The Plug Nickel Times is proud to bring you website links to select opinion articles that you may not find through your local media. All links are offsite unless otherwise noted - followed links should open in another browser window. Links can become dated or otherwise fail to function, for this reason we quote the actual headline of an article. This may allow you to find an alternate copy of the article through a news index or search engine. Some sites we link to may require a registration process to view an article - this website may be useful to you in those instances. Comments, corrections and submissions are welcome - an email link is at the bottom of the page.
February 2007
February 25, 2007
Robert Gates' statements regarding IEDs and Iran by Laura Rozen
War or Peace? Achieving Peace Among States by Michael S. Rozeff
"Since states can mobilize and concentrate the resources of an entire nation or nations, they can project far more intense and devastating warfare than smaller political units are capable of. States can also mobilize the population’s fear and distrust of external enemies. If peace is the aim of the world’s peoples, then mankind by organizing itself into states has taken a very bad turn. It has created organizations whose incentives are to maintain and gain further power. In a certain number of instances, where particular conditions prevail, this system of states invariably leads to large-scale war; war being merely a step beyond negotiations and other warlike threats and actions.
If the world remains organized into states for the foreseeable future, then the logical way to achieve greater peace is to reduce the state-like qualities of all states. The way to peace is to dismantle state institutions and restrict state powers. If their powers are scaled back, states become less able to project themselves upon other states and less inclined to attempt to dominate them. If the powers of states are scaled back, then they become less able to project large-scale war.
Leaving states intact is not an ideal solution, the ideal being no states at all, but weakening them is a step in the right direction. This can only be done if a state’s people make it happen. They need to understand that they are better off with a weaker, not a stronger state. This is counter-intuitive knowledge at present, but some day it will become common knowledge."
Culture of Government Debt by Jeremy Locke
"What tyrants need is a system of extraction that allows them to increase their demands upon people, but without the fear of being overthrown. This is why government debt has nothing to do with budgeting. It is simply a deception designed to maximize the extraction of labor."
Real-ID: Costs and Benefits by Bruce Schneier
"By forcing all states to conform to common and more stringent rules for issuing driver’s licenses, the Real ID Act turns these licenses into a de facto national ID. It’s a massive, unfunded mandate imposed on the states, and - naturally - the states have resisted. The detailed rules and timetables are still being worked out by the Department of Homeland Security, and it’s the details that will determine exactly how expensive and onerous the program actually is."
Terrorists Chip In: Implanting radio ID tags in U.S. passports makes stealing personal data easier than ever by William Norman Grigg
A General Theory of Stupidity by Bill Bonner
"And now, the poor investor - professional or amateur - is light-years from the facts; he doesn’t know what to make of it. Can the United States go broke, he wonders? If it could, how come it hasn’t already? None of us has any idea. We don’t know how many dollars walk the earth...when they will depart it...or how much each one should be worth.
Entire fortunes are put at risk. Billion-dollar bets are placed. Trillions of dollars float on a sea of liquidity. And nobody really knows what anything is worth...or when it might stop being worth anything at all."
Cop who saved shoppers from shooter: I am not a hero by Charley Hardman
"I have never met a cop who's my equal. By these inferiors I and millions of others are harassed, held against our will, spoken to as children, and batted around artificially as cats handle mice. And we are to forget that before the bully class - assigning to itself unnatural, cruel powers of psychological farce - 'saved' us, they first disarmed us.
'But it's only a permit!' wails the besotted dogma spewer (common man).
No, it's an unbalancing impediment and gate at which many flavors of unpublished, regular tyranny are administered."
Out of the Frying Pan by David Codrea
The Myth of Socialization by Retta Fontana
Poisoned spies and conspiracy theories by Garry Reed
"A second reason to believe conspiracy theories is offered by libertarians who point out simply that politicians lie. It's their job. It's what they do. It's their own fault the world sees them as crooks and cover-up cons."
Sharon Outs George
Don't Go Bust: A turncoat narc offers tips on how to move your weed by Keith Plocek
He's not so repentant that he'll give this valuable information away!
"I never could see why the bad folks won't change,
or why the good ones want to."
Waylon Jennings
"You got to tell me brave captain,
why are the wicked so strong?
How do the angels get to sleep
when the devil leaves the porchlight on?"
Tom Waits
