Monday, November 30, 2009

Global Warming: What is it all about?

Perfection, to an environmentalist, is North Korea - Do you want to live there too? Or if given a choice would you prefer to live in South Korea? How much longer will the environmentalists allow you the choice?

Stephan Kinsella has provided access to a superb lecture by Professor Richard S. Lindzen, of MIT, on the global warming debate. It is required viewing for all those who are sick to death of being called 'deniers' and 'so-called sceptics' by the arrogant socialist dullards in the eco-mentalist movement:

=> http://www.stephankinsella.com/wp-content/uploads/texts/lindzen-rockhurst-2009.pdf

UPDATE: It's worth bearing in mind when reading the PDF - written more than six months ago - that the data contained within it is still heavily based on the corrupted HadCRUT data, though the presentation is still greatly worth reading despite that. For more on the corruption of the HadCRUT data, it is also very much worth reading Professor Tim Ball's much more recent summary.

Quote of the Day

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.

Sir Ernest John Pickstone Benn

Peter Schiff: Dubai World over-reaction, Ben Bernanke Op Ed

The Duke responds after some busy days in the world markets since Thanksgiving:

Working out the mood of an Austrian

So, that's the important question that's on everyone's lips; how do you work out the mood of an Austrian?

It's easy. You just take a look at the Kitco gold price chart in the sidebar. If it's going up, we're happy, if it's going down we're unhappy.

That's it. Problem solved! :-)

Tiger Wood, Would you?

It's a basic principle of Ludwig von Mises that no matter how much your rational action satisfies your immediate urges, it is within the nature of the human animal that further dissatisfaction with your improved situation will arise again, sooner or later, to drive you into yet more action.

It is this impulse which drove us out of the trees, which pushed us out of the cave, which blew us across the oceans in primitive wooden sailing boats, and which rocketed us towards the Moon in a tin can, and which will probably drive us first to Mars, then to the Moons of Jupiter, and then onwards towards Alpha Centauri.

There is no fighting this dissatisfaction and this urge to action; the best you can do is to manage it. This urge to satisfy dissatisfaction is what makes us human in the first place, rather than remaining much closer relatives of the Bonobo chimpanzee.

Thus, it's no good earning an unlimited salary and marrying an impossibly pretty wife. Sooner or later, you are going to become dissatisfied.

Now you can either combat this dissatisfaction with hobbies, such as golf, or just go with it. But if your main occupation is golf, then what are you going to adopt as a hobby?

Unfortunately I think the answer may lie in the photograph above.

What a terrible shame.

But although Ms Uchitel is not the prettiest lady in the world, nor the most curvaceous, you can certainly see that whatever 'IT' is, she certainly seems to have a lot of 'IT'. Very very dangerous.

Bad luck, chap. I hope your wife forgives you.

The dead hand of the state

The seven deadliest NHS hospitals have been identified in a damning British government report.

Harold Shipman, the famous English mass murderer and NHS doctor, killed 15 people, and possibly many more. Some statistical surveys put the real number at a conservative figure of 218 murders, though possibly up to 400.

Which funnily enough is exactly the same number of people killed at Basildon University hospital, the filthiest and most disgusting in the entire NHS (which is saying something).

Now if I was feeling emotional today, I would say "Murdered by Socialism", but it's been a good day today, so I'll just say "Killed". At 80 people a year, that's more than one person a week killed in Basildon hospital by the utter incompetence and bad management of the NHS, the poster child of British socialism. (And this is the figure released by British government statisticians - multiply it by three, if you want a more realistic figure.)

Now let's just do a thought experiment.

Imagine a country in which all hospitals were private, and socialists discovered one in which your chances of dying were 33% higher than the average for all other comparable hospitals. Can you imagine the headlines: "Capitalist Greed Murders By the Hundred", "Death and Pestilence caused by Private Medicine", or even "The Poorest in Need Killed by the Richest in Greed".

There would be calls for outright nationalisation of the entire hospital system to prevent such outrages. Gordon Brown would be fulminating in his accusations of the downfall of the capitalist system, and socialists would be marching on Basildon University hospital to demand that all of its greedy capitalist running-dog managers be hung, drawn, and quartered.

But because we live with a horrific socialised medical system managed by quangocrats and bureaucrats, there's not a peep out of any of these people.

Harold Shipman got jailed for killing his NHS patients. It would seem that when the NHS kills its patients more anonymously, the only solution that anyone can think of is to raise taxes even further to pump more money into this failed communist health system.

The NHS should be privatised immediately. As with the schools, just give it to the nurses and the doctors, in a giant act of homesteading, if you want to, to prevent any more people dying unnecessarily. But it must be taken out of the dead hand of the state as quickly as possible.

George Monbiot: I have seldom felt so alone


George Monbiot, Yesterday

What's peculiar about Climategate, is that while virtually the entire Internet community, including even fracking George Monbiot, are discussing it, we will go into the Cophenhagen conference with every 'World Leader' mouthing the platitudes of global warming as if nothing has changed from the 'established consensus' that the liars and Eco-Fascists at East Anglia have been corruptly building for all of these years.

Oh well.

At least we now know that George Monbiot doesn't like it up 'im.

Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation

Christopher Booker lets the disgraced data-falsifying Eco-Fascists have both barrels.

British government debt expands by £6,000 pounds a second

By the time you read this sentence, Gordon "Il Duce" Brown will have borrowed another £30,000 pounds...errr...£36,000 pounds, ....errr...no...now that's £42,000 pounds...

Well, I think you get the picture.

Not so much "No more Boom and Bust" as, "Lots more Bust to Come".

HT to the Lone Voice

BBC asks: What happened to global warming?

Lord God Almighty.

Even the BBC, the fracking BBC, is beginning to ask about global warming, following the revelations of Climategate.

When you read the piece, you'll see that the BBC is still trying to defend the unfalsifiable hypotheses of its 'One World Government' friends, but even so; will wonders never cease?

LewRockwell Roundup, Nov 30th

Read everything on Lew Rockwell, today. It's all good. But if you must restrict me to just three, here they are:

Bernanke's Lying Ways
Translated by Bob Higgs.

The Day Global Warming Stood Still
It will be a very cold winter of discontent for the warm-mongers.

Freak Show
Bill Bonner on scary economic activity.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Americans’ View of the World

Speaking of David Kramer, you may have seen the above map on Lew Rockwell's blog last week, depicting the typical American's view of the world.

I wrote to David in protest about Britain's exclusion from the map. "Surely we deserve at least Poodle status?", I bleated.

"No," he replied. "I think you ought to be lumped in with the communists."

Fair comment.

Have Yourself a Petty Little Christmas

David Kramer discovers more anti-paedophile nonsense in Britain, as we goose-step our way slowly but surely into Nineteen-Eighty-Four.

The NHS should not waste our cash on homeopathy

I normally try to avoid commenting on The Labourgraph, these days, to try to retain my sanity. However, this morning I saw some do-gooding know-it-all twonk called Alasdair Palmer write some bilge about why the NHS should be banned from 'wasting' money on homeopathy.

Just for the record, I have used homeopathy in the past and found it highly beneficial and much more effective than 'orthodox' medicine. It actually removed a life-long condition I had that had required continuous NHS treatment previous to this, from childhood. Even now, ten years after I stopped this and all other NHS treatments, being completely drug free for ten years, my NHS quack still can't believe I no longer need any of his Big Pharma products and keeps pushing me to go back on them. (Have you noticed that if anyone other than state-appointed drones pushes drugs onto you, that it's called CRIME, but if it's done by the state then it's called HEALTH CARE?)

Now I don't care whether homeopathy works because of psychosomatic effects, immunological effects, or any other kind of effect. It worked for me, for whatever reason, and works for millions of other people. But all of that is still completely irrelevant. What is important is not on what the NHS spends 'its' money, but where the NHS gets 'its' money from.

And also don't give me any tomfoolery about 'quackery' or the like. I worked for three years in a major English teaching hospital, gaining first class qualifications in anatomy, biochemistry, and pharmacology, and spent a year working as a surgical assistant in operating theatres, including assisting with amputations, bladder carcinomas, colostomies, spleen removals, thyroid operations, atheroscleroma arterial bypasses, penis straightening operations (I kid you not), and much more besides; though the penis straightening operations do kind of stand out (as it were).

So 'Orthodox Medicine Fans', don't come all know-it-all with me, about medicine, unless you're a qualified medical doctor with at least three years' experience. I know my Ganong from my Grays Anatomy. I am also quite competent with a surgical hacksaw, so beware.

Here's my comment on The Labourgraph. Yes, it's pointless writing such things to try to benefit others. But it is good therapy:

Jack Maturin on November 29, 2009 at 08:49 AM

The NHS should not waste our cash on homeopathy?

No, Alisdair, you've got this completely the wrong way round.

We should not waste our money on the NHS. We should be allowed to keep our money, to then spend it on whatever we want, whether homeophathy, orthodox medicine, cream cakes, Cuban cigars, or even Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

That is, of course, if you believe in freedom and liberty, rather than socialism and compulsion.

Scotland, be brave!

At my last Rab Burns evening, where I toasted the Haggis and did something rather bizarre with a silver knife while surrounded by grinning Scotsmen, I really did wonder why on Earth the proud nation of Scotland had allowed itself to be subsumed into the English morass of glum mercantilist socialism.

Obviously, on investigation, I found that this was due to a craven tax-fed elite of statists selling out a thousand years of history in order to feather their own beds. However, now is the time to reverse that gargantuan error.

With the British government standing on the edge of a financial precipice, hopefully many in Scotland will wonder why they are still ruled over by this hideous malformed beast, and the hideous malformed Gordon Brown, and opt for secession instead, to give themselves a smaller and more controllable government.

Alas, because of all sorts of historical reasons, this first independent Scottish government will probably be a crypto-socialist one, but fortunately, the smaller a government gets, generally the easier its wings are to clip by the people and the more obvious its corruption becomes, also allowing it to be restrained through the powers of embarrassment and public humiliation.

So however Scottish secession is achieved, I will raise a large dram for it, and will try to be there on the first day of their freedom, at the 'Freedom and Whisky' party organised by David Farrer (if he sends me an invite). I shall bring a large bottle of Glenmorangie to celebrate the occasion.

Through various complicated genealogical tangles, I am also fortunate in being able to wear at least two different tartans, so I may even splash out and wear my first kilt as we watch the fireworks going off over Edinburgh castle.

So, come awn Scotland. Just what are ye waitin' fer? The time fer secession is NOO!

For more on this subject, via Freedom and Whisky, try out this article on Scotland Unspun:

=> Another Day Another Devalued Dollar

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Bernanke: Recovery imminent

Climategate: five Aussie MPs lead the way by resigning in disgust over carbon tax

Good on yer, Cobbers! :-)

Let's hope this revolt by five leading Australian MPs marks the beginning of a real fight-back against the world's Eco-Fascists, after ten years of bending over backwards for these Truth Deniers.

Weekend essay title

In the fantastical world of Harry Potter, the people distrust the powers of barbarous magical men, so they place their monetary confidence in the reality of privately minted 100% reserves of gold.

Whereas in the real world, the people distrust barbarous gold, so they place their monetary confidence in the fantastical powers of magical men and publicly printed fractional reserves of paper.

Discuss.

LewRockwell Roundup, Nov 28-29th

Maturin Towers' top three:

When the Revolution Comes
Because people are sick and tired of showing their papers, says Mike Rozeff.

Secession and State Militias
Russ Longcore on achieving independence from the DC empire.

Is the Double-Dip Depression Here?
Dubai default threatens British and other world banks.

Climate Change and the Death of Science

Katabasis spots an excellent article on the mentality of the tax-eating ecomentalists, the so-called 'scientists' who are trying to drive the entire planet towards a horrific single world government socialist super-state (I say 'super' in the very broadest of senses, obviously, because the state they so earnestly desire will only be 'super' in the amount of destruction, war, death, famine, pestilence, decivilisation, and chaos it generates):

=> http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/climate-change-and-the-death-of-science/

The article is good. However, I always think a little Kuhn always goes well with such analyses.

The phrase that defenestrates Socialism

Ludwig von Mises said many great things, but perhaps one of the truest and most devastating Death Star sentences that he ever uttered, that completely rips the heart out of Socialism in a single breath, is the following:

Ludwig von Mises: "The buyers do not pay for the toil and trouble the worker took nor for the length of time he spent in working. They pay for the products." - Planning for Freedom
Magnificent.

Hyperinflation Nation

An earlier documentary from InflationUS, first broadcast 5 months ago:

Part I:



Part II:



Part III:

Friday, November 27, 2009

The Dollar Bubble



The Dollar Bubble starring Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, Marc Faber, Gerald Celente, Jim Rogers, and others.

It's a grim documentary, but still worth watching for all that.

The only question I have is how much it translates to the forthcoming British experience? I suspect we're not going to have it quite so bad, because the Pound Sterling is no longer the world's reserve currency, but at least continental America still has vast supplies of commodities that it can access, especially if it removes its own environmental controls. Here in Britain we make nothing and we've already mined most of our commodities away. So it could be even worse here, once the stagflationary recession really starts to bite and tens of millions of British government clients begin using violence to secure their 'entitlements' from the rest of us.

Grim indeed.

Make sure that you watch this and then prepare for the worst. As Peter Schiff said on his latest podcast, if he actually wanted to destroy the US then he would put in place all of the latest US government policies. Much the same might be said here about Gordon Brown's latest fat-headed policies.

It's almost a certainty that the Pound will collapse and we will go cap in hand to the Germans to beg them to let us into the Euro. But this will be at a terrible price. The British government will sell you down the river to protect the privileges of its elites and its clients, and use you as the cash cow to pay the price the Germans will demand. Make sure you're not in a position to be so exploited.

This video may give you some ideas on how to protect yourself from this upcoming rapine and pillage of the British government.

HT to Archie Dean

G20 IMF UN World Government Announced: New Currency Revealed

Fiat currency that might work.

Dubai's ruling family moves to calm debt fears as global markets slide

Crivens.

China, gold, and the civilization shift

Pritchard-Evans Ambrosia, of The Daily Labourgraph, writes a thoughtful article.

Peter Schiff: AngloAustria makes 'Wall St Unplugged' AGAIN! :-)

The first time one of your AngloAustrian commentators made it onto a Peter Schiff 'Wall St Unplugged' broadcast was the day that I nearly fell off the treadmill at my local gym, after sending an email to Peter and his brother Andrew about the Panic of 1873, which referenced Tom Woods's 'Meltdown'.

But we got another mention this week, after posting a long quote from Mr Schiff's 2006 article about what constitutes a gold bubble. I had seen 'Westport, Connecticut' pop up in the FEEDJIT Live Traffic Feed on the sidebar of this site, accessing that blog piece via a Google search, but to hear my suspicions confirmed about who this might be, on a 'Wall St Unplugged' podcast, absolutely made my day as I drove along the back road between Henley and Caversham to get my Christmas shopping in early.

Marvellous.

Here's the quote, from Mr Schiff, about 5:52 into the podcast:

"...Actually I saw it [the piece on how to recognise a gold bubble], somebody had referenced it in a blog; it came up on a Google search..."
Even more marvellous.

Okay, so it's not much on the global scale of things, but it helps keep me going. (BTW, Peter, if you're reading this, when are you going to open that Euro Pacific Capital office in London? Forget Toronto. We need an office in London. I even know at least one person who'll be first on the list of applicants to work there, to try to sell Austrian money management and pension plans to the British people to help save them from Gordon Brown's stupidity.)

Anyhow, back to the show, and away from my obsequious crawling. This is one of the most memorable 'Wall St Unplugged' podcasts on record, on many fronts. First of all, we have the monologue of all monologues, to kick the show off. Mr Schiff explains the 'gold bubble', what's going to happen to the dollar, gives an explanation of the Swiss Franc rising above the dollar for the first time ever, and references many other related topics. And get this. He does this Great Monologue, one of his best, on a mobile telephone, without any discernible break, whilst being driven to his mother's house in Florida, getting out of the car, getting into the house, and connecting himself to the Internet and onto a better-sounding land line.

I'm guessing he must be using an iPhone and a bluetooth-connected MacBook Pro, for ease of use, but even so, this is a heck of a performance. I can hardly pour a cup of coffee and speak on the phone at the same time, without making a big brown mess of things, so this was quite a performance.

I think this seemingly effortless monologue must have taken something out of him though, because he is usually smooth as silk even with the stupidest of callers, and the most polite (though firm) radio host that you've ever heard, even when people are being hostile towards him.

Unfortunately, a leading contender in "The World's Stupidest and Least Socially-Aware Person" competition phoned in, asking about ETFs, and he pushed Mr Schiff to the absolute limit of politeness. This caller would have pushed me into the abyss of extreme violence, never mind ruffle my feathers, but somehow Der SchiffMeister managed to get to the end of the call without breaking out a machine gun. I would have been breaking out a Bazooka, armed with Uranium-tipped explosive shells.

With bells on.

So this then is a great podcast; one of Mr Schiff's best. And AngloAustria gets a tangential reference too! What could be better?:

=> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WallStreetUnspunWithPeterSchiff/~5/cxqyNxkkibg/PeterSchiff-11-25-2009.mp3

(Subscribe to the podcast here.)

LewRockwell roundup, 27th November

Maturin Towers top three on LewRockwell, this morning:

The Day the Dollar Died
A look at the future.


(Interesting apocalyptic fiction from John Galt, in which only the British Pound Sterling does worse than the American Dollar - that'll serve us right for being such poodles.)

Decentralization and Operational Secession
Gary North on what lies ahead, and his agenda for it.


(It's a long read, but worth it.)

The Price of Gold Will Double
Over the coming months, says Jim Rogers.


(Click through and read the above article all the way through, because the author, David Lew, who is a bullion media commentator, recommends that you should sell your gold for anything above $1,000 dollars and only buy once the price drops below this psychological marker. If, of course, you think gold will ever drop below this marker ever again - you could be a long time waiting! Though of course, we shall see. Mr Market can be a fickle beast, as we found out with the $50 dollar drop this morning, over which I'm sure Mr Lew will be crowing.)

Mr Market - The investment secrets of the Oracle of Omaha

So, you're a day trader and you bought a stack of gold yesterday at $1,192 and you felt like committing suicide this morning, when you saw that the price had plummeted to $1,146.

Welcome to the wild and wacky world of Mr Market.

In the meantime, if I can scrape any spare cash together, I'll be buying some more gold this morning, to take advantage of these hedge fund traders taking advantage of Mr Market and killing all of the day trading community (again).

Marc Faber and Jim Rogers might be able to time these things, but the Austrian school is at heart a fundamentalist school (as exemplified to perfection by Peter Schiff), and I'll tell you what Peter Schiff will be doing this morning.

He'll be buying more gold, while it's still this cheap.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

We're goin' to the Moon, but will the Moon get eclipsed?

How much longer before we're looking at $1,200 gold?

Goin' to the Moon or the new Bubble? Hmmm...

While I think about that I'll buy some more, while it's still this cheap.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Test post on iPhone using BlogPress Lite

Testing that I can write a post from my iPhone.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thanksgiving: A celebration of the end of communism in early colonial America

Like most people in Britain, until I read Murray Rothbard's 'Conceived in Liberty', I had little to no idea what 'Thanksgiving' was.

Fortunately, Uncle Murray put me right. Most early English colonies in the US were formed from various British outcast groups (Cavaliers in Virginia, Puritans in Massachusetts, etc), mostly either religious in origin or emanating from the struggles of the second English civil war. (Cromwell himself toyed with the idea of emigrating to America.)

Most of the northern Puritan groups, who later became Lincoln's Yankees, adopted a communitarian way of living, direct from the New Testament of the Bible. They shared their property in common and each gave according to his ability and took according to his need. Hence, they all nearly starved to death and the colonies were full of of feckless layabouts who stole food and who did little work. (The later underlying socialist nature of Massachusetts is no coincidence.)

Finally, one northern Puritan colony, in desperation, decided to adopt private property and a free market. In 1623, William Bradford, the colonial governor of the Plymouth colony, abandoned socialism and adopted capitalism. Hence, from that moment forward, there was plenty of food to go round, and everyone later thanked God each year for Bradford having adopted the free market. And that gives us the modern American celebration of Thanksgiving, though of course the later US state has usurped this to become another one of its glorious celebrations of Socialist Leviathan.

Read about that, here. (Which also explains why Thanksgiving didn't come from either 1621 or 1622, in case I've got any pedants on my case.)

Governor Bradford and his northern Puritans were actually a bit late to the game. The southern Cavaliers in Virginian Jamestown had pulled the same capitalist trick from 1614 onwards, after years of communitarian starvation and mass wipe-outs, and were swimming in food by the time their rival northern Puritans got around to finally adopting their Cavalier free market practices.

So, so much for 1621 and 'The Pilgrim Fathers'. What's really interesting, is how this same English split, which arose in the second English civil war, between Roundheads and Cavaliers, became the self-same political fault line in the American civil war, or 'The War of Northern Aggression', as I prefer to put it, with North versus South almost being a rematch between Roundheads and Cavaliers.

What comes around goes around, I suppose.

To get the full picture, read the full four volumes of 'Conceived in Liberty', a beautifully written account of early American history:

=> http://mises.org/books/conceived1.pdf
=> http://mises.org/books/conceived2.pdf
=> http://mises.org/books/conceived3.pdf
=> http://mises.org/books/conceived3.pdf

Or subscribe to the growing Podcast series, which is now well into volume III:

=> http://mises.org/Feeds/media.ashx?CategoryId=188

And to all of our American readers, I hope you have a great Thanksgiving and an even better Christmas, particularly if you consider yourself a capitalist Cavalier rather than a socialist Puritan.

Climategate: the scandal spreads, the plot thickens, the shame deepens…

James Delingpole discovers that New Zealand tax-eating 'scientists' have been up to the same rotten data-massaging tricks that their UK cousins have been up to.

Here is some raw data:


And here is a published chart drawn from that same data:



Why is it the raw data looks completely neutral, yet the published data shows a definite warming trend? As Mr Spock might have said; Fascinating.

I'm sure large tenured salaries, generous research budgets, and a pre-disposition to wanting to see a warming trend had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Absolutely nothing.

Sir Johnston Rotten back in Britain

AngloAustrian hero, John Lydon, is back in Britain to promote a new tour of his "other" band, Public Image Limited (PiL).

Read all about it.

Daniel Hannan: Brain drain in full flow

Here's a few interesting related posts from the Prince of Light:

=> Labour policies are driving Conservative voters abroad

=> Daniel Hannan for President

=> Why I wouldn't emigrate to America

Iraq war deal ‘signed in blood’ by Blair in 2002

Check out this quote, from the Labourgraph story:

Tony Blair and George Bush might have “signed in blood” their agreement to topple Saddam Hussein a year before the Iraq war, according to Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain’s former ambassador to Washington.
The question is, of course, whose blood did they sign this deal with?

The million+ Iraqis killed since the war broke out, or the hundreds or thousands of UK and US servicemen and servicewomen killed or maimed since the war broke out?

You can bet Blair didn't break any skin signing up to this war. He just took all the cheques siphoned to him via speaking fees, from the US government.

Nice one, Tony. I hope your "Catholic" faith has allowed you to absolve yourself of the sin of all these deaths.

LewRockwell Roundup, 26th November

Maturin Towers top three, today:

The Vicious Alliance
David Calderwood on the big-bank cartel and the state.

Is This the Blowout Phase for Gold?
Or a trick?

Gold and Freedom vs. the Fed
Jacob Hornberger on our bitter enemy, the central bank.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The Honda Clarity arrives in Europe

The future of fuel is hydrogen. How it is to be generated, stored, and transmitted is the question. But the final answer will surely be that gasoline will be totally diverted into commodity plastic uses and that only hydrogen will be burned for fuel, in planes, trains, ships, and automobiles.

With only water as a by-product, it also has the side benefit of shutting up all of those doleful ecomentalists. Thank the Lord. No doubt they'll find something else to whine about, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Here is the review of the Clarity from the Daily Labourgraph.

And here is the review of the Clarity from Top Gear, with James May:

Principles of economics, translated

It's not Austrian economics, but that doesn't stop it being good entertainment:



Thanks to Gekko

Peter Schiff: Top ten signs that a precious metals bubble is actually forming

10. Commodities trading jackets are the best selling items at Abercrombie & Fitch

9. George Foreman is the pitchman for an infomercial featuring a "Home Panning Kit"

8. The most popular major at Chico State is Geology

7. Due to high prices, Olympic metals are replaced by ribbons

6. Monster Park in San Francisco is re-named Glamis Field

5. Analysts upgrade shares of McDonald's based on mineral rights to its real estate holdings, bringing new meaning to its "golden arches."

4. Snoop Dogg introduces the "Bling Mutual Fund."

3. Hustle and Flow wins another Oscar for their single "It's Hard out Here for a Miner"

2. The WB has a new hit show about teenage prospectors called "Dawson's Claim"

1. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes name their newborn son Newmont.

Here's the full article, from 2006.

The Ethics of Freedom and Climate Change

Superb article on climate change alarmists by Francisco Capella.

LewRockwell RoundUp, 25th November

How does he do it? Once again I've been pushed to limit the roundup to three, but here goes:

The Gov't Will Make You Dirt Poor
Just delay to cooperate, says Gary North.

College?
It's a bad investment, parents, says a college student.

Phony Eco-Data
Declan McCullagh on the crooked scientists' leaked e-mails.

Dollar, gold, GDP, Fed, housing, Senate Race

Und heute, wir haben Herr Schiff, Der Herzog von Connecticut, und er sprecht am Geld, Gold, und amerikanischen Politik. Er sagt Gold ist Geld (oder Geld ist Geld), und das is sehr lustig! Geniessen:



UPDATE: Incidentally, Peter Schiff mentions the Saturday Night Live show sketch seen below, in the above video blog. Which is not surprising, really, seeing as they based the sketch on a Peter Schiff podcast.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

For whom the Bodrum bell tolls

Alas, for reasons far too complicated to mention I am unable to make it to this year's Property and Freedom Society conference, in Bodrum. However, God and Professor Hoppe willing, I will be there next year if I have to crawl there over broken glass while wearing a T-shirt saying 'I love the Guardian' in three different ecologically-friendly languages.

It's an appallingly terrible shame that I have to miss this year's event, but best wishes to everyone else who is going, and I hope you all have a fabulous time (except the one person whose place I shall be trying to steal next year, who I hope has a terrible time, so they never want to go back again).

Fortunately, I have a few photographic memories I can fall back on from last year, supplied by a brilliant Estonian photographer, to keep me in fighting spirit until next year.

Unfortunately, as I used to be in the SAS and I used to be a terrible liar, the regiment have asked me to protect the innocent by masking a few key identities in the photographs below:

Your Maturin Towers correspondent answers questions from Professor Higgs on upcoming American foreign policy

In a strange temporal distortion caused by watching too many showings of the Lord of the Rings, the Maturin Towers correspondent advises Professors Higgs and Hoppe about why English tea is the best in the world

The famous author, Richard Blake, asks your humble correspondent for a few new ideas on plotlines for his next novel, which your correspondent is happy to supply

AngloAustrian hack, Jack Maturin, briefs Professor Hulsmann on the latest political events in Britain and wonders where the butler has got to with the beers?

Jack Maturin, your humble Maturin Towers correspondent, asks Professor Hoppe why only real men can ever wear pink

Finally, 50% of the world's anarcho-capitalists plot world revolution while pretending to act out a little known Monty Python swimming sketch

Margaret Thatcher returns to Downing Street

Her Blessedness stands alongside her new portrait in Downing Street, with the artist Richard Stone.

If only she had discovered Mises instead of discovering Hayek. Oh well. You could do a lot worse. And if only we could find someone with the same amount of balls to sweep this country clean of the socialist tide that has so nearly destroyed it in the last 12 years.

Please come back, your Blessedness; your madness over the Poll Tax is forgiven. Or at least get on the phone to Daniel Hannan to tell him to come back to England to raze that feeble slacker David Cameron to the ground.

We really were not worthy.

Maturin Towers world tour of the Far East

Yes, it's a strong possibility. Your Maturin Towers correspondent could be paying flying visits to Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, early next year. Details to be confirmed soon, with a client, but at last I may get to try out my terrible Mandarin, and witness the Hoppeianesque city states of Hong Kong and Singapore up close and personal.

Be afraid.

Leviathan

Some crazy Germans have made a video about the real Leviathan in the Universe, VY Canis Major. Oh yes, my friends, it's big:

Britain has run out of money, the CBI is told

Oh lumme, read this article and weep. Received opinion is that we are nearly out of the recession. Oh dear. Has nobody outside of sites like this one realised that the recession has only just started?

Notice also paragraphs like the following:

An immediate "emergency growth budget" is promised if he wins the election which will include cuts in corporation tax. Unfortunately, it's a reality for a nation as fiscally challenged as this one that politicians cannot blithely go around promising tax cuts with no method of funding them. Mr Cameron plans to pay for these reductions by cancelling allowances and other reliefs.
So Cameron is going to pay for a tax cut by increasing taxes? How's that for 'radical free market thinking'?

I don't like to even whisper it, Dave, but have you ever thought of cutting government spending, to pay for tax cuts? Or are the millions of New Labour non-jobs you've been complaining about for ten years suddenly 'productive' and 'economically uplifting'?

Or is it just that if millions of non-job holders realise you're going to sack them, to release the resources wasted on them to fund useful stuff, including re-employing them in proper jobs where they'll have to do some work, that they'll all vote Labour to keep you out of power?

I wonder.

Democracy is a God that has Failed.

Nearly one in three schools failing children, Ofsted finds

So, a government body has found that approximately one third of Britain's state schools don't even come up to the British state's own piss-poor standards.

Solution One:

Wring our hands, raise tax, increase numbers of inspectors and targets, pay consultants to investigate situation and write long incomprehensible reports, sack no-one, close no schools, keep going as we are, into the long slow death of unbelievable incompetence.

Solution Two:

Privatise every single "failing" school, allow newly appointed private heads to sack useless teachers, re-imburse all parents of affected children with all the tax that is spent on these schools, and then watch these schools rocket to the top of the performance league tables within five years and outstrip every other state school around them.

Hmmm...

I wonder which solution they'll choose?

A Pro-Free-Market Program for Economic Recovery

Uncle George Reisman lays out his latest plan to get the world into economic recovery, via various clever Reismanesque ruses, to head us into Uncle Murray's 100% gold reserve standard:

=> A Pro-Free-Market Program for Economic Recovery

Chances of it happening?

Well, as much chance as all British state schools being privatised overnight.

But if we Austrians keep pointing out these solutions to all of these self-made socialist crises, then one day perhaps things might get so desperate that these ideas might actually get an airing.

Yes, I know, it's a slim bet. However, stranger things have happened at sea. What, exactly, I'm not sure. But you gotta keep trying, Ringo, because if Uncle George is cleverer than a hatful of frogs and he's still trying, after all of these years, then the rest of us must follow suit.

Incidentally, check out the following figures while you're reading Uncle George's article: In July 2008, American banks had $45 billion dollars in reserve at the Fed, with just $2 billion in excess reserves, i.e. money they could have lent out without breaking any fractional reserve laws. Basically, the banks were fully loaned out. Today, American banks are holding an eye-watering $1.1 trillion of total reserves at the Fed, with excess reserves at a staggering $1.06 trillion dollars, all of which could be loaned out tomorrow without breaking any fractional reserve laws. Do the words 'Hyperinflationary Nuclear Explosion in Waiting' mean anything to you? I should coco.

It gets better. The old $45 billion in reserves supported $6 trillion dollars worth of American checking accounts. This implies a fractional reserve of 0.75%. Taken to its logical conclusion, if the current $1.1 trillion of new reserves were to be similarly expanded, under the fractional reserve system, and fully loaned out, then American checking accounts would go from $6 trillion dollars, to an incomprehensible $147 trillion dollars. Let me just write that out for you:

=> $147,000,000,000,000 dollars

That number is actually too large to imagine. Let's put it another way. I think we can all imagine a nice white shiny $1 million dollar home somewhere on the coast of Florida, with a nice shiny white motor-boat tied up outside on the waterfront. Now, turn the picture of that home into a pile of cash, perhaps a cube of cash, in $100 dollar bills. This is what that looks like:


Not so impressive, huh? Now let's ratchet that small bag-sized $1 million dollar pile into something a little more meaningful. Let's pump it up into a hundred houses, or $100 million dollars:


Now we need to rack that up into a thousand houses, or $1 billion dollars:


Now we're talking. Remember, that's $100 dollar bills, representing $1 billion dollars. So what does a trillion look like, worth a million such houses (at today's prices)? Your wish is our command:

Notice that the above picture is using double-stacked pallets.

Now all you have to do, is multiply the picture above in your head 147 times, for 147 million waterfront homes at today's prices, and you'll have an idea about how much cash it is now possible for the United States to have, in $100 dollar bills, if their banks lent out all of their available money.

If that's not doin' it for you, here's a graphic representing the total amount of dollar cash currently floating around the US, either as paper notes, or as readily accessible cash in checking accounts:


And here's the amount of cash that could be floating around the US, if the banks lent out everything that they are allowed to lend out:


So now you know why Peter Schiff is recommending that everyone gets out of the dollar.

Crack-up boom, anyone?

LewRockwell RoundUp, 24th November

Another tough day, with some great articles, but only three can make the Maturin Towers cut. So here they are:

Is the Gold Price a Bubble?
No. In fact, says Mike Rozeff, it's headed up.

The Economics of Recycling
Floy Lilley on the idiotic green sacrament.

Why 'We' Fight
The nature of modern imperialism.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Does he look like a bitch?!

With a splendid version of the Pulp Fiction routine, by Samuel Jackson with John Travolta, where the two hoods get the soon-to-be-murdered Brett to describe what Marsellus Wallace looks like, here is Saturday Night Live's version of a Peter Schiff podcast:

Keynesianism explained

Tony Froth, of the Reserve Bank of Australia, explains the logic behind Keynesianism:



Thanks to Gekko

Why state schools are like prisons

I was listening to a British state school teacher recently bleating on about how they are thinking of introducing more roster calls into their school to help 'fight' truancy. I sat back and couldn't help wondering about how much British state schools seem like German Prisoner-Of-War camps, such as that seen in The Great Escape, and how the language of British state school teachers seems so military, with words like 'fight', 'control', 'authority', 'make', 'compel', and other words of aggression constantly being used. Let's examine the similarities:

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In Stalag Luft III, attendance was compulsory, for the inmates, and it was free (i.e. paid for from state-acquired funds).
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In a British state school, attendance is compulsory, for the pupils, and it is free (i.e. paid for from state-acquired funds).
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In Stalag Luft III, there were usually two, though up to four, roll-calls a day to check on escaped prisoners.
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In a British state school, there are usually two, though up to four, roll-calls a day to check on truanting pupils.
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Most Stalag Luft III prisoners looked forward to their final day of release from the camp.
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Most British state school pupils look forward to their final day of release from the school.
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In Stalag Luft III, infractions of the rules often led to a period of detention in a solitary confinement unit known as 'The Cooler'.
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In a British state school, infractions of the rules often lead to a period of detention in a solitary confinement unit known as a 'Rehabilitation Unit'.
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Many of the guards in Stalag Luft III were hated by the inmates.
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Many of the teachers in British state schools are hated by the pupils.
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In Stalag Luft III, most of the prisoners spent most of their time bored out of their minds, with only thoughts of escape stopping them from going insane.
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In a British state school, most of the pupils spend most of their time bored out of their minds, with only thoughts of the daily home time bell stopping them from going insane.
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Many activities in Stalag Luft III were mandated centrally from Berlin, to keep the prisoners occupied through the day.
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Many activities in a British state school are mandated centrally from London, to keep the pupils occupied through the day.
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In Stalag Luft III, the prisoners were constantly trying to think of new ways to 'work' the guards, and make their lives a misery.
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In a British state school, the pupils are constantly trying to think of new ways to 'work' the teachers, and make their lives a misery.
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In Stalag Luft III, most of the guards hated it as much as the prisoners, but it was easier than fighting on the Eastern Front.
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In a British state school, most of the teachers hate it as much as the pupils, but it is easier than earning a living in the white collar private business sector.
-------
The buildings of Stalag Luft III were cheap and temporary affairs, with not much thought given to long-term occupation
---
The buildings of a Britist state school are often cheap and temporary affairs, with not much thought given to long-term occupation
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In Stalag Luft III you were never free of the constant message that you were under the control and direction of the German state, with even precious 'free time' being filled with sanitation work and endless inspections.
---
In a British state school you are never free of the constant message that you are under the control and direction of the British state, with even precious 'free time' being filled with homework and endless exam preparations.
-------
Although poor, the diet in Stalag Luft III was controlled and monitored for basic nutritional needs.
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Although poor, the diet in a British state school is controlled and monitored for basic nutritional needs.
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Special units of German soldiers were trained to hunt down and capture escaped British prisoners, and lock them up back in the camps.
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Special units of local authority staff are trained to hunt down and capture truanting school pupils, and lock them back up in the schools.
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For good behaviour, inmates in Stalag Luft III were granted luxuries.
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For good behaviour, inmates in a British state school are granted top-set attendance and GCSE exam passes.
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Most prisoners left Stalag Luft III with an abiding dislike of Germans, though with fond memories of their friends who went through the hell with them.
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Most pupils leave British state school with an abiding dislike of teachers, though with fond memories of their friends who went through the hell with them.
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Although families could contact prisoners in Stalag Luft III (at the camp commandant's discretion), it was quite clear for their term of confinement, that their lives were strictly under the control of the camp authorities (for instance, with red cross parcels from home being strictly monitored by camp guards).
---
Although families maintain close contact with pupils in British state schools (at the discretion of the school's social services liaison officer), it is quite clear during the school day during term time, that their lives are strictly under the control of the school authorities (for instance, with permission being needed from the school for pupils to go on holiday during term time).
-------
Some prisoners became so traumatised through their confinement in German POW camps, that they later became institutionalized and incapable of operating independently in civvy street, without some kind of support from the state, such as taking jobs in British prisons as jail warders. (Something they would never have dreamed of before entering the camp.)
---
Some pupils become so traumatised through their confinement in British state schools, that they later become institutionalized and incapable of operating independently in adult life, without some kind of support from the state, such as taking jobs in British state schools as teachers. (Something they would never have dreamed of before entering the school.)
-------

I think by now we have the picture. British state schools are prisons, with each passing year bringing ever greater regimentation, personal intrusion, and a vice-like control of the state over the minds and lives of individuals, via national curriculum authorities and the thought police in Whitehall.

And let's just go back to where this started. Education was a service paid for by wealthy medieval people to make their children's lives richer and more informed. Teachers were often household servants, under the control certainly of the parents, and increasingly under the child's control as the children grew older. These teachers certainly knew their place, as paid tutorial servants, and they made sure that their pupils were happy and well-rounded to avoid being sacked and put into the street without references.

And now look at life in a British state school, as a teacher. You have to hector unwilling crowds of sullen inmates around from one dilapidated building to another, constantly trying to cajole them to do homework and to prepare for an intolerable treadmill of tests and exams, which are fairly meaningless anyway due to grade inflation and Britain's rapidly approaching status as an economic basket case.

If you have to spend any time at all with the children's parents, you try to restrict this to five minutes a year, in which you tell them all of their child's faults before pushing them on to the next teacher, before they can reply. This solitary travesty of a Parent-Teachers meeting, each year, is thus like a giant zoo, with everyone leaving the hall feeling frustrated, especially the parents, who usually have no idea what their children are doing each day and no means of finding out.

Schools also often contain hard-core groups of bitter individuals who hate the school so much that they have to be almost permanently confined in 'Cooler' units. However, the thought never crosses anyone's minds that these people should be allowed to go free and kicked out of the school. You hate the job yourself, and you are constantly badgering 'the authorities' for shorter work days, more training days, and longer holidays, to escape this hell-hole, often feeling suicidal on Monday mornings when you have to re-enter the war zone. Unfortunately, because you read The Grauniad each day, you believe that this is the best that this situation can be, and that only if you had even more control over these inmates' lives, and yet more taxes from their parents, would things improve.

Unfortunately, despite being a highly intelligent Grauniad reader, what you cannot recognise is that you are helping to build a fascist system of mind and society control, that is turning this country into a giant Gulag.

The reason that state schools are like prisons, then, is because both institutions are run by the state and are designed to make their inmates conform to the needs and wishes of 'The Authorities'.

Just where 'The Authorities' gain their authority from need never be explained. In fact, one of the chief purposes of both state school and state prison is to stop you asking questions like this and to stop challenging their 'right' to rule over you. If they achieve this, then they have succeeded in their aims.

What a nightmare.

Unfortunately, as with all the things that the state does, they are spectacularly unsuccessful with state prisons, usually taking slightly wayward people and turning them into hardened criminals.

This concomitant failure that we can always associate with the state also means that in the state schools there is a constant air of rebellion. Most join this rebellion by working to rule, failing to comply to all instructions, or actually fighting against the system and refusing to be taught by truanting. A few even dare to ask the question: "Where does your 'Authority' come from, Mr State-Drone-Headmaster?". What's even stranger these days, is that many teachers themselves join in with the rebellion, in a strange case of Stockholm's syndrome gone mad, with teachers advising their pupils (usually very privately) to 'Fight The Man'. Sadly, many 'Fight The Man' by turning to communism and other dreary brands of socialism, without ever reaching the realisation that socialism IS 'The Man'. They confuse this horrible system that they are enduring with 'Capitalism' and 'A Strong Right-Wing State', whereas those of us who are real capitalists, rather than state mercantilist fascists, are as much on their side as they are.

Fortunately, there is a way out from this madness. The entire British state education system should be immediately privatised and all government control taken away from anything to do with education. All tax monies currently spent on education should be reimbursed to private citizens and all laws on mandated compulsion in the education field should be immediately revoked.

Give the schools to the teachers, if you have to, in a giant act of homesteading, so they can start running them for their own profit in the free market. But get them out of the dead hands of government, as soon as possible.

Yes, the entire virtually unsackable British state teaching profession would be up in arms, but we have to ask ourselves a basic question. Who works for who, here? Do teachers work for us? Or do we work for teachers?

The reason our schooling system has turned into a prison system is that we have been answering the question wrongly for over 100 years. It is time that control was returned to the people who pay for it all. It is time we brought freedom back to education and abolished the British state's involvement with it, and all of the grinding force and the nauseous waste that the dead Mafia hand of government always brings.

Privatise all British schools.

Do it now.

UPDATE: Readers are invited to draw their own comparisons between state prisons and state schools.

UPDATE II: For more on this subject, try the following Lew Rockwell link, as recommended by Paul, in the comments:

=> 'Why Don’t Students Like School?' Well, Duhhhh…

LewRockwell RoundUp, 23rd November

Today's Maturin Towers top three, from Mr Rockwell:

=> The Very Bright Future of Gold
Robert Blumen on its coming official recognition, and vastly higher price.


An interesting discussion on whether gold is currently in a bubble.


=> Wall Street Is Living It Up, Everyone Else Is Suffering
Marc Faber on a very strange economy.


Our favourite Swiss gentleman analyses the market and claims that gold will never drop below $1,000 dollars, ever again (thus contradicting his opinion on $800 dolllar gold a few days ago, which is interesting).


=> Crooked Scientists Under the Microscope
Their emails reveal their lies.


None of the lying British government environmentalist 'scientists' involved in this University of East Anglia conspiracy are denying the truth of these emails, merely hiding under the feeble "I cannot comment on illegally obtained information" mantra, that so unsuccessfully failed to work for British MPs in the recent corrupt expenses scandal. If you haven't read about this environmentalist scam, then what are you waiting for?

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Is makeup necessary?

I was in Reading today, in Caversham, and this always reminds me of Caversham's very own Kate Winslett and her dreadful marriage to another child of Reading, film director Sam Mendes. As it's been a while since we last mentioned Mrs Mendes on AngloAustria, I thought we had better right that unfortunate wrong.

It was tricky to think of a subject heading, as I sailed over Caversham bridge on my way back to Henley through the usual traffic jam at the little roundabout beside the shopping centre. However, as we never show purely gratuitous photos of Mrs Mendes on AngloAustria, I quickly wondered about that old bugbear: "Do women look more attractive to men with or without makeup"?

To test the postulate, here's a recent photo of Kate Winslett wearing lots of makeup:


And here's a recent photo of Kate Winslett without makeup:

Which is better?

In the humble opinion of your Maturin Towers correspondent (and here I may be giving away my age) the second photograph is far more attractive and far more appealing because (1) It shows the real Kate, as a real living breathing human being, rather than as a fake plastic mannequin, and (2) There's no damned pesky wedding ring in the shot, reminding us of her damned husband.

So I think we have it. I think we have quite conclusively proved that makeup is unnecessary. Especially if you are a Hollywood film actress with unbelievable bone structure, who should never act in films alongside Jack Black.

This is the kind of service we like to provide on AngloAustria.

The one-eyed man is king

Check out this wretched story, in The Labourgraph:

=> Gordon Brown gets poll boost as Tory lead slashed

After nearly 13 years of Labour chaos, a degenerating economy, millions upon millions of more people either on government welfare or in government non-jobs, state intrusion into every aspect of our lives, a craven caving-in of power to the EU, and a hundred and one other rotten decivilising measures, Gordon Brown is still in with a chance of winning the next election.

If that strikes you as being a bit bombastic, then there is certainly a very good chance of a hung parliament, with the socialist Liberal Democrats joining the socialist Labour Party in a coalition, to continue the left-wing march to economic destruction and the complete absorption of English civilisation, such as it is, into the body politic of the EUSSR.

The socialist Tories have completely flopped on the EU card and are quite rightly seen as being nothing more than Chancers on the make, with David Cameron a pale cardboard cut-out of a feeble Tony Blair Mk II.

So in a way it is right that a hung parliament is the most likely outcome at the next election, because wherever you turn there are socialists. Yes, some favour subsidising one group (the farmers) over another group (the teachers), with subsidies for bankers being increased by all political parties. But there's no real difference between any of these bloodsuckers.

If you vote for one of these lizards, creatures of a civil service Mafia to fool us that we are free, you are therefore just legitimising the rotten political system in Britain which enables men like Gordon Brown to mis-spend and waste an entire country's resources on the failed policies of a failed ideology.

However you vote, the British government will get back in again. Yes, Democracy is a God that has Failed, and if you participate in this charade by voting, then you will only be continuing the degeneracy of the failure.

So don't waste your time.

Don't vote. You'll only encourage 'em. Masturbate on polling day, instead. At least you'll get back a little something for your efforts.