Southern Bread Blog

Have you ever seen the painting on the inside of the dome of the Capitol Building? It’s called the Apotheosis of Washington. It was painted by an Italian ex-patriot Constantino Brumidi. He completed it in 1865, after the close of the War to Prevent Southern Independence. If you aren’t familiar with the word “apotheosis,” here is it’s definition:

The fact or action of becoming a god; deification; Glorification, exaltation; crediting someone with extraordinary power or status; A glorified example or ideal; the apex or pinnacle (of a concept or belief); Loosely, release from earthly life, ascension to heaven;

–Wiktionary.org

And as the title declares, the painting depicts George Washington, assumed into heaven as a deity. The angel on the left is, of course, holding the symbol of the fasces. Because, if there’s one thing the state will worship, it’s itself:

This is just a closeup of the center. Click on the image for a full, hi-res version of the complete painting.

What a coincidence that a giant painting depicting the deification of the state just happened to be completed right at the moment in history when the Federal government was crushing the final vestiges of state independence at Appomattox. The only thing I’m surprised about is that it isn’t called the Apotheosis of Lincoln. I guess even he couldn’t be that brazen.

I saw this article over the weekend about how the Tuscaloosa Police recently held a “gun buyback” event. You’ve seen these things before I’m sure. It’s where the local police offer cash payouts to anyone who turns in a gun. In this case they also promised not to press any charges if the person was in possession of the gun without a license(which I don’t really understand since you don’t have to be “licensed” to own a gun in Alabama). Here’s the low down:

At about 8:45 a.m., the department opened shop for a gun buyback at its east precinct in Alberta, offering gift cards to anyone who brought in a gun.

Officers handed out $50 Visa gift cards to those who brought in handguns, $75 gift cards for rifles and shotguns and $100 for assault rifles. Those who brought in inoperable weapons received a $25 gift card.

No names or addresses were taken during the event and no charges were made against those who turned in a gun without a license.

The department had $1,400 in gift cards to trade for firearms, and by 9:30 a.m. the cards had run out.

People continued to drop off guns, however, and by the end of the buyback at noon, the department had collected more than 30 guns.

–Wayne Grayson, Tuscaloosa News

So, the Tuscaloosa Police Department just crapped $1400 down the toilet. The article goes on to say:

Anderson said most folks who dropped off guns had no use for them and simply wanted them out of the house.

“And most of the guns we see used in crimes are those just laying around the house, readily available,” he said.

“This was a huge success,” said Police Chief Steve Anderson. “Any gun that we get off the street is a gun that we can be assured won’t be used at a later date in an assault or robbery.”

–Wayne Grayson, Tuscaloosa News

A “huge success?” What are the odds that most of the people that turned in those guns have at least one other gun in their home? I’d say the chances are pretty high. And from looking at the picture that accompanied the story, I’d say that most of the guns that were turned in look like gun show surplus stuff anyway. Who wouldn’t turn in a beat up old AK-47 and get a $100? I would in a heart beat.

Look, I can sympathize with people being concerned about gun violence, but programs like these do absolutely nothing. You might as well just put up a sign in the yard that says: “Come get free money for that extra gun you were gonna sell on gunbroker.com anyway.”

They got 30 guns “off the street. Only about 60 million to go and they can call it a day.

Capt. Jeff Hartley pointed out the large amount of small weapons collected during the buyback.

“This was our main goal here. We wanted to get these easily concealable weapons out of people’s hands,” he said

–Wayne Grayson, Tuscaloosa News

I bet it was. The main goal of government is always to disarm the people. The less guns we have and the more guns they have the better they like it.

This is one of my favorite blog posts from Lew Rockwell about the futility of “marching on washington.”

For many years, pro-lifers have expended vast time, energy, and money “marching on Washington” every January, to exactly zero effect. Worse, they hark back to pro-redistribution events. And always, as with the latest 9/12 extravaganza, headed by red-state fascists, the marchers assemble on the “National Mall,” the government grass that extends from Lincoln’s Roman temple — where he sits enthroned like Jupiter, fasces and all — to George Washington’s obelisk, an Eqyptian monument to the god Amun-Ra. In the distance is the capitol, whose dome copies the Roman pantheon, temple to all the gods. In the top of the dome is a painting of Washington being assumed, like the divinized Julius Caesar, into Heaven upon his death. Even Jefferson is portrayed as a god in a Roman temple. Not far away is the the Greek temple where the nine supremes hand down the “law.” Then there is the vast executive apparatus, headed by a living god, and dedicated to killing, spying, taxing, redistributing, inflating, and controlling, symbolized by the Pentagram. Really, DC is one nasty place. So why would anyone concerned about the state and its power “march on Washington”? Such events only dissipate energy, and fool people into thinking that their time and money have accomplished something, as the regime laughs up its sleeve. Indeed, that is the purpose. So stay home. Read, write, work, organize, and avoid DC like the plague it is.

–Lew Rockwell, LRC

What struck me, as in the last post showing the Lincoln Memorial, is how grandiose the architecture and statuary is in D.C. Government structures are always intentionally designed to make the citizen feel small and insignificant. Have you ever driven by the local federal courthouse branch? It’s huge and imposing in order to put you in the right state of mind for control before you ever enter.

There was just a fascinating back and forth over at LRC about the symbol of the fasces as it appears on various Lincoln iconography. Here’s a catchup for those that missed it:

From the cover of a two-volume set, Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life by William Herndon and Jesse Weik. Published in 1892 and reprinted in 1913, both editions had the same cover. The seminary library where I currently work had both editions, but we have gotten rid of both editions. Not necessary to the mission of a seminary library today. But someone thought it was once…

–Charles Featherstone, LRC

To which David Kramer replied:

Charles—You didn’t need to find some obscure book that honors Lincoln with the symbol of Fascism. Under both his left and right hands of the Lincoln Memorial sculpture you can see the Fascist symbol sans ax head.

–David Kramer, LRC

Tom Dilorenzo then pointed out:

Charles, it is relevant that the co-author of the book on Lincoln from your library which displays the fasces, the symbol of fascism, on the cover, was Lincoln’s longtime law partner, William Herndon. He knew Lincoln as well as anyone, even better than Lincoln’s wife. And yes, as David points out, the fasces is right there on Dishonest Abe’s armchair on which he sits in his memorial in D.C. (As Clyde Wilson once said, the symbol of America has been transformed from George Washington on his white horse to a corporate lawyer/lobbyist in an armchair).

Dating from the Roman Empire, the fasces stood for Government Power and Unity. Dictatorial government that crushes all dissenters, in other words. “Unity” is coerced unity that comes from governmental military “power,” not persuasion. This is the kind of “unity” that existed in the Soviet Union, and Germany and Italy during the 1930s and early 40s. Totalitarianism, in a word.

–David Kramer, LRC

It’s disgusting that so many Americans have been duped by court historians into mock worship of politicians. Lincoln presided over the slaugther of 620,000 American lives. More than any other war in U.S. history. He deserves scorn and judgement. Not, a monument to his fascism. How is that any different than Lenin’s tomb?

The title of this post should really be “how to spin population data reports into complete meaninglessness.” I ran across this article on Yahoo a while back. Here’s how it starts:

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – More American women are choosing not to have children than three decades ago, according to a new report.

Nearly 20 percent of older women do not have children, compared to 10 percent in the 1970s, the Pew Research Center said.

The findings in the report are based on data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.

–Daniel Lippman, Reuters

So what’s the cause of this increasing childlessness?

“In recent decades, social pressure to play traditional roles has lessened in a broad variety of ways and there is more leeway for individual choice. This could play a part in lowering pressure for people to get married and bear children,” said D’Vera Cohn, a co-author of the report.

“Women have more options than in the past to build strong careers and to exercise the choice not to have children,” she added in an email.

The findings in the report are based on data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.

Cohn said another reason for the increase is that children are seen by some as less important for a successful marriage. A 2007 Pew survey found that 41 percent of adults said that children are very important for a good marriage, down from 65 percent in 1990.

–Daniel Lippman, Reuters

So, basically, this guy is saying that when women are given more “options” and greater “choice”, they naturally choose to have fewer, if any, children. He backs this up with some stats:

Education also seems to be a factor in a woman’s choice to be a mother. The more educated women are, the higher the childless rate is.

For women with a high school diploma, the rate is 17 percent, compared to 24 percent of women with a bachelor’s degree.

–Daniel Lippman, Reuters

He then goes on to obliterate his own argument, and make everything he has said so far meaningless:

But the childlessness rate has decreased for women with advanced degrees from 31 percent in 1994 to 24 percent in 2008.

–Daniel Lippman, Reuters

His argument went like this:

1. Women are having fewer children today than they used to.
2. This is because they have more choices and more options in modern society.
3. But, the women at the top who have the most options and choices are choosing to have more children.

Huh?

Remember that thing we called the stimulus bill? It seems like forever ago that congress passed that $850 billion dollar demon child. Just to refresh your memory, this is the stated purpose of the stimulus bill:

SEC. 3. PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES.

(a) STATEMENT OF PURPOSES.—The purposes of this Act include the following:

• (1) To preserve and create jobs and promote economic recovery.
• (2) To assist those most impacted by the recession.
• (3) To provide investments needed to increase economic efficiency by spurring technological advances in science and health.
• (4) To invest in transportation, environmental protection, and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic benefits.
• (5) To stabilize State and local government budgets, in order to minimize and avoid reductions in essential services and counterproductive state and local tax increases.

(b) GENERAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING USE OF FUNDS.—The President and the heads of Federal departments and agencies shall manage and expend the funds made available in this Act so as to achieve the purposes specified in subsection (a), including commencing expenditures and activities as quickly as possible consistent with prudent management.

–Readthestimulus.org

I started thinking about it the other day when it sort of dawned on me that I hadn’t even heard anyone mention the stimulus bill in a while. This is strange, because everyone on the right predicted that most of the stimulus money would be held back and spent during the months leading up to the November 2010 elections. That isn’t really panning out though. According to the recovery.gov website, only $201 billion (about 25% of the total) has been spent so far. And with only three and a half months to go until the November elections, I don’t think they’re gonna make it.

So, why didn’t the predictions come true? After all, it makes perfect sense that Congressmen would vote themselves a huge slush fund right after an election and then spend most of it right before the next election. Well, the answer is that you have to remember the inherent limitations of government. Government is a gargantuan, lumbering behemoth. It is incapable of doing anything on a set time table. While I am sure that those who passed the stimulus bill probably fully intended it to be spent in their own districts to help their reelection bids, the fact remains that spending $850 billion dollars isn’t exactly easy. And it’s anything but quick or efficient.

And, there is another problem. Where are all of the “shovel ready jobs” that the stimulus was supposed to create? I have seen exactly none in my travels around the state of Alabama. Evidently I’m not alone:

It would appear that most of the stimulus money spent so far has gone to the states to retain existing government jobs — teachers, police, firefighters — thereby moving state payrolls onto the national debt and allowing them to defer the hard decisions they will have to make eventually. My own observation of the narrowly limited landscape between the Sandhills and Kansas City did not reveal much in the way of highly touted “shovel-ready” construction projects, or even routine maintenance.

–Fred Wolferman, The Pilot

So, that’s where the money is going. It was a way for the states (i.e. public employees unions) to fund themselves using federal debt. Basically, the stimulus is a huge ATM card for the public sectors of each state. That makes perfect sense when you think about it. After all, that’s why money flows from Washington down through the states anyway. Money trickles down from D.C. to the states. And then from the states to local programs. Then, influence and vote buying flow back up to D.C. via organizations and individuals that benefited from the influx of money. It’s not just the stimulus bill that works this way. It’s the entire political machine that is structured like this. Just take this story as an example:

Moore’s farm — her husband died in 1999 — was among the last eight farms in Alabama to grow tobacco, mainly due to the end of a government quota-and-price-support system nearly five years ago. The eight farms shut down between 2002 and 2007, according to the latest U.S. Farm Census released earlier this year.

The biggest reason for tobacco farms’ final demise in Alabama was a decision by Congress five years ago to end a quota and price support system.

That system had been around since 1938 to help Depression-era tobacco farmers. Tobacco farmers signed up for government quotas — allotments that limited the number of acres they could grow. That helped keep tobacco prices high for farmers.

But with lessening demand for tobacco in the 1980s and 1990s, combined with a price support and quota system that kept prices high, the amount of imported tobacco grew.

As a result, Congress voted in the fall of 2004 to do away with quotas and price supports and offer a buyout to farmers who had a quota. Congress set aside $10.1 billion to pay out to farmers with quotas through 2014. The buyouts are based on a formula involving pounds of production in previous years. Farmers who had leased quotas get a portion of the buyout.

Many farmers took the buyout and decided not to try growing tobacco without the quota system, Sanford said. Nationwide, the number of farms growing tobacco fell from 56,977 in 2002 to 16,234 by the 2007 farm census. That’s a nearly 72 percent drop. But production fell only about 11 percent as some growers expanded their farms.

Besides the few Alabama farms that were growing tobacco after the 2002 census, many other Alabamians are getting annual buyout payments because they owned or leased quotas for growing in other states.

Jo Moore’s husband, Lila, died in 1999. By that time the couple had been leasing their land, barn and quota to another farmer.

Moore said she decided to take the buyout because the farmer leasing from them wasn’t making much off the tobacco. Her share of the buyout amounts to about $3,500 a year, she said.

Moore still leases her 400 tillable acres to a cotton farmer.

–John A. MacDonald, B’ham News

Here you have an entire system set up to artificially inflate the price of a product for 60 years by paying farmers not to grow more than a certain number of acres. And when it finally became untenable, instead of just ending the payments, Congress started giving those farmers cash payments in the form of a buyout. So, now they are being paid not to grow anything at all. The lady in the story, Jo Moore, now leases her land to another farmer, and in the mean time collects a check from the government for not doing anything at all. It’s farm welfare, and it’s a way to ensure that Mrs. Moore keeps on voting for the guy that promises to extend her buyout check for a few more years.

It will take a few years, but eventually all of that stimulus money will flow into these types of long-term projects to prop up the rent-seeking and vote-buying. Politics is about producing long-term stability to the super rich elites. It has very little to do with the “next election.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve uploaded a new utility. This one is very simple. It brings all top-level application windows back to position 0,0 (top,left) on the primary monitor. This is useful if you have a second monitor that isn’t always visible(like a television set). Often, in this scenario, you will end up with some windows being displayed on the second monitor. Sure, you can right-click the window’s taskbar button and click move and bring it back over with the mouse, but that’s about 5 clicks. Just leave the Repose.exe file on your desktop and double-click it to achieve the same result. We have a television as our second screen, so this comes in very handy for us. That’s why I wrote it. As always, it’s written in 100% assembly language. Download the binary and source code below.

• Download current Binary
• Download current Source

I’ve been reading Robert Stinnet’s book, Day of Deciet for a while now(I’m a very slow reader), and I just came across a great F.D.R. quote:

It is not in every case easy or pleasant to ask men of the nation to leave their homes and women of the nation to give their men to the service of the nation. But the men and women of America have never held back even when it has meant personal sacrifice on their part if that is sacrifice for the common good.

The greatest attack that has ever been launched against freedom of the individual is nearer the Americas than ever before. To meet that attack we must prepare beforehand — for preparing later may and probably would be too late.

There is, moreover, another enemy at home. That enemy is the mean and petty spirit that mocks at ideals, sneers at sacrifice and pretends the American people can live by bread alone. If the spirit of God is not in us, and if we will not prepare to give all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our own land, we shall go to destruction.

–F.D.R, Smokey Mtn. Nat’l Park Dedication Speech

The tactic of labeling every nation that doesn’t play ball with the administration as an enemy of freedom is a time-honored tradition. George Bush used the same tact:

On September 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars, but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war, but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks but never before on thousands of civilians. All of this was brought upon us in a single day, and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.

–George W. Bush, Joint Session of Congress

Oddly enough, Bush referenced Pearl Harbour in his speech. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s without doubt that FDR had foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbour because he specifically goaded the Japanese into attacking by following Arthur McCollum’s eight-action plan. This plan was meant to force Japan into a first strike against the U.S., since that would allow the U.S. to enter the war with popular support. Japan had allied itself to Germany and Italy, so that any attack by it would allow the U.S. to attack all of the countries included in the “axis powers” (or “axis of evil” in Bush-speak). Here’s some pertinent quotes to support this:

“The Roosevelt strategy of maneuvering the Japanese into striking the first blow at America was unknown to us,” [Admiral Husband] Kimmel wrote in his book, Admiral Kimmel’s Story, published in 1954. His first suspicions that someone in high office in Washington had consciously pursued a policy that led straight to Pearl Harbor “did not occur to him until after December 7, 1941.”

Richardson’s removal on February 1, 1941, strengthened the position of McCollum. Only five months earlier, in mid-September 1940, Germany and her Axis partner, Italy, had signed a mutual-assistance alliance with Japan. The Tripartite Pact committed the three partners to assist each other in the event of an attack on any one of them. McCollum saw the alliance as a golden opportunity. If Japan could be provoked into committing an overt act of war against the United States, then the Pact’s mutual assistance provisions would kick in. It was a back-door approach: Germany and Italy would come to Japan’s aid and thus directly involve the United States in the European war.

The number one problem for the United States, according to McCollum, was mobilizing public support for a declaration of war against the Axis powers. He saw little chance that Congress would send American troops to Europe. Over the objections of the majority of the populace, who still felt that European alarmists were creating much ado about nothing, he called for the Administration to create what he called “more ado”: “It is not believed,” wrote McCollum, “that in the present state of political opinion the United States government is capable of declaring war against Japan without more ado.”

His solution to the political stalemate: use the eight proposed actions to provoke Japan into committing an overt act of war against the United States, thus triggering military responses from the two other signers of the Tripartite Pact. An allusion to McCollum’s eight actions was recorded by Assistant Secretary of State Breckenridge Long. He wrote that on October 7, 1940, he learned of a series of steps involving the US Navy and that one included concentrating the fleet at Honolulu to be ready for any eventuality. “It looks to me as if little by little we will face a situation which will bring us into conflict with Japan,” Long wrote in his diary.

–Stinnett, Day of Deceit

The point I’m trying to make is that a simple ideology that says “they are bad guys and we’re good guys” or “they hate our freedom” is just way too clean and tidy to be real. I mean, seriously, who “hates freedom” except government? Isn’t it far more believable that the reason we are attacked by terrorists is not because they “hate our freedom”, but because they hate the things our government does to their life? After all, the west has been meddling in the middle-east for over a century. Just read The First World War and see how England invaded middle-eastern countries left and right for no apparent reason.

What’s more believable in all of these situations is that, in order for governments to maintain their legitimacy with their own people they must find convenient enemies. In the 40′s it was the Japanese. Today it’s the middle-east. What we are spoon-fed by the media is 75% propaganda to deliver a constant theme that we all come to believe in. Something like: “The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour was unprovoked.” The reality behind the headlines is almost always way more complicated and orchestrated than that. You have to look behind the curtain.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m not anti-war, and I’m definitely not a pacifist. What I’m opposed to is standing armies and governments being the only ones allowed to legally use force. It’s dangerous and it leads to just the type of things we see over and over. Namely, politicians using military action for political purposes, not defense.

HOA’s are absolutely despicable. If you needed any more proof of this, look no further than this:

[Capt. Mike Clauer was]…halfway through his deployment [in Iraq] when he got a bolt from the blue — a frantic phone call from his wife, May, back in Texas.

“She was bawling on the phone and was telling me that the HOA [homeowners association] had foreclosed on our house, and it was sold,” he says. “And I couldn’t believe that could even happen.”

Clauer had a hard time understanding what his wife was saying. His $300,000 house was already completely paid for. Could it be possible that their home was foreclosed on and sold because his wife had missed two payments of their HOA dues?

In many states it is not difficult for an HOA to foreclose on a member’s home for past dues even if the amount owed is just a few hundred dollars.

But by the time he got back to Texas, it was too late. The Clauers’ four-bedroom, 3,500-square-foot home had been sold on the courthouse steps for just $3,500 — enough to cover outstanding HOA dues and legal costs.

The new owner quickly sold it for $135,000 and netted a tidy profit.

“Basically it’s everything to us,” Clauer says. “Having a house like this paid for was huge for us, for our retirement plans. We thought we were so far ahead, and now it’s like we’re starting from the beginning.”

Lawyers for the HOA say that while Clauer’s case is regrettable, it was his and his wife’s fault for not paying their dues in a timely manner.

“The fact of the matter is, the laws of the state of Texas allow the homeowners association to file assessment liens on properties who haven’t paid their assessments, and they also allow foreclosure on those liens,” says Patrick Whitaker, who represents the HOA. “And the homeowners association followed the letter of the law.”

–Wade Goodwin, NPR

So, this HOA, stole this active duty soldier’s house and sold it out from under his wife and kids while he was deployed. Tell me again why I should ever want to subject myself to that type of unfairness. And what makes it worse is that it was probably some member of the HOA that bought and flipped the house and made a killing on it:

There have been complaints that some members of HOA boards have bought HOA-foreclosed properties for a pittance, and then sold them for a hefty profit.

In Texas, there are no laws to prevent this. Carona says the best way to address this apparent conflict of interest is not by passing new state laws but by letting the HOAs handle it internally through modification of the association’s constitution.

“I think that an association can avoid that type of thing by adopting conflict-of-interest rules,” he says.

–Wade Goodwin, NPR

Uh… yeah sure. That’s BS. You use the government to give yourself an unfair advantage over your members and then act like you’re all free-market. Get that crap out of here.