Liberty Phoenix

So I have a Christmas tradition of doing all my shopping on December 24th of each year. It's probably not a good idea to wait that long, but I find it motivating. I go to New York for the holidays and typically do my shopping in the Palisades Center. It's one of the largest malls in the Tri State area and gets very crowded as a result.

Typically, I'm lucky to even find a parking space. I usually have to drive around for 10 minutes until one opens up and the competition for spaces can be rather fierce. I've actually seen people run on foot from a lane over to lay down in an open space as I'm pulling into it. It's crazy. But this year, things were quite different.

Turning into the Target parking lot, I thought I was ready for anything after last year's insanity. But what I wasn't quite ready for was that I'd have my pick of spots. There were dozens of spots on the periphery, where I'm usually forced to park, but I was also able to easily find spots closer up. I didn't have to dodge people in the mall and the lines were relatively short. And of course, several of the stores I shopped in last year are now in bankruptcy, so I didn't have to waste my time in places like the Sharper Image or CompUSA.

So I guess that's the upside to the current economic calamity we're witnessing. Less waiting to buy things. Perhaps next year, I'll even be able to find a spot in the more crowded front parking lot. And now I have a decent indicator to judge when the economy finally starts to turn around again.

Science never cease to amaze me:

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Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.

The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of morons promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

^from:
http://www.disaboom.com/Blogs/saydrah/archive/2008/11/25/scientists-disc...

I'm sure everyone has seen this, but it never stops being funny:



Iraqis are protesting to free the guy. Good for them!

Not a huge surprise perhaps, but an interesting interview with Jesse Ventura discussing the permanent CIA position in the Minnesota state government:

http://52.thelastoutpost.com/video-4/police-state/cia-embedded-in-every-...

The bluster at the end is a bit eye rolling, but still fun to watch. It rang a little hollow since if he recognizes that they didn't have the authority to be there, why bother answering their questions in the first place? Still, he'll be an interesting character to watch going forward if he decides to get back into politics.

Thanks Jeff, for recommending this Sept. '07 Daily Show interview with Alan Greespan:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=102970&title=alan-...



I'm not sure it's enough for me to believe that he's playing the part of Francisco d'Anconia, but it is a good interview. Stewart questions were far more penetrating than you can hope to find on CNN, Fox News or even CNBC.

Most news outlets are reporting that the riots in Greece were over the shooting of a teenage boy. While that's tragic, when I first heard that, I was waiting to hear the "other" reason as well. Well this article may not spell it out, but I think it at least indicates that there's more to it than just the shooting:

http://theirishbulletin.blogspot.com/2008/12/what-are-greek-riots-really...

I also think we can safely expect to see more rioting around the world as we get deeper into this recession.

It's amazing how long this rally has lasted. Up almost another 300 points today. The Dow brushing right up against the 50 day moving average for the first time in 2 1/2 months. I guess everything is fixed now. I mean we hit our bottom and we'll soon be racing to all time highs, right? What a convenient recession!

It won't last of course, but there will soon come a day where inflation will lead to a sustainable "rally", whatever that means. Given the moves in oil and gold, however, I doubt that's what we're seeing now.

Well, I needed to learn Drupal this weekend for a potential client and I decided to turn it into a productive exercise. So I made a site that'll let me collate everything that I learn each day. The more liberty based sites out there, the better the chance we have of waking people up to what's going on in this country. There's a reason that Ron Paul did so much better online than he did offline. Libertarians dominate the tech industry. And since young people dominate tech consumption, the liberty movement will inevitably succeed in the long run. So here I am, doing my small part. Please help me in that by contributing content to the site.