Ron Paul and the dissolution of the United States

If you've taken any time to look beyond Ron Paul's stance on Iraq and examine his positions on a wide variety of other subjects it becomes clear, to me at least, that he is for the dissolution of these here United States of America. His position, on things such as the IRS, Federal Reserve, Intelligence Agencies, Environment, Education, Social Security etc etc, is that there should be little or no Federal Government or Federal oversight and that all such governance should be left to the States. Dissolution may not be his stated aim, but it would obviously be one possible outcome. Apart from having a joint defense system, what would be left that could be called "United"?

It also strikes me that such a break up of the Union would after a pretty short time result in mini-Unions because wide diversity of policies, such as taxation and social services, between the States, as shown in Europe, doesn't work in the long term. To avoid unbalanced trade patterns or population migration between States, strategic alliances, agreements and entities will be formed. The first form of this would likely be an East / West division, with Pacific coast states forming an alliance while the Atlantic states do the same, leaving the "Heartland" States with a decision to make as to where their economic interests lie. Texas will likely run it alone for a while. The upshot of all of this is that the "United States" will eventually reform along with all it's governing institutions. Could the intermission include revolutionary wars and wars of independence? Possibly but hopefully unlikely, although with the Red / Blue divide so prominantly promoted by our media I wouldn't exclude any possibility.

Netflix Recommendations are crap

I've been using Netflix for years and don't think I've ever had a good recommendation from them, but today just blew my mind. They proudly recommend "The Looney Tunes Golden Collection" because I enjoyed the Sergio Leone classic "Once Upon a Time in the West". Anyone have any idea how their recommendation algorithm works?

Compare and Contrast

Today, the National Intelligence Estimate detailed the assessment of 16 different intelligence departments regarding Iran's nuclear weapons program.

In the headlines of the mainstream media, see if you can spot the odd one out:

CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015, a U.S. intelligence report says.

MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure but is continuing to enrich uranium, which means it may still be able to develop a weapon between 2010 and 2015, senior U.S. intelligence officials said Monday.

Fox News:

WASHINGTON — The intelligence community has high confidence that Iran had a covert nuclear weapons program that it never acknowledged and continues to deny, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said Monday, but the program is currently halted although perhaps not indefinitely.

ABC News:

In a stunning reversal of Bush administration conventional wisdom, a new assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes Iran shelved its nuclear weapons program over four years ago.

CBS News:

(CBS/AP) Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure but is continuing to enrich uranium, which means it may still be able to develop a weapon between 2010 and 2015, senior intelligence officials said Monday.

BBC:

Iran appears "less determined" to develop nuclear weapons than previously thought, US intelligence officials say.

Man shoots wife, wife doesn't remember a thing

This is very sad. In Tuscany today a 77 year old man shot his 82 year old wife dead while she lay in her hospital bed. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease eight years ago and the man told police that he could no longer bear to she her suffer. While this is tragic and an extreme example of someones anguish, I'm actually in favor of euthanasia as I feel that the continuing strive to keep many humans alive no matter their circumstances has gone too far. We often keep our "loved ones" in conditions that we would not subject animals to. Quality of life should outweigh quantity of life in my opinion. Obviously the "patient" should have the last say in this, which makes it extremely difficult in the case of degenerative mental illnesses unless the illness is diagnosed early enough and the victim is judged to be compos mentis enough to indicate their wishes. While this poor man broke the law, it will be interesting to see how justice is served. Maybe if they had children, it is they who should be the jury.

Evel Knievel, R.I.P.

When I was growing up in the seventies, it was compulsory to have three things - the Farrah Fawcett poster, the Bionic Man action figure and the Evel Knievel Stunt Bike. Not having either of these would lead to school yard beatings.

Evel Knievel
10.17.38 to 11.30.07

Town in crisis

The town in which I live is facing a crisis. It's a small farm country town with a population of around 5000, about 50 miles from Washington DC. It's 10 miles from a much larger town with a population of around 60,000. A local religious group wants to purchase 224 acres of land currently designated for agricultural use. Their plan is to build a church and conferencing facility to host regular weekend events for their local congregation and also an annual gathering which draws in upwards of 10,000 people for 3 to 5 days.
There has been an uprising! The main claim by the outraged townsfolk is that the towns infrastructure (roads, sewer and water) cannot accommodate the increased load, and that overall the character of the town would be changed.
This sounds reasonable until you do a little research and find that hundreds of new homes have been built in the town in recent years and hundreds more are planned, the land having already been rezoned and bought by a nationally well-known home builder. The road that skirts the town, on which the 224 acres is located, is already scheduled to be upgraded to dual lanes. At least three very large churches have been built on ex-farm land in recent years too. In all the hullabaloo over this issue, people have resigned from the boards tasked with governing the towns affairs, "grass-roots" citizens organizations have been formed, and I'm expecting the sales of pitchforks and flaming torches to increase too.

Now, could the real reason for the uprising be that this particular religious group is of the Islamic persuasion? Surely not. The townsfolk say that has no bearing whatsoever, but I'm not convinced. The next hearing is on January 8th. It should be an interesting affair.