Category: Uncategorized

Through a scanner, naked

Refreshing the Tree of Liberty demonstrates that the naked scanners provide much more detailed image information than the picture that the media has been using indicates at first glance.

To the right is the image that everyone has seen in the various news articles about the TSA’s non-invasive x-ray scanners.  It looks rather like an x-ray, so no big deal, right?

 
Except that to the left is the exact same image which is simply inverted with the brightness increased a little.  No fancy software or Photoshop skills required.  It provides enough detail to show how a woman trims the topiary.  So, unless you are the sort of individual who delights in putting naked photos of yourself up on Facebook, you might want to think twice before deciding to fly and face the decision of distributing naked images of your family or subjecting everyone to a gate rape.

It appears the above images may not actually be generated by the TSA scanners but are merely a simulation. So, it looks as if we’ll have to wait until a few of them leak onto the Internet to see exactly how much detail is revealed by the inverted images.   As usual, Ron Paul is the only Republican who appears to care about these little assaults on American liberties enough to do anything about it.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, introduced the Air Traveler Dignity Act to protect Americans from physical and emotional abuse by federal Transportation Security Administration employees conducting screenings at the nation’s airports.

“Something has to be done,” Paul said. “Everybody’s fed up. The people are fed up. The pilots are fed up. I’m fed up. We have seen the videos of terrified children being grabbed and probed by airport screeners. We have read the stories of Americans being subjected to humiliating body imaging machines and/or forced to have the most intimate parts of their bodies poked and fondled.  This TSA version of our rights looks more like the ‘rights’ granted in the old Soviet Constitutions, where freedoms were granted to Soviet citizens – right up to the moment the state decided to remove those freedoms.”

We won’t fly

Neither Spacebunny nor I have any intention of flying while the TSA is permitted to force travelers to choose between being scanned naked or sexually molested.  This is an absolute travesty and if Americans do not resist it now, they will have no cause to complain when they start facing the same choice every time they leave the house and travel in a car, a bus, or a train, all of which are presently under the abusive authority of the Transportation Security Administration.  As I wrote in my column on Monday, I recommend that Americans not settle for merely opting out of the scanners and submitting to the grope testgate rape, but rather stay home, save money, and see how long it will take before the airlines stop meekly accepting every Federal dictate handed down from on bureaucratic high in the interest of their own survival.  See We Won’t Fly for more details.

Needless to say, every pervert and pedophile has probably submitted their application to the TSA upon hearing that hot down-the-pants action was now part of the job description; SB sent me this little bit of unsurprising news about a police search for one of the TSA’s finest.

Winthrop Police were searching this week for 45-year old Sean Shanahan, most recently of 26 Shirley Street apartment #3 on five charges including two counts of statutory rape, two counts of enticing a child and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, after the alleged victim’s parents reported finding disturbing and explicit text messages on the child’s cell phone.  “This individual (Shanahan) is someone who was familiar with the child,” explained Police Chief Terrence Delehanty. “It appears that this case began with a series of text messages and then progressed to other activities that included the statutory rape charges.”

Shanahan, a Transportation Security Administration employee at Logan Airport, has not appeared at his job in several days and has also not been back to his apartment on Shirley Street, following an initial search of his residence by police, which resulted in the confiscation of a computer and cell phone from his home.

Clearly this is all just a terrible misunderstanding, as Shanahan is obviously nothing more than a deeply committed employee who is so devoted to transportation security that he took his work home with him.  The TSA will probably promote him. And for those who think the scanners are a reasonable option, note that, statistically speaking, they are as about as dangerous to your health as those dangerous airborne terrorists.

The war on human nature

It is not a new one. Sam Harris’s moralistic brand of scientific utopianism is merely the latest in a long line of philosophical ideologies that end up killing large numbers of people in an attempt to remake them. One thing I have discovered in delving deeper into what can be broadly labeled “scientific humanism” is how little its advocates realize that they are only beginning to consider important concepts that have been active matters for intensive debate by economists for two centuries.

Consider the following quote from Ludwig von Mises from Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth, published in 1920:

“All socialist systems, including that of Karl Marx, and his orthodox supporters, proceed from the assumption that in a socialist society a conflict between the interests of the particular and the general could not possibly arise. Everybody will act in his own interest in giving of his best because he participates in the product of all economic activity. The obvious objection that the individual is very little concerned whether he himself is diligent and enthusiastic, and that it is of greater moment to him that everybody else should be, is either completely ignored or insufficiently dealt with by them. They believe they can construct a socialist commonwealth on the basis of the Categorical Imperative alone. How lightly it is their wont to proceed in this way is best shown by Kautsky when he says, “If socialism is a social necessity, then it would be human nature and not socialism which would have to readjust itself if ever the two clashed.”

It’s interesting how many philosophical ideologies, including scientific humanism, rely upon one form or another of this illogic. One sees some form of this argument not only made by the secular humanists of the New Atheist cabal, but also by the advocates of global corporatism and AGW/CC activists as well as the Ricardian free traders. (There is, of course, a certain amount of ideological overlap between these groups.) Ironically, those who are prone to relying upon these utopian and purely philosophical arguments almost inevitably claim to be realistic empiricists despite the fact that the observable and empirical evidence tends to be stacked rather heavily against them.

But it isn’t their ignorance that makes them dangerous. The danger lies in their inability to recognize the logical consequences of their arguments. Those who believe in the perfectibility of Man are inevitably bound to find themselves eventually advocating the culling of imperfect men.

HR 3808: the banks try again

The Market Ticker reports that the snake’s head is not yet detached:

2:13 P.M. –
The House received a message from the Clerk. Pursuant to the permission granted in Clause 2(h) of Rule II of the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Clerk transmitted H.R. 3808, the “Interstate Recognition of Notarization Act of 2010,” and a Memorandum of Disapproval thereon received from the White House on October 8, 2010, at 12:55 p.m.

Mr. Scott (VA) asked unanimous consent That, when the House adjourns on Monday, November 15, 2010, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 16, 2010, for Morning-Hour Debate. Agreed to without objection.

Mr. Scott (VA) asked unanimous consent That, when a veto message on H.R. 3808 is laid before the House on the legislative day of today, then after the message is read and the objections of the President are spread at large upon the Journal, further consideration of the veto message and the bill shall be postponed until the legislative day of Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010; and that on that legislative day, the House shall proceed to the constitutional question of reconsideration and dispose of such question without intervening motion. Agreed to without objection.

In other words, the House is gearing up to try overriding Obama’s pocket veto of a procedure that would help the banks retroactively cover up the mortgage and title fraud they committed previously.

The Dread Ilk, causing trouble

Okay, this made me laugh. A lot. Scooter posted this comment at National Review in response to a call on The Corner for the Wall Street Journal to feature an economics writer to counter Paul Krugman’s influence:

He’s a bit outside the mainstream for the Wall Street Journal, but Vox Day is an excellent voice for the Austrian school and regularly rebuts Krugman and Keynesian theory in general on his blog, Vox Popoli.

Spacebunny asked what I was laughing at. When I told her, she laughed and wanted to know if Vox Day appearing regularly in the Wall Street Journal was the 5th or the 6th sign that the Apocalypse was nigh.

The importance of academic credentials

ican going to graduate to now:

I’ve written toward a master’s degree in cognitive psychology, a Ph.D. in sociology, and a handful of postgraduate credits in international diplomacy. I’ve worked on bachelor’s degrees in hospitality, business administration, and accounting. I’ve written for courses in history, cinema, labor relations, pharmacology, theology, sports management, maritime security, airline services, sustainability, municipal budgeting, marketing, philosophy, ethics, Eastern religion, postmodern architecture, anthropology, literature, and public administration. I’ve attended three dozen online universities. I’ve completed 12 graduate theses of 50 pages or more. All for someone else….

I, who have no name, no opinions, and no style, have written so many papers at this point, including legal briefs, military-strategy assessments, poems, lab reports, and, yes, even papers on academic integrity, that it’s hard to determine which course of study is most infested with cheating. But I’d say education is the worst. I’ve written papers for students in elementary-education programs, special-education majors, and ESL-training courses. I’ve written lesson plans for aspiring high-school teachers, and I’ve synthesized reports from notes that customers have taken during classroom observations. I’ve written essays for those studying to become school administrators, and I’ve completed theses for those on course to become principals. In the enormous conspiracy that is student cheating, the frontline intelligence community is infiltrated by double agents.

You might want to keep this in mind the next time that someone tells you that he’s smarter than you because he has a science degree. Between the adherence to outdated and demonstrably false theories, the enlargement and concomitant devolution of the matriculating students, the grade inflation and the outright fraud, it is obvious that academic credentials mean absolutely nothing anymore regardless of which university has issued them. Consider what the following statement implies about the quality of doctorate and graduate degrees being cranked out by the paper mills.

“[A]t the time I was writing PhD papers and graduate theses for clients, I was myself an undergraduate student. Someone without a bachelors degree was writing work that should have qualified me to get a doctorate at least once a week.”

Credit contagion

Well, three of five isn’t bad as the Eurozone is on the verge of melting down again:

The EU authorities have begun to vent their fury against Ireland over its refusal to accept a financial rescue, fearing that the crisis will engulf Portugal and Spain unless confidence is restored immediately to eurozone bond markets…. A simultaneous bail-out for both Ireland and Portugal might run to €200bn, depleting much of the EU rescue line. The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) can raise up to €440bn on the bond markets but only two thirds of this would be available. The IMF is expected to loan a further €3 for every €8 from the EU under the bail-out formula.

The great concern is that the crisis could spread to Spain, which has a far bigger economy that Greece, Portugal, and Ireland combined. Foreign banks have €850bn of exposure to Spanish debt.

In RGD, I correctly identified Ireland and Spain as the likely culprits for the modern version of 1931’s Creditanstalt collapse. But I have to admit, I did not see Greece or Portugal being a probable issue; Estonia doesn’t count because it is not part of the Eurozone until 2011, assuming that there is still is Eurozone in 2011. But Greece was faking its economic statistics – they released yet another and increasingly bad debt/GDP report yesterday and I only looked at Portugal’s real estate sector, so presumably their excessive debt was concentrated elsewhere.

“According to Austrian theory, the effects of the housing bust on the overall economy should be much greater in countries like Estonia, Spain, and Ireland than in Austria, Germany, and Poland, and to the extent that inexpensive debt was made available to that and other sectors of the economy, we would expect to see that signs of the resulting economic contraction are similarly greater as well. Therefore we should see unemployment rising faster, prices falling further, GDP contracting more, and government deficits growing larger in the three housing boom countries than in the three non-boom ones. Due to the Austrian doubts about the reliability of macroeconomic data, greater credence should be given to historical statistics that are less easily manipulated, such as government deficits and interest rates, rather than GDP, unemployment, and inflation.”

Ireland is right to refuse the EU-IMF bailout. Notice that the bailout is not, as it is improperly characterized, a bailout of Ireland per se. It is actually a bailout of the banks that invested in Irish government debt and it is intended to put the people of Ireland on the hook for it in much the same way that Americans were put on the hook for the cost of the TARP bailouts.

Although it isn’t mentioned in the article, I noticed that Australia’s bond spreads have risen even higher than Portugal’s in the two-year. Australia has had a serious housing bubble too, one that continued into 2010, so don’t be surprised if there is news of a Australian crisis in the near future.

A lack of consequences has consequences

A policeman observes the effects of legal inequality in the name of sexual equality:

[A]s a former criminal investigator and street officer I have observed the deadly effects of feminism on women. Many women feel that they are entitled to browbeat, berate, and abuse men without consequences. By rule of law they would be right. By law of nature they often only realize their folly too late. Again and again I have seen this. The couple that has 5 or 10 domestic disturbance calls then one final call.

These aren’t the “burning bed” women. Those women don’t call the police. When that abuse comes to light it is usually a third party that makes the call. The most common is the dysfunctional couple that argue to a fever pitch until the guy has had enough. Often he will try to leave for awhile and she tries to block his exit, as she has not felt adequately satisfied with his level of torment. He removes her from his path, and she calls when he is gone citing that he has attacked her and is out on the road. A very common occurance. On the occasions when we arrive to find both at the home the male will be relatively calm while the female is hysterical or playing hard on the victim card. With the “imminent fear” standard in place women have learned to exploit this feature of the domestic abuse law. I taught rookie officers how to properly make the woman tip her hand to see if she was really in fear. Simply enough, you casually isolate the two parties and tell her that he will not be arrested on this occasion. When they are faking it, the fear act dissolves and you see who the aggressor really is. Not only will she aggress against the male partner but also at the officers.

The present legal situation presents a vicious, downward spiral once a woman makes the unilateral decision that she is the head of the household. There is little point in lamenting the legal realities, as they are what they are and significant change is unlikely until after a) the ongoing economic contraction fundamentally alters the male-female dynamic, or b) Sharia is instituted as is now apparently on the table in places like Amsterdamistan, Londonistan and Oklahoma.

While primary blame must be attached to the woman declares herself queen, there is no shortage of it to be attached to the man who makes the decision, conscious or unconscious, to submit to her rule. Once that decision is made, the possibility of the downward spiral becomes omnipresent; while couples that involve sufficiently low-status men may never embark upon it, some form of negative outcome is nevertheless likely.

Now, it’s not necessary to overreact and decry all possibility of long-term relationships with women simply because the law is stacked in favor of them. That is the instinctive Gamma response and is no different than the way that they tend to exaggerate every Game concept to the point of parodic inutility. All that is really necessary to forestall the likelihood of this downward spiral is to make it clear that although there may be no legal or physical consequences for a woman’s abusive actions, there will be serious repercussions for the relationship. Once a man makes it clear that he would truly rather be dead or working in the bowels of a Patagonian coal mine than live his life being treated badly by the one person who is supposed to be his helpmeet, only a deeply neurotic or psychopathic woman is going to push the issue beyond a few tests to establish his credibility on the matter.

In summary, if you are a browbeaten, hen-pecked man, it is ultimately your fault because you have not only voluntarily chosen that woman, but to accept being treated that way by her as well. It’s not worth it. No real man will ever live that way, and furthermore, as the policeman suggests, you are unlikely to be doing either her or yourself a service with your silence endurance.

Republicans pay attention

That’s new. The Senate Majority Leader reverses course on earmarks:

I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state. I don’t apologize for them. But there is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and the out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight. And unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government.

That’s why today I am announcing that I will join the Republican Leadership in the House in support of a moratorium on earmarks in the 112th Congress.

McConnell is correct in saying that rejecting earmarks is only a symbolic gesture at this point given the current $1.6 trillion deficit and the madness of Helicopter Ben. But what he clearly failed to understand initially is that symbols matter because they are also signals. I am no less skeptical about the Republicans in power now than I was back in 2000, but it does show that they are at least paying a modicum of attention to what happened earlier this month.

Aztlan rising

Since demographics is destiny, Golden State separatism and an eventual war of self-determination is all but guaranteed now:

Latinos now make up a majority of California’s public school students, cracking the 50 percent barrier for the first time in the state’s history, according to data released Friday by the state Department of Education. Almost 50.4 percent of the state’s students in the 2009-10 school year identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino, up 1.36 percent from the previous year. In comparison, 27 percent of California’s 6.2 million students identified themselves as white, 9 percent as Asian and 7 percent as black. Students calling themselves Filipino, Pacific Islander, Native American or other total almost 7 percent.

The main reason for California to stay within the Union is its forthcoming bankruptcy and hope for a Federal bailout that is unlikely to be forthcoming. As more and more whites decide to leave Mexifornia and businesses flee the increasingly hostile state government, it is only a matter of time before historic Hispanic pride reasserts itself and the nascent Hispanic political power begins to flex its considerable demographic muscle. And given that the United States has been a primary advocate of a right to self-determination around the world since the Wilson administration, there will be little justification or national appetite to forcibly keep a bankrupt and mexicanized California within the Union.

Given how much evil has come out of white American California, from the endless filth of Hollywood to no-fault divorce, I can only wish the denizens of Aztlan much success in their eventual struggle for self-determination and a merger with Mexico.