Planted In Our Hearts

Arctic Patriot gives a good year-end closer.

I thank you all for your readership and commentary in 2010.

If the flu lifts some more today, I may have some forward-looking thoughts.

A Terrible Loss

Claire Wolfe has what little is known about Aaron Zelman's death last week.

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha'olam dayan ha'emet.

Thank you, Aaron.

The Plan For Food Dependency

Read it all.

No need to worry, though -- the Dead Elephants are going to read the Constitution in opening the new Congress.

True Grit

Go see the Coen Brothers' remake.

Great cast, great story, played straight.

Restorative, I'd say.

Liberty Is Dead. Long Live Liberty!

John Venlet links to Wendy McElroy.

Freedom is a basic human desire.

As we live, so does its possibility.

Be Hilts.

Movement To Contact And Resistance

Alvie and Arctic Patriot provide food for thought re 2011, with this follow-on from Alvie.

Ready for the new year?

Bovard: How Washington Protects Your Privacy And Liberty

From James Bovard:

from the January issue of The Freeman -

James Bovard
How Washington Protects Your Privacy and Liberty
January/February 2011 • Volume: 61 • Issue: 1

Preserving trust in government is the highest good—at least for politicians. To create that trust, government continually spawns façades to make people believe their rights are safe. Few things better illustrate this charade than the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

In 2004, three years after the Patriot Act was enacted, politicians started to worry about the rising number of Americans grumbling about government intrusions. The 9/11 Commission proposed creating “a board within the executive branch to oversee adherence to the guidelines we recommend and the commitment the government makes to defend our civil liberties.” Creating another office within the executive branch to report on executive branch activities was unlikely to produce anything more than extra jobs for Washington hangers-on. The White House edited the 9/11 commission’s report before it was publicly released, so the Bush team had no trouble with this toothless-tiger palliative.

In December 2004, acting on the commission’s recommendation, Congress mandated the creation of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The same law that created the oversight board also made it easier for the FBI to get eavesdropping warrants on Americans, created a new standard to make it easier to prosecute citizens who donate to foreign charities of which the U.S. government disapproves, and provided a new layer of secrecy for federal agencies.

Some congressmen hailed the board as the start of a brave new era. Things would be different since there was a new sheriff in Washington—or at least that was what people were supposed to think. The civil liberties developments in the years after the board was created offer profound lessons into how the government works.

It would have been difficult to design a better rubber stamp than the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. It had no subpoena power, so it was effectively obliged to accept unsubstantiated assertions from the agencies violating privacy and liberty. The president had the right to appoint board members and could fire them any time. Bush did not appoint any experts on civil liberties; instead, the board was stacked with Republicans who formerly held government positions as enforcement zealots. And the first appointments did not occur until seven months after the law passed. The American Bar Association noted that Bush’s nominations were timed “as part of the administration’s push to encourage Congress to reauthorize provisions of the USA Patriot Act that expire within the next few months.” The oversight board supposedly guaranteed that Patriot Act powers would not be abused.

Six months after Bush stacked the board, the biggest civil liberties expose of recent decades exploded on the front page of the New York Times. The prior year, when he was running for reelection, Bush assured Americans that no wiretaps were occurring without federal court authorization...
***

Read the rest.

We are from the government and we are here to help.

Spengler: Naked Emperor And A Conspiracy Of Silence

Spengler summarizes the global wane of American influence in the past year.

Not Politics As Usual

TL Davis tells of the current tipping point.

2011 is going to be interesting.

Word

In this age, I don’t care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are, if you cannot create harmony—even vicious harmony—on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete. We have got to have officers who can create harmony across all those lines.

-- At JFCOM annual conference, May, 2010

Sunday Readings

Two from Sultan Knish:

Obama Has Lost The World

Hijacking The Internet

Good Will Unto Men

David explains.

Please consider the request.

Christmas, 2010

May all spend the next 24 hours in the company of friends and loved ones, counting the blessings that remain this evening.

Peace on Earth, good will unto men.

See you tomorrow evening.

Facing Facts

Along with the seasonal absence of sun, this Yuletide has been glum here due to some of the lessons learned in 2010.

Against much advice to the contrary, Dan and the rest of Restore The Constitution crowd were able to stage successful, legal, safe armed protests from Virginia to North Carolina to Georgia to Alabama to New Mexico to Texas to Pennsylvania.

Having proven the concept's viability in April on the banks of the Potomac, attendance actually dropped over time, to the point where in the Second Amendment bulwark of Pennsylvania, one man -- one man -- showed the flag at two separate events.

Deep gratitude to all who did show up.

And I also understand the reasons why many who might have attended did not.

But here is the unmistakable lesson I have drawn from the RTC experience in 2010:

People -- for good reasons and bad -- are too afraid to attend legal, safe assertions of First and Second Amendment rights.

In my view, that means the likelihood of more robust assertions of basic human rights in 2011 and forward are, at least at current course and speed, very slim.

Hence, the political path perhaps becomes more viable -- not because any of its inherent defects have been removed, but instead because the other two options (personal secession and outright rebellion) have equally low probabilities of launch, let alone success in the current battlespace.

Read Kerodin's support of that argument (and disregard the refs to CA).

Denial of reality is no way forward.

But it sure leaves one cold on a dark December day.

Et tu, Julius?

John Fund's WSJ article on the origins of the "net neutrality" campaign is important.

Funny how the Reds keep showing up....

New Blog

Check out Arctic Patriot every day.

I am.

Freefor S2 Update #2

Password issue still pending.

Until it is resolved, I'll post synopses here a la Gates of Vienna.

But first, Santa duties. All received to date will be up before I go to bed tonight.

Federal Reserve Extends Its Swap Lines With ECB, BOJ, Other Central Banks

Read this Bloomberg story, please.

So if the Fed is the backstop to the global banking community, what's the backstop for the Fed?

Anyone?

Bueller?

FreeFor S2 Update

Password problems; working the issue.

Fix asap.

Fjordman: Why Islam Must Be Expelled From The West

Fjordman speaks the unspeakable.

Remember the sequence:

1) Western elites destroy the middle class and plunder their way to untold personal fortunes;

2) Western societies then collapse due to unsustainable social obligations, leading to inevitable sovereign default;

3) The world's geopolitical structure, guaranteed by the US since 1945, is now destabilized by the impoverished Uncle Sam's impotence, thus becoming open game for regional hegemons and opportunists; and

4) Islam continues its march through Europe and Canada, using its thus-far-unbeatable combination of the Islamic womb, anti-Islamophobia speech restrictions (especially including the Internet), and sufficient acts of terror so as to be credible when threatening cowering Westerners.

Ask your daughters if they have any questions.....

America In Revolt

Read the latest from TL Davis.

As noted in this article:

***
...If the other guy walks up to you and starts punching you in the face, then you are already in a fight, whether you want this or not. If you do not defend yourself properly then you have already lost...
***

Enjoy the holidays.

These are the good old days.

Remember that.

JDA: The Dirty Fed Who Tried (And Failed) To Steal Christmas

Junior Deputy Accountant points to another small victory against Leviathan.

Note what backed the Fed globobankers off.

"By any means necessary" means exactly that -- just as there are no limits on the noisy end of the action spectrum, freedom-lovers should not neglect the quieter side either.

There is no substitute for victory.

In big things and small.

A Reminder

From Alvie at The Cliffs of Insanity, along with an historical footnote.

Good News

Governor Christie commutes Brian Aitken's sentence.

Thanks to those who called and/or wrote.

Shenandoah: Municide Update

JohnGaltFLA's latest is worth a read prior to the Christmas get-togethers with friends and family.

Folks who aren't stashing food, ammo, water purification gear, heirloom seeds, meds, hand tools, and trade goods had best get hopping.

And retirees?

Their pensions are likely toast in many cases.

Really.

Rig for storm, folks.

2011 will feature the return of many economic chickens to the roost, coupled with the angry thrashings of a wounded narcissist and his minions.

Codrea: Fight ATF's Latest Power Grab

David calls the play on opposition to the BATFE's latest turf expansion.

I know things are bad.

I realize the odds.

Do it anyway.

I have.

Orwell Was An Optimist

Read this and watch this vid.

Now read this WaPo article, please.

Do you understand yet?

And remember -- the Bad People know that the few Americans who remain will - in all probability - not resist, at least in any sort of meaningful, distributed, sustained way.

Hence:

***
...The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. 


We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. 


Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. 


The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power...
***

Any questions?

Codrea: GIGO

David explains.

Big Food Wins

Instapundit posted this story last night re S 510, the "FDA Food Safety Modernization Act".

Any doubt the lame-duck House will approve?

No worries, though.

I'm sure the FDA, along with Monsanto, ADM, and Cargill, all have my best interests in mind.

Besides, the Bowl games and the playoffs are about to begin.

Something like this or this could never happen here in Amerika, especially to regime opponents.

We're protected by the Constitution, don't ya know....

Amerika

Will Grigg's latest is worth your time.

Lee Greenwood would disagree.

Do you?

Free Forces S2

We're open, even though we are still under construction.

Volunteers: Take a look at the resources in the right margin of the Free ForcesS2 site. Choose one of them as your daily read; if you have suggestions as to additions, please send them to freefors2@gmail.com.

Once you have your selection and have advised us of same via email, scan your periodical at least twice in a 24-hour period, looking for stories of significance in the following categories:

- African Economics and Politics
- Domestic (US and Canadian) Economy and Politics
- Domestic Space Activities
- Eurasian Economics and Politics
- Foreign Military Issues
- Foreign Space Activities
- Pan Asian Economics and Politics
- South/Central American and Mexican Economics and Politics
- Terrorism, with an emphasis on Islamic terror
- US Freedom Issues
- US Military Issues
- US/Foreign Relations
- World Energy Issues
- World Freedom Issues
- World Health Issues

Two key guidelines:

- Look for new info: Repetition of stories and fact sets already in the media doesn't really help anyone. Fresh info -- and even more importantly, fresh stories -- are a huge help to all.

- "What" and "Why Should I Care?": As you write up your synopsis, remember to have two issues addressed. First is a brief fact summary, letting the reader decide whether this story is worth the time. Second is the answer to the eternal question "So what?" -- tell the reader why the story matters. Max length of a good synopsis is three sentences; strive for less while still hitting these marks, always. Good examples are found in the Gates of Vienna daily updates.

Visitors:  Along with being patient while we spin up, please use the same freefors2@gmail.com email address to give us new resources for monitoring and constructive feedback. For now, the best way to review our work is to click in the right margin on the topics that interest you. We'll work on a more user-friendly access method as we evolve.

Forward.

JPFO: New BATFE Regs Sought Re Multi-Gun Purchases

JPFO has the story.

Wonder why BATFE is pushing for the regs by 5 January?

The Devil's Christmas Letter To America

From Charles Hugh Smith:

The Devil pens a Christmas letter.

Through means I am unable to disclose, I have obtained a copy of the Devil's Christmas letter. Yes, Satan too sends a Yule letter, and no, I was not on his mailing list. I think Satan's Holiday cheer should give us all pause.

To my fallen angels Beelzebub, Lucifer and Leviathan, princes of Hell's demons, and to my minions, lackeys, toadies and sycophants on Earth: 

As you know, this time of year usually finds me quite despondent, as the Prince of Peace's influence waxes most atrociously around his birthday. But this year I am in fine spirits, nay, let me even declare myself absolutely giddy, for the destruction of the United States of America draws ever nearer. 

Though my minions have long sown festering seeds of hate and disharmony in that now-benighted land, only recently have my favored weapons of destruction--leverage, debt, half-truths and endless, preening justifications for greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy, anger and gluttony--have been unleashed to worm their way into the stricken heart of that Republic. 

My most treasured hopes of destitution and conflict in the U.S.A. are nearing fruition. 

First, my minions in the Federal Reserve--such loyal servants!--and the Federal government have unleashed a veritable orgy of leverage and debt upon the land, spreading ruination under the false guise of prosperity. What a delicious irony, that the fools doomed to eternal damnation in my Empire believe themselves prosperous as they absorb the poison of exponentially rising leverage and debt. 

They have made a mockery of the rule of law, openly flouting it by letting financial crimes go not just unpunished but rewarded. The blatant injustice that roams the land like a foul, slobbering beast--there are two sets of laws and two sets of books now, one for the financial Elites and their political toadies, and another one for the tax donkeys beneath them--this will eventually ignite the firestorm I seek. 

American extravagance has surpassed even my highest expectations, as purveyors of luxury goods reap record profits, and the childish desire for instant gratification has become the unspoken ruler of the land. Convenience is now worshipped as a god, sitting triumphant beside entitlement, greed and willful ignorance. 

Convenience is, as you all know, the name of a peculiarly slick slide into Hell...

***

Read the rest.

Codrea: Police Treat Bumper Sticker As PC

Go and read David's latest Examiner column.

What's on your bumper?

The Implacable Enemy

Colonel B. Bunny at Eternity Road links to this article by JR Nyquist; excerpt:

***
...There are enemies out there, and we are quite obviously embarrassed to admit that these enemies are Communist. One might even think, with such an admission, that we didn't win the Cold War; that Reagan failed to bring down the Evil Empire. I cannot resist pointing out, once again, that the Russian government hasn't buried Lenin; and they had a perfectly good opportunity to bury him when they buried Czar Nicholas II on 17 July 1998 (emphasis added - WRSA). Far from seeking peace, even now, the Russian government has announced its readiness to deploy a new generation of nuclear warheads and missiles; in fact, I received a report last week about a Third World businessman who recently traveled to a secret city in Russia where they were making strategic weapons, and where the KGB was alive and well, and where Russian military officers heaped scorn upon United States...
***

Read both pieces, along with the embedded links.

"We've Only Just Begun" ain't just a Karen Carpenter ballad.

The Depraved And The Deprived

Read all of this Sultan Knish post; excerpt:

***
...When you replace the morality with class warfare, you also replace good and evil with poor and rich. Actions are no longer good or bad, except within the context of class. Murder is a crime for the rich, but not for the poor, or the rich who claim to be fighting for the poor.

Under class warfare morality, there are two types of criminals. The depraved and the deprived. The depraved are well off. The deprived are not. When the former commit a crime, it is because they are depraved. When the latter commit a crime, it is because they are deprived. And being deprived, they bear no responsibility for what they do.

The practical application of this form of left-wing morality is all around us. When justifying terrorism, the left argues that the terrorists are deprived, but the soldiers who shoot them are depraved. The Israeli civilians who are murdered by terrorists are depraved, on the other hand the poor starving Hamas supporters of Gaza are only deprived. The left holds that the root cause of terrorism is deprivation. On the other hand those who fight terrorists are depraved, because they kill them, instead of giving them what they want and ending their deprivation.

The same model was commonly used by liberals for domestic crime. Criminals were deprived. Their victims were depraved. The robber, the rapist and the murderer became heroes, fighting against oppression. Their victims were the oppressors, no matter whether they were bank tellers, college students or just random passerby. By not being deprived, they were automatically found guilty of being depraved. And even if their liberal credentials were in order, the liberal credentials of the deprived were always better...
***

Watch what is coming to these shores soon:



And remember: these demos -- in the EU now and in the US later -- will be funded and attended by leftists who will be insisting on more governmental programs, no matter what the cost.

Think about the commonality of real interests between the "opponents" and "target government".

Do you understand yet?

More On The Open-Source Project: 5WH

What: A clipping service (or "Drudge for right-minders") in which volunteers read assigned (usually self-chosen) periodicals (domestic, foreign, and technical, where relevant), providing links to original source and a brief (4-5 sentences, max) synopsis that will be posted to the website (which opens within the next week).

Later upgrades (on a crawl-walk-run evolution) will include analysis and synthesis, each with an emphasis on good reporting, citations to source materials, and sober fact-facing.

Why: A lot of hard work goes into maintaining existing internet resources for the FreeFor. More eyes and brains will help make sure that we don't miss key information from around the world, especially as things devolve here in the States and the American propaganda organs increase volume to 11.

Who: You, if you are willing. Folks with relevant backgrounds and/or deep interest may get to choose specific periodicals and/or subjects. The editors will do what we can to make sure you can make a meaningful contribution.

When: No promises, but we hope to be live within the next week (i.e., by Christmas Eve Eastern standard time).

Where: The editors maintain freefors2@gmail.com as the project's email address. Volunteers should report there if they have not yet received an acknowledgment from us.

How: Let's assume I have chosen/been assigned the Japan Times. Each day, I will scan the edition (at least twice a day, to catch updates) for stories of interest in the following areas (these will evolve over time):

African Economics and Politics
Domestic (US and Canadian) Economy and Politics
Domestic Space Activities
Eurasian Economics and Politics
Foreign Military Issues
Foreign Space Activities
Pan Asian Economics and Politics
South/Central American and Mexican Economics and Politics
Terrorism, with an emphasis on Islamic terror
US Freedom Issues
US Military Issues
US/Foreign Relations
World Freedom Issues

Let's assume today, I see a story in the JT regarding Islamists gaining greater control in the Philippines.

I'd assemble a brief, factual synopsis, ending with the direct link to the story:

Muslim terror forces gain increasing leverage in Mindanao, Panawan, and Samar by exploiting public officials' corruption. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/philippines/islamistsgain.html

Once that's done, I'd just send it to freefors2@gmail.com with the subject line "Terrorism - Philippines". The editors will then review, correct any typos, and include in the next blog post.

We'll be evolving as time proceeds, and we may even find that no one gets any benefits from the effort.

But let's try it for a while.

Forward.

A Tell?

(click to enlarge)

When the NYT (no direct link due to their silly registration policy) notes newfound attention to nuclear detonation survival, we have entered an interesting new phase of the 21st century.

Here's the document referenced in the article.

A more realistic, less happy-talk (e.g., modeling effects of weapons greater than 10kt) presentation is here:

Vulnerability of populations and the urban health care systems to nuclear weapon attack – examples from four American cities

Maybe it's clear now why this resource has been in the WRSA left margin since launch.

But remember -- 85% of nuclear weapons effects are heat and blast.

The hard work comes in the aftermath -- not from radiation so much as the consequences of a devastated society.

See this excerpt from the "Vulnerability" resource above:

***
...The nationwide trend of locating a majority of the major urban health care institutions in downtown areas would result in a staggering loss of the total institutional health care delivery following nuclear weapon use. Data is shown for the four example cities in Table 4, though we have seen very similar results in the 20 largest U.S. urban areas (data not shown).

The four cities in Table 4 show 50–56% loss of hospital beds within a 20 mile radius of a 550 Kt detonation, and a 41–43% loss of beds at a 40 mile radius from a downtown ground zero. These results are strikingly similar in view of the very different geographic and demographic landscapes of these four cities. When considering the actual number of hospitals lost, Washington D.C., New York, and Chicago are similar in magnitude of the percentage of hospitals lost, between 41–48% within 20 miles, and 33–37% lost within 40 miles of the detonation. Atlanta, which is the smallest city of the test sample, had a smaller percentage of hospitals lost compared to the others. Due to the pattern of having the larger hospitals in the downtown area, Atlanta still had a similar percentage of bed loss, even though the number of hospitals lost overall was smaller...
***

Are you ready?

Burt is:

Stooges

(click to enlarge)

From the Tuesday edition of Balko's Agitator morning recap comes this emetic collection of collaborator wear.

I heart them all, but my fave is here:

The John D. Rockefeller "I heart taxes" coffee cup.

No, I am not making this up.

Free Brian Aitken

David explains.

Make the call tomorrow please to Governor Christie's office at 609-292-6000.

Encryption Bleg

Anyone have simple, easy-to-implement instructions on encryption?

Think of instructions designed for a dim third-grader on how to make a grilled peanut-butter-and-sardine sandwich.

That simple is what is needed.

Thanks in advance.

Check Your Spam Filters

Check you spam filters, folks.

Inbound email from the new site.

Mogambo On The Fed's Follies

The Mighty Mogambo comments on this Minyanville column re the recent disclosures that the Fed created $9 trillion out of thin air in the fall of 2008.

But it's all gonna be okay.

Really.

Open Source Intel Project

Think of it as a "Drudge Report" for right-minded folks.

Volunteers will agree to read English-language foreign dailies on an ongoing basis. When they find a relevant article, send it by link, along with a synopsis, to the designated email box.

The mods will review, edit as needed, and post it to the website.

Volunteers please put an email addy in the comments below.

We expect to go live by Christmas with rev 1.0.

Thanks in advance.

UPDATE 2255 EST 13 DEC 2010: Early adopters will get their choice of the publication list once it is finished.

As always, put your opsec and comsec as first priority. If you are concerned about listing your email addy here, then figure out an alternative and we'll have our email running in a couple days.

Thanks.

The Art Of Strategic Citizenship

Takuan Seiyo is back with this Gates of Vienna essay, introduced thus:

Takuan Seiyo returns with an incisive essay about the multiculti mess we have gotten ourselves into, and includes an outline of the insights required to get us out of it.

Read it all, please.

Denninger: Reefer Madness

KD points to an article advocating the opening of a new front in the Forever War, followed by his discussion of how Americans completely lost their sanity on the drug question.

As Billy Beck has noted, you simply do not get to where we are in militarized-police, checkpoints-and-crotch-frisking, cringing America today without the Nixon Drug War.

Long before the GWoT, the WoD provided the motivation for much of the expansion of Federal funding for local law enforcement.

Results after forty years?

Failure.

More drugs, at lower prices, with more addicts than ever before.

So sure, let's go invade Mexico.

That'll fix it.

Madness.

Sheer, bloody madness.

Assassin Nation

Please read this James Bovard article from The American Conservative.

Remember -- every tool being used against the Muslims today will be used against those who resist the National Surveillance State.

Every single one.

Got Varget?

Fight The Premise

Kerodin reminds all that it's not the horses that are the problem -- it's the folks with the whip who are driving them (or, alternatively, failing to control them).

Horses are, after all, simple and dangerous work engines.

The teamster determines what they pull, where they go, and what they do when they get there.

And they are terribly vulnerable.