Here I discuss how Free Market Environmentalism is not a contradiction. I argue that adhering to strict Property Rights is best for the environment. I explain The Tragedy of The Commons which is essential within this topic of Free Market Environmentalism. I provide historical examples to buttress the market fighting pollution and species endangerment. I also refute The Malthusian Theory on Slavery which ties in with The Tragedy of Commons and elucidates relevant incentives in this discussion.

Walter Block: Free Market Environmentalism

I can’t believe that Ron Paul’s historic little car is only going for $15,100. At least that is the leading bid right now, and the auction ends tonight at midnight CDT. Let’s make it at least $20,000 or $25,000. Remember that what you pay is a tax-deductible donation to the FREE foundation for the benefit of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. The neocons love to hate that new organization, and we love to make them do so. Think of your bid this way: every buck bugs Kristol.

Good for Bruce Bartlett for linking to and quoting Murray Rothbard in the NY Times, though Bruce is on the other side. As usual, Murray’s writing jumps off the page. I wonder if he is yet the best-read economist in the world? Certainly it is not Maynard nor Milton.

House Republicans have been wanting changes to Obamacare as a condition to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government. Why do Republicans object to Obamacare? They support things even worse–Medicare. And back when Bush the president they expanded Medicare to levels that LBJ could never have imagined. Although Republicans may not believe in the federal government forcing Americans to purchase health insurance for themselves, they do believe in forcing some Americans to pay for the health insurance or health care of other Americans through programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP.

Can you imagine a member of a street gang who was on another gang’s turf when he shouldn’t have been being cited by President Obama for bravery in a firefight? Then why do people slobber over a U.S. soldier getting the Medal of Honor for fighting in Afghanistan? What is honorable about fighting unnecessary and unjust foreign wars?

Police are people who consider themselves entitled to use aggressive violence against others, and punish those who defend themselves. When a Mundane dares to resist police aggression — even to the extent of passive non-cooperation — police will not only escalate violence until resistance is subdued, but will continue until punitive damage is inflicted on the victim. This leads to a phenomenon I call a “thugscrum,” in which a pack of feral cops throw themselves on top of a victim and maul him (or her) while one or more of their comrades will face outward to deter intervention on the victim’s behalf.

There are at least two things I like about the encounter recorded in this video. The first was the use of righteous defensive force against an armed aggressor in uniform.

The second was the fact that the individual who interposed against the cop’s aggression then intervened to prevent serious injury when someone else decided to pile on once the primary aggressor had been put down. We will never see a “good cop” intervene in similar fashion to prevent a punitive beating of a resisting Mundane. This is why thugscrums coalesce around prone, defenseless victims — and why genuinely decent people like former Officer Regina Tasca, who earnestly want to be peace officers, are purged from the ranks for trying to protect victims of police violence.

The prelude to this altercation wasn’t captured on video, but I don’t consider that matter to be terribly important. The officer wasn’t intervening to prevent a crime, and he deployed a reliably deadly weapon to carry out a punitive strike against an unarmed citizen. The man who intervened showed much greater restraint in responding to a genuine crime of violence.

So the  Swedish socialists at the Swedish central bank who hand out Nobel Prizes in economics have chosen as a co-winner this year one Robert Shiller, whose writings argue that central banks are not culpable in any way with boom-and-bust cycles in the economy.  They are caused by periodic episodes of collective insanity and “animal spirits,” says this new Nobel laureate “economist” who is not even an economist.  I suppose one of his policy recommendations might be to limit grains in our diet since that is what is fed to hogs, horses, and cows.

Now that Bob Shiller has won a Nobel Prize, shared with Gene Fama and Lars Hansen, let’s remind ourselves that his economics is Keynesian. It’s criticized here and here.

Shiller blamed the 2007-2008 financial crash on “animal spirits”, writing “It is now time to keep our eye on the ball and set clear targets to fix a system that broke when our animal spirits got out of bounds.” This is a non-explanation. It does not explain the timing of a bubble and subsequent recession and their linkage and their severity. It doesn’t explain those instances when bubbles do not occur. A doctor who cannot diagnose a patient cannot prescribe proper remedies. For a detailed Austrian diagnosis, see here. Excessive credit creation originating in the banking sector accompanied by a deterioration in loan quality and often stimulated by government policies are key factors that Shiller doesn’t mention.

In the movie “Cool Hand Luke” a prison guard kept telling an imprisoned Paul Newman that “we’re gonna make you get your mind right, boy.”  This of course is a perfect definition of the main objective of higher education in America and of the media and political  follies.  Only politically-correct words and actions, as defined by the cultural Marxists in higher education, the media, and politics are acceptable.  You are a Public Enemy if you disagree.

Professional football has long dragged its feet in getting with the program because, well, because it’s so heterosexual male oriented.  But the NFL is making progress.  For the past two weeks players have been wearing cute little pink booties and glovies to make the statement that “We Are Aware of Breast Cancer.”  What?  Huh?  Breast cancer?  Never heard of it.  Thank God the NFL alerted me to this newly-discovered plague.  Has anyone else out there ever heard of it?

Then there’s the frowning declaration of disapproval that King Obama made over the fact that the Washington Redskins are known as the Redskins.  Redskins owner Dan Snynder heroically gave the king a big middle finger (figuratively speaking), causing USA Today and other Official Pronouncers of Acceptable Opinion to throw a hysterical fit.  Mr. Snyder may eventually back down, but I hope not.  But if he does, here’s my recommendation for a new name for the team that I think will completely satisfy the cultural Marxists:  How about the Washington Gaylesianhispanicblacktransvestites?  That covers at least some of the Official Mascot Groups of the cultural Marxists.

UPDATE:  Emailers have suggested “DC Honky Scalpers” and “Washington Drones” instead of “Redskins.”  The latter suggestion came with a recommendation to put a tiny drone icon on the helmets.  The former correctly pointed out that “Washington” must also go since it is the name of a famous White Male Oppressor, the ultimate evil in the world of the politically correct.  Along those lines, I would also suggest changing the name to , perhaps, the Anacostia Gaylesbianhispanicblacktransvestites.

Yet another suggestion: ”The Washington Foreskins to acknowledge all the dickheads in D.C.”

The Redskins’ stadium is actually in Landover, MD, not Washington.  Before it was built there were rumors that the site might be Savage, Maryland and that the team’s name was to be changed to “The Savage Redskins.”

The scene described in today’s LRC article – wherein the police refused to prevent the veterans from entering the memorial – was reminiscent of the wonderful scene late in the movie “V for Vendetta.”  The peaceful, unarmed “marching libertarians” were able to neutralize and render harmless the well-armed, well-protected military/police troopers.

YouTube and the ‘Net in general are awash in this sort of thing: Law-abiding, productive person has a little too much of a very legal substance (alcohol). Bully cop pulls over the “criminal” and carts the person off to jail to “teach them a lesson” and attempts to ruin their life and finances via the corrupt court system and politically and emotionally warped “drunk driving” laws. Bully cop proceeds to abuse said “criminal” while in custody due to a spurious sense of power and a lack of any real self worth. The ‘criminal’, in this case, is a tiny, 110-lb woman.

This story – and the accompanying video – is one of the most brutal I have ever seen. The woman had actually pulled over to get off the road and fall asleep because her good judgment told her that she was not capable of driving. She was arrested while sitting in her unmoving car and for making the best available choice by avoiding potential (real) criminality by way of an auto accident. The whole video – which is brilliantly produced – must be seen. Not only did the woman not resist arrest, she completely submitted to all demands. This piece of garbage cop, who is twice her weight and 3-4 times her strength, threw her into a holding cell with full force, flinging her face first into a concrete bench. She ended up with reconstructive facial surgery, multiple broken facial bones, and a titanium plate surgically imbedded in her face. Why isn’t this bullying piece of shit being arrested for attempted murder?

Here’s Richard Nikoley on this story and incarceration nation, and why we should all hate hate hate the police state.

Mark Thornton discusses the three American winners of the 2013 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

The Daily Mail article on today’s LRC informs us of a giant asteroid predicted to hit Earth on March 16, 2880. This event, we are warned, will likely bring an end to life on this planet. But the statists will have none of that. “Destroying the conditions that sustain life is our job,” snorted Ms. Ann Thrope, a U.S. senator from the state of Bewilderment. “We will not allow a three-mile chunk of space-rock to accomplish what our programs are all about.  We will get the job done long before 2880!”

Ron Paul and I were talking to one of the significant young people in the entertainment business recently, and he mentioned that his father is a coin dealer in Los Angeles, and so his interest in gold and silver is hereditary. Ron asked, “I wonder if your dad knew Burt Blumert.” A text was immediately answered: “I did know Burt and liked him very much. A man of total integrity.” That was the great precious metals dealer and Rothbardian-Paulian. If you never had the privilege of meeting Burt, read some of his columns or his book. He didn’t start writing until late in life, but he was so funny, so politically incorrect, so right.

UPDATE from Jim Glaser:

Lew, One time I wanted to buy a gold coin for each of my three children.  I called Camino Coin and for some reason Burt answered the phone and we got talking about Lewrockwell.com and politics, and when we finally got to the coin purchase he said, “let me pick out three nice ones for you.”  He did and they sure were nice old gold coins.  The man was so easy to talk to.  When my column from your page was published in Pravda, he sent me a silver dollar, and I still have that.

UPDATE Once when I called I asked Burt, why are you answering the phone? “I wanted to put down the mop,” he said.

“Stand Up for Our Veterans,” says the Fox Nation headline. There will be a march tomorrow in Washington DC to protest the shutting down of the war memorials. You see, because of the government “shutdown,” “our brave veterans who risked their lives for our freedom” “are being barred from visiting the memorials erected to honor their deeds.” Their deeds? What kind of deeds did our veterans do in Vietnam? How many millions were killed or made widows or orphans because of their deeds? See Nick Turse’s new book Kill Anything That Moves. I highly recommend it. My review was just published in the October issue of Future of Freedom but is not online yet.

Stand up for our veterans? I think I’d rather sit down.

According to a Fox News story dated October 5, because of the government “shutdown,” the U.S. military “has furloughed as many as 50 Catholic chaplains” and banned them “from celebrating weekend Mass.” They are apparently not even able to offer their services without pay.

Want to hear something even more ridiculous? That Catholic priests would serve as chaplains for the U.S. government’s murder squad in the first place.

Waiting at the gate for my flight from Fort Lauderdale recently, the Fatherland “Security” Gestapo showed up at the last minute to conduct an extra check for bombs by peering into Styrofoam Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cups of any passenger carrying a coffee onto the morning flight.  Some tourists approached one of the 4′ 6” female Gestapoettes and said “Gee, we were hoping you guys were off work because of the shutdown so we could spend another day or two in Florida.”  The scowling, frowning, little Nazi bitch dressed in a black mini-Ninja costume just looked at the civilian and said: “We’re on the job.  We don’t want the dead bodies.”  She could have added, “So just bend over and take it, you scum.”  I’m sure that’s what the Gestapoette must have been thinking.

Reason and argument, pillars of Western civilization, and not violence, are the foundation of justice through trials. But trials can be subverted in a large number of ways. The most basic way is to focus the trial on legalities dreamed up and imposed by a government or a military tribunal, instead of focusing on the charges, the evidence, and rights and their violations. Legalities replace the search for justice. Many other forms of corruption can occur. Perjury can be encouraged or allowed. Evidence can be prevented from being presented. Evidence can be tampered with. “Evidence” can be obtained by torture. Deals can be made with witnesses. All such methods subvert the norms of argument, and those norms are critical to civilized discourse and thus civilization.

As noted earlier, prisoners at Guantanamo held indefinitely are getting no justice. The government doing this, led by obama and before him bush, is undermining norms of argument and civilized behavior.

Kelly Vlahos has an article about the kangaroo court trials of several Guantanamo prisoners who are, in fact, getting trials. “…the defense attorneys assigned by the military itself say they are being spied on, their files and emails missing and/or ending up in the hands of the prosecution, their conversations listened to, their clients’ mail being confiscated and read by military officials.” Confidentiality is part of not testifying against oneself and part of the presumption of innocence. There cannot be a candid conversation between an accused person and a defense attorney under these conditions. Any innocent or inadvertent piece of information obtained by such spying can be used against even an innocent person in innumerable ways.

Attorney General john ashcroft in 2001 issued an order allowing taping of lawyer-client conversations. The California Supreme Court subsequently overturned a 1982 ruling and allowed the admission in a trial of secretly taped conversations between lawyers defending their clients.

Totalitarian trends such as these are an ineluctable consequence of government, depending on conditions that can slow them down or speed them up. 9/11 was the condition that speeded up the already existing assault by government on freedom and rights, which is its natural behavior, built into the beast.

No, the big surprise is not that Detroit made it into the top ten. In spite of what one’s perceptions may be due to multiple personality media spin, this is a uniquely American city with some of the greatest architecture and general history within US borders. However, what is surprising is that the Eastern Bloc of the United States, the Beltway, came in at number two in spite of the fact that D.C. has no relevant history (that isn’t steeped in idolization of government), no inspiring architecture, and no anything. The description supporting the choice is a hoot.

Due to its lack of skyscrapers, few people consider central Washington when they envision America’s best downtowns. But height isn’t everything, and D.C. more than makes up for it by having a downtown that is both vibrant and clean.  Many of the United States’ most important buildings are contained within its limits, including the White House, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. Downtown Washington has office space that rivals New York and Chicago, along with a spill-over residential vibrancy that is perhaps only equaled by Philadelphia.  In addition, it has the National Mall and the Potomac in its front yard, and it is largely bereft of the highways that slice apart all too many downtowns.

Yes, The Toilet – the deification of the state - is #2, and it beats out such amazing downtowns as Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. The most depressing place ever. You couldn’t attract me to this dungeon by tripling my salary. Personally, my two favorites are my hometown, Detroit, and glorious Chicago. Cities that lack vintage history, such as Miami and Seattle, don’t appeal to me beyond a visitation. Cross-posted at my blog “Detroit: from Rust to Riches.”

Corner of Griswold and Grand River in Detroit.
Photo by Karen DeCoster

In what is being called “The Big Lie,” the Pentagon has been holding ‘phony’ ceremonies for returning remains of MIAs, using planes that can’t fly. “The ceremonies have been attended by veterans and families of MIAs, led to believe that they were witnessing the return of Americans killed in World War II, Vietnam and Korea.”

The real tragedy, however, is that the mission of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) “is to return and identify the 83,000 missing service men and women from World War II, Korea and Vietnam. The agency is identifying the dead at a rate of fewer than 80 per year, at a cost of more than $1 million per identification. Bodies now wait in the JPAC lab an average of 11 years before being identified, according to an internal report released this year.”

Beg, plead, and cry to keep your loved ones out of the military. Fifty years after they disappear from a place they should never have been, pieces of their bodies in some lab may still be unidentified. And that is if they even find any body pieces. Oh, but the risk is worth it since my son or daughter can’t find a job and will get money to go to college while they defend my freedom–to be dumb enough to make such a statement.

The Washington Post finally realized today that virtually every pundit allowed space in its paper and allowed time on the mainstream corporate news is an advocate for war, and that, further, each of them seem to have a personal stake in the promotion of war. Today the Post reported on a new study by the Public Accountability Initiative which found that:

“The media debate surrounding the question of whether to launch a military attack on Syria in August and September of 2013 was dominated by defense industry-backed experts and think tanks. These individuals and organizations are linked to dozens of defense and intelligence contractors, defense-focused investment firms, and diplomatic consulting firms with strong defense ties, yet these business ties were rarely disclosed on air or in print.”

That the Washington Post reported on this study is a revelation. Not because we didn’t already know the mendacity of that endless queue of ex-generals and connected neocons and “humanitarian interventionists” who parade in front of us telling us about cakewalks and the need to project US power or the importance of removing the horrible dictator of the day. It was a revelation because it was published in the Washington Post, one of the chief enablers of these war profiteers.

Indeed, the Washington Post’s own editorial page editor, the  hyper-interventionist neocon Fred Hiatt, was incriminated in the article. Hiatt, who from Africa to the Middle East to Russia to Asia has never seen a conflict to which he didn’t want to send other Americans’ kids to fight, published former George W. Bush’s national security advisor Stephen Hadley’s bombastic opinion piece demanding that President Obama enforce his red lines in Syria.

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On November 7 in Atlanta, the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund will host a debate between famed farmer Joel Salatin and Dr. Joseph Mercola on the GMO labeling question. Anarcho Salatin takes the viewpoint that government should not mandate GMO labeling in spite of the fact that the entire GMO industry is built upon a house of corporatocracy. Mercola argues that government is needed to mandate the wishes of the majority. Go Salatin! The event is listed here.

Here is a preview.

Psychology Today has published another great article on how the government is targeting children as young as age 3 to believe in and embrace the fat-free, yolk-free, governmentized dogma on all things food: Author Pam Schoenfeld writes:

The latest issue of my professional journal arrived in the mail last week, and as usual, I skimmed the abstracts of posters scheduled for the upcoming annual dietetics conference. To my surprise, a few dozen described research on children’s diets, eight reporting outcomes from programs targeted for preschool or grade-school age groups.

One group of researchers stated that because 75% of children are in organized childcare, it is the ideal setting for promoting healthy behaviors; a second group agreed that childcare settings are a prime environment for early intervention. I was reminded of my own dietetic internship, where I had to sing to Head Start pupils about the merits of low-fat milk while entertaining them with a cow puppet. Nutrition and health lessons directed to preschoolers are commonly delivered in the form of games and songs, but researchers are now studying the effectiveness of other methods.

Earlier this year I posted about entrepreneur Dan Gilbert’s parking structure project in Detroit – a privately-funded structure that has been designed to reflect Detroit’s renaissance personality. Crain’s Detroit has posted an updated story on “The Z” parking structure, so called because it zigzags between four streets – Broadway and Grand River, and Library and Gratiot. This is a great quote from MLive:

Quicken Loans Founder and Chairman Dan Gilbert has maintained that if he is going to build a parking garage in downtown Detroit, it is not going to be another drab, concrete structure.

On Friday, Gilbert’s Bedrock Real Estate Services will unveil a project in collaboration with the Library Street Collective that the company said will make its “Z” development parking garage not just a place to stash cars, but a downtown Detroit a destination.

This 535,000 square foot structure includes 10 floors, 1,300 parking spaces, 34,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, and the work of 27 different mural artists from around the world. The painted murals are 130 feet wide. The Crain’s article includes an amazing photo display of the murals. First time ever that I’ve thought: I can’t wait to park here. This is cross-posted at my blog “Detroit: From Rust to Riches.”

I joked at the beginning of the shutdown charade — when the Washington Post was peeing its pants in every inch of copy that the world was truly coming to an end — that the only way average America would get upset about the government shutdown was if it took away beer or trash television. OK, I was being cynical.

But it so happens…it so happened!

According to the equally hysterical CBS News, the craft beer industry is “going flat during the government shutdown.” Here is the intent of the article: “what a dirty trick for the evil tea party responsible for the shutdown to play on the American people!”*

As ever, a quick read between the lines reveals the rest of the story — a much more interesting lesson in the perniciousness of the government in the first place:

“…the shutdown has closed an obscure agency that quietly approves new breweries, recipes and labels, which could create huge delays throughout the rapidly growing craft industry…”

What? There is a government agency that actually approves the recipes and labels of American craft brewers?

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Following the lead of presidents who preceded him, obama has been busy undermining fundamental norms of Western civilization. I provide one major example. Western civilization has a norm of reason, not violence. One implication is that matters of justice are argued in courts. They are not settled by ordeals of strength, appeal to entrails, soothsayers or witchfinder generals. obama flouted this norm when he issued an executive order in March of 2011 that continued and, in fact, solidified the practice of indefinite detention for certain prisoners held at Guantanamo. These prisoners should have been charged and tried years ago. Their cases should have been argued in court. They should have had the opportunity to face their accusers, hear the accusations against them, gather evidence, call witnesses and defend themselves. In not doing this, bush and obama have substituted violence for reason.

An article from “Iran Review” describes the three main factions in Turkey. The article is titled “Democratization of Power in Turkey.” It talks about three identities of different groups: Islamic, Turkish and European. The Prime Minister Erdogan is proposing changes in the state, with these groups in mind. The premise is to keep the State of Turkey intact while providing means for the conflicting aspirations and visions of the groups to be reconciled. This kind of political maneuver uses “democracy” and “democratization” as a way to create a political balance that maintains the State of Turkey. It therefore opposes secession, panarchy, autonomous regions, federations, and other solutions. Each group in the one-state scenario must become a rival jockeying for dominance over the others, to the extent possible. Compromise is one possible outcome but so is continual rivalry, with no one being really happy at the result. If the groups can see no other way to live than to control a single state and impose on others through that state, then continual bickering and hostility or even fighting will result until one faction for whatever reason becomes dominant.

But the main point I wanted to make is that the terms democracy and democratization, which are what the U.S. seeks for many countries that are riven with factions, really means a one-state political solution for these lands. There are no good reasons why such a solution is a good idea for all sorts of disparate countries that have unique problems and societies. There is no good reason why imposing or pushing for such a solution, to the point of engaging in multiple wars, does anything good for the people of America.

Democracy and democratization are being used as semi-holy goals, but in standing in for support of a single monopoly State, they preclude all sorts of other political solutions, from secession to autonomous regions to exterritorialism to federations. This is another case in which democracy is in opposition to a more far-reaching political freedom, one that supports freedom of association.

Change and motion are virtually laws of nature and the universe. There is nothing sacrosanct about the State. Its sovereignty and territoriality are going to be broken down. The major danger during this process is that a few large states by themselves or in conjunction with the U.N. consolidate into a worldwide power. This is a danger because smaller groupings are more vulnerable militarily and economically. The world cannot move forward toward greater justice without clearly recognizing those rights that are natural and rejecting those so-called positive rights that have been snuck in under various banners. This is because all attempts to create positive rights are going to lead right back to oppressive government.

First, the government despises the people. As has been amply documented, the shutdown of the national parks and monuments is a cynical ploy to punish Americans for not toeing the administration’s line. These are mostly nature preserves after all, and shutting them down has required more work than just leaving them open to the public, sans rangers.

Second, the American public are not the looting, vandalizing hordes of unwashed masses the government would make us out to be. While I’d prefer he started at the Jefferson Memorial, here’s an unnamed American who took it on his own initiative to make sure the monuments stay maintained. The g-men obviously turn a blind eye to the “Adopt A Highway” programs where thousands of miles of government roadway receive free maintenance from civic minded groups who clean up the trash for free, all for a little sign. Imagine the sponsorship rights to be had for maintaining the National Mall or Yellowstone! Let’s lay off all National Park rangers permanently and auction the maintenance rights (and the parks themselves while we’re at it!)

Third, the only value the Federal Government actually brings to the long suffering American people is the National Parks. Consider this – the shutdown has given them an excuse to punish the serfs for daring to elect a few “radicals” who are concerned about implementing a Soviet-style medical insurance scheme on top of $200+ Trillion in off balance sheet federal debt, and are making an issue of it. The only “service” the administration can actually shutdown that 99% of Americans give a damn about is the national parks, and even then most people are only indirectly affected. Shutdown at the EPA? Yawn. Shutdown the IRS? Yes, please! CDC? Meh. NSA, TSA, CIA, FBI, and Globally deployed military forces – We should be so lucky.

Think of the colossal waste of over $3.5 Trillion dollars a year on all this government and when push comes to shove, the best they can do is take away some nature preserves. Government is a deadly, wasteful scam with negligible tangible benefit.

The vulgar nature of the state has been no more vividly demonstrated than in Washington’s current withholding of death benefits – including a $100,000 payment – to families of soldiers killed in combat.  This delay stands alongside the closing of national parks, the Washington Monument, and other government services that people actually want, as a means of punishing ordinary people for not insisting on an end to the make-believe “shutdown.”

Do you remember the early days of the Bushobama Wars, when the government and its obsequious media refused to show the planeloads of flag-draped coffins bringing dead soldiers back to America? Such pictures would pose a cost to the war system that were swept under the rug. But when such images could be used as a benefit to the state in pressuring for congressional approval of a budget, such were quickly made available for public viewing via television “news” coverage! Families are anxiously awaiting their $100,000 payoff, we are told, and the checks are being held up by a few days due to the “shutdown.”

During the Vietnam War – whose end was facilitated by daily pictures of scores of returning flag-draped coffins – there was a popular bumper-sticker that read: “war is good business: invest your son.”  The truth of this proposition is now being trotted out for political advantage. What is next? Shall we soon have “dead soldiers” as a commodities market, with prices reported alongside those of soybeans, pork-bellies, and cotton? Will such prices fluctuate in accordance with delays in receiving payments?

I don’t know whether the capacity for sociopathic crudeness is a formal requirement for working in government and the mainstream media, but such qualities would definitely be a benefit to anyone seeking such careers!

That would be Albany, New York, as Dan Johnson describes it. Mr. Johnson is the founder of PANDA, which has worked across the country to convince states, cities, and other local entities that they should nullify the Feds’ kidnapping and indefinite detention of serfs, a.k.a., NDAA. This week, PANDA and a host of volunteers achieved a signal victory in Albany, NY: “On October 7, 2013, the Albany, NY Common Council unanimously passed Resolution 80.92.13, becoming the first city in America to prohibit indefinite military detention without charge or trial, specifically under the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, to declare it is not a ‘battlefield’ and resolve that its citizens and residents are not subject to ‘detention under the law of war.’”

Yay, Liberty! Go, PANDA! Dissidents in the areas surrounding Albany should mark it as a refuge when the Feds begin rounding up patriots. And those of you living in less Progressive regions can take inspiration from freedom’s victory here to push anti-NDAA legislation there. If it can prevail in Albany, it can prevail anywhere…well, except maybe New York City…

(Mr. Johnson also told me PANDA was not involved in California’s passage of AB351, as I had erroneously reported. My apologies.)