Creating the Game Changer..
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sounds good to me!!
that translates to a system..
that sucks the pure energy from the unknowing(many)..
for the benefit of a select few..
slaves to a system..
that cater to elitists..
under the proper common law dejure government we are the masters and government are our slaves..
under the existing defacto system run by the international money changers, we are enemies of the state..
that translates to slaves of a system that suck the pure energy from the unknowing (many) for the benefit of a select few..
when the government fears the people..
we have liberty..
when the people fear the government..
we have tyranny..
~ Thomas Jefferson ~
where are we today?
when rights have been changed to privileges and slaves are in a constant battle to keep them..
should make most wonder why..
4 is the number of the world..it is of no surprise the nwo is here..
~ vex ~
phil..must have been out of that loop..
superfluous at best..
badges..we don't need no stinking badges..
what movie was this a quote from?
to many a man, and sometimes to a youth..
there comes the opportunity to choose..
between honorable competence and tainted wealth..
the young man who starts out to be poor and honorable..
holds in his hand one of the strongest elements of success..
~ Orison Swett Marden ~
mankind is at its best when it is most free..
this will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty..
we must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice..
which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds..
~ Dante Alighieri ~
Italian Poet
(1265-1320)
Source: Letters
the high~minded man..
must care more for the truth..
than for what people think..
~ Aristotle ~
what is life?
if one can not wallow in it..
vex..
One..sorry..
I came up with this the am of the 24th.
just more thoughts is all..
eye on..
different market is all..
Have often wondered..
Why this time of year holds such allure..
Is it the bringing together of family and friends?
The time off from routine?
The nature of being able to give of oneself for others?
It seems as though happiness is only real..
When it is shared..
That explains why such slim pickins at the mart..
You did not notice..
But have you noticed the slight curl at the end of Sam II's mouth, when he looks at you?.
It means that he didn't want you to name him Sam II, for one thing, and for the other things it means that he has a sawed~off in his left pant leg, and a baling hook in his right pant leg and is ready to kill you with either one of them given the opportunity..
The father is taken aback.
What he usually says, in such a confrontation, is..
"I changed your diapers for you, little snot.."
This is not the right thing to say..
First, it is not true (mothers change nine diapers out of ten) and second, it instantly reminds Sam II of what he is mad about..
He is mad about being small when you were big..
But no, that's not it..
He is mad about being helpless when you were powerful..
But no, not that either..
He is mad about being contingent when you were necessary..
Not quite it..
He is insane because when he loved you..
You did not notice..
~ Donald Barthelme ~
The Dead Father
Joint Task Force Told Face to Face, Blackout was a Military Test..
Oliver J. Midelson
At an under publicized public comment meeting, which was publicly 'announced' by a Department of Energy news release, Michael Kane outlined his report, published at Global Free Press, stating that the August 14th blackout was part and parcel to a multi-faceted military test. The Task Force was very attentive, attempting to take notes as fast as Michael spoke.
His comments can be heard in Windows Media player format (now playing). They were the last comments made to the panel.
It was a snowy Friday afternoon in Manhattan and very few people showed up. Both Forbes and the Akron Beacon Journal left out Michael's comments in their "coverage" of the New York pubic comment meeting. Once again the mainstream media completely fails the public, and Global Free Press is the only publication brave enough to run the real coverage of this so-called 'public' comment meeting. How public can it be if no one reports it? The "New Media" such as GFP, FTW, INN, SGTV, and many more are proving to be our only salvation.
Michael made the only interesting comments given the entire day with the exception of Carole Dortch-Wright, who spoke on behalf of New Jersey Governor James McGreevey. The NY Times, who had a reporter present at this meeting, seem to have provided no coverage in their Saturday edition. For the record, I personally saw Michael's report handed to the NY Times reporter. Hopefully they are saving it for their Sunday edition, but I won't hold my breath.
Very few people showed up to the public comment meeting in Cleveland, Ohio on December 4th, prompting Rep. Dennis Kucinich and four other members of Congress to accuse the D.O.E. of failing to adequately notify the public, according to the Akron Beacon Journal
The first point Michael made was that the Task Force Interim Report failed to address the possibility of Electro Magnetic Pulses causing the blackout. He noted that it is known HAARP was turned on at 4pm on August 14th, just 11 minutes before the blackout occurred. He stated the Air Force should be contacted and required to turn over all documentation pertaining to what HAARP was used for on that day.
Michael detailed the aerial aerosol spray operation he witnessed the night of the blackout, as well as referencing the proximity of the Determined Promise '03 national military drills announced just one day after the blackout. He also mentioned he received a report that the Canadian border was militarized at 1pm on August 14th, just three hours before the blackout, in the Mohawk River Valley region. Why?
Dr. Nawal Kamel appeared to be pleased to hear Mr. Kane's comments, as he was the only person who appealed to the Task Force as a citizen void of any special interest. In addition to this, Senior Policy Advisor James Glotfelty was nodding his head up and down as Michael began to speak of PD-16.
Wayne Madsen has revealed National Security Presidential Directive 16 (PD-16) gave the president authority to wage cyber-warfare against other countries, including bringing down their power grids. Michael pointed out we do not know if any elements of PD-16 pertain to North America.
He continued by referencing Tommy Franks' recent comments in Cigar Aficionado. General Franks' stated if another terrorist attack occurs in America, the Constitution would be scrapped for a military government. Visibly upset by this outrageous statement, Michael put down his prepared statement and made a much-needed comparison to the current 'independent' commission to investigate 9-11.
He noted how the victims family members were terribly disappointed with the 9-11 Commission, and that it is clear the commission will not withstand historical scrutiny. He ended by warning this Task Force the only way for them to avoid the same destiny is to address the questions outlined in his report. He then offered to hand his report to any one interested in reviewing it.
At this point, Alison Silverstein, co-chair of the Electric System Working Group (ESWG) threw both her hands out, prompting Michael to personally hand his report to all nine Task Force members.
I asked Michael what he thought of the Task Force's response:
"I wanted to appeal to their hearts as well as their minds," said Michael in the Park Central Hotel Lobby, "…I think I may have touched one or two hearts in there today."
http://www.prisonplanet.com/120803blackout.html
Terror alerts manufactured?.
FBI agents say White House scripting 'hysterics' for political effect..
World Net Daily 01/06/03: Jon Dougherty
Original Link: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30312
Intelligence pros say the White House is manufacturing terrorist alerts to keep the issue alive in the minds of voters and to keep President Bush's approval ratings high, Capitol Hill Blue reports.
The Thursday report said that the administration is engaging in "hysterics" in issuing numerous terror alerts that have little to no basis in fact.
"Unfortunately, we haven't made a lot of progress against al-Qaida or the war on terrorism," one FBI agent familiar with terrorism operations told CHB. "We've been spinning our wheels for several weeks now."
Other sources within the bureau and the Central Intelligence Agency said the administration is pressuring intelligence agencies to develop "something, anything" to support an array of non-specific terrorism alerts issued by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.
"Most of the time, we have little to go on, only unconfirmed snippets of information," a second FBI agent, who also was not named in the report, said. "Most alerts are issued without any concrete data to back up the assumptions."
Indeed, the most recent terrorism alerts have been issued absent specific threat information. Each of the accompanying warnings comes without any shift in the nation's new color-coded alert system; the current warning level of yellow, or "elevated," has been in place since late September.
Even recent reports regarding five Arab men who may have slipped into the country via Canada using phony identification could be politically motivated, one expert said.
"We have very, very little to support the notion that these five represent any more of a threat than any of the other thousands of people who enter this nation every day," terrorism expert Ronald Blackstone said. "It's a fishing expedition."
On Wednesday, one of the five, a Pakistani jeweler, Mohammed Asghar, was tracked down in Pakistan by The Associated Press. He told reporters there he'd never been to the U.S., though he said he tried once – two months ago – to use false documents to get into Britain to find work.
"I imagine the finger pointing has started at the White House," Blackstone said.
On Thursday, President Bush said of the Asghar case: "We need to follow up on forged passports and people trying to come into our country illegally."
"Don't misunderstand, there is a real terrorist threat to this country," another FBI agent told CHB. But, the agent continued, "every time we go public with one of these phony 'heightened state of alerts,' it just numbs the public against the day when we have another real alert."
Last year, the FBI issued alerts that terrorists may attack stadiums, nuclear power plants, shopping centers, synagogues, apartment houses, subways, and the Liberty Bell, the Brooklyn Bridge and other New York City landmarks, reported Knight-Ridder newspapers. The bureau also advised Americans to be wary of small airplanes, fuel tankers and scuba divers.
CHB reported that FBI and CIA sources said a recent White House memo listing the war on terrorism as a definitive political advantage and fund-raising tool is just one of many documents discussing how to best utilize the terrorist threat.
"Of course the White House is going to exploit the terrorism threat to the fullest political advantage," said Democratic strategist Russ Barksdale. "They would be fools not to. We'd do the same thing."
The White House did not return phone calls from WorldNetDaily seeking comment.
Knight-Ridder Newspapers, meanwhile, reported the FBI has never meant for all its warnings and advisories to be made public.
"Everything is being described as a terror alert, and that's not what this stuff is," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, in a July interview.
But, he added, "if information is becoming public, then we naturally cannot work in a vacuum and pretend like all this information is not becoming public."
"We live in a world of threats; not all of them necessitate a warning," says FBI terrorist warning chief Kevin Giblin, a 27-year veteran of the bureau. He told Knight-Ridder there should be a generally increased level of vigilance, and he looks to the color-coded advisory system – not the alerts intended for police – to signal it.
The threat of terrorism may also be helping the White House manage the sagging economy. Officials at home finance giant Freddie Mac said yesterday that the threat of terrorism may have played a role in bringing 30-year mortgage rates down to 5.85 percent, their lowest since an average 5.83 percent in 1965.
"Current issues such as the possibility of military actions abroad, heightened terrorism alerts and an unexpected drop in consumer confidence contributed to the decline in mortgage rates this week," Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac chief economist, told Reuters.
everything had changed suddenly..
the tone, the moral climate..
you didn't know what to think, whom to listen to..
as if all your life you had been led by the hand like a small child and suddenly you were on your own..
you had to learn to walk by yourself..
there was no one around, neither family or people whose judgment you respected..
at such a time you felt the need of committing yourself to something absolute..life or truth or beauty..
of being ruled by it in place of the man~made rules that had been discarded..
you needed to surrender to some such ultimate purpose more fully, more unreservedly..
than you had ever done in the old familiar, peaceful days..
in the old life that was now abolished and gone for good..
~ Boris Pasternak ~
(Doctor Zhivago)
side..agreed..
BUSH GOVERNMENT CRUSHES FREE SPEECH..
James Bovard gives a chilling account of police state tactics used to curb dissent and prevent public expression of opposition to the president..
http://www.amconmag.com/12_15_03/feature.html
good post thg..
the law is but a farce..
toward an end which..
most care not..
Individual liberty is individual power..
And as the power of a community..
Is a mass compounded of individual powers..
The nation which enjoys the most freedom..
Must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation..
~ John Quincy Adams ~
6th US President
Source: Letter to James Lloyd, 1 October 1822
Destiny waits alike for the free man..
As well as for him enslaved by another's might..
~ Aeschylus ~
Greek playwright
Source: The Libation Bearers
It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy..
To deprive a man of his natural liberty..
Upon the supposition he may abuse it..
~ Oliver Cromwell ~
British Lord General of the Army, Lord Protector of the Realm
Source: Address, First Protectorate Parliament, 1654
(1599-1658)
to know this..
is to know the secret..
of life..
Many FBI searches not subject to regular courts' oversight..
FBI Applies New Rules to Surveillance
Many Searches Not Subject To Regular Courts' Oversight
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 13, 2003; Page A01
The FBI has implemented new ground rules that fundamentally alter the way investigators handle counterterrorism cases, allowing criminal and intelligence agents to work side by side and giving both broad access to the tools of intelligence gathering for the first time in decades.
The result is that the FBI, unhindered by the restrictions of the past, will conduct many more searches and wiretaps that are subject to oversight by a secret intelligence court rather than regular criminal courts, officials said. Civil liberties groups and defense lawyers predict that more innocent people will be the targets of clandestine surveillance.
The new strategy -- launched in early summer and finalized in a classified directive issued to FBI field offices in October -- goes further than has been publicly discussed by FBI officials in the past and marks the final step in tearing down the legal wall that had separated criminal and intelligence investigations since the spying scandals of the 1970s, authorities said.
Senior FBI officials said the changes have already helped the bureau disrupt plans for at least four terrorist attacks overseas and uncover a terrorist sleeper cell in the United States, though they declined to provide details on those cases. The approach also has resulted in a notable surge in the number of counterterrorism investigations, a statistic that is classified but currently stands at more than 1,000 cases, officials said.
"With 9/11 as the catalyst for this, what we've done is fundamentally change the approach we take to every counterterrorism case," FBI terrorism chief John S. Pistole said in an interview. "This is a sea change for the FBI."
To civil libertarians and many defense lawyers, the changes pose a threat to the privacy and due-process rights of civilians because they essentially eliminate, rather than merely blur, the traditional boundaries separating criminal and intelligence investigations. As a result, these critics say, FBI agents and federal prosecutors will conduct many more searches and seizures in secret, as allowed under intelligence laws, rather than being constrained by the rules of traditional criminal warrants.
"By eliminating any distinction between criminal and intelligence classifications, it reduces the respect for the ordinary constitutional protections that people have," said Joshua L. Dratel, a New York lawyer who has filed legal briefs opposing government anti-terrorism policies. "It will result in a funneling of all cases into an intelligence mode. It's an end run around the Fourth Amendment," which protects citizens from unreasonable searches, he said.
The overhaul of the FBI's counterterrorism policies began earlier this year with a classified document called the Model Counterterrorism Investigations Strategy (MCIS), officials said. The strategy stems from a November 2002 decision by an intelligence appeals court, which ruled that the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act permits intelligence investigators and criminal prosecutors to more easily share information about terrorism cases.
The MCIS and other rules effectively put that finding into practice by reworking the way terrorism cases are handled by the FBI, and by requiring that both criminal and intelligence investigators physically work as part of the same squads on terrorism investigations, officials said. FBI officials declined to release copies of the MCIS or a related Oct. 1 directive, citing national security restrictions, but agreed to describe the outlines of the process.
Under previous FBI protocols, terrorism probes could be opened along two separate tracks, one for the purposes of developing a criminal case and one for intelligence gathering. Each was labeled with separate classification numbers, which govern the way cases are tracked and budgeted within the FBI. Sharing between the two categories was sharply limited, overseen by legal mediators from the FBI and Justice Department, and subject to scrutiny by criminal courts and the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Under the new guidelines, all counterterrorism cases are opened under the same classification number, 315, and are handled from the outset like an intelligence or espionage investigation, officials said. The structure allows investigators to more easily use secret warrants and other methods that are overseen by the surveillance court and not available in traditional criminal probes, sources said.
All terrorism cases will also be formally run by the counterterrorism division at FBI headquarters in Washington, rather than by individual field offices, officials said.
Pistole said that focusing on intelligence gathering will improve the ability of the FBI to prevent, rather than just investigate, terrorist attacks. He and other FBI officials also said the new system will result in less emphasis on bringing criminal charges against suspects in favor of longer surveillance operations. When charges are eventually brought, however, prosecutors will be able to use information gathered through intelligence methods.
"We're still interested in the criminal violations that people may be involved in," Pistole said. "But in many cases we are going to put that in the back seat and go down the road until we have all that we need."
Robert M. Blitzer, a former FBI counterterrorism official, said that by merging the criminal and intelligence sides of counterterrorism cases, investigators will be able to work more efficiently on cases and avoid problems that were common before Sept. 11, 2001.
"In the past, it was an absolute cardinal rule that there be a wall between the two cases," Blitzer said. "Now, you will have much broader access to see what is going on. You can see the whole scope of things. . . . We were always afraid that something could slip between the cracks on both sides under the old system, and that did happen."
In one stark example, FBI lawyers refused to allow criminal agents to join an August 2001 search for Khalid Almidhar, who had entered the United States and would later help commandeer the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon. The lawyers said that information about Almidhar's ties to al Qaeda obtained through intelligence channels could not be used to launch a criminal investigation. An angry New York FBI agent warned in an internal e-mail that was later revealed during congressional hearings that "someday someone will die" because of the decision.
In another case, the FBI failed to seek an intelligence warrant to search the belongings of alleged al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussoaui, who had been detained in Minnesota three weeks before the attacks. The legal counsel in the FBI's Minneapolis field office said headquarters officials limited the actions of regular FBI agents in the case because of concerns about breaching the wall between intelligence and criminal cases.
The FBI's new strategy is the culmination of a series of new rules and regulations issued since the Sept. 11 attacks to govern terrorism investigations. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft last month issued new national security guidelines, for example, that allow the FBI to conduct an initial "threat assessment" of potential terrorists without firm evidence of a threat or crime, which is required to open a full investigation.
Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and other officials argue that such changes are necessary to transform the FBI from a reactive law enforcement agency into one capable of detecting and thwarting terrorist attacks before they occur. According to a study released this week by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Justice and the FBI have sharply increased the number of terrorism cases they are pursuing since the 2001 attacks, although most of the 6,400 people referred to prosecutors were never charged with a crime related to terrorism.
Several civil liberties advocates and defense lawyers said the new FBI rules appear to encourage agents to ignore constitutional concerns and to push the boundaries of what is allowed by recent court rulings. Ann Beeson, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the system will encourage prosecutors to rely too heavily on evidence gathered by secret intelligence methods.
"They're going to use all their foreign intelligence tools, and then they're going to prosecute people using those tools," Beeson said. "They're putting this whole class of criminal cases outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment."
Michael A. Vatis, a former Justice Department and FBI official, said the changes are necessary but acknowledged the risk that investigators could overreach. "The principal danger is what the old rules were designed to avoid: to make sure that the FBI wasn't using intelligence authorities when they were really just looking to bust bad guys," he said. "There does need to be good oversight to make sure these new rules are not abused."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60964-2003Dec12.html
BUSH SIGNS LAW GIVING F.B.I. EXPANDED NEW POWERS..
Financial records grabbed with no need for probable cause..
By Associate Press, 12/15/2003
WASHINGTON .. President Bush has signed legislation making it easier for FBI agents investigating terrorism to demand financial records from casinos, car dealerships, and other businesses.
The changes were included in a bill authorizing 2004 intelligence programs. Most of the details of the bill are secret, including the total cost of the programs, which are estimated to be about $40 billion. That would be slightly more than Bush had requested.
Bush signed the bill Saturday, the White House announced.
The bill expands the number of businesses from which the FBI and other US authorities conducting intelligence work can demand financial records without seeking court approval.
Under current law, "national security letters" can be issued to traditional financial institutions, such as banks and credit unions, to require them to turn over information. The bill expands the definition of financial institution to include other businesses that deal with large amounts of cash.
Supporters of the change say it will help authorities identify money laundering and other activities that fund terrorism. But some lawmakers and civil liberties advocates say the change does not provide enough safeguards to ensure that authorities will not violate the privacy of innocent people.
In other provisions, the bill:
Requires the CIA director to prepare a report as soon as possible on what intelligence agencies have learned from their experiences in Iraq.
Creates a Treasury Department office to work with intelligence agencies on fighting terrorist financing.
Creates pilot programs to share raw data between agencies.
Authorizes agencies to continue research on computerized terrorism surveillance suspended by the Pentagon.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/12/15/bush_signs_bill_extending_fbi_powers/
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty..
Suspect every one who approaches that jewel..
Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force..
Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined..
~ Patrick Henry ~
(1736-1799) US Founding Father
Source: Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, June
5, 1788, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.45 (Philadelphia, 1836)
All warfare is based on deception..
There is no place where espionage is not used..
Offer the enemy bait to lure him..
~ Sun Tzu ~
(c.500-320 B.C.) name used by the unknown Chinese authors of the
sophisticated treatise on philosophy, logistics, espionage, strategy and tactics known as 'The Art of War'
To come to know your enemy..
first you must become his friend..
once you become his friend, all his defences come down..
Then you can choose the most fitting method for his demise..
~ Tokugawa Ieyasu ~
(1542-1616) Shogun
hoping someone would..
fill in the blanks..
great post!!
great subject matter..
we are all ignorant..
it just depends on the subject..
~ Albert Einstein ~
food for thought..
AMERICA HAS GROUNDED THE WRIGHT BROTHERS
America has abandoned the cultural values that made the Wright
brothers' great achievement possible.
By Heike Berthold
On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers launched their fragile first
plane, catapulting us into the Century of Flight. Starting with a
linen-and-fabric machine barely controllable aloft, aviation's giants
have given us routine jet travel as an everyday convenience--a
necessity even.
The pioneers we celebrate today would be thrilled at the extent to
which flight has transformed the world. But they would also be shocked
at the extent to which our culture has abandoned the values and
attitudes that made their feats possible. Where Americans once
embraced progress and admired the innovators who brought it, today we
want the benefits of progress without its costs or risks, and we
condemn the profit motive that drives innovation.
A century ago Americans understood that progress comes at a price and
were willing to pay it. Orville Wright was hospitalized after a crash
that killed his first passenger; Clyde Cessna, the founder of Cessna
Aircraft Company, only earned his wings after 12 crashes. "If you are
looking for perfect safety, you will do well to sit on the fence and
watch the birds," wrote Wilbur Wright. But the risks these early
aviators took were calculated and deliberately accepted. They stemmed
not from irrational folly, but from their willingness to accept the
responsibility of independent judgment.
Today we seek to escape the responsibility of judgment while
demanding that progress be risk-free. New products are expected to be
instantly perfect, to last forever and to protect us from our own
failings--or else we sue. By the late 1970s, general aviation
accidents reached their lowest point in 29 years--yet liability
lawsuits were up five-fold, and manufacturers were sued for even such
obvious pilot errors as running out of fuel. Companies like Cessna
were spending more to defend themselves in court than on research--and
production of small planes dropped from almost 20,000 planes in 1978
to under 1,000 by the late 1980s.
With reliance on one's independent judgment goes an unwillingness to
be coddled by an over-protective nanny-state. Aviation was born in a
culture that valued the entrepreneurial spirit of its pioneers, and
respected their right to pursue their work unhindered by government
controls. The Wrights and the innovators who followed them--giants
like Boeing, Cessna, and Lear--were motivated by more than just the
challenge of overcoming scientific obstacles: they sought to make
money and profit from their achievements. Courts protected the
pioneers' intellectual property rights--granting the Wright brothers a
broad patent for their invention--and government left the field of
aviation free to innovate. Prior to 1926 there were no pilot's
licenses, no aircraft registrations, not even any rules governing the
carrying of passengers--and the aviation industry took off. By 1927,
the year Lindbergh made the first non-stop transatlantic solo flight,
Wichita, Kansas, alone could boast of more than 20 airplane companies.
In this climate of political freedom, airplanes evolved from wooden,
scary deathtraps to capable traveling machines. The pace of innovation
was rapid as planes improved, in under 25 years, from the Wright
brothers' rickety contraption, which flew 852 feet, to Lindbergh's
plane, which crossed an ocean.
Yet by the 1930s the government had begun regulating the airlines,
master planning route structures and suppressing competition. Today,
innovation has ground to a halt under the weight of government
control. Unlike the first 25 years of flight, the last 25 have seen
few major advances--and regulatory barriers suppress the adoption of
new technology. For instance, most FAA-certified aircraft today are
still the same aluminum-and-rivets construction pioneered more than 50
years ago, while for at least a decade non-certified experimental
aircraft builders have preferred composite materials, which make their
aircraft stronger, roomier, cheaper, and faster at the same time.
Even after the supposed airline "deregulation" in the 1970's, FAA
requirements, TSA standards, antitrust regulation, municipal airport
regulations, environmental restrictions, and a multitude of taxes and
fees have crippled American aviation. Instead of the growth and
innovation one might expect from a dynamic industry safely providing
an invaluable service, aviation has stagnated--mired in billion-dollar
losses and bankruptcy.
The symbol of flight in America today is no longer the Wright
brothers, but Icarus. Where once we venerated the bold exploration of
new frontiers, we now condone bureaucrats putting shackles on anyone
who seeks to test the untried--to soar too high or succeed too well.
On this historic 100-year anniversary of flight, we should rededicate
ourselves to the cultural values that made aviation possible and that
made America great. If we truly want to see continued progress--in
aviation and elsewhere--we must embrace it wholeheartedly, and we must
leave our giants of industry free to innovate without being taxed,
regulated, and sued out of existence.
_____________________________________________________________________
Heike Berthold is a regional sales director for an airplane manufacturer, and a guest
writer for the Ayn Rand Institute (www.aynrand.org) in Irvine, Calif. The Institute
promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
Copyright © 2003 Ayn Rand® Institute
one has to know..
where one is..
before one can act..
accordingly..
one of my fortes..
Right on Ben..
Great collection One..
Thanks for the thread..
Consider [the pedagogue] in his highest incarnation..
The university professor..
What is his function?
Simply to pass on to fresh generations of numskulls a body of so~called knowledge that is fragmentary, unimportant, and, in large part, untrue..
His whole professional activity is circumscribed by the prejudices, vanities and avarices of his university trustees, i.e., a committee of soap-boilers, nail manufacturers, bank~directors and politicians..
The moment he offends these vermin he is undone. He cannot so much as think aloud without running a risk of having them fan his pantaloons..
~ H.L.Mencken ~
Throw in a little Tolstoy..
wella!