The Extremist

The Laws of Supply and Demand Won't Be Conned

You would think that the destruction of capitalism would be enough to keep our new president busy for at least a year or two. Nationalizing the banking, finance, insurance, and automobile industries is a pretty big bite to chew. But as they say in the ads, there’s more. Controlling your money is not enough. There’s your health to consider.

We can take some comfort in the fact that, since the prez is planning to socialize the medical industry too, many of us will very likely not live long enough to get the full effect of living in a socialist hell hole. By the time the country collapses in government run ruins, having our health care in the hands of the same folks who are doing such a bang-up job with Amtrack, Social Security, and the IRS, will spare millions of us the trouble of living long enough to see it happen.

If you’ve ever had to renew a driver’s license, apply for a building permit, or get on an airplane it should be obvious to you why government supplied health care is a lousy idea.

Never the less, with the confidence of the righteous Obama and the fawning media are convinced that a  government-run universal health insurance scheme will bring down the cost of healthcare while improving its quality. Such a notion is logical only to people who believe that capitalism is a scourge that must be wiped out, and that the laws of supply and demand can be conned as easily as voters. If it does turn out to be true, it will be the only accurate government economic prediction ever made.

Unexamined, except to bash greedy capitalists, is the role of government health insurance in driving up the prices of health care. Up until 1964 the cost of health care had never risen faster than inflation. Doctors made house calls. People could afford health care. Few people bought health insurance. 

That was the year the feds got into the health insurance business. They passed Medicare and Medicaid, essentially free health care for the poor and the elderly. They seemed like good ideas at the time. The compassionate looting of the young to pay for the old was wildly popular with the old. The program has been a reliable vote getter ever since.

Politicians gave a large block of voters free health care at the expense of their children and grand children while making it seem like an act of compassion rather than intergenerational looting. It is not a coincidence that starting that year the cost of health care began increasing faster than the rate of inflation.

Government insurance increased medical costs by creating a class of citizens for whom money was no object in considering what treatment they wanted. They weren’t paying for it, so they wanted the best, and right now.

The escalating costs were noticed by those who still had to pay for treatment. Unfortunately, those folks made the mistake of complaining to lawmakers. Politicians stepped in to help by making the problem worse. They made the cost of health insurance tax deductable for employers.

Employers liked it because it was cheaper than paying an equal amount of wages, on which they had to pay Social Security and unemployment taxes. This in turn dramatically expanded the class of the fully insured.

Millions could now say, “Ok, Doc, make my deductable!” When government employees themselves got on the health insurance bandwagon the class of the fully insured expanded once again.

As it did, naturally, health care costs exploded. There were now millions of people who, after paying just a few hundred bucks of their own money, could command vast corporate or public fortunes to treat any ailment they might have. When price is no object, demand goes up. As demand increases, prices increase.

Today the U.S. government is the largest single buyer of health care in the United States by a wide margin. The government has been as thrifty and prudent spending that money as it is buying every last limousine, junket, and toilet seat.

 And now the “debate” boils down to how much more the government should meddle in the insurance and health care market. There are no proposals to get the feds out of health care. The only choice we hear about is between doing nothing and creating one compulsory government run class of fully insured consumers. The choice is do nothing or  create essentially unlimited demand for medical services. Unlimited demand does not make for falling prices.

Unlimited demand can only drive up prices. In similar systems, the Canadian, British, Australian, and many others, demand is controlled the only way it can be, by rationing care. Bureaucrats decide who is the most deserving of limited available treatment, the rest die on waiting lists. Universal national health insurance is why Canadian politicians come to the U.S. when they get really sick.

Once we have it in the U.S., where will you go if you get really sick?

Bob Prechter: Gold is Still Money

By Robert Prechter, CMT

The following article is excerpted from a brand-new eBook on gold and silver published by Robert Prechter, founder and CEO of the technical analysis and research firm Elliott Wave International. For the rest of this fascinating 40-page eBook, download it for free here.

Have you ever traveled abroad and taken a look at the local currency and wondered how the citizens of that country could take seriously what looks like “Monopoly money?” I’ve got news for you: You’re using the same stuff. Monopoly money is the money over which some government has a monopoly. It is the currency of the realm only because the state makes it illegal to use any other type.

Promissory notes issued by a state and declared the only legal tender are always doomed to depreciate to worthlessness because of the natural incentives and forces associated with governments. A state cannot resist a method of confiscating assets, particularly one that is hidden from the view of most voters and subjects. By extension, it is unreasonable to advocate a standard for such notes, which is simply a state’s promise that its currency will always be redeemable in a specific amount of something valuable, such as gold. A gold standard of this type is only as good as the political promises behind it, reducing its value to no more than that of paper. It could be argued, in fact, that a state-sponsored gold standard is far more dangerous than none at all, as it imbues citizens with a false sense of security. Their long range plans are thus built upon an unreliable promise that the monetary measuring unit will remain stable. Later, when the government’s “IOU-something specific” becomes, as Colonel E.C. Harwood put it, “IOU nothing in particular,” reliability disappears and the arbitrary reigns. Although the populace tends to retain its confidence in the currency for awhile thereafter, the ultimate result is chaos.

The only sound monetary system is a voluntary one. The free market always chooses the best possible form, or forms, of money. To date, the market’s choice throughout the centuries, wherever a free market for money has existed, has been and remains precious metal and currency redeemable in precious metal. This preference will undoubtedly remain until a better form of money is discovered and chosen. Until then, prices for goods and services should be denominated not in state fictions such as dollars or yen or francs, but in specific weights of today’s preferred monetary metal, i.e., in grams of gold. Anyone might issue promissory notes as currency, but the acceptance of such paper certificates would then be an individual decision, and risks of loss through imprudence or dishonesty would be borne by only a few individuals by their own conscious choice after considering the risks. Critical to the understanding of the wisdom of such a system is the knowledge that private issuers of paper against gold have every long run incentive to provide a sound product, just as do producers of any product. As a result, risks would be minimal, as the market would provide its own policing. Thievery and imprudence will not disappear among men, but at least such tendencies in a free market for money would not have the potential to be institutionalized, as they are when a state controls the currency. From a macroeconomic viewpoint, occasional losses resulting from dishonesty or imprudence would be extremely limited in scope, as opposed to the nationwide disasters that state controlled paper money has facilitated throughout history, which have in turn had global repercussions. As Elliott Wave Principle put it, “That paper is no substitute for gold as a store of value is probably another of nature’s laws.”

That being said, it is also true, and crucial to wise investing, that markets come in both “bull” and “bear” types. Being a “gold bug” at the wrong time can be very costly in currency terms. For nearly three decades, gold and silver’s dollar price trends have confounded the precious metals enthusiasts, who for the entire period have argued that soaring gold and silver prices were “just around the corner” because the Fed’s policies “guarantee runaway inflation.” Yet today, 29 years after the January 1980 peaks in these metals and despite consistent inflation throughout this time, their combined dollar value (weighting each metal equally) is still 40 percent less than it was then.

It is all well and good to despise fiat money, but it is hardly useful to sit in gold and silver as if no other opportunities exist. In contrast to the one-note approach, which has had an immense opportunity cost since 1980, competent market analysis can help you make many timely and profitable financial decisions in all markets, including gold and silver.

For more in-depth, historical analysis and long-term forecasts for precious metals, download Prechter’s FREE 40-page eBook on Gold and Silver.

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Robert Prechter, Cartered Market Technician, is the founder and CEO of Elliott Wave International author of Wall Street best-sellers Conquer the Crash and Elliott Wave Principle and editor of The Elliott Wave Theorist monthly market letter since 1979.

First in a Series of Articles by Robert Prechter of Elliotwave International

There's a growing concensus that the U.S. is heading for a Zimbabwe style hyperinflation, which is exacly why it is unlikely to happen. At least for now we are in the throes of the opposite flation. Vanishing equity, and the loans that rest on it, is making currency disappear faster than the Fed can replace it. Here's Bob Prechter's take on how to deal with it.

10 Things You Should and Should Not Do During Deflation

This article is part of a syndicated series about deflation from market analyst Robert Prechter, the world’s foremost expert on and proponent of the deflationary scenario. For more on deflation and how you can survive it, download Prechter’s FREE 60-page Deflation Survival eBook, part of Prechter’s NEW Deflation Survival Guide.

The following article was adapted from Robert Prechter’s NEW Deflation Survival eBook, a free 60-page compilation of Prechter’s most important teachings and warnings about deflation.

By Robert Prechter, CMT

1) Should you invest in real estate?

Short Answer: NO

Long Answer: The worst thing about real estate is its lack of liquidity during a bear market. At least in the stock market, when your stock is down 60 percent and you realize you’ve made a horrendous mistake, you can call your broker and get out (unless you’re a mutual fund, insurance company or other institution with millions of shares, in which case, you’re stuck). With real estate, you can’t pick up the phone and sell. You need to find a buyer for your house in order to sell it. In a depression, buyers just go away. Mom and Pop move in with the kids, or the kids move in with Mom and Pop. People start living in their offices or moving their offices into their living quarters. Businesses close down. In time, there is a massive glut of real estate.

– Conquer the Crash, Chapter 16

2) Should you prepare for a change in politics?

Short Answer: YES

Long Answer: At some point during a financial crisis, money flows typically become a political issue. You should keep a sharp eye on political trends in your home country. In severe economic times, governments have been known to ban foreign investment, demand capital repatriation, outlaw money transfers abroad, close banks, freeze bank accounts, restrict or seize private pensions, raise taxes, fix prices and impose currency exchange values. They have been known to use force to change the course of who gets hurt and who is spared, which means that the prudent are punished and the thriftless are rewarded, reversing the result from what it would be according to who deserves to be spared or get hurt. In extreme cases, such as when authoritarians assume power, they simply appropriate or take de facto control of your property.
You cannot anticipate every possible law, regulation or political event that will be implemented to thwart your attempt at safety, liquidity and solvency. This is why you must plan ahead and pay attention. As you do, think about these issues so that when political forces troll for victims, you are legally outside the scope of the dragnet.

– Conquer the Crash, Chapter 27

3) Should you invest in commercial bonds?

Short Answer: NO

Long Answer: If there is one bit of conventional wisdom that we hear repeatedly with respect to investing for a deflationary depression, it is that long-term bonds are the best possible investment. This assertion is wrong. Any bond issued by a borrower who cannot pay goes to zero in a depression. In the Great Depression, bonds of many companies, municipalities and foreign governments were crushed. They became wallpaper as their issuers went bankrupt and defaulted. Bonds of suspect issuers also went way down, at least for a time. Understand that in a crash, no one knows its depth, and almost everyone becomes afraid. That makes investors sell bonds of any issuers that they fear could default. Even when people trust the bonds they own, they are sometimes forced to sell them to raise cash to live on. For this reason, even the safest bonds can go down, at least temporarily, as AAA bonds did in 1931 and 1932.

– Conquer the Crash, Chapter 15

4) Should you take precautions if you run a business?

Short Answer: YES

Long Answer: Avoid long-term employment contracts with employees. Try to locate in a state with “at-will” employment laws. Red tape and legal impediments to firing could bankrupt your company in a financial crunch, thus putting everyone in your company out of work.

If you run a business that normally carries a large business inventory (such as an auto or boat dealership), try to reduce it. If your business requires certain manufactured specialty items that may be hard to obtain in a depression, stock up.

If you are an employer, start making plans for what you will do if the company’s cash flow declines and you have to cut expenditures. Would it be best to fire certain people? Would it be better to adjust all salaries downward an equal percentage so that you can keep everyone employed?

Finally, plan how you will take advantage of the next major bottom in the economy. Positioning your company properly at that time could ensure success for decades to come.

– Conquer the Crash, Chapter 30

5) Should you invest in collectibles?

Short Answer: NO

Long Answer: Collecting for investment purposes is almost always foolish. Never buy anything marketed as a collectible. The chances of losing money when collectibility is priced into an item are huge. Usually, collecting trends are fads. They might be short-run or long-run fads, but they eventually dissolve.

– Conquer the Crash, Chapter 17

6) Should you do anything with respect to your employment?

Short Answer: YES

Long Answer: If you have no special reason to believe that the company you work for will prosper so much in a contracting economy that its stock will rise in a bear market, then cash out any stock or stock options that your company has issued to you (or that you bought on your own).

If your remuneration is tied to the same company’s fortunes in the form of stock or stock options, try to convert it to a liquid income stream. Make sure you get paid actual money for your labor.

If you have a choice of employment, try to think about which job will best weather the coming financial and economic storm. Then go get it.

– Conquer the Crash, Chapter 31

7) Should you speculate in stocks?

Short Answer: NO

Long Answer: Perhaps the number one precaution to take at the start of a deflationary crash is to make sure that your investment capital is not invested “long” in stocks, stock mutual funds, stock index futures, stock options or any other equity-based investment or speculation. That advice alone should be worth the time you [spend to read Conquer the Crash].

In 2000 and 2001, countless Internet stocks fell from $50 or $100 a share to near zero in a matter of months. In 2001, Enron went from $85 to pennies a share in less than a year. These are the early casualties of debt, leverage and incautious speculation.

– Conquer the Crash, Chapter 20

8) Should you call in loans and pay off your debt?

Short Answer: YES

Long Answer: Have you lent money to friends, relatives or co-workers? The odds of collecting any of these debts are usually slim to none, but if you can prod your personal debtors into paying you back before they get further strapped for cash, it will not only help you but it will also give you some additional wherewithal to help those very same people if they become destitute later.

If at all possible, remain or become debt-free. Being debt-free means that you are freer, period. You don’t have to sweat credit card payments. You don’t have to sweat home or auto repossession or loss of your business. You don’t have to work 6 percent more, or 10 percent more, or 18 percent more just to stay even.

– Conquer the Crash, Chapter 29

9) Should you invest in commodities, such as crude oil?

Short Answer: Mostly NO

Long Answer: Pay particular attention to what happened in 1929-1932, the three years of intense deflation in which the stock market crashed. As you can see, commodities crashed, too.

You can get rich being short commodity futures in a deflationary crash. This is a player’s game, though, and I am not about to urge a typical investor to follow that course. If you are a seasoned commodity trader, avoid the long side and use rallies to sell short. Make sure that your broker keeps your liquid funds in T-bills or an equally safe medium.

There can be exceptions to the broad trend. A commodity can rise against the trend on a war, a war scare, a shortage or a disruption of transport. Oil is an example of a commodity with that type of risk. This commodity should have nowhere to go but down during a depression.

– Conquer the Crash, Chapter 21

10) Should you invest in cash?

Short Answer: YES

Long Answer: For those among the public who have recently become concerned that being fully invested in one stock or stock fund is not risk-free, the analysts’ battle cry is “diversification.” They recommend having your assets spread out in numerous different stocks, numerous different stock funds and/or numerous different (foreign) stock markets. Advocates of junk bonds likewise counsel prospective investors that having lots of different issues will reduce risk.

This “strategy” is bogus. Why invest in anything unless you have a strong opinion about where it’s going and a game plan for when to get out? Diversification is gospel today because investment assets of so many kinds have gone up for so long, but the future is another matter. Owning an array of investments is financial suicide during deflation. They all go down, and the logistics of getting out of them can be a nightmare. There can be weird exceptions to this rule, such as gold in the early 1930s when the government fixed the price, or perhaps some commodity that is crucial in a war, but otherwise, all assets go down in price during deflation except one: cash.

– Conquer the Crash, Chapter 18

……….

For more on deflation, download Prechter’s FREE 60-page Deflation Survival eBook or browse various deflation topics like those below at www.elliottwave.com/deflation.

• What happens during deflation?
• Why is deflation bad?
• Effects of deflation
• Deflationary spiral
• And much more in Prechter’s FREE Deflation Survival Guide.

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Robert Prechter, Chartered Market Technician, is the world's foremost expert on and proponent of the deflationary scenario. Prechter is the founder and CEO of Elliott Wave International, author of Wall Street best-sellers Conquer the Crash and Elliott Wave Principle and editor of The Elliott Wave Theorist monthly market letter since 1979.

Dangerous Drugs

The Spanish headline in Costa Rica’s biggest daily, La Nación, registered awkwardly in my old Gringo head, “Son kills with bullets the mother and himself shoots in the head.” The mangled word order didn’t keep me from having my next thought, however, which was a result of looking into similar, though idiomatically correct, headlines in the U.S for some time now. That thought was, “They must use Prozac in Costa Rica, too.”

And sure enough, the first paragraph of the La Nación article said the shooter, a teacher, had been “incapacitated by depression.” His neighbors reported that both mother and son “were taking pills.” They also reported that the pair had been close, a common theme in many similar antidepressant tragedies.

Once you start looking for it, the pattern becomes familiar. A murderous rampage followed by suicide. The victims are often family members, but not always. The news reports mention in passing, usually as a possible explanation for the suicide, that the murderer was undergoing treatment for depression. The news reports will almost never say what that treatment was.

Chances are, however, if you are being treated for depression today anywhere in the western world, you are taking an antidepressant drug. And chances are also excellent that if you reveal to your doctor that you are anything less than deliriously happy, wonderfully self-confident, and relaxed in every situation, you can get a script for happy pills on the spot.

The most widely used antidepressants are Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, SSRIs. They are all derivatives of the original Prozac. SSRIs are the most commonly prescribed drugs in the U.S. Over 118 million prescriptions for these antidepressants were filled in 2005.

I want to preface my further remarks with an ONSOSA (O’Boyle’s NonScientific Over-Simplification Alert). I am not a scientist or a doctor. My columns involve no double-blind studies. Only my wife reviews them before publication, and she only checks for grammar, spelling, and nonsense. I understand that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, which is to say, just because it is cold in the winter, doesn’t mean that cold causes winter.

That said, however, at some point correlation should get our attention, particularly where the correlation is between taking powerful psychoactive drugs and committing gruesome, violent crimes. The association between intoxication of many kinds and crime is far from controversial.

The website www.ssristories.com, which collects reports of crimes and antisocial behavior associated with antidepressant use, contains reports on nearly 3000 incidents of sufficient severity to have made the news. SSRI Stories also tells us that over 200,000 people a year are admitted to hospitals with mania or psychosis symptoms associated with antidepressants.

Here are some of the raw numbers for antidepressant related incidents since the mid 90s:
School shootings - 48 (including all the most famous), road rage incidents - 55, postpartum depression cases - 44, murders - 600, suicides - 529, murder/suicides - 180. These and anywhere from lone cases to dozens of incidents of suicide-by-cop, robberies, assaults, police standoffs, stabbings, shoot-outs, self-mutilation, and more.

The medical community is fully aware of the side effects of these drugs.  The Physician’s Desk Reference lists the following possible adverse reactions to antidepressants:

Manic reactions, abnormal thinking, hallucinations, personality disorder, emotional instability, alcohol abuse, amnesia, agitation, psychosis, abnormal dreams, hostility, paranoia, confusion, delusions, sleep disorders, severe restlessness, and withdrawal syndrome.

And yet, ads for Prozac and it’s relatives make it sound as though paradise on earth is just a happy pill away.

It is testimony to the power of the pharmaceutical industry and their cozy relationship with regulators that the public has not made a connection between antidepressant drugs and horrific violence. The popularity of SSRIs is a triumph of marketing over pharmaceutical science and public regulation.

In 2004 the FDA finally noticed that a lot of people were killing themselves while on these drugs. Under considerable pressure, it put its strongest warning on the label, but only for those under 18. It expanded the warning to those under 25 a little later. It will come as a relief to those risking mayhem and death by taking SSRIs that reaching the age of 26 will render them absolutely safe.

If we were to take each report on the SSRI Stories site as an official “Adverse Reaction” report, SSRIs are the most dangerous drugs ever approved for public use.

Even at the time that the FDA’s first advisory panel on Prozac met in 1992, it was already the record holder for adverse reaction reports at some 23,067. That included 1,436 suicide attempts and 1,313 deaths. The death toll has mounted steadily since then and the epidemic is worldwide.

And if the influence of the drug lobby isn’t clear enough in those statistics, when Prozac was in the approval process the FDA banned the harmless, inexpensive nutritional supplement tryptophan. Tryptophan is a Prozac competitor in the serotonin metabolism field, used as a sleep aid and mood enhancer. Yet when a contaminated batch caused 1500 adverse reactions worldwide the FDA was quick to ban it as too dangerous for public consumption. The ban lasted until 2007.

I’m never one to urge banning bad habits and unapproved drugs. It doesn’t work. And it wastes a lot of time and energy. However, when an officially approved therapeutic drug has shown itself to be destructive to both drug consumers and the general public it’s time to get it off the market. Mass murder and suicide are not acceptable side effects of any therapy. 

Never Waste a Crisis, Hustling the Swine Flu Pandemic

"Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things." 
--Rahm Emanuel, Obama White House Chief of Staff

Lately, some friends have helpfully passed along information about how to protect myself against swine flu. Information on how to avoid colds is pretty easy to find, and I rarely get them. Nevertheless, I appreciate my friends' concern for my family's well-being, and for that of humanity in general. However, what we really need in situations like this is information on how to avoid fear mongering propaganda.

I am deeply suspicious of the trustworthiness of my government and its ability, or even its desire, to protect me. My skepticism is based on the unquestionable fact that the government lies to us all the time. With that skepticism in mind, I'm also suspicious of why such a hoopla is being made of the "pandemic" of swine flu.

A major clue that the “crisis” is really a power grab is the involvement of the Department of Homeland Security. How did they get in the health care business? They are experts at keeping airplanes free of styling mousse and feeling up our womenfolk. But the DHS is the last outfit you would charge with protecting your health or containing a communicable disease.

However, when you look at the agency’s unstated purpose, it becomes obvious why it would be involved in the swine flu “pandemic.” The main job of the Department of Homeland Security is to keep us scared and obedient. A pandemic is a near perfect crisis for promoting that objective.

People thinking for themselves evaluate their risks and the cost involved in avoiding them. Government agencies like DHS don't need to make such evaluations, because they aren't paying the costs. And the risks, no matter how remote, are what they use to scare us into thinking they are protecting us. It is only governmental thinking that can so widely separate risk and the cost of avoiding it that we find ourselves in a near panic over catching colds.

Everyone except the government must evaluate risk and cost in making decisions, therefore, to help my loyal readers do just that, it's time for one of O'Boyle's Big Statistical Oversimplifications (OBSO).

Simply looking at the numbers, we've already wasted more time on the first five paragraphs of this column than the dangers of swine flu would justify.

The world is full of things more dangerous than swine flu, not the least of which is the United States government itself, which at this very moment has over a million non-violent citizens locked up for consuming harmless herbs.

The statistical probability of contracting swine flu shouldn't be keeping you awake at night. As of this morning, the number of cases in the U.S. is 286. Nobody has died, except the baby who came in from Mexico to Texas early on in the show.

There are over 300,000,000 people in the United States. So far, your odds of contracting swine flu are 286 divided by 300,000,000. Roughly one in a million.

World wide, your chances of staying healthy improve. With 6.5 billion people on this rock and 1000 confirmed cases, your odds are about one in 6.5 million. With 25 confirmed deaths, your chance of death by swine flu are one in 260 million.

For comparison, here are some unlikely ways of kicking the bucket, which are all much more likely than succumbing to swine flu. The numbers are from a website of questionable authority, but are probably at least as reliable as a major news network or the CDC.

For the benchmark long-shot death, wrath-of-God lightning strike, your lifetime chance is 1 in 5000; in any given year, it's 1 in 700,000. Probably worse if you golf.

Your odds of being murdered are 1 in 18,000 and increase dramatically for careless answers to questions like "Honey, does this outfit make my butt look big?"  Your chance of dying of any kind of injury are 1 in 1,820.

Or how about these: Death by falling, 1 in 20,666; drowning, 1 in 76,000; in a fire, 1 in 81,000. All many times more likely than death by swine flu.

Using world statistics, you are twice as likely to be executed than to die of swine flu. We are many thousands of times more likely to die of spoiled tacos, drunk drivers, stray bullets, or angry Rottweilers.

Swine flu is, however, statistically more dangerous than falling airplane parts or death by combustion of nightwear. I'm sure that last one varies considerably depending on the company you keep and the hobbies you have.

I just can't work myself into the state of terror the media and the politicos are looking for. It makes me wonder what the agenda really is.

World wide there were nearly 2 million deaths in 2007 from tuberculosis, a highly contagious disease. Somehow the CDC decided not to go to their level 6 emergency response against TB or to declare it a "pandemic." The Department of Homeland Security has somehow overlooked the TB crisis. Nobody is wearing face masks to keep from getting a communicable disease that annually kills more than 2,000 times as many people as have yet even contracted swine flu.

The slogan of governments and this one in particular is “Never waste a good crisis.” And all crisis is good. Emergencies of all kinds are opportunities to expand power and influence.  Nothing illustrates that fact better than the arrival of the undie-pawing drones from Homeland Security to save us from the sniffles. What most astonishes me is that anyone who has ever been through an airport checkpoint would think Homeland Security could possibly be of any help.

Take this Crash Course, You Won't Be Sorry

I came across this video course the other day. I don't remember exactly where. I've spent some time watching it. I recommend it highly. A nice "unified theory" approach to what's happening in the world now, and why the next 20 years are likely to be very different from the last 20. Click on the link to go to Martenson's blog and the video course.

CHRIS MARTENSON'S CRASH COURSE

What passes for belt tightening at the Obama White House

President Obama got a few flattering headlines from the impressive thrift the White House staff was showing in cutting, oh my gosh, $100 million in spending. That does sound like a pretty big number.

And Obama has shown remarkable thrift in deciding to fly his pizza chef in from St. Louis instead of he west coast, thus saving the taxpayers the extra air fare. This is the kind of thoughtful husbandry of taxpayer money that public officials everywhere can use as an example.

Well, I guess they do already, don't they.

HAT TIP: GeekPolitics.com

Dr. Mercola on Swine Flu Bunkum

Critical Alert: The Swine Flu Pandemic – Fact or Fiction?

By Dr. Mercola

American health officials declared a public health emergency as cases of swine flu were confirmed in the U.S. Health officials across the world fear this could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, where seven people are confirmed dead as a result of the new virus.

On Monday April 27th, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its pandemic alert level to four on its six-level threat scale,¹ which means they've determined that the virus is capable of human-to-human transmission. The initial outbreaks across North America reveal an infection already travelling at higher velocity than did the last official pandemic strain, the 1968 Hong Kong flu.

The number of fatalities, and suspected and confirmed cases across the world change depending on the source, so your best bet -- if you want the latest numbers -- is to use Google Maps' Swine Flu Tracker.

Several nations have imposed travel bans, or made plans to quarantine air travelers² that present symptoms of the swine flu, such as:

• Fever of more than 100
• Coughing
• Runny nose and/or sore throat
• Joint aches
• Severe headache
• Vomiting and/or diarrhea
• Lethargy
• Lack of appetite

Top global flu experts are trying to predict how dangerous the new swine flu strain will be, as it became clear that they had little information about Mexico's outbreak. It is as yet unclear how many cases occurred in the month or so before the outbreak was detected. It's also unknown whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or less.

WHO and CDC Pandemic Preparedness Seriously Broken

The pandemic warning system has failed as it simply doesn't exist, even in North America and Europe. To improve the system massive new investments in surveillance, scientific and regulatory infrastructure, basic public health, and global access to common sense interventions like vitamin D optimization are required.

According to the Washington Post, the CDC did not learn about the outbreak until six days after Mexico had begun to impose emergency measures. There should be no excuses. The paradox of this swine flu panic is that, while totally unexpected, it was accurately predicted. Six years ago, Science dedicated a major story to evidence that "after years of stability, the North American swine flu virus has jumped onto an evolutionary fasttrack".

However, maybe this is precisely what public health authorities desire.

This is NOT the First Swine Flu Panic

My guess is that you can expect to see a lot of panic over this issue in the near future.  But the key is to remain calm -- this isn't the first time the public has been warned about swine flu. The last time was in 1976, right before I entered medical school and I remember it very clearly. It resulted in the massive swine flu vaccine campaign.

Do you happen to recall the result of this massive campaign?

Within a few months, claims totaling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the vaccine. The vaccine was also blamed for 25 deaths.

However, several hundred people developed crippling Guillain-Barré Syndrome after they were injected with the swine flu vaccine. Even healthy 20-year-olds ended up as paraplegics.

And the swine flu pandemic itself? It never materialized.

More People Died From the Swine Flu Vaccine than Swine Flu!

It is very difficult to forecast a pandemic, and a rash response can be extremely damaging.

As of Monday April 27, the worldwide total number of confirmed cases was 82, according to WHO, which included 40 cases in the U.S., confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control.  But does that truly warrant the feverish news headlines?

To put things into perspective, malaria kills 3,000 people EVERY DAY, and it's considered "a health problem"...  But of course, there are no fancy vaccines for malaria that can rake in billions of dollars in a short amount of time.

One Australian news source,³ for example, states that even a mild swine flu epidemic could lead to the deaths of 1.4 million people and would reduce economic growth by nearly $5 trillion dollars.

Give me a break, if this doesn't sound like the outlandish cries of the pandemic bird-flu I don't know what does. Do you remember when President Bush said two million Americans would die as a result of the bird flu?  

In 2005, in 2006, 2007, and again in 2008, those fears were exposed as little more than a cruel hoax, designed to instill fear, and line the pocketbooks of various individuals and industry. I became so convinced by the evidence AGAINST the possibility of a bird flu pandemic that I wrote a New York Times bestselling book, The Bird Flu Hoax, all about the massive fraud involved with the epidemic that never happened..

What is the Swine Flu?

Regular swine flu is a contagious respiratory disease, caused by a type-A influenza virus that affects pigs. The current strain, A(H1N1),  is a new variation of an H1N1 virus -- which causes seasonal flu outbreaks in humans -- that also contains genetic material of bird and pig versions of the flu.

Interestingly enough, this version has never before been seen in neither human nor animal, which I will discuss a bit later.

This does sound bad. But not so fast. There are a few reasons to not rush to conclusions that this is the deadly pandemic we've been told would occur in the near future (as if anyone could predict it without having some sort of inside knowledge).

Why a True Bird- or Swine Flu Pandemic is HIGHLY Unlikely

While in my opinion it is highly likely factory farming is responsible for producing this viral strain, I believe there is still no cause for concern.

You may not know this, but all H1N1 flu's are descendants of the 1918 pandemic strain. The reason why the flu shot may or may not work, however, from year to year, is due to mutations. Therefore, there's no vaccine available for this current hybrid flu strain, and naturally, this is feeding the fear that millions of people will die before a vaccine can be made.

However, let me remind you of one very important fact here.

Just a couple of months ago, scientists concluded that the 1918 flu pandemic that killed between 50-100 million people worldwide in a matter of 18 months -- which all these worst case scenarios are built upon -- was NOT due to the flu itself!⁴

Instead, they discovered the real culprit was strep infections.

People with influenza often get what is known as a "superinfection" with a bacterial agent. In 1918 it appears to have been Streptococcus pneumoniae. 

Since strep is much easier to treat than the flu using modern medicine, a new pandemic would likely be much less dire than it was in the early 20th century, the researchers concluded.

Others, such as evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald,⁵ claim that a pandemic of this sort simply cannot happen, because in order for it to occur, the world has to change. Not the virus itself, but the world.

In a previous interview for Esquire magazine, in which he discusses the possibility of a bird flu pandemic, he states:

"They think that if a virus mutates, it's an evolutionary event. Well, the virus is mutating because that is what viruses and other pathogens do. But evolution is not just random mutation. It is random mutation coupled with natural selection; it is a battle for competitive advantage among different strains generated by random mutation.

For bird flu to evolve into a human pandemic, the strain that finds a home in humanity has to be a strain that is both highly virulent and highly transmissible. Deadliness has to translate somehow into popularity; H5N1 has to find a way to kill or immobilize its human hosts, and still find other hosts to infect. Usually that doesn't happen."

Ewald goes on to explain that evolution in general is all about trade-offs, and in the evolution of infections the trade-off is between virulence and transmissibility.

What this means is that in order for a "bird flu" or "swine flu" to turn into a human pandemic, it has to find an environment that favors both deadly virulence and ease of transmission.

People living in squalor on the Western Front at the end of World War I generated such an environment, from which the epidemic of 1918 could arise.

Likewise, crowded chicken farms, slaughterhouses, and jam-packed markets of eastern Asia provide another such environment, and that environment gave rise to the bird flu -- a pathogen that both kills and spreads, in birds, but not in humans.

Says Ewald:

"We know that H5N1 is well adapted to birds. We also know that it has a hard time becoming a virus that can move from person to person. It has a hard time without our doing anything. But we can make it harder. We can make sure it has no human population in which to evolve transmissibility. There is no need to rely on the mass extermination of chickens. There is no need to stockpile vaccines for everyone.

By vaccinating just the people most at risk -- the people who work with chickens and the caregivers -- we can prevent it from becoming transmissible among humans. Then it doesn't matter what it does in chickens."

Please remember that, despite the fantastic headlines and projections of MILLIONS of deaths, the H5N1 bird flu virus killed a mere 257 people worldwide since late 2003. As unfortunate as those deaths are, 257 deaths worldwide from any disease, over the course of five years, simply does not constitute an emergency worthy of much attention, let alone fear!

Honestly, your risk of being killed by a lightning strike in the last five years was about 2,300 percent higher than your risk of contracting and dying from the bird flu.⁶ I'm not kidding! In just one year (2004), more than 1,170 people died from lighting strikes, worldwide.⁷

So please, as the numbers of confirmed swine flu cases are released, keep a level head and don't let fear run away with your brains.

So is the Swine Flu Getting More or Less Dangerous?

On Sunday, April 26, The Independent reported that more than 1,000 people had contracted the swine flu virus in Mexico, ⁸ but by the afternoon that same day, Mexican President Calderon declared that more than two-thirds of the 1,300 thought to have contracted the disease had been given a clean bill of health and sent home.⁹

Additionally, the number of actual confirmed cases appears to be far lower than reported in many media outlets, leading me to believe that many reporters are interchanging the terms "suspected cases" and "confirmed cases." According to the World Health Organization's Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response site; as of April 27, there are:

• 40 laboratory confirmed cases of A(H1N1) in the U.S. -- 0 deaths
• 26 confirmed cases in Mexico -- 7 deaths
• 6 confirmed cases in Canada -- 0 deaths
• 1 confirmed case in Spain -- 0 deaths

Additionally, nearly all suspected new cases have been reported as mild.

Personally, I am highly skeptical. It simply doesn't add up to a real pandemic.

But it does raise serious questions about where this brand new, never before seen virus came from, especially since it cannot be contracted from eating pork products, and has never before been seen in pigs, and contain traits from the bird flu -- and which, so far, only seems to respond to Tamiflu. Are we just that lucky, or... what?

Your Fear Will Make Some People VERY Rich in Today's Crumbling Economy

According to the Associated Press at least one financial analyst estimates up to $388 million worth of Tamiflu sales in the near future¹⁰ -- and that's without a pandemic outbreak.

More than half a dozen pharmaceutical companies, including Gilead Sciences Inc., Roche, GlaxoSmithKline and other companies with a stake in flu treatments and detection, have seen a rise in their shares in a matter of days, and will likely see revenue boosts if the swine flu outbreak continues to spread.

As soon as Homeland Security declared a health emergency, 25 percent -- about 12 million doses -- of Tamiflu and Relenza treatment courses were released from the nation's stockpile. However, beware that the declaration also allows unapproved tests and drugs to be administered to children. Many health- and government officials are more than willing to take that chance with your life, and the life of your child. But are you?

Remember, Tamiflu went through some rough times not too long ago, as the dangers of this drug came to light when, in 2007, the FDA finally began investigating some 1,800 adverse event reports related to the drug. Common side effects of Tamiflu include:

• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Headache
• Dizziness
• Fatigue
• Cough

All in all, the very symptoms you're trying to avoid.

More serious symptoms included convulsions, delirium or delusions, and 14 deaths in children and teens as a result of neuropsychiatric problems and brain infections (which led Japan to ban Tamiflu for children in 2007). And that's for a drug that, when used as directed, only reduces the duration of influenza symptoms by 1 to 1 ½ days, according to the official data.

But making matters worse, some patients with influenza are at HIGHER risk for secondary bacterial infections when on Tamiflu. And secondary bacterial infections, as I mentioned earlier, was likely the REAL cause of the mass fatalities during the 1918 pandemic!

Where did This Mysterious New Animal-Human Flu Strain Come From?

Alongside the fear-mongering headlines, I've also seen increasing numbers of reports questioning the true nature of this virus. And rightfully so. 

Could a mixed animal-human mutant like this occur naturally? And if not, who made it, and how was it released?

Not one to dabble too deep in conspiracy theories, I don't have to strain very hard to find actual facts to support the notion that this may not be a natural mutation, and that those who stand to gain have the wherewithal to pull off such a stunt.

Just last month I reported on the story that the American pharmaceutical company Baxter was under investigation for distributing the deadly avian flu virus to 18 different countries as part of a seasonal flu vaccine shipment. Czech reporters were probing to see if it may have been part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic; as such a "mistake" would be virtually impossible under the security protocols of that virus.

The H5N1 virus on its own is not very airborne. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which are more easily spread, the effect could be a potent, airborne, deadly biological weapon. If this batch of live bird flu and seasonal flu viruses had reached the public, it could have resulted in dire consequences.

There is a name for this mixing of viruses; it's called "reassortment," and it is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created in the lab. Some scientists say the most recent global outbreak -- the 1977 Russian flu -- was started by a virus created and leaked from a laboratory.

Another example of the less sterling integrity of Big Pharma is the case of Bayer, who sold millions of dollars worth of an injectable blood-clotting medicine to Asian, Latin American, and some European countries in the mid-1980s, even though they knew it was tainted with the AIDS virus.

So while it is morally unthinkable that a drug company would knowingly contaminate flu vaccines with a deadly flu virus such as the bird- or swine flu, it is certainly not impossible. It has already happened more than once.

But there seems to be no repercussions or hard feelings when industry oversteps the boundaries of morality and integrity and enters the arena of obscenity. Because, lo and behold, which company has been chosen to head up efforts, along with WHO, to produce a vaccine against the Mexican swine flu?

Baxter!¹¹ Despite the fact that ink has barely dried on the investigative reports from their should-be-criminal "mistake" against humanity.

According to other sources,¹² a top scientist for the United Nations, who has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, has concluded that the current swine flu virus possesses certain transmission "vectors" that suggest the new strain has been genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon.

The UN expert believes that Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and the current A-H1N1 swine flu virus are biological warfare agents.

In addition, Army criminal investigators are looking into the possibility that disease samples are missing from biolabs at Fort Detrick -- the same Army research lab from which the 2001 anthrax strain was released, according to a recent article in the Fredrick News Post.¹³ In February, the top biodefense lab halted all its research into Ebola, anthrax, plague, and other diseases known as "select agents," after they discovered virus samples that weren't listed in its inventory and might have been switched with something else.

Factory Farming Maybe Source of Swine Flu

Another theory as to the cause of Swine Flu might be factory farming. In the United States, pigs travel coast to coast. They can be bred in North Carolina, fattened in the corn belt of Iowa, and slaughtered in California.

While this may reduce short-term costs for the pork industry, the highly contagious nature of diseases like influenza (perhaps made further infectious by the stresses of transport) needs to be considered when calculating the true cost of long-distance live animal transport.

The majority of U.S. pig farms now confine more than 5,000 animals each. With a group of 5,000 animals, if a novel virus shows up it will have more opportunity to replicate and potentially spread than in a group of 100 pigs on a small farm.

With massive concentrations of farm animals within which to mutate, these new swine flu viruses in North America seem to be on an evolutionary fast track, jumping and reassorting between species at an unprecedented rate.

Should You Accept a Flu Vaccine -- Just to be Safe?

As stated in the New York Times¹⁴ and elsewhere, flu experts have no idea whether the current seasonal flu vaccine would offer any protection whatsoever against this exotic mutant, and it will take months to create a new one.

But let me tell you, getting vaccinated now would not only offer no protection and potentially cause great harm, it would most likely be loaded with toxic mercury which is used as a preservative in most flu vaccines..

I've written extensively about the numerous dangers (and ineffectiveness) of flu vaccines, and why I do not recommend them to anyone. So no matter what you hear -- even if it comes from your doctor -- don't get a regular flu shot. They rarely work against seasonal flu...and certainly can't offer protection against a never-before- seen strain.

Currently, the antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza are the only drugs that appear effective against the (human flu) H1N1 virus, and I strongly believe taking Tamiflu to protect yourself against this new virus could be a serious mistake -- for all the reasons I already mentioned above.

But in addition to the dangerous side effects of Tamiflu, there is also growing evidence of resistance against the drug. In February, the pre-publication and preliminary findings journal called Nature Precedings published a paper on this concern, stating¹⁵:

The dramatic rise of oseltamivir [Tamiflu] resistance in the H1N1 serotype in the 2007/2008 season and the fixing of H274Y in the 2008/2009 season has raised concerns regarding individuals at risk for seasonal influenza, as well as development of similar resistance in the H5N1 serotype [bird flu].

Previously, oseltamivir resistance produced changes in H1N1 and H3N2 at multiple positions in treated patients. In contrast, the recently reported resistance involved patients who had not recently taken oseltamivir.

It's one more reason not to bother with this potentially dangerous drug.

And, once a specific swine flu drug is created, you can be sure that it has not had the time to be tested in clinical trials to determine safety and effectiveness, which puts us right back where I started this article -- with a potential repeat of the last dangerous swine flu vaccine, which destroyed the lives of hundreds of people.

Topping the whole mess off, of course, is the fact that if the new vaccine turns out to be a killer, the pharmaceutical companies responsible are immune from lawsuits -- something I've also warned about before on numerous occasions.

Unfortunately, those prospects won't stop the governments of the world from mandating the vaccine -- a scenario I hope we can all avoid.

How to Protect Yourself Without Dangerous Drugs and Vaccinations

For now, my point is that there are always going to be threats of flu pandemics, real or created, and there will always be potentially toxic vaccines that are peddled as the solution. But you can break free of that whole drug-solution trap by following some natural health principles.

I have not caught a flu in over two decades, and you can avoid it too, without getting vaccinated, by following these simple guidelines, which will keep your immune system in optimal working order so that you're far less likely to acquire the infection to begin with.

• Optimize your vitamin D levels. As I've previously reported, optimizing your vitamin D levels is one of the absolute best strategies for avoiding infections of ALL kinds, and vitamin D deficiency is likely the TRUE culprit behind the seasonality of the flu -- not the flu virus itself.

This is probably the single most important and least expensive action you can take. I would STRONGLY urge you to have your vitamin D level monitored to confirm your levels are therapeutic at 50-70 ng.ml and done by a reliable vitamin D lab like Lab Corp.

For those of you in the US we hope to launch a vitamin D testing service through Lab Corp that allows you to have your vitamin D levels checked inexpensively at your local blood drawing facility and relatively inexpensively. We hope to offer this service by June 2009.

If you are coming down with flu like symptoms and have not been on vitamin D you can take doses of 50,000 units a day for three days to treat the acute infection. Some researchers like Dr. Cannell, believe the dose could even be as high as 1000 units per pound of body weight for three days.

• Avoid Sugar and Processed Foods. Sugar decreases the function of your immune system almost immediately, and as you likely know, a strong immune system is key to fighting off viruses and other illness. Be aware that sugar is present in foods you may not suspect, like ketchup and fruit juice.

• Get Enough Rest. Just like it becomes harder for you to get your daily tasks done if you're tired, if your body is overly fatigued it will be harder for it to fight the flu. Be sure to check out my article Guide to a Good Night's Sleep for some great tips to help you get quality rest.

• Have Effective Tools to Address Stress . We all face some stress every day, but if stress becomes overwhelming then your body will be less able to fight off the flu and other illness.
  
  If you feel that stress is taking a toll on your health, consider using an energy psychology tool such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which is remarkably effective in relieving stress associated with all kinds of events, from work to family to trauma. You can check out my free, 25-page EFT manual for some guidelines on how to perform EFT.

• Exercise. When you exercise, you increase your circulation and your blood flow throughout your body. The components of your immune system are also better circulated, which means your immune system has a better chance of finding an illness before it spreads. You can review my exercise guidelines for some great tips on how to get started.

• Take a good source of animal based omega-3 fats like Krill Oil. Increase your intake of healthy and essential fats like the omega-3 found in krill oil, which is crucial for maintaining health. It is also vitally important to avoid damaged omega-6 oils that are trans fats and in processed foods as it will seriously damage your immune response.

• Wash Your Hands. Washing your hands will decrease your likelihood of spreading a virus to your nose, mouth or other people. Be sure you don't use antibacterial soap for this -- antibacterial soaps are completely unnecessary, and they cause far more harm than good. Instead, identify a simple chemical-free soap that you can switch your family to.

• Eat Garlic Regularly. Garlic works like a broad-spectrum antibiotic against bacteria, virus, and protozoa in the body. And unlike with antibiotics, no resistance can be built up so it is an absolutely safe product to use. However, if you are allergic or don't enjoy garlic it would be best to avoid as it will likely cause more harm than good.

• Avoid Hospitals and Vaccines In this particular case, I'd also recommend you stay away from hospitals unless you're having an emergency, as hospitals are prime breeding grounds for infections of all kinds, and could be one of the likeliest places you could be exposed to this new bug.  Vaccines will not be available for six months at the minimum but when available they will be ineffective and can lead to crippling paralysis like Guillain-Barré Syndrome just as it did in the 70s.

--

Shoddy science and media hysteria...

Using public health scares to terrorize the
public and push government/big pharma
agendas.

Get the facts about "swine flu" and share
with your friends.

Details:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/610.html

Lonely Extremist No More

The new “leaner, smarter” Department of Homeland security under Obama’s recent appointee, Janet Napolitano, issued a report last week that identifies a broad swath of Americans as dangerous “rightwing extremists.”  The report, which is just a summary of a much larger, classified document, warns that people with certain opinions about abortion, immigration, gun control, taxes, and other issues bear watching by local and federal law enforcement. Perhaps coincidentially, the people holding these suspicious opinions tend not to be Democrats.

You would think the new, lean, smart DHS could come up with a snappy title for their report, but we got the same fat, dumb government work on that: "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” was the wonderfully bureaucratic headline on the 9-page report that went out to law enforcement agencies across the land. 

The report warns that veterans returning from Iraq are among those who could be targets for recruitment and radicalization by rightwing extremists. Veterans groups are understandably upset at the idea that they represent a danger to their fellow citizens and are likely prospects to become members of the wackiest groups among us.

Though I haven’t heard yet from the KKK or Aryan Nation, the report places this self-proclaimed extremist solidly in the running for radicalization and recruitment by scary, dangerous groups who must all be watched like poodles on the lawn.

I’ve got all the symptoms and opinions that make me a potential terrorist, except that I’m not a veteran. I hope I can be forgiven that one little flaw in my extremist resume. I prefer legal immigration, oppose government funded abortions, believe people have a right to armed self-defense. I have opined in print that DHS airport security is a steel door on a grass shack, providing Americans nothing more than political theater and obedience training.  If my writing on that topic alone hasn’t got me on some special list it is only because of a predictable lack of efficiency at the old fat, dumb DHS.

The report illustrates O’Boyle’s Growing Government Agency Axiom Number One. (OGGAANO). Government agencies, regardless of their stated purpose, have as their first concern the expansion of the agency’s power.  This latest report is a perfect example, aiming not at protecting the American public, but rather at expanding market share and influence for DHS. The American public is the target of suspicion. It is the government and its minions who need protection from a hostile populace.

Let’s face it, terrorists are pretty thin on the ground no matter how you measure it. Suicide bombers self-limit their numbers and are hard to recruit. Nobody believes the virgin stories. You are unlikely to find one at the strip search follies in airports (terrorists, that is, not virgins. As far as I know, virgins are a good deal more common than terrorists, and DHS is not doing virginity checks at airports yet. Give it time.).

What this means is that people who don’t fly are in danger of not being sufficiently afraid of terrorism. Unfortunately for the fear mongers at DHS, terrorism isn’t very dangerous. Statistically there would have to be a 9/11 attack every month to make terrorism as risky as driving to work.

OGGAANO dictates that the Department of Homeland Security must expand market share if the organization is to grow and prosper. Fear is all they’ve got to sell us on the importance of what they are doing. Since there aren’t enough swarthy looking guys with accents to justify an ever expanding DHS budget, the American public is the only group that is readily available for ongoing pestering and surveillance.

Thus must DHS propaganda convert large numbers of citizens from dissenters and the loyal opposition, to “rightwing extremists” ripe for “radicalization.” Such dangerous groups will need to be watched by an ever expanding government security apparatus, at the head of which will be the Department of Homeland Security, a fat spider at the center of a vast web of surveillance.

With DHS help, suddenly extremism is not such lonely business. I’m gratified to be joined by large numbers of fellow extremists, even if our extremism exists only in the minds of our masters at DHS. As one whose ideas are generally scorned or quickly classified by liberals as “rightwing BS” it is a comfort to me to know that when they come for me they will also be coming for others whose ideas are not nearly so radical. If nothing else we will be assured of bridge partners in the internment camps. 

Border Patrol Agents Serving and Protecting

This YouTube video was posted on the Lew Rockwell Blog. Supposedly the border patrol is keeping the evil aliens out. It shouldn't be long before they will be keeping the rest of us in.