Category: Aggregated

Gas is cheaper than it’s ever been. Well, it would be – if we were just paying for gas. But it’s artificially more expensive because of the taxes – and regulatory costs – tacked on to the cost of each gallon. The taxes are disproportionate (nationally, they account for about 50 cents of the cost per gallon, which works out to a tax rate of appx. 25 percent or 2-3 times the ordinary sales tax in most states) as well as hugely regressive (most of us have to buy gas – unlike meals out  – and the tax hits the … Continue reading →

Your pants won’t button, your stomach has grown in size and you just feel so sluggish you barely want to leave the house. What are we talking about? Bloating. Maybe you ate too much or maybe something you ate just isn’t sitting right, whatever the cause, one thing is for sure – bloating is highly uncomfortable. What is bloating? The gassy bulging you feel is a result of swallowed air and the breakdown of food through digesting. It can occur often or may happen only rarely. If the bloating and gas pains are persistent then it could be a sign … Continue reading →

Our beef with our own generation is not that it failed, but that it succeeded too well. It took control of government and used it like an ape uses a rock – to crack open a nut. But we’ll come back to that in a minute… The Dow Takes a Dive First, the Dow dropped 190 points yesterday – or 1%. It is threatening to close below 18,000 for the first time in almost three weeks. We’ll wait to find out. Yesterday, a London-based magazine and a TV station interviewed us. Both asked if we were “pessimistic.” “Of course not,” … Continue reading →

At the airport, one observes an “interesting” composition of human behavior. A recent trip was no exception. Walking into the airport to check in and check my bag, there was a clearly upset woman at one of the ticket kiosks. She barked at the woman behind the counter (who was assisting someone else) to come help her. When someone appeared, she started berating the airline representative. Then came the line, “I AM MILITARY. SEE?! HERE IS MY ID. NOW, HELP ME.” Whenever the representative told her something she apparently didn’t like, it was her default response, “I’m military. I’m military.” This woman … Continue reading →

A Florida mother was recently arrested, jailed, and released after spending more than a week behind bars during an ongoing dispute over circumcising her son. “Heather Hironimus, 31, posted bond and was released Saturday night, authorities said. Hironimus had been taken into custody May 14 after she went missing for several months with her 4-year-old son, allegedly to avoid a court order to circumcise him, according to court records. She was taken to jail on charges including interference with custody, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office.” [1] Let’s face it, the medical headlines can’t get any more scary than this … Continue reading →

The Patriot Act has a bad pedigree and an evil history. In the fearful days immediately following 9/11, the Department of Justice quickly sent draft legislation to Congress that, if enacted, would have permitted federal agents to violate their oaths to uphold the Constitution by writing their own search warrants. The draft subsequently was revealed to have been written before 9/11, but that’s another story. The House Judiciary Committee reviewed the legislation and revised it so that it would meet Fourth Amendment norms. The revised version permitted federal agents to write their own search warrants for business records, but the … Continue reading →

As regular readers are no doubt aware, the US and China are racing towards a maritime conflict stemming from Beijing’s construction of what Washington has condescendingly called “sand castles” in the Spratly archipelago. Atop these man-made islands are cement plants, air strips, and soon-to-be lighthouses, as China boldly asserts its territorial claims on what are heavily-contested waters though which trillions in seaborne freight pass each year. Now, with Beijing set to enforce what is effectively a no-fly zone over its new sovereign ‘territory’ we bring you the following graphic from WSJ which shows that when it comes to sheer size, … Continue reading →

Defense Secretary Ash Carter spoke about the failure of Iraqi forces against ISIS in Ramadi.  There are many layers of misinformation behind every statement.  I will only comment on one, and also explain the title of this post. “We can give them training, we can give them equipment — we obviously can’t give them the will to fight,” Carter said. “But if we give them training, we give them equipment, and give them support, and give them some time, I hope they will develop the will to fight, because only if they fight can ISIL remain defeated.” (Emphasis added) Did … Continue reading →

The nation is wallowing self-piteously in a fetid trough of denial and adolescent rage/magical thinking now that the nation’s bogus, debt-based “prosperity” has crashed and cannot be restored. If you type Deep State into the custom search window in the right sidebar, the search results fill 10 pages. I think it is fair to say I have long had a deep interest in the Deep State. The Deep State is generally assumed to be monolithic: of one mind, so to speak, unified in worldview, strategy and goals. History suggests that this low-intensity conflict within the ruling Elite is generally a … Continue reading →

Following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War in 241 BC, the Roman Republic became a dominant naval power in the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, Rome’s control of the seas was not absolute. To the east of Italy, another power was on the rise. This was the Ardiaean kingdom, ruled by an Illyrian tribe that began to threaten Rome’s trade routes that ran across the Adriatic Sea. At the helm of this kingdom was the capable Queen Teuta. Teuta was the wife of Agron, a king of the Ardiaean kingdom. It was under Agron’s leadership that the Ardiaei became a … Continue reading →

Don’t be fooled by the new highs in the flagship US stock indices that are being trumpeted on Wall St as a sign of strength – the internals of the market are terrible and getting worse, and one big sign of impending trouble is the Dow Theory non-confirmation of these new highs by other key indices. First we will see how the S&P500 looks on its charts before moving on to consideration of other key indices. On the 1-year chart for the S&P500 index we can readily see that the breakout to new highs was marginal, on weak volume, and … Continue reading →

“Those people who owned slaves in the pre-Civil War U.S. were guilty of the crime of kidnapping.” Professor Walter Block, Human Rights Review, July-Sept. 2002, p. 55 Most readers of LewRockwell.com are probably aware of the facts that: 1) A New York Times reporter maliciously libeled Professor Walter Block in a hit piece on Senator Rand Paul by claiming that Professor Block, who has supported Senator Paul, supposedly said that slavery was “not so bad”; 2) that Professor Block sued the New York Times for libel; 3) an establishment judge (the only kind) ruled against Professor Block; and 4) Professor … Continue reading →