Category Archives: The State

‘Aviation Gulag’

Government, Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Republicans, Terrorism, The State

A timely, TSA-related blog post at LRC.COM; a reminder that no action has been taken by the tired Tea-Party Congress to abolish the home of the homegrown terrorists of the Transportation and Security Administration:

Rep[robate] John Mica (R-Fl) has treated the TSA to yet another of his verbal lashings: the agency and its security sham are “idiotic,” “a mess,” and “off the charts” when it comes to rates of failure.
John seems to have forgotten we’ve heard it all before, on many, many occasions. Indeed, it’s way past time this chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee moved from words to deeds: Let him wield the power of his office to abolish the TSA.

As was pointed out in “‘It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,'” “the Fox News Blond Squad” (and its male equivalents) has often “implied that the interminable complainers at the terminals were no more than an insignificant group of noise-makers. Kirsten Powers, a liberal member of that squadron, expressed her satisfaction with the porn protocol. Her sympathies, she said, go out to TSA workers.”

UPDATED: Steve Jobs Was With Liberty

Barack Obama, Business, Capitalism, Celebrity, Economy, Intelligence, Technology, The State

As is to be expected with so private and guarded a person, the curtain on Steve Jobs’ inner life is being pulled back slowly, but surely. In the process, Jobs’ natural affinity for freedom is being revealed. The man who gave us Apple Inc. was obviously too smart to misunderstand the essence of liberty and how at odds BHO is with it. Jobs was on to the idiot Obama (and to racist and statist Bill Gates). Reports the HuffPo:

“Jobs, who was known for his prickly, stubborn personality, almost missed meeting President Obama in the fall of 2010 because he insisted that the president personally ask him for a meeting. Though his wife told him that Obama ‘was really psyched to meet with you,’ Jobs insisted on the personal invitation, and the standoff lasted for five days. When he finally relented and they met at the Westin San Francisco Airport, Jobs was characteristically blunt. He seemed to have transformed from a liberal into a conservative.

‘You’re headed for a one-term presidency,’ he told Obama at the start of their meeting, insisting that the administration needed to be more business-friendly. As an example, Jobs described the ease with which companies can build factories in China compared to the United States, where ‘regulations and unnecessary costs’ make it difficult for them.

Jobs also criticized America’s education system, saying it was ‘crippled by union work rules,’ noted Isaacson. ‘Until the teachers’ unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform.’ Jobs proposed allowing principals to hire and fire teachers based on merit, that schools stay open until 6 p.m. and that they be open 11 months a year.”

Jobs’ spot-on assessment of Bill Gates has to be my favorite revelation:

“Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”

So true.

UPDATE (1/3/2016): Alex Gibney, at CNN, trashes Steve Jobs, posthumously, in a one-sided, banal, “Why Can’t He Be More Like Bill Gates” bit of yellow journalism.

UPDATED: Is A-Jad (Ahmadinejad) The Fall Guy for the AG (Attorney General)? Yes!

Conspiracy, Crime, Iran, Law, Middle East, Propaganda, Terrorism, The State

My latest WND.COM column, “Eric Holder, Gunrunning and a Pair of Iranian Numbskulls,” fleshes out the case that A-Jad (Ahmadinejad) is the fall guy for the AG (attorney general). Here’s an excerpt:

“… If we know anything about the Iranian Special Forces, it is that they are nothing like the schlemiels we’ve just indicted. The two remind me of Chipopo, the hero in a series of Hebrew children’s books I used to devour as a kid in Israel. Chipopo was a monkey. Defendants Mansour and Shakuri’s antics, as detailed in the legal brief that reads like a hastily written potboiler, conjure ‘Chipopo Joins the IDF,’ an adventure in this series. Needless to say, it was not his height that gave the monkey away during basic training.

Enter CS-1.

CS-1 is the chief witness against Holder’s aspiring terrorists, and ‘a paid confidential source,’ who had been ‘previously charged in connection with a narcotics offense by authorities of a certain U.S. state. In exchange for CS-1’s cooperation … the State charges were dismissed.’

Put it this way, allowing CS-1 to conduct a sting operation is a lot like letting a criminally minded attorney general run guns to Mexico’s drug cartels.

Oops. Holder has already done his subversive best to corner that ‘market’ by allegedly authorizing Operation Fast and Furious, in which a gang going by the acronym ATF—the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—sold assault rifles to Mexican gangsters and their local gun-runners, who later used their taxpayer-funded ammunition and immunity to gun down innocent Americans and many more, mostly unmentioned, Mexicans. …

CS-1 met Team Chipopo in Mexico. It’s almost like our sophisticates were tracing the smuggling routes of Operation Fast and Furious.

Or perhaps, these simpletons were simply drawn to the original scene of the crime. ‘Elementary, my dear Watson.’

At this rate, it is not impossible to imagine America’s attorney general funneling arms to odd-balls in Iran using Operation Fast and Furious’ as a fig leaf. …”

Read the complete column, now on WND.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A newly formatted, splendid Kindle copy is also on sale.

Barnes and Noble is always well-stocked and ships within 24 hours.

Still better, shipping is free and prompt if you purchase Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher.

UPDATE (Oct. 14): This alleged Tehran-directed terror plot was likely hatched in Disneyland (code name for D.C.). But John-bomb McCain is not in the habit of questioning a good cause for American aggression.

A Qwickster Response from Netflix

Business, Capitalism, Democracy, Free Markets, Technology, The State

Netflix upset its fractious, spoiled-rotten patrons by raising prices (which were at a rock-bottom low), and separating its on-demand internet streaming service from the DVD-by-mail business (now called Qwikster). No sooner did Netflix customers begin whining, than the company sprung into action—within weeks.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has been groveling to the only voters who count in the true democracy that is the free market: “I messed up. I owe you an explanation … we lacked respect and humility,” all ridiculous and untrue, but necessary if this shrewd businessman is to please his only lords and masters: the buyers.

Despite this Qwickster response, the same misguided patrons refuse to appreciate the wonders of free-market capitalism and will keep begging for more of Uncle Sam’s screw-you, coercive services.