logical alternative. Thus, the U.N. finding that U.S. health care is worse than that of sixteen other industrial nations is not a happenstance. It is a result that is entirely consistent with the determination that humans are a natural resource, available to be exploited by their betters.

Is it a step too far to argue that human husbandry is a compromise in response to “involuntary servitude,” except as punishment for proven crime, having been rule out of bounds? Perhaps, but the reluctance to recognize human rights, in addition to the civil rights and obligations secured in the last century, seems telling. Why does the U.S., alone, with Somalia, resist ratification of the convention on the rights of the child? Why are our teens running away from home by the millions? Is it because, while the law changes, the attitudes that motivate it persist?

Natural fruits are such as are the spontaneous produce of the earth; the produce and increase of cattle and the children or slaves are likewise natural fruits. Article 537 of the Civil Code of the State of Louisiana

No doubt, Todd Akin, he of the body that “shuts that whole thing down,” would agree.

The nice thing about volitions is that the will can be changed. All it takes is the right propaganda (“there is no free lunch”) or a tweaking of the law to make the involuntary voluntary. Then servitude can continue just as before. Witness the all-volunteer military, going off to be slaughtered for a pack of lies.

Exploitation or slaughter. Some choice.

We already know Obama loves him a kerfuffle. The real issue is how to get Congress to realize that their job is to spend or dispense money. Managing the currency is one of their prime responsibilities. Scrimping and hoarding is not managing. The Congress hoarding dollars is not only unseemly, but detrimental because the federal government is the only source and without money to mediate transactions, we are left with taking things on faith.

That gives a whole ‘nother meaning to “faith-based” government. Imagine if we went down to the grocer’s and said, “have faith brother; I’ll bring you something you want, later.”

Every dollar represents a debt. That’s what dollars are, IOUs. They’re like marriage certificates — providing documentary evidence that I owe you a dollop, if not a lifetime, of care and protection. “I do” = “I owe you.”

Where the cons go wrong is in thinking that what is owed is owned. That I owe you does not mean that you own me. If it did, that we all exist in an ownership society, would be correct. Ownership and obligation are not related.

America’s State Parks Association

“First Day” Along with a Little Luck Hike / 10 AM to 12 PM
UnicoiUnicoi State Park – Helen, GA
Welcome the New Year with a 2 1/2-mile moderate hike around Unicoi Lake. Finish the trail at our campfire ring where hikers can add a little luck to their year by enjoying a small meal of black eyed peas, greens, and pork cooked in Dutch ovens over an open fire. Register in advance. $5 parking. 706-878-2201 ext. 305.

Missouri is offering programs at thirteen parks, including the Dr. Edmund A.Babler Memorial Park near St. Louis.

Generations of Missourians have passed through Dr. Edmund A. Babler’s Memorial State Park’s massive stone gateway for cookouts and family get-togethers or to spend time with friends. The park’s camping facilities, Civilian Conservation Corps architecture, and hiking, bicycling and equestrian trails help all visitors find their place to get away from it all, just minutes from St. Louis.

Meanwhile, poor Louisiana seems able to manage guided hikes at just two of its parks. But, they are free.

Of course, it isn’t necessary to have a park to hike. Wherever you are, get out of the house for an hour and perambulate.

What really undermines efficient trade and exchange of goods and services is the rationing or sequestration of the currency (money) we use to mediate those transactions. Rationing currency is comparable to restricting access to reading and writing skills in order to hobble the ability to communicate.

We have some of that. It accounts for the fact that thirty percent of American adults are functionally illiterate.

Why is there an interest in depriving people of currency and literacy? It makes it easier to practice human husbandry, the exploitation of humans by their own kind to their detriment. (I use the third person possessive on purpose to suggest that the detriment accrues equally to the exploiters and the exploited. It is not good to exploit members of one’s own species. Indeed it is a risky business, since it can end in self-destruction. Even dumb organisms know better than to do that).

Currency and literacy are physical manifestations of figments of the imagination – expressions of our (higher) cognitive abilities. When they are misused, the very core of our humanity is degraded. People who do that should be ashamed. That they are not suggests that they are less than human. Otherwise, one would have to posit that humans are mere instinct-driven predators, who can’t even recognize their own kind — no more intelligent than frogs.