So with the news from Canada that the Trudeau government will accelerate freezing the personal and business accounts of truckers protesting mandates (https://fee.org/articles/did-justin-trudeau-s-financial-crackdown-really-spark-a-bank-run-in-canada/), it occurred to me that some people may need to think about something. This could absolutely happen here in the U.S. This isn’t a “oh, it’s happening in another country, it could never happen here” thing.

So, the problem with the way most people think about banks is wrong…or at least, incomplete. This is an over-simplification, but when you deposit your money in a bank, you have now lost custody of that money. Those numbers you see on your mobile banking app is how much money the bank is holding in your name. But you do not have physical custody of ANY of that money. The government (or indeed the bank itself) can freeze or remove that money at any time, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Yes, you might be able to get that money returned, but it’ll be a court battle to get it back. A possibly expensive court battle you have to wage with your money seized and inaccessible. A quick web search will return stories of accounts frozen and seized with little or no evidence of any wrongdoing, which takes weeks, months, or even years of expensive lawyers to resolve.

Now, I’m not saying this to scare people. But I do want people to acknowledge that giving your money for some other entity to hold on your behalf removes it from your immediate control. I’m not saying go and pull your money out of the bank. That would be counter-productive, and very inconvenient. Maybe a layered approach? Have some cash on hand, crypto holdings, and such? I don’t know, I’m not a financial professional, and this is not financial advice.

That’s one reason the government via the SEC, Fed, etc. are trying so hard to eliminate most cryptocurrencies, especially privacy-centered cryptocurrencies. They can’t be controlled, deleted, or frozen, and in the case of privacy coins, it’s very difficult to even track or trace. With some of the crazy things going on nowadays, it would be wise to be cautious.

Ran across another “Climategate” (silly name) article on the net.  This one written by someone who believes in the consensus that global warming is man-made.  However, there are some really good points that the author (Megan McArdle) makes in her post.

Basically, these emails point out flaws not necessarily in the conclusion, but that the road to that conclusion was flawed in a way that makes the conclusion untrustworthy.

To convince someone that you are right, you don’t go around beating up anyone who says you’re wrong.  You convince them you are right by showing your conclusion, the base facts, and how you used those facts to create your conclusion.  Even an idiot like me can see that.  Deleting your source data (or losing it), and obscuring how you reached your conclusions would have gotten at most a “C” grade in my high school geometry class.  My geometry teacher was all about “show me how you got your answer, not just the answer”.  If a high school math teacher doesn’t accept the method, why should we?

As a U.S. taxpayer watching our national debt skyrocket (and my pocketbook shrink), I’m appalled that we’re using these seemingly unsupported answers to force possibly economically devastating laws such as cap-and-trade through congress.  Even worse, it seems that we’ve spent millions or billions (I never seem to see the same answer twice) of dollars funding those very same conclusions, and maybe spending billions more in the future.

I don’t know.  All I know is that these scientists don’t seem to have a clue, and I’m not sure we can trust any of them anymore.

Oh my, did I get a laugh out of this.  I’ve been quietly steaming over the whole “Man-Causing-Global-Warming” thing for a while now anyway, and the released emails and documents from East Anglia have just added fuel to the fire.  But this…it takes the cake, eats all of it in front of you, and burps in your face.

I hope I can find some more articles written by this Andrew Thomas.  Very funny read…unless you’re French.

Bahahahahahahahahaaa!!!

Whooo, that felt good.  You know, everyone’s been so busy with global scre…I mean, Global Warming, that they haven’t taken the time to actually LOOK outside at the temperatures.  It doesn’t help that there’s conflicting reports from biased sources citing that the arctic ice is low, it’s high, it’s about the same.  Not to mention that it’s the hottest/coolest year on record.

I just think it’s complete hubris to think we do enough to actually affect weather.  No one has given me undeniable facts to support that man is causing a global meltdown.  And in fact, how can we know, when we only started gathering weather data about a hundred years ago?

In school, they told me that most climate changes occur over hundreds, or even thousands of years.  Were they wrong?  Who knows, we haven’t been keeping records long enough to tell!

Oh my God.  What the hell are these news people on, anyway?  This article reads like we’re all about to catch the new Black Plague.  Everywhere I look, people are almost panicked about this swine flu.  If you read that article, you’ll find out that the 331 cases aren’t in Arkansas.  That’s not the number even in the U.S.  That’s WORLD-FRICKIN-WIDE!  That’s right, folks.  Out of 6.77 BILLION people worldwide, 331 of them have confirmed cases of swine flu.  That’s about 0.000005% of the world’s population.

So, tell me this.  WHY is everyone freakin’ out?  The Black Plague killed MILLIONS.  This looks to kill less than the yearly flu that we deal with every single year!

Auto accidents alone kill about 40,000 people every year in just the U.S.  Stop the panic!  Be smart, take care of yourself, wash your hands, and get on with your lives!

Well, with that said, off we go to la-la land. You may think otherwise, but it’s my opinion that a majority of politicians–especially the politically elite–not only have no clue what an “average” person wants and needs, but doesn’t care. It’s their job to make laws. A job that at the upper levels gives them a huge salary, and unreal benefits. In the case of U.S. senators and representatives, they even get to set their own salaries! Wow.

But here’s the thing. The Thing that politicians do NOT want you, the public, to know…

We don’t need them.

Here, let me bold that.

We don’t need them.

That’s right. Contrary to what politicians these days tell you, we don’t actually NEED them, they need US. It’s quite possible for us to go on with our lives without politicians. What? You think we do? Well, let’s take a look.

We need a politician to adjudicate disputes? No, they don’t do that. We hire and elect judges for that.

We need politicians to run the day-to-day business of government? No, a bureaucracy is a beautiful thing. Most day-to-day operations are run by secretaries and assistants, who normally know much more about what’s going on than the politician.

We need a politician to make laws, their main job? No, we have plenty of laws on the books right now. We could definitely do WITHOUT new laws for a couple of years or more.

We need politicians to tell us what to do? Is that what you REALLY think? That these people have the knowledge and wisdom to tell you how to live your life? Please, you’re much more intelligent than that. These people don’t know jack. I say we get rid of them.

Ok, this really is something else.  Two things.

One, the Boston Bomb Scare.  Read the story if you haven’t heard about this.  Apparently, someone in Boston noticed a strange device hanging from an overpass, and called police.  The police decided to go into overdrive, called in the bomb squad, and had the device blown up.  Several other similar devices were found across the city.  They were disposed of, or removed.  It was determined by “experts”, that the devices were a hoax.  What were they in fact?  Advertisements for the Cartoon Network show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”.  In fact, they were freakin’ LITE BRITES.  That’s right.  Gajillions of dollars (ok, maybe not, but a lot of money) were spent getting these things down, with streets shut down, and people evacuated, and they were light boards like the one my cousin had 20 YEARS AGO!  My God, Boston!  Even better, they’d been there for WEEKS before anyone noticed!  And to top it all off, the devices were in several other major cities, and no one cared!  Can someone say, “overreaction”?  I knew you could.

Second, though, is the fact that the above article and this one (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-02/06/content_5704846.htm) are from Japan and China respectively.  The ones I’ve found from the U.S. major news sources seem to be concentrating on the so-called “hoax perpetrators”.  The two men who were scapegoated into jail.  The overseas articles seem to be much more neutral, letting the reader judge how idiotic one American city can be.

I’ve got nothing personally against Boston.  I’ve never been there.  I know no one from there personally.  So I have no grudge against them.  But I cannot help but think, “DOH!”