The crisis in Burma looks likely to worsen as both Oxfam and the Foreign Office are revising their estimates of the potential death toll upwards. Public health concerns have led Oxfam to claim up to 1.5 million could die as a result of the cyclone, while David Miliband said he "would be amazed if there hadn't been about 100,000 who had died already" and claimed "hundreds of thousands more are at risk". He goes on to blame the "malign neglect" of the Burmese military junta, whose actions are creating a "humanitarian catastrophe of genuinely epic proportions". Douglas Alexander has been slightly less pessimistic, claiming the junta is softening its stance with limited access for an assessment team and permission for French NGO Medecins du Monde to distribute aid.The actions of the Burmese go
Tunnels of Tyranny: A Fourth Moose Jaw Adventure (Tunnels of Moose Jaw Adventure) (Tunnels of Moose Jaw Adventure Series) (Paperback)By Mary Harelkin Bishop
Buy new: $7.9518 utilised and new from $0.01 First tagged “childrens books” [...]
When dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases -- Robert Anton WilsonA great wave of oppressive tyranny isn't going to strike, but rather a slow seepage of oppressive laws and regulations from within will sink the American dream of liberty --George BaumlerThe means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home -- James Madison: US fourth president, 1751-1836This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector -- Plato: Ancient Greek philosopher (428/427-348/347 B.C.)The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience -- Albert Camus: French novelist
Coyote Blog has a brief discussion about the fact that 60% of people think the amount of taxes they pay is "fair." At first blush, this would seem to be a pretty strong argument that Americans don't think they are overtaxed.Except that Coyote Blog points out another little thing: 60% of Americans also receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes. In other words: 60% of Americans believe that it is fair to take from the remaining 40%. This is the problem when you implement "majority rules" governance over taxation. It's awfully easy to advocate for more government programs when you don't actually have to pay into those government programs.
Download it here: On Truth, The Tyranny of Illusion by Stefan Molyneux
This is the book that started the biggest change in my life. If you are interested in seeking the most freedom in your life, this is where I recommend you start.
I am in the process of packing my possessions in preparation for a change of residence; and let me just say, as a preface to this post, that there is nothing I hate more than moving. whimsical feline organisms cavort frenetically with bottlecaps
Being in a new place isn’t so bad. In fact, it can [...]
It’s been over a month since the last thug roundup, and there’s a simple reason for the long delay.
These things just make me angry and depressed. Eventually, you come to a point where you just have to sit on the bench for a few just so you gain regain your breath and energy.
Here’s the latest and worst that have been brought to my attention.
Cop Thinks His Gun is a Taser, Resulting in Accidental Death - And no charges were filed!
Cops Protect Themselves From a Naked, Deaf Man - I’m just glad they’re okay. Will they need counseling for undergoing such a traumatic, dangerous confrontation? The fact that the guy was completely innocent is, of course, irrelevant.
Teenage Boy Killed When Tasered While He was On the Ground - Again, the officers involved had to do something to protect themselves from this menace!
Evidence Of Innocence Rejected at Guantanamo - Land of the free, and home of the presumed guilty!
Cops Protecting Themselves from a Handcuffed Woma
Inglaterra | 2005 | Heavy MetalTyranny Of Souls es un album solista del vocalista de Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson. Fue editado en 2005 bajo Sancturary Records. Fue co-compuesto y producido por Roy Z. Es un trabajo maduro, con un balance ideal entre virtuosismo, agresividad y contundencia, tanto a nivel de las composiciones, del sonido y de la interpretación. Es un disco excelente. ¿Qué más decir? Me encanta Dickinson :P.Line Up:Bruce Dickinson - vocesRoy Z - guitarras, bajo (en tracks 7,9)David Moreno - bateríaRay "Greezer" Burke - bajo (en tracks 1,4,5,6,8,10)Juan Perez - bajo (en tracks 2,3)Maestro Mistheria - tecladosTracklist:1. "Mars Within" – 1:412. "Abduction" – 3:523. "Soul Intruders" – 3:544. "Kill Devil Hill" – 5:095. "Navigate the Seas of the Sun" – 5:536. "River of No Return" – 5:157. "Power of the Sun" – 3:318. "Devil on a Hog" – 4:039. "Believil" – 4:5210. "A Tyranny of Souls" – 5:54
This roundup, we have probably one of the most ridiculous and overt examples of tyranny.
Boy’s rights weren’t violated when officer shot him - After all, the State really owns the body of the boy, so it was just disposing of it’s property? Isn’t that what is being insinuated here? Of all things, you would think the right to life would be the most obvious.
Cops Taser an 82-year-old Grandmother - But hey, they were just doing they’re job right? She need to be protected and served.
A man was tasered in his own home after giving the cops proof that he lived there. And the cops will not face criminal charges. I’m sure the cops had a long day and just needed to blow off some steam. They have to put up with a lot of nonsense. You know, nonsense like people accusing them of abusing their power. Cops should be coddled due to their “selfless” service instead of being held to a higher standard of behavior.
Sober Diabetic Man Tasered, Accuse
Here’s the Government Tyranny Roundup for November 1, 2007. A great way to kick off the third month of the existence of this blog.
Police try to shut down a dangerous pumpkin trafficking booth. When there are no true criminals to catch, the government will always create some out of thin air so it can continue to justify it’s existence.
“When one of the officers turned to me and said ‘we have some bad news’ I naturally thought a loved one had been killed.”
Nope. Just that your sons are about to be “protected and served”. And that indeed is bad news.
Man Arrested for Feeding the Homeless - And people still think government actually helps poor people? Well, it certainly likes to give money to poor people who are able to vote. But if a poor person has no vote to sell, like these homeless, this particular government actually makes it a CRIME to help them. Wow.
Jesus wouldn’t be very popular in Orlando. In fact, he’d pro
A lot has happened since the last Government Tyranny Roundup.
Serve and protect? Sure…
For our own good? Right…
A woman in a wheel-chair is murdered because she was tasered 10 times.
Did all that initial voltage give her the ability to walk again? Is that why they had to use it an additional 8-9 times?!
Music Scholar Barred From U.S., but No One Will Tell Her Why. A good read about how any secret government process will ultimately be used for harming the very ones it is meant to “protect.” Plus, her treatment by government officials during the process is absolutely despicable.
In a written account of the next eight hours that she prepared for her lawyer, Ms. Ghuman said that officers tore up her H-1B visa, which was valid through May 2008, defaced her British passport, and seemed suspicious of everything from her music cassettes to the fact that she had listed Welsh as a language she speaks. A redacted government report about the episode obtained by he
It’s always important to shed light on evil, especially when perpetrated by those in power. When it comes to modern government, however, people tend to turn a blind eye because they are under the delusion that government is a good thing and really exists to “serve and protect.”
Many of the evils of government are performed in broad daylight, so these roundups are meant to draw attention to these despicable acts so people can’t ignore them.
These aren’t just a few bad apples spoiling an otherwise good tree. This is the natural fruit that the current establishment grows, thanks to it’s worship of power and violence, and a system of messed up incentives that implicitly encourages tyrannical behavior. The rot tends to spread even to the good-hearted.
Some of these might not seem as bad as I’m making it, and you may be tempted to consider me a melodramatic nut-ball. But I ask you to think about the underlying thought processes involved in the se
Pro-Pain es una banda norteamericana de heavy metal. Originalmente tocaban hardcore/punk pero luego adquirieron influencias del groove metal y del thrash. Su trabajo 2007 se titula Age of Tyranny - The Tenth Crusade.Line Up: Gary Meskil(voz, bajo), Tom Klimchuck (guitarra), Marshall Stephens (guitarra), JC Dwyer (batería) y Billy Sexcrime (coros).Tracklist:01. The New Reality02. All For King George03. Pigs In Glover04. Beyond The Pale05. Three Minutes Hate06. Heads Will Roll07. Company Jerk08. Impeach, Indict, Imprison09. Leveler10. Iraqnam11. Live Free (Or Die Trying)Subido por Xilly. Gracias!!
It is hard to believe that the modern music industry does much to bring better music to the world. Recent offenses to quality music such as boy bands, divas, and overproduced pop shlock have all but convinced me. Apparently, I’m not the only one. Witness the rise of independent music, music produced largely outside the system without much help from the traditional music industry, especially in the early stages. Clearly, the music consuming public isn’t being served by the glossy output of the major labels and they are looking elsewhere for original, artistic content. So, if the music industry fails at its single purpose to produce good music, what exactly is the problem?
There are lots of problems, but I feel it can be argued that a major issue facing the record industry is one of structure. The way the music industry typically handles artists is akin to the old studio system employed by Hollywood in the 1920’s through the 1950’s. In old Hollywood, actors, techn
Some thought the NFL went too far when earlier this month it placed a limit on how much video footage media outlets can show. Well, there’s no debate about it any more—the league is in effect attempting to sell advertising space on the backs of photographers. A new rule recently passed by the league requires photographers at NFL games to wear red vests with Cannon and Reebok logos on them. As you might expect, the National Press Photographers Association (as well as nearly everybody else the rule affects), is not happy about it. Here are just a few of the responses.
“The inclusion of sponsors’ logos on the photographers’ vests can only be seen as a deliberate decision to give the companies added exposure. But the vast expanse of the NFL stadiums, and the army of workers staffing the games, provide an endless supply of opportunities to promote the NFL’s sponsors without having to resort to forcing working journalists to unwillingly – and unethicall
First the U.S. Senate passed bill S1082 -- The FDA Revitalization Act -- that threatens dietary supplements and health freedom. Now the U.S. House of Representatives has passed another fatally flawed bill, HR 2900, which grants even more power to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) while ensuring deeper financial ties between the agency and Big Pharma.What little the law does do is require the publishing of a clinical trials database, and allows only one FDA official with ties to the industry to sit on a drug decision panel (as opposed to the unlimited number that sat on these panels before).This is hardly worth celebrating, as the law also allows the FDA to evaluate dietary supplements as they do prescription drugs -- which means they can also remove supplements from the market as they see fit.Meanwhile, the FDA will actually be allowed to work with drug and biotech companies to develop and launch new drugs. This new law places the FDA “in charge of drug design, drug patents
First the U.S. Senate passed bill S1082 -- The FDA Revitalization Act -- that threatens dietary supplements and health freedom. Now the U.S. House of Representatives has passed another fatally flawed bill, HR 2900, which grants even more power to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) while ensuring deeper financial ties between the agency and Big Pharma.What little the law does do is require the publishing of a clinical trials database, and allows only one FDA official with ties to the industry to sit on a drug decision panel (as opposed to the unlimited number that sat on these panels before).This is hardly worth celebrating, as the law also allows the FDA to evaluate dietary supplements as they do prescription drugs -- which means they can also remove supplements from the market as they see fit.Meanwhile, the FDA will actually be allowed to work with drug and biotech companies to develop and launch new drugs. This new law places the FDA “in charge of drug design, drug patents
Don’t’ get deceived by the looks or even by the words, observe the underlying reality and the deeds. We are not living in freedom—actually we might never have. Only the forms of suppression and abuse have been changing along the centuries, sometimes with a figurehead and more recently only with symbolical representatives.
Oxford American Dictionary defines tyranny as “cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control”. The last definition already includes democracy provided that one is considering the issue from an individual’s perspective. Democracy is a system where a certain selection of the population is giving their power to a few elected representatives that use the power of force to apply their rules to the whole population. It is worthwhile to notice that not everybody in the population is even entitled to vote.
The much-embraced democratic process is only a form of tyranny where majority is entitled to enforce the minority under its regime. And what is the
Nowadays, after more than forty-seven years of a Marxist-Leninist tyranny in Cuba, there is no explanation or justification for the fact that there be governments supporting this dictatorship of Fidel Castro although not openly declaring their identification with it. Moreover, the same could be said about political leaders and mass information media, supposedly democratic, that not only regard this tyranny with indifference, but also applaud it and treat it with deference as if it were a government with democratic roots.
It is irritating that those who act this way on behalf of the mentioned tyranny be implacable when any other type of government makes a mistake, even authoritarian governments that are not communist, attacking them constantly and bitterly. They do the same with the great numbers of Cubans in exile who are not well regarded by these sympathizers of the totalitarian regime of Fidel Castro. With any excuse whatsoever they issue unfavorable comments as well as lies – dep
A new ad-hoc group of citizens has recently coalesced in the Twin Cities, and naturally they made our Favorite Fools list. We are calling them The Active Nonconformists Together Insisting on Free Association and Speech to Confront Injustice and State Tyranny (ANTI-FASCIST). These citizens advocate the people’s right to protest the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul. The ANTI-FASCISTs grew up considering themselves blessed to live in a land where freedom of speech was celebrated and where the people have a right to petition their government for a redress of grievances. Their list of grievances with the current administration includes a preemptive war for oil and control of the Middle East, a racist government response to a deadly hurricane, and a domestic policy that ignores the people’s right to a living wage, affordable housing, decent health care, quality education and marriage benefits regardless of sexual orientation. Protected by the First Amendment,
It's 5:19 AM. This does not give me enough time to post a reasonably long post. This is once again going to be a quickie.As I mentioned on my previous post, I am intending to complete my Urgent/Important Matrix to try to organize my chaotic schedule. Guess what? I have not done it yet. It seems like the "tyranny of the urgent" has overtaken my life. I need to re-group. I must do that TODAY!I'll be back tonight.
This is the best name/acronym for a group, ever. ANTI-FASCIST. (the blurb about this Minneapolis-based group is just "below the fold" on the linked page. And this is possibly one of the *best* quotes from a government official ever:
"What the ANTI-FASCISTs don't understand is that free speech is fine as long as you don't do it in public," said a representative of Homeland Security. "We're waging a War on Terror, and freedom of speech just isn't what it used to be. Fences, tear gas, and paddy wagons are important tools for preventing terrorism. Show me a picture of protesters with access to convention delegates and the media, and I'll show you free speech that's completely out of control."
Sorry, I meant one of the saddest.
In the light of democratic ideals it is inconceivable that there be people who consider themselves as being in that field who directly or indirectly support the Marxist-Leninist totalitarian tyranny of Fidel Castro. There are some who openly support it, and there are also those who take the comfortable position of not mentioning and not attacking it. It is irritating to see that individuals who have academic culture, university professors, writers, still today are in favor of everything that this tyranny stands for.
A tyranny that emerged forty-seven years and three months ago with terrible executions, that applied the death penalty without any qualms whatsoever and going against the laws of the time; that filled its prisons and emptied the banks’ safety deposit boxes, does not deserve to be seen with indifference by those who consider themselves to be freedom lovers and respectful of human rights. Those crimes perpetrated by the tyranny from its very first days in outrageous ways, i
James Bovard brilliantly expands on the thought that liberty does not require the approval of the 51% majority.
What are the mechanics by which majority-mandated shackles liberate the individual? How does a shackle supported by 51 percent of the populace affect an individual differently from one endorsed by a mere 49 percent? Is the secret to democracy some law of inverse political gravity—so that the more people who support imposing a shackle, the less it weighs? Are citizens obliged to pretend that any restriction favored by the majority is not a restraint but instead a badge of freedom? Shackles are shackles are shackles, regardless of what rhetorical holy water they are blessed with. (emphasis mine)
People are taught that, thanks to democracy, coercion is no longer dangerous because people get to vote on who coerces them. Because people are permitted a role in choosing who will be in charge of the penal code, they are free. Being permitted to vote for politicians who enact unjus
The Archbishop of York, the second most senior cleric in the Church of England, has criticised the Home Secretary John Reid and his attempt to bring in 90 day detention periods for terrorist suspects before the need to bring charges.
Dr Sentamu said: “Why does he want these days? So the police do what? Gather more evidence? To me that becomes, if you’re not very careful, very close to a police state in which they pick you up and then they say later on we’ll find evidence against you. That’s what happened in Uganda with Idi Amin.”
Dr John Sentamu, who fled Uganda in the 1970s, criticised 90-day detention, likening it with his home country under the tyrannical rule of Idi Amin.
It is now becoming a commonplace for commentators to compare Britain with a banana republic and to say that the government is becoming more dictatorial and with less regard for the process of law and with a deteriorating attitude towards human rights. The last time the clergy declared
By Mimi Rothschild
It appears as though there is more to the aforementioned cheerleading scandal than initially met the eye. The New York Post enters the fray.
The girls in question not only bullied their fellow students, but were able to intimidate school administrators. Apparently one of the student’s mothers was the principle of the school. Mom had no problem with her girls acting this way, and abused her power to award them preferential treatment.
Now, teachers and parents are coming forward to complain that Theret created a climate of fear bolstered by a culture of retaliation, litigation and Texas employment laws that made firings easy.
Ward said some teachers had changed grades for these girls because they feared for their careers.
“The principal made sure that every teacher knew that their job was on the line. I can’t tell you how many times I thought I was going to lose my job,” Ward said. “I was scared to death. It was a nightmare.”
Thi
The Tyranny of GivingDr. Ralph F. Wilson There is a wonder about Christmas as well as a tyranny. There is a wondrous briskness in the air and a rosy glow on the cheeks of early shoppers. There seems a purposefulness in those in the stores, though the planned buying lists of "Thanksgiving Friday" shoppers disintegrate into a mad frenzy by December 24th. Just grab at anything that Uncle Fritz can smile at when he unwraps it, even though no one can think of anything he really wants or needs.The season also imposes its tyranny on many of us. Instead of being able to give out of thoughtfulness and love, we often give because it is "expected". I heard of one couple who had 85 people they felt obligated to remember with a gift. No wonder the joy of giving falls away to a sort of panicked despair.It is time to refresh our giving with a truth from Scripture deeply imbedded into our consciousness from hundreds of repetitions at church offerings: "Each man should give what he has decided in his h
