Double Birds

How much does it cost you to drive down the road? I'm not talking gas prices.  Or car prices.  Or even how much it costs to build and maintain the roads. I'm asking, how much does the government charge you for using its roads. Everything.  All the wealth that you have, or ever will have, according to one bureaucrat. Elizabeth Warren, a woman running for Senate, recently said : "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear:  you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for ; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific...

Bureaucrats in Orem, Utah, are trying to destroy 71-year-old Darrell "Bud" Durrant's livelihood.  Durrant lives off of a $396 retirement.  The bulk of his income comes from pumpkins that he grows on his farm in Lake Shore, and sells from his yard at  112 W. 1600 N. in Orem ,  a distance of  17 miles . He's been selling pumpkins from his yard for 20 years.  But this year, authorities threatened to shut him down. Bud Durrant and his business partner, David Cook. Durrant appealed to the city, and so they will " allow him to sell through this year." City Attorney Paul Johnson said, " It's too bad the city hasn't enforced the law before now ." The city hopes to have a decision by the end of 2011, on whether or not he can sell next year. It seems to me, that shutting down small farmers during a recession is just plain stupid.  It's a cold, impersonal cruelty, that someone would destroy an old farmer's livelihood simply to enforce a nonsen...

Rick Perry thinks the Bible will fix our economy .  While I think inflation spurred mal-investment has something to do with it, I might agree with him.  If he weren't simply selling Jesus to buy the presidency. You see, Perry belongs to that camp of Christians that supports murdering innocent people in the Middle East.  Saying you want "a Christian nation" while you defend murder doesn't mean much to me.  Other than that you're a hypocrite. Prayers are more effective with a microphone.  And in front of a large audience . (edited by Double Birds) Selling Jesus has paid off for a long time.  In 1999,  W. Bush famously had a "Jesus moment."  When he was asked who his favorite philosopher was, and he said "Jesus."  Rather than losing points for not knowing any other philosophers, Bush gained huge points among evangelical voters. Bush won the presidency, and went on to murder and torture countless innocent people.  I'd say Jesus lost on th...

1st Amendment be damned .   Michael Moore wants Obama to imprison those pesky critics at S&P who dared suggest that the U.S. might not have the best credit score . "Kill the rich, and Utopia will follow!" —Michael Moore (edited by Double Birds) Truth be damned .  Politicians should be able to spend all they want, whether they have the means or not.  If they lack money, their buddies at the Federal Reserve can just print it.  How can they not pay their debts with that kind of power? Unfortunately, you can't give something you don't have.  Money is not wealth, nor is it magic unicorn piss that we can sprinkle on all our problems to make them go away.  Printing money and throwing it at our debts will merely make our creditors angrier, as the inflated money we give them becomes worthless in their hands. Moore seems to think the economy has a joystick that the rich can jerk around to make it do what they want.  Unfortunately, it's a bit more compli...

News Fail From Drudge Report (Edited by Double Birds) Several fails here. First: Geithner sucks at economics, which is bad since that's his job. Second: Most Americans aren't paying attention while Federal Reserve bankers screw us .  9 million are staring at tan boobs, while who knows how many are rolling on the floor and frothing at the mouth in anticipation of the rapture. Ron Paul correctly predicted  congress will create economic hard-times  back in 2008.  Win.

For all of you who have rolled your eyes when I've said that roads should be privatized, consider this: Have you ever been pulled over for speeding?  When the guy with a gun fined you a hundred bucks for going too fast, did it ever seem odd?  What if Costco started tazing , fining, and imprisoning people who drove their shopping carts too fast down the aisles?  Wouldn't you think it odd if a Costco teller pulled a gun on you, and told you to get your ni**er a**  down on the floor, if you, say, were  paralyzed , or black ? 72-year-old woman tased. Respect the elderly, or respect my authoritah ? Why don't we think it odd when it happens on our roads?  Americans are apt to forget that highways were built to prevent popular uprisings .  That speed limits were put in place to force gas rationing .  And public schools never teach that roads are monopolies. Recently, an  Eastern European mayor has used a tank to run over the vehicles of his own ...

Reinvent the road. Win $75 of luxury artisan chocolate . People scoff at me when I say we should privatize roads.   Help me prove these road socialists wrong by inventing the best road this world has ever seen . Submit your road idea to: roadidea@doublebirds.net Deadline: October 1st, 2011.  Format: A picture with a description.  (Pictures can be made in any way, from crayon to photoshop.  Short, imaginative descriptions preferred). Selected ideas will be displayed at doublebirds.net for a public vote. The winner will get $75 worth of Amano chocolate .* I've already thought of the following ideas.  But you might win if you can do them better (not difficult): Bikes have own roads, cars have own roads, semis have own roads. Jet Packs Robot Horses (cars that poop) No Speed Limit.  Only dangerous driving is illegal and . . . Zip lines from hot air balloons and Water slides instead of roads * I reserve the right to extend contest deadline, and make ...

Matt Damon thinks teachers should have tenure.  The same website ( boingboing ) that portrayed his statement as heroic , had another article on how public schools in Missouri were banning books  ( Slaugherhouse-Five ).  On the same page, posted on the same day! Just give them more effin money! (Edited by Double Birds) Boingboing has a whole list of school shenanigans , that make our education system look like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone. We all want to fix education.  But money is not the only problem. The root of the problem is politics.  If a politician thinks he can score re-election points by busing inner-city kids to the suburbs , and rural kids to the cities, he'll do it.  If he thinks he can score points by banning Kurt Vonnegut, or expunging Mark Twain , or dumbing down F. Scott Fitzgerald , he'll do it. Why is a politician getting involved in the first place?  Why is it his business how my kid is raised?  Isn't that somethi...

Go check out the Economics of Inception over at FilmEcon . (Picture slightly related). Dreams are sometimes better than reality. (Fartzilla from FilmDrunk ) (Edited by Double Birds)

Google vs. facebook  the government. You've probably heard of facebook's attempted smear campaign against google.  You probably haven't heard that the U.S. government is fining google for $500,000,000 . The U.S. government (which thinks the internet is a series of tubes ) outlawed foreign pharmaceuticals in an attempt to block sick people in the U.S. from getting cheaper drugs "for our protection."  Google advertised those prescriptions, so the government is fining them. I got your money right here.  Oh. Wait.  Maybe it's in my other pocket. (Edited by Double Birds) This is another example of government passing illegitimate laws to "protect us" from ourselves, and then using those law to rob a legitimate business. Want to get the economy up and running?  Here's a hint, jacka**es: stop hurting businesses.

People used to expect their rulers to make it rain. When the majority of people used to farm, crop failure meant economic devastation on top of starvation.  As Lord Raglan put it: " A good king is one whose subjects prosper, whether he himself is virtuous and kindly or not. This applies much more fully in the case of a king whose duties are purely ritual. Just as the good rain-maker is the one who induces good rain, so the good king is the king who induces good crops, good hunting, and so on ." Now that most of us do not farm, we want our rulers to “make it rain” economically. But the belief that  prosperity can be legislated is just as backward as believing a king can change the weather. Wealth is created through work and exchange. Government cannot create wealth . Whatever money it has, it has either borrowed, begged, or stolen. Forcible transfers of wealth from one person to another do not create more wealth. Fed Chairman Bernanke, just resting his head. Eve...