who's your nanny?

McDevitt Contemplates Run for State's Attorney

Kevin J. McDevitt, the defense attorney who heroically represented John Edison, Jr. and secured an acquittal for the boy during an egregious non-rape case in 2008, is considering a run for St. Mary's County State's Attorney.

Interestingly, should McDevitt decide to enter the primary this year, he would challenge Richard Fritz, the man responsible for charging Edison, then 16, with rape even though any sober viewer would have known the kid was innocent.

An ASA in Baltimore in his early law years, McDevitt hasn't decide whether or not he'll enter this year's race, and will only acknowledge that he's picked up paperwork to be a political candidate.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have known Kevin McDevitt for more than ten years and consider him a good friend. Personally, I would prefer he choose to continue defending innocents against the tyranny of the state rather than join its ranks.

However, as all radical libertarians know, the fight for liberty is an arduous and systematic task. If we must have public offices, better to have reliable defenders of civil liberties occupying them than power-hungry thugs. I'm not familiar with all of McDevitt's stances on the issues, but his vehement insistence on John Edison's innocence and relentless pursuit of justice in that case made one thing clear in my mind: He could only help to clean up the filth that has inundated the Office of the State's Attorney of St. Mary's County, Maryland.

Violence Is Not the Answer

Fantastic article today by LRC's Butler Shaffer, who wonderfully explains how understanding economics requires an understanding of the role incentives play in human behavior.

Notably, Shaffer points out that while firms in a marketplace system are rewarded by the successful production of goods and services people value, governmental systems are rewarded by the collective failure to do so.

If I have one quibble with the piece, it's Butler's dismissal of "American Idol Americans," or the assumption or idea that folks who watch such a show would necessarily be devoid of interest in or knowledge of the latest torturous government program known as "health care reform."

I understand the effect Mr. Shaffer's going for but, ironically, American Idol is in reality one of the only true examples of market competition available on TV for America's youth -- certainly you will not find reporters on Meet the Press or Fox News extolling such virtues -- and is a big reason why I, for one, am a fan.

Hope You Have a Primary Care Physician...

and I hope that she or he stays in the medical practice. Who would have ever thought that interventions into the market would lead to consequences even worse than the original problem the interventions were supposed to fix? If only there were people who were able to predict the effects of government intervention into the economy.

And remember to stock up on Robitussin.

It's Good to Be King

Thanks to this thing called democracy, any of us could be a tyrant if we decided to work hard enough for other people's votes of confidence. So that got me to thinking, if Obama can force every adult in America to buy health insurance, wouldn't it be great if I could simply force everyone to buy a bottle of my award-winning chili spice mix?

Think about it. I make a couple bucks per sale, so a couple hundred million sales over the course of the year could really do me well. What, you don't like tasty chili seasoning? Well that's just tough; it's the law now.

And hey, it's not like I'd be forcing you to drop thousands and thousands of dollars on health insurance -- at a measly $6.49 a bottle, maybe you'd even thank me for acting so "reasonably."

Hologram of Liberty: Chapter 11-"And Now, Back to Reality"

This is the twelfth essay in my live-blog of Hologram of Liberty by Kenneth Royce. You can also read my summary of the Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, and Chapter 10.

This is the final chapter of Royce's book and he takes some time to express his frustration with the American people:

Self-neutered through decades of gray surrenders, we're now fat and domesticated, caring only for our petty comforts. Oh, we'll vote if we're automatically registered by virtue of having a slave "driver's license." We'll protest to our Congressman as long as somebody provides us a self-addressed, stamped card. I am disgusted with our excruciatingly vapid July 4th parades and empty "symbol patriotism." Let's all move to Canada and be done with this American charade!

He then encourages the American people to wake up and become active:

We have much work to do. Pick one issue and make some noise. Oh, you're just one individual? So was Gregory Watson, who revived that compensation amendment proposed in 1789. Well, what have you done? What's your excuse--that you're not some college sophomore?

Pick one issue and make some noise! You've overslept, so get moving! Even if you think the Machine is unbeatable, throw some sand in its gears--or at least give aid to whose who do. You owe the rest of us, and your children, at least that. Let us all live virtuously and courageously in order to write a virtuous, courageous history!

But there is a problem. The Federal Government does not want a revival of Liberty and will use its military power to keep the people enslaved. The Federal Government has oppressed the American people slowly and methodically. This slow tyranny has worked, says Royce, because Americans have forgotten the following wisdom from James Madison:

It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment of our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freeman...did not wait til usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in [legalistic] precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and avoided the consequences by denying the principle.

Businesses React to Rising Cost of Health Care

No offense, economically illiterate liberals who do not believe in unintended consequences.

From Yahoo! Finance:

Businesses React to Rising Cost of ObamaCare: They're Cutting Benefits

Posted Mar 26, 2010 09:32am EDT by Henry Blodget in Healthcare Information, Recession

Remember the part in the ObamaCare pitch when they said if you like your current healthcare, it won't change?

Turns out it might.

Companies are already announcing that their healthcare premium costs are going through the roof.  Some are responding by firing people.  Some are cutting benefits.  And some are presumably eating it.

But costs they are a-rising.

A few examples from the WSJ:
-- Caterpillar said it would cost the company at least $100 million more in the first year alone.
-- Medical device maker Medtronic warned that new taxes on its products could force it to lay off a thousand workers.
-- Verizon announced to employees that it will likely have to cut healthcare benefits to offset the new costs.

So, people who like your employer-provided health insurance, get ready to pay more or get less.

How To Tell If You're Middle Class

I'm running to a couple doctor's appointments this morning so I don't have time to read this article, but if I had to guess, I'd say that if you and your spouse both work yet realize it's a lot more difficult to feed the kids than it used to be, you're probably middle class.

Detroit Is Dead

And government killed it.

Irony Is Dead

James Ostrowski writes today that government agents are complaining about potentially being threatened with violence...for trespassing on people's property to initiate violence in the event we Mundanes refuse to purchase federally-mandated health insurance.

As Ostrowski notes, these complaints are sent forth with no apparent sense of irony. But it doesn't stop here. Who honestly doubts that anyone who ignores this most recent edict will eventually find himself on the business end of a state-issued 9mm or assault rifle?

Compliance with every law is ultimately enforced at the point of a gun, and you can bet your lunch money that if the police have the authority to execute you for the most minor of offenses (or perceived offenses), they won't for a second hesitate to murder you for having the audacity to snub the Obama adminstration's bread and butter.

After all, the state of your health is the state's gravest concern.

Mexico's Drug War and Collateral Damage

Writes Radley Balko:

Terrific piece by O’Grady in today’s Wall Street Journal, ahead of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s meeting tomorrow with Mexican officials to discuss drug war violence.  Snippet:

The source of the problem is not Mexican supply. It is American demand coupled with prohibition.

It is doubtful that this will be acknowledged at tomorrow’s meeting. The drug-warrior industry, which includes both the private-sector and a massive government bureaucracy devoted to “enforcement,” has an enormous economic incentive to keep the war raging. In Washington politics both groups have substantial influence. So it is likely that we are going to get further plans to turn Juárez into a police state with the promise that more guns, tanks, helicopters and informants can stop Mexican gangsters from shoving drugs up American noses.

Last week’s gangland-style slaying of an unborn baby and three adults who had ties to the U.S. Consulate in Juárez has drawn attention to Mrs. Clinton’s trip. The incident stunned Americans. Yet tragic as they were, statistically those four deaths don’t create even a blip on the body-count chart. The running tally of drug-trafficking linked deaths in Juárez since December 2006 is more than 5,350. There has also been a high cost to the city’s economy as investors and tourists have turned away.

The astonishing argument from U.S. drug warriors to the violence in Juárez to this point has been: the bloodshed means we’re winning. Or put another way, “If thousands of Mexican need to die to keep Americans from getting high, by golly I, American drug war official, am willing to step up and make that sacrifice.” Now that a few Americans have been killed too, that argument will get more difficult to make.

But as O’Grady writes, don’t expect that to lead to any common sense changes in policy. To this point, the Obama administration and the leadership in Congress have made it clear that the only acceptable drug policy in Mexico is more militarization, more force, and more American funding and weapons with which to do it. If thousands more Mexicans have to die on the front lines so America’s politicians can make it marginally more difficult for Americans to ingest mind-altering substances, so be it.

To paraphrase Hans Hoppe, States are institutions that create problems and then present themselves as solutions to problems they created in the first place. The drug laws lead death and fear which then lead to the people to cry out to the State for protection. A lesson to learn from this story is that the politicians who create these policies which lead to such deadly and devastating results do not care about your safety or your lives. If the US ended the prohibition today, the violence would clear up almost immediately. These governments in Latin America do not have the resources to fight the drug war on their own; they fight the drug war because the US supplies these them with the money and weapons to do so. Innocent people in these countries are wantonly sacrificed so that self-righteous politicians and their sanctimonious constituents can see their moral vision imposed on the world while drug warriors such as the police, the FBI, DEA, and the CIA profit from loads of cash directed their way to "end the drug menace."

Ron Paul on the Health Care Bill

America's Diagnosis: Stage IV Fascism

If you think you already pay way too much for hit-or-miss medical treatment and health insurance coverage, just wait.

You don't need to be an Austrian economist to realize that forcing every American adult to purchase insurance he may neither need nor want will result in skyrocketing costs. This type of "Pay, or else!" policy constitutes an immediate and artificial increase in demand.

But the monthly bill is but one cost that is seen at the present time. The costs currently unseen by the vast majority of people who believe the federal government should assume near-universal control over the decisions we make with regard to our own health range from anything from: a) a wholesale decrease in physician quality, to b) fines and potential imprisonment (or worse) for those who resist this draconian decree, to c) any number of future unconstitutional laws that trample liberty while simultaneously increasing the scope of the omnipotent central state.

And this will probably be nothing compared to what another trillion(-plus) of unfunded obligations will mean to our future standard of living in an already-depressed economy. As everyone knows, the quickest path to debt-free living is to open as many credit cards as possible and max them all out!

I can't tolerate Obama's incessant, self-righteous finger-pointing as he lectures his minions from on high, so I couldn't watch one of his speeches if you paid me -- merely noticing them in passing as I flip through the channels is bad enough -- but following the vote last night he apparently went on TV and said, "This is what change looks like."

Wrong, Kind Sir. This is what fascism looks like: complete government control of the market and economy defined by corporatist partnerships and the absence of consumer choice.

But hey, I guess it could've been worse. At least the feds didn't require us to buy one of their crappy cars too.

Well...yet, anyway.

Congratulations, America!

We are now even closer to the wonderful Canadian and British health care systems. My advice-Unless your illness can be cured with Robitussin, don't get sick anymore, ever.

"The Money That Is Sold Is Abroad You"

Heroic video from Stefan Molyneux.

Health Care and Economics

There is going to be a lot of whining and gnashing of teeth this weekend as the House debates this health care bill. Something will probably pass and it will make our health care system even worse. Then the Socialists Democrats will again blame the free market; the "unregulated" insurance companies who keep raising their rates due to government interference will be accused of being greedy. This will happen because the American people are collectivists who have no understanding of economics yet act as if they do.

But there is no need for the readers of this blog to be economically illiterate. Here are some blog posts and essays on the economics of health care so that you will understand why the system is failing, why additional government interference will makes things worse, and why only less government (ultimately no government) and more freedom will solve this problem.

The Trojan Krugman-William Anderson

Health Care Reform Is a Good Idea-Let's Prove It!-Per Byland

Dropping the Bomb on Health Care-Peter Schiff

A Four Step Health Care Solution-Hans Hermann Hoppe

The Relentless Process of Socializing Health Care-D. W. McKenzie

The Most Bizarro Health Care "Reform" Argument-William Anderson

Krugman, Health Care, and the Free Market-Lucas Engelhardt

Health Care Interventionism: A Case Study-Christopher Westley

Paul Krugman: Spreading Economic Myths to Debunk What He Calls "Health Care Myths"-William Anderson

How Medical Boards Nationalized Health Care-Henry Jones

The Health-Insurance Market Is Not Free-Anton Batey

For a more comprehensive list see this at the Mises Institute.

A "Debate" over the Census

Here is a "debate" on the Census in USAToday. On the pro-census side, the USAToday editors argue that the Census is a civic duty and everyone should fill it out. It is illegal to not do so. The race question is a non-issue because the government has been collecting this data for years.

 

On the "anti-census" side, Mark Krikorian argues that the Census is a civic duty and everyone should fill it out. Americans should not lie in answering it. But the government has no business asking about race and people should answer "American" rather indicate their race. Wow, what radical civil disobedience. If only the American Revolutionaries had the tremendous courage Mr. Krikorian possesses!

 

Isn't our democracy wonderful? Just look at the robust debate which takes place in our public square.

I couldn't care less for the Constitution, but a more substantial debate would question which Article in the Constitution grants the Federal Government the power to ask anything more than "How many people live in this house?" An even better debate would be to consider the question "Why do we accept the idea that government can issue fines for people who do not answer the census and threaten violence against people who do not pay the fines? Is this a legitimate use of force?" These are good questions to contemplate.

But most Americans have already answered this question in the affirmative. The truth is that most Americans have no problem with the initiation of violence against innocent people as long as the State does it. And if the State reserves the right to kill you for not answering the Census, most Americans would say, "It's your duty. Just do what the government says and everything will be well for you."

To-MAY-to, To-MAH-to

If we call people who steal $75 million worth of prescription meds thieves, what do we call people in Washington who are trying to steal a trillion dollars from Americans to provide them?

Fag Fascism Set to Crush Seneca Nation

You'd think a little tax-free living would be the least you could expect after Whitey killed your people and stole all your land. But you'd be wrong; the Man's still keeping the American Indian down (along with the rest of us, of course).

Congress has just sent Obama a bill that bans the mailing of cigarettes -- a measure specifically aimed at extinguishing the tax-free tobacco trade, which employs over 1,000 Senecas in New York alone. And I know this probably comes as a shock, but like most legislation, it scapegoats "the children" along with the misguided notion that the state is entitled to a cut of the property we've both earned and acquired through our own efforts and investment.

Here's a priceless quote from the aptly-named Rep. Anthony Weiner (D(ick)-Queens) the bill's chief sponsor: "Every day we delay is another day that New York loses significant amounts of tax revenue and kids have easy access to tobacco products sold over the Internet."

Oh, the horror! I'm sure these same kids have no access to their mothers' purses or older brothers and sisters who could buy their smokes for them, either. But, of course, that's hardly the real reason for this fag fascism. Here's the crux of the matter:

One thing is for sure, however: The bill poses one of the greatest challenges yet to a business that has made several Senecas rich while costing New York State upwards of $500 million a year in lost tax revenue.

Politicians don't give a whit whether children or anyone else smokes; you'd just better not "cost" them their extortion fee when they do.

There Is Only One Principled Politician

Dennis Kucinich, who is often compared to Ron Paul in terms of someone who tends to be ostracized by his own party, has caved to pressure applied by fellow Democrats and announced that he will be voting for their health care package.

Of course, while Kucinich's initial opposition to this legislation was based on his view that it wasn't sufficiently socialist enough, anyone even remotely familiar with Ron Paul's voting record knows that there is no amount of pressure Republicans could apply to get him to vote for legislation violating his principled demands for constitutionality, the rule of law, noninterventionist foreign policy, individual liberty, and sound money.

Rep. Paul, the last true statesman, actually voted against his own bill to audit the Federal Reserve after it was attached as an amendment to a larger bill with which he disagreed. And this, by the way, is the type of thing that causes self-described Democrats and Republicans to view the guy as a nutjob.

We. Are. Doomed.

Toyota Caveats

I know I've been defending Toyota the past few days with regard to the supposed "SuperPrius," but I don't mean to imply that I'm necessarily a fan of the company or that I don't have issues with some of its manufacturing decisions.

I own a Toyota Tundra pickup, and that's just about the extent of my relationship with the company. My wife told me I needed a larger truck (one with a backseat) in anticipation of our first child. I'd heard generally good things about Toyota customer service and quality, and I always look favorably upon companies that resist forced unionization, so I bought it in 2007 with the intent to drive the sucker for the next 20 years. However, in the spirit of fairness and disclosure I'll share a couple of my pet peeves. 

From a driving perspective, probably the most irritating thing about this truck is the seatbelt alarm. It's bad enough that I have to look at the little red flashing driver-with-seatbelt icon on the dash if I have the audacity to start the car before putting on my federally-mandated harness. Having to listen to the exceedingly annoying ding! ding! ding! simultaneously sometimes makes me want to remove the ignition key and stab myself in the eyeball. God forbid the vehicle could muster a single ding if I accidentally happen to leave my headlights on, though.

And from a corporate perspective, I'm not overly thrilled with Toyota's embrace of the breathalyzer ignition-interlock system. From a free market perspective, I suppose the company could be testing the waters to see how much consumer demand there is for self-imposed tyranny. And certainly this feature may only be offered as an option and not a standard on all of its vehicles. I just can't imagine there are too many people who would be eager to strand themselves voluntarily after happy hour just because they've had a few beers. However, in the age of tax credits and other incentives in the name of social engineering, to say nothing of auto manufacturer bailouts, this smacks of little more than a corporatist attempt to use a politically correct issue to curry favor with politicians.

More Doubt Surrounding 'Out of Control' Prius

The Washington Times takes uncritical reporters to task this morning in an editorial that casts further doubt on the legitimacy of James Sikes's story that he couldn't stop his Prius from speeding out of control.

UPDATE: Via Bill Anderson, neither Toyota nor the NHTSA can duplicate the event.

Thanks, Feds

Thanks to the state's absurd manipulation of clock hours in the name of daylight saving time, my 2-year-old was thrown off his nap and bedtime schedule yesterday, causing him to be a complete mess for the past 24 hours. And even I'm in half-zombie mode this morning because I was up till midnight trying to rock the poor kid to sleep.

Jobs and daycare don't start any later even though your body loses an hour of precious rest. Just another example of how the federal government's here to help.

How Monopolies Are Created

When the story about the "out of control Prius" ran last week, I dismissed it as so ludicrous that I didn't even bother to write about it. I merely read this post on the LRC blog and, as Russell Brand's Aldous Snow might say, "went on living my life." I mean, seriously, can a Prius even hit 90 mph? (Save the emails -- I suppose there could be a tailwind.)

I fully admit I don't believe in "conspiracy theories"; I believe in conspiracies, period, especially when the federal government is involved. Are we supposed to just chalk this supposed occurrence up to circumstance when it allegedly happens the very same day Toyota leadership is hauled before Congress to testify as to the quality of its cars?

The feds now own GM. I'd actually think it fishy that they didn't concoct stories in the attempt to discredit their competition. And now -- surprise! -- today the guy who implied his Prius was a Ferrari is being second-guessed.

Savor it, folks. This doesn't happen in the MSM very often.

I'm Spending $100,000 to save $100

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the proposed 10-year $875 billion health bill will cut the federal deficit by $118 billion over ten years. Ostensibly the reason we need this bill is because health care costs are skyrocketing out of control and we need the government "to do something" to control the costs. Of course, the government does not have to spend this money at all, so one wonders how borrowing $875 billion is supposed to lead to only owing $757 billion. One also wonders why CBO thinks that this bill will only cost $875 billion when the government severely underestimates the costs of its programs.  But let's assume that this plan will actually reduce the deficit. If this plan reduced the deficit by $118 billion over ten years, this would be a reduction in the deficit by $11.8 billion a year. But remember that the US federal government spends about $9.5 billion a day. Cutting the deficit by $11.8 billion a year translates into only 30 hours of lost government "productivity". Ten years would mean 300 hours or about 12.5 days of lost government "productivity". And the government would have spent an additional $875 billion (which it does not have) in order to achieve this savings of $118 billion. It could save $875 billion by not passing this bill. It could save billions more by getting out of the health care industry completely. Are the American people really so stupid to believe that these numbers add up? (Yes, this is a rhetorical question.)

Papers, Please

Ron Paul on the National ID Card Scheme.

If Men Who Drive Corvette Convertibles Have Small Penises...

Do men who drive Mazda Miata convertibles have small vaginas?

Babs and the Oscars

I love Hollywood. The only place in America that can rival the self-righteousness of Washington, DC.

I got a kick out of the clip of Barbra Streisand lauding Kathryn Bigelow, who became the first woman to win Best Director for the pro-war The Hurt Locker, which upset favorite Avatar, by saying something to the effect that it's about time the award was based on talent and not gender.

Hmm. Does anyone who actually saw both of those movies think that was the case this time around?

You know what I think it's about time for? For "liberals" to condemn senseless wars even when there's a Democrat in office. Gotta love neolibs just as much as neocons: different sides, same team.

Phascist Philly

Pennsylvania state police invaded three Philadelphia bars at gunpoint last week and confiscated hundreds of bottles of beer because they apparently were not registered with the state's liquor board.

The alleged offense: Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control Board - a process that requires the brewers or their importers to pay a $75 registration fee for each product they want to sell in Pennsylvania.

This raid had absolutely nothing to do with the private sale or consumption of alcohol. It had to do with the criminal state's belief that it's somehow entitled to take a cut of voluntary transactions that occur between peaceful citizens. Taxation is theft, and those who both levy and collect these extortion fees on behalf of the state are practitioners of evil.

This story notes that there were roughly 20 brands of beer that were confiscated during this raid, meaning that the state was and is willing to murder citizens over a paltry $1500 worth of registrations fees (i.e. taxes).

Sell, Greece, Sell

The other day Brutus mentioned that Greece has implemented austerity measures in an (undoubtedly fruitless) attempt to rein in its ballooning budget deficit. For similar reasons, yesterday two German MPs suggested that Greece sell off some of its uninhabited islands.

As Rothbard wrote, repudiating the national debt by selling off government land (and therefore privatizing it) would go a long way toward reducing tax burdens and establishing fiscal soundness. In fact, the United States should do the same -- just imagine how much our state-imposed financial burden could be slashed if the federal government would merely sell off all the land it owns in the West.

Of course, as Rothbard also pointed out, "In order to go this route ... we first have to rid ourselves of the fallacious mindset that conflates public and private, and that treats government debt as if it were a productive contract between two legitimate property owners."

There Is No Reason for Children to Fear the Police

A heroic 10 year old boy has stirred up controversy at his church by creating a photo of his brother being beaten by the police:

Jackson [Potts II], who was tasked with depicting Jesus' falling for a second time under the weight of his cross, batted around ideas for weeks.

He settled on covering Dietrich with fake blood and posing him with an adult friend wearing a law officer's uniform.

“It's the innocence of Jesus as a child,” Jackson said. “And a police is like a Roman guard.”

Early one morning last month he created the picture in a field. Jackson positioned everyone just right as he shot his frames.

Later he picked out his favorite photo: It shows the officer raising a club to beat a screaming Dietrich.

It should be no surprise that the comments are full of pro-cop opinions which find the photo offensive. Casualreader wrote:

Absolutely offensive! I don't care how talented the artist is, his choice of subject matter is totally unacceptable. Somebody needs to grow some backbone and say NO, you can't display that for any length of time. It feeds the mantra that policemen are the bad guys, when they're putting their lives on the line day after day. Yes, there are bad ones, but that's in all walks of life. Shame on the artist for choosing a police officer.

blogger36 wrote:

Someone or many people have been pumping alot of b.s. into this kid's head. imo a well-adjusted 10 year old does not depict law officers in this way. Most 10 year olds want to be a cop or a fireman. But to depict a cop beating a kid, that is just wacko.

And truebeliever wrote:

This is not art, it is disgusting. There are many things that are real in this life, but not all of them should be displayed as art. Some people are just downright sick and misguided.

I must agree with Casualreader, blogger36, and truebeliever; this kid must be wacko and this photo is completely unwarranted and deeply offensive. The police in this country would never, ever, ever, ever under any circumstances hurt a 10-year-old boy or hurt a 10 year-old-girl or tase an 11-year-old girl or tase a 12-year-old austistic boy or tase a 12-year-old with a heart condition or tase a 14-year-old girl or tase a 15-year-old boy or tase a 16-year-old boy with a broken back. No there is no reason whatsoever for a child to fear the police. Officer Friendly only exists to protect the children. Some people are just downright sick and misguided.

How Much Would US Austerity Measures Have to Be?

Greece has announced austerity measures worth about $6.5 billion to deal with their financial crisis. The country hopes that the spending cuts and increased taxes will cover this amount. Let's say the US Federal Government were to implement similar measures to deal with the US's fiscal woes. Furthermore, for sake of simplicity let's say that these austerity measures are only cuts in spending that are designed to save $6.5 billion dollars. How much would Federal Government "productivity" be reduced should this happen? The US Federal Government spends about $37 billion in four days. This is $9.5 billion a day. At $385,416,667 an hour, spending cuts of $6.5 billion would only cut about 17 hours of "productivity" from the US Federal Government. Now imagine how much "productivity" the Federal Government would have to cut in order to actually make a dent in the deficit. What are the odds of even 1 percent of that figure becoming a reality?

Some readers may wonder why my posts tend to be pessimistic. Crunching numbers like this is one reason.

Key West: America's Last Vestige of Freedom?

Apologies for my absence the past few days. I was in Key West last weekend promoting my chili spice mix at Peppers of Key West and, I have to say, if it weren't for the fact that my wife and I left our 2-year-old at home with his grandparents, we may have just stayed down there for good.

We took lots of pictures during the trip, so I'll share a few of them here as a little "show and tell" documentary of our journey. By the end, I think you'll agree with me that Key West is most definitely the land of free living and free spirits (in more ways than one, as you'll soon find out).

On to the tour...

My wife and I were accompanied by our friends Brady and Erin, who actually flew us down to Key West in Brady's company Cirrus, a very nice four-seat single-engine plane. We left Maryland Thursday night and spent the evening in Savannah before completing the final leg Friday morning. Many thanks, by the way, to my friends and cookoff sponsors at Airtec. I don't think many people would complain about a trip to Key West, but making an 1800 mile venture puts wear and tear on any plane, so for that I'm thankful.

 
We're not trying to prove how cool it is to fly with your eyes closed; the girls were taking pictures and had to use a flash because it was dark (night flight). So three seconds of blindness was definitely better than three minutes.


Here's a good shot of our final 20 minutes in to Key West. If you look closely on the screen, the plane is just about in the very middle.

 
Great shot of the runway (and the propeller) on our approach.

 
We landed! Here Captain Brady poses with Amie and Erin in front of "Stiff Willi One."

 
My hair's seen better days. Hat-head and wind: not so sexy. 

One of the first things we did after we checked in at our hotel was head off to Duval Street, where I immediately noticed that there is no motorcycle helmet law or open container law in Key West (or if there is, it's not enforced). We sat down for some lunch at Fogarty's to fuel up with some food in preparation for the afternoon at...

Sloppy Joe's! There aren't many things better than live music and Maker's Mark at 4 pm on a Friday.

This is a terrible picture I took Friday night at Irish Kevin's with my flashless camera phone, but the only reason I post it is because the blondie in the middle was probably the most charitable person I saw during this trip and I have to give her some props -- she was walking around in a paint-on bikini top (which is to say, no bikini top at all).

Allowing bare breasts in a private establishment is one thing -- property rights dictate that property owners are allowed to make their own rules -- but given that this gal obviously had to walk down public streets to get to Irish Kevin's in the first place, it appears that Key West doesn't freak out too much about a little nudity either. Kudos to that. Oh, and by the way, no smoking ban either.

 
On to Saturday afternoon where we found ourselves at Peppers of Key West, host to T-Rev's Stiff Willi Chili and my spice mix promotion.

This is a photo of Brady giving me a break behind the display as we talked to some happy customers. Suffice to say, the early part of the gig was a little rough after Friday night's festivities. And if I remember correctly, Peppers of Key West is the only non-bar in the area where open containers are not only allowed, but welcomed! That definitely allowed me to get a little "hair of the dog" and snap out of my hangover.

 
Peppers of Key West owner Pete Legrady and I pose with customer Dale McCool, who lives in Springville, N.Y., about an hour from where I grew up in Olean. Ah, Key West.. small town, but an even smaller world.

Saturday night we walked around a bit aimlessly wondering what to do, until we ran across a bouncer at Big Uns sports bar who was yelling "2 for 1 drinks till 8!" in the doorway. As I noted earlier, Key West might be known for having a lot of free spirits, but that didn't extend to many of the bars we visited. This place is also well known for a bunch of $100 bar tabs -- of course, this is one cost of freedom I'm definitely willing to endure -- so being the savvy shopper that I am, we headed in.

I bellied up to the bar and noticed that the bartendress named Margaret had a shirt on that read "PEACE LOVE 'CUSE" so I asked her if she was from New York. She said she was from Bath and asked if I knew where that was. I told her I went to college at Geneseo and she said, "That's where I went!"

Seriously? Like I said, small town..smaller world.

 
Around 9:00 pm we met Amanda, a pole dancer at Big Uns who jumped on the bar and started workin' it. (Hey, there were three poles and she picked the one in front of me. What was I supposed to do, move?)

And yes, that's my $5 bill. 

On Sunday we took it a bit easier because we had to fly out Monday morning, so the day was filled with a little more sightseeing of the non-bar variety. We had a nice dinner in the hotel and then headed out to find some of Key West's other "free spirits" -- during the 8 pm ghost tour. I'll let other bloggers explain the history surrounding the ghosts of Key West, but from what our tour guide told us, it's second only to New Orleans in terms of most haunted cities in the country.

 
I mean, just take a look at those two ghosts that appeared behind my wife and our tour guide!

I confess to having been a little skeptical of the extent of paranormal activity in Key West at the outset of the tour. But take a look at some of these photos my wife snapped that depict any number of "orbs" that paranormal believers say represent energy patterns of ghosts or entities.

 
Apparently some people insist that it's digital photo technology itself that creates these orbs in images, or that it's just dust or pollen on the lens, but I can tell you there was no shortage of people on our tour who were rubbing their lenses clean and shaking their cameras after these orbs appeared.

 
Erin and my wife must have taken at least 100 photos combined of this one house, just to see if there were any consistencies amongst all the pictures. But as you can see here, there are no distinctly apparent orbs in this one.

 
In the very next one, however, a few of them are very pronounced. Click on the photo to enlarge it and check out the bigger orbs up close. 

 
This is a shot down the street to an old church that was apparently burned down with eight children inside. Some people say you can feel intense heat at times, and others claim there's a scorch mark that reappears on one of the walls no matter how many times it's repainted. Make of it what you will, but here you see some more orbs. The tour guide also told us that if you put your backs to the front doors and place your hands palms-down on the glass, you can feel tapping -- as if the children are trying to get out.

Amie and Erin did it and swore they each experienced a twitching feeling, but only on their right hands. Now, I consider myself to be a fairly macho dude, but the last thing I really want to think about is that little dead kids' spirits are tapping on my hands trying to get out of a burning church.

 
And anyhow, if anyone's going to tap on me I'd much rather it be a friggin' transvestite, right? I don't know what it is, but old ladies and gay dudes just seem to love me (19-year-old strippers, not so much). Amie and Erin insisted on going over to the 801 Bourbon Bar and snapping pictures like they were at a zoo. And everything was cool until this guy in the pink robe decided to grab my junk out of the blue right after we posed for this photo. Dude, I'm down with your right to be free; my nuts also like to be free, too, thank you very much.

For me, Monday was bitter-sweet. I'd had a blast the past three days but I also couldn't wait to get home to see Biggie Smalls. If I could've snapped only one photo the entire trip, it would have been of him when Amie and I walked through the front door that night. He was jumping up and down and clapping his hands and screaming so much I thought we were back at the 801 Bourbon Bar! But seriously, I've never seen anyone so excited and it reminded me why I hate leaving him behind.

 
So that's why I just had to take these last three pictures. The only way the bumper sticker above could be any better is if it read "DON'T ELECT ANYONE," but this is close enough and certainly reflects the tone of Key West.

Amazingly, despite an atmosphere free of nanny-state prohibitions on things like public smoking, drinking, nudity, and wind-in-your-hair biking, I never once saw anyone self-destruct or internally combust!

 
In fact, I only saw three -- yes, three -- police cars while we were in Key West, and they were all just parked alongside the road somewhere. Come to think of it, this area might just be the only place left in America where the cops actually want to protect and serve anyone other than themselves.

So I suppose it's only appropriate to end on a photo of a government mandate, but I couldn't resist taking this one for Biggie Smalls. Clearly I've watched Finding Nemo way too many times, but the first thing that popped into my head when I saw this was Gill saying, "All drains lead to the ocean, kid."

The biggest irony I observed while in Key West was that while it's obviously publicly funded in many capacities, it most certainly doesn't need to be. It's living proof that societies comprising individuals going about their business peacefully are not necessarily destined for chaos, and that even if there are laws on the books prohibiting vices, life goes on even if they're not enforced.

As a parent, one of my biggest concerns is that I won't be able to raise my children free of police-state tyranny, which by definition generally increases with continual upticks in nanny-statism because the police are the enforcement arm of the legislature. However, it's pretty difficult to get tased or shot for flouting an absurd law if there aren't many police in the first place. So while it may require a bit of planning to just up and move to Key West, I think that's exactly what I'm going to try to do. Not to mention, the island's only 90 miles from Cuba, and it's one of my life goals to own property there one day.

With any luck, this kid will end up at the ocean one day too.