Try:

http://bobswanson.blogspot.com/

9/23/05 -- This article exactly explains my disenchantment with the political/music bund that was formed in the 1960's. Yes, I attended concerts, listened, bought records. But now, after reading about the Venona decrypts and the depths into which the Soviet communists plunged American society, I feel nothing but spitting anger about the lies told to us impressionable kids in the 1960's. Garbage in, garbage out, unless like many of my generation, people are seeing the truth finally shine through the propaganda muck of 70 years of deceit.

9/13/05 -- I have been reading about the Venona decrypts and the extent of Communist influence in the US in the 1930's onward. The best quote I've seen on the modern manifestation of classic propaganda (the term "political correctness" was used regularly by the Communist party) comes from this excellent interview with Dalrymple:

Full Article

Dalrymple: Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

9/13/05 -- Another thing to add to that email that was sent out to 98 of the 100 senators. The land grab has already started in Hawaii, and the LAW ISN'T EVEN PASSED YET! Native groups are setting up their legal machines and have taken out advertisements in island newspapers calling for revokation of all land titles, and return of all lands to the king (whoever he is). The people planning this land grab are also writing letters to the editor of the local newspapers. If SB147 passes, they will lock up all property out here for decades to come. Even if their land claims are legally incorrect, we know that the Hawai'i courts take at least 10 years to deal with a single real property case. Imagine millions of such cases. Worst, it may be possible that the matter will be decided by the World Court, since the Hawaiians will claim that they are a separate nation. Worse yet? The U.N. could claim that it will adjudicate the matter.

This bad law must be stopped.

Updated September 22, 2005 There is an excellent position paper available that details the points against the bill at: this PDF file. [thanks to: this blogger].

The following financial blurb appeared today 8/24/05:

MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., a unit of Warren Buffett's BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC., said the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period for its acquisition of utility PacifiCorp from SCOTTISH POWER PLC has expired. Scottish Power's shareholders have already approved the deal. The companies still need approval from eight state and federal regulatory bodies for the deal, which they expect to close in Q1 2006. (Reuters 10:07 AM ET 08/24/2005)

Ok, read it? Why 8??! Ok, I'll grant you that energy is too important to be left to open wheeling and dealing, so some regulatory agency must pass judgement on the new business arrangement. That seems to be acceptable these days, but why are there 8 (!!) separate agencies involved???? Do they watch each other? Of course not, each treats all this like a newly-discovered planet, wasting huge amounts of taxpayer money, ratepayer money, and stockholder money. It is this type of strangulation that takes wealth OUT of the economy and puts it into the pockets of bureaucrats and consultants, instead.

This letter is being sent today 8/24/05 to 98 of the 100 Senators of the United States

• I am writing to you, even though I know that you are not a senator who represents my state, Hawaii. However, you have an important opportunity to vote soon on the upcoming "Akaka Bill" that establishes a race-based separate government within the United States. As a citizen of the state of Hawaii, I urge you to defeat this unconstitutional and racist bill.
• The issues concerning this bill are starting to surface, after a long silence. Many of us in the Islands have feared that the bill would be pushed through the Senate with no debate and no publicity. Perhaps its sponsors hoped that the issues would not see "the light of day". Instead, more publicity is now appearing, such as the article written by Senators Slade Gorton and Hank Brown in the Wall Street Journal. See: this article. For more information, see Michelle Malkin's article that questions the precedent such a law will have on the United States. See: this article. The fear in many quarters is this bill will divide the nation into racial "enclaves" much as the Balkans; we know how much bloodshed has occurred in that part of the world. We live in the 21st century, and racism is supposed to be a thing of the past in the United States. This bill will return us to a "Jim Crow" environment without precedent.
• An issue that has received little coverage is that of endemic corruption. After having lived here for 6 years, I can state clearly that the Hawaiian Islands are the most corrupt state in the Union, approaching the level of some 3rd world countries. No legislation suggested at either the state or federal level even hints at reform of this situation. Unfortunately, the Akaka Bill gives official credence to the state's corruption, as does the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) in the state of Hawaii, by granting the power to distribute large sums of money and land with basically no oversight. The bill strenghtens the hold the current government has on the economic and political environment here by giving it the backing of the Federal Government. This issue alone makes this bill a Very Bad Idea.
• An additional problem with this bill is the issue of the Rule of Law. Many supporters of the bill say it is important for "fairness", but they never bring up the rule of law issue. Every state in the United States is supposed to operate within both the federal Constitution and the state's Constitution. This bill ignores both in the name of this "fairness" we hear about. The outcome of this bill will be gross inequality, and an even lower level of support for the Rule of Law. Current property owners in Hawaii are frightened (as well they should be) by the possibility of a land grab by the newly-empowered "natives". It appears that the bill can prevent the Federal Government from stepping in to stop such general lawlessness. Few Hawaiians and NO non-Hawaiians (haoles) here trust any law enforcement agencies in this state to prevent squatting, violence, and, sadly, bloodshed after the Akaka bill becomes law. Most property owners know that the local law enforcement will side with the "natives" and never step in to protect private property. If you want a model of how it will be here in Hawaii, you need look no further than the current situation in Zimbabwe.
• Thank you for reading this letter, and please vote against the Akaka Bill.

January 4, 2005

Interesting clash of issues. A candidate
for president in Ukraine is poisoned with
dioxin and survives! They dosed him
maximally, but he lives. This puts the
whole myth of dioxin in a big hole and
dumps on the dirt. During the big "scare"
over dioxin over the last few decades
scientists admitted that it was a
poison, but NO ONE has been able
to link it to cancer, except the
journalists and scaremongers. Now
we find that it isn't such a virulent
poison, either.

See:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/121604C.html

December 10, 2004

This is simply the best explanation I've
read or heard for the thrashing that
the Democrats took in the recent US
elections.

Pete Dupont is a columnist for
the Wall Street Journal. His column
is at:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/

Excerpt:

"But what was determinative in this election
was not that one party is a religious party
and the other is not; nor that one party is
in favor of same-sex marriage and the other
is not; nor that liberals are for raising
the minimum wage and gun control and conservatives
are not.

What was determinative is that the two political
parties view the American people very differently.
The Republican Party has become the party of
individualism, believing that free enterprise,
market economies, and individual choices give
people the best chance of a good life; that if
ordinary Americans are left alone to make their
own decisions, they will generally be good
decisions, so they--not the government--should
have the power to make them."

There is more, read it.

Looking over the election results and the post-election whining from the Dems, leads me to observe a huge irony here.

The left-wing Dems are very proud of the fact that they could help bring about the defeat of the US in Viet Nam. They love to point out the "facts" as this:

United States (1964): Huge superpower, but too slow and lumbering to be able to defeat underequipped, unsophisticated political zealots from a 3rd world country. Heavens, they fought in pajamas, and defeated our Army!

Hmmmm, I see parallels to November 2, 2004:

Dem Party (2004): Huge superparty, too slow and lumbering to be able to defeat underequipped, unsophisticated "religious" zealots from Red States (a 3rd world country?). Heavens, they (the conservative bloggers) fought in pajamas, and defeated our Party!

It seems an ugly irony that they did not learn from their own (mythological) history. There were lessons there about being agile, and not underestimating your adversaries. The Dems certainly underestimated the great unwashed in the Red States, an electorate not unlike the pajama-clad Viet Cong, their heros of 1964......

Just saw this one today from John
Stuart Mill, a very deep thinker
from the 19th Century (!). Yes,
a dead white European man.

Quote:

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

I recently recalled that I had read these notes BEFORE 9/11. Sure enough, the retirement speech of Marine Corps General Zinni, given in 2000, forshadowed 9/11 with sad accuracy. Who was listening in 2000? Who was president? Hands up, students, come on.....

http://www.rcaca.org/News-Zinni.htm

Quote from General Zinni (my edits):

"My son will face non-traditional missions in messy places that will make Somalia look like a picnic...On his watch, my son is likely to see [that]... Another Pearl Harbor will occur in some city, somewhere in the world where Americans are gathered; when that nasty bug or gas or nuke is released it will forever change him and his institutions. At that point, all the lip service paid to dealing with such an eventuality will be revealed for what it is--lip service. And he will have to deal with it for real."

Isn't it odd that 3 years after taking office, the press still refers to "Mr. Bush", but 3 years after leaving office they still refer to "President Clinton". No bias, huh?

We are in a war. We were attacked big-time 2 years ago. We have been attacked in the past, and we will be attacked again in the future.

To put this in perspective, think about the 2 major enemies we had in the mid-20th century war. What Japan and Germany wanted was a US that was a slave state. They wanted our wealth, both in resources and our hard-working citizens. Their view was strategic and world domination was the goal.

Our current enemies want to kill us all. No slaves, all dead. All killed, not just the Jews. They want to do to the United States what Rome did to Carthage. Kill everyone, raze all buildings, burn all fields, spread salt on the ground. Destroy everything and never allow it to rise up again.

Think about that. Did your parents and grandparents think it was OK to bow down and accept slavery from the Germans and Japanese? How about you? Do you want to simply allow not only you and your family to be obiliterated, but also this great nation wiped from the face of the earth? That is why we must fight and we must beat the terrorists.

Uh, uh, uh, I have a question, teacher!

How come we have heard NOTHING about the gun-in-the-teddy-bear incident, since it hit the news in early July?

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TRAVEL/07/17/gun.teddy.bear/index.html

Consider that the press has been concentrating endlessly on other stories, many far more trivial and far less interesting than this one. Trivial it ain't! Every little nibble of information adds to our understanding of terrorists and how they are operating.

I guess the press is not interested in our safety when we fly, when there are 16 words from the State of the Union speech to screech about.

Update November 12, 2004

Seems that the words spoken by the President in early 2003 were as honest an assesment as anyone could make at the time. His accusers have since been unmasked as liars of the worst sort.

This is another catch phrase that
really bothers me. I seem to
recall that the term "human
rights violations" was coined
during the failed Carter presidency.
Figures.

It's too bad that the press has
to candy-coat everything. If
people truly understand that some
creeps are killing, torturing,
raping, maiming, and expelling people
from their homes, then they might
feel more stongly on these subjects.

Given this softball term, when the
press says that Saddam Hussein brought
about "human rights violations", sounds
like someone who maybe drove too fast,
or cheated on their income tax.

To the press: stop hiding the truth
about dictators! All of them. Come on,
all of them, including the creep in
Cuba, too.