Came across this post by +Edwin Perello via +Steven Sudit.

While I disagree that property (a loaded word) is the root of all evil, I do think it's time the real libertarians separate themselves from the fakes.

Business value via Ayn Rand Objectivism is isolationist in nature and severely underestimates the value of those around you. The right to self-interest must inherently, simultaneously and logically accept the right to self-interest of others. This is a simple but apparently true error in a large part of the co-opted liberty movement. Liberty means freedom not for me, or you, or the individual alone but for everyone at once. Self-interest is not a license to abandon the interests of others. It is in fact a requirement to ensure the possibility of all self-interest at once. You cannot have a market by yourself. And the wealth of the market stems from the success of everyone around you, not from you alone.

In which the dogs please the pigs by explaining to the sheep that they are dicks.

Gary Johnson now polling at 6% nationally, and is suing the two parties for debate access.

"If the lawsuit is successful, this year's CPD-sponsored debates will either expand to include the Libertarian candidates as well as the Green Party ticket of Massachusetts physician Jill Stein and Pennsylvania anti-poverty advocate Cheri Honkala, or be canceled."

I don't think anyone objects to companies producing things. The objection is to corporatism. We can all have iPhones without corporatism.

This reminds me of the old socialist "you use our roads" argument. You can have roads with or without goverments.

One of the problems in politics today (maybe all time?) is that people immediately knee-jerk one direction or another. But the concepts that Elizabeth Warren promotes are much more rooted in philosophy than typical political jargon. She's making a structured case for her political position.

This is a good thing: instead of talking about symptoms she's bringing the conversation over to the root systems. We're all better off talking about root causes and rooted decision making.

The problem with figurehead leaders like Romney, Obama, Bush and Pelosi is that they don't have any underlying principle that they are attempting to accomplish, it's just vague party talking points. There is no foundation. With principled leaders you not only know what you are getting but why you are getting it. And on this foundation we can truly evaluate what works and stop what doesn't work instead of arguing endlessly through spin and biased media jargon.

I don't agree at all with Warren's ideas, but in a democratic situation (which we are all stuck in currently) I'd much rather engage with someone who has thought through their position than a puppet.

As always, I'm interested in the dynamics of social thought. If all you want to do is call Warren a bitch I'm not interested.

Mitt Romney's economic plan for America is to literally talk about how much Obama sucks.

I like how this just happens and everyone's like "OK, cool."

EDIT: only one, unreliable source of this information

Here's the problem as I see it: there is a false dichotomy being played out. Elizabeth Warren is neither wrong or right. Government can be great and it can also suck. Privatization can be great and it can also suck. There is a spectrum of good and bad and mediocre examples of all of these. There are simply many different ways for a society to succeed.

My objection is when members of a society have no choice about which solution they would like to participate in. I don't like the false dichotomy because it perpetuates the notion that there must only be one social contract for everybody.

Interventionism.

Much more absurd than the tax is what they are doing with the revenue: promoting Christmas trees. Why does the federal government need to be involved in promoting anything? This is so ridiculous.

You didn't build that.....monopoly.

It absolutely blows my mind how unscrupulously phony Romney is.

‎"Where you do think Paul Ryan diverges from libertarians?"
"On every position."

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One of the definite values of Google Plus is how many photographers/artists are on here, adding so much beauty and perspective to the stream. Here are some good photographers I like following. What photographers do you follow?

+Ranjan Saraswati
+Jason Hill
+Aya Sakaguchi
+Mike Spinak
+Thorn Button
+Thomas Hawk
+Leanne Staples
+Mark Forman
+Vincent Zegna
+Mahmood Syed Faheem
And, +Helminadia Ranford:

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Took a trip last year to Lake district area...it was cold...but amazing place for sure :)

At best, Keynes cannot predict markets. So then how can you act in a preemptive way?

"The actual unemployment rate has been consistently above Romer and Bernstein’s worse case scenario for the economy – and by a considerable margin."

Why the secrecy? If Bradley Manning committed such terrible acts then there should be no problem prosecuting him publicly. Right?

Racists aren't smart enough to understand economics.

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Good question.

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Question for the Occupy Wall Street people -

Why aren't you protesting the two WARS we are in?

Why aren't you demanding the immediate withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq and Afghanistan?

Why aren't you demanding an immediate END to these wars?

Just curious.

If I could muster a few thousand people for a protest.... the ONGOING support of these wars would be on the top of my list of things to protest....

Kevin Carson discusses the potential impact of counter-economics in contrast to the occupy movement.

Absolute nightmarish scenario watching him proudly discard due process while the crowd nervously twists up and down, unsure what exactly is going on. The confusion is palpable, especially when he violates the right-left rhetoric only long enough to agree with Obama when it comes to shredding the constitution.

#Obamney2012

Trying to list some of the more interesting political posters on here for a friend new to G+ to start following: +Eddie Boss

Who are some of your favorite political posters on here? Feel free to suggest.

+Christopher Cantwell
+Ian Geldard
+Rick Jones
+Matthew Desjardin (Mox)
+Finnian Cornelison
+Jeremy Dahl
+Paul Lagle
+Michael Moore (no, not the filmmaker)
+Miles Dunn
+Joshua Roy
+Darrell Loudermilk

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Relevant.

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Still one of the funniest Family Guy clips ever.

ChickfilA, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Chick-fil-A: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Chick. fil. A.

"The federal standards will pre-empt state rules in at least one respect: the national health plans will automatically be eligible to compete against other private insurers in the new exchanges, regardless of whether they have been certified as meeting the standards of those exchanges."

Why is this the first I am hearing of this? Did legislators just sneak the Public Option through the back door somehow?

Have you noticed when you copy text from certain sites lately you get an extra URL bit added to your paste? Well that's Tynt, the Copy/Paste jerks.

‎"I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it." - Madeleine Albright, 1996.

What was worth it? We eventually just invaded Iraq so what was worth it? What are we doing now with Iran? What's different this time around? Why are we punishing ordinary people in Iran with economic sanctions when we know it's not worth it?

At what point does free speech become provocation - like the shouting "fire" in the theater example. Free speech is important, but it's not like it's a simple guideline. Youtube has to weigh many options, and they are a private enterprise. As far as I can tell they have acted independently so far.

Why would "first responders" ever even need to commandeer private routers? Are "first responders" that technologically bereft that they cannot function without private routers? Wouldn't it make much more sense for them to have a reliable, tested, and durable network of their own?

"When a user sends a picture or document, it will be encrypted, digitally “shredded” into thousands of pieces, and temporarily stored in a “Secure Cloud Broker” until it is transmitted to the recipient. Silent Circle, which charges $20 a month for its service, has no way of accessing the encrypted files because the “key” to open them is held on the users’ devices and then deleted after it has been used to open the files. Janke has also committed to making the source code of the new technology available publicly “as fast as we can,” which means its security can be independently audited by researchers."

In the unlikely event he wins, he'll have something in common with the man who imprisons him. How fun!

Dudes helping out other dudes.

If Google+ were as important to modern life as gmail, then I could see the point. But if these guys don't post on FB or anywhere else the point made here is completely invalid. G+ isn't something that everyone needs or even wants to use.

This is so foolish. Marijuana has already been proven to help you win gold medals. She should be the team captain.

#arithmetic   #dnc2012  

I agree with +Stefan Molyneux. But the problem for me (and I think some of the OWS protesters) is that while it may originate with the state, I don't think it's just the state any more. We're not talking about Starbucks here, we're talking about Goldman Sachs, Lockheed Martin, Exxon and Wal-Mart. These companies and others like them literally write legislation. The difference is becoming blurred.

Yes, the state enables them to do this, but at some point the balance of power shifts from the kings to the kingmakers. Not sure if we are there yet, but it's worth considering.

OK I am addicted to these stupid things.

A dissenting piece on Hitchens from Greenwald. Fairly poignant and reflexive considering how little Hitchens cared for eulogy and preferred honesty over pageantry or custom.

"Subordinating his brave and intellectually rigorous defense of atheism, Hitchens’ glee over violence, bloodshed, and perpetual war dominated the last decade of his life."

Tomorrow will be the most productive day evar.

This is the most awesome thing I have read in a while. #ndaa violates the 1st amendment.

Ralph Nader: “Libertarians like Ron Paul are on our side on civil liberties. They’re on our side against the military-industrial complex. They’re on our side against Wall Street. They’re on our side for investor rights. That’s a foundational convergence,” he exhorts. “It’s not just itty-bitty stuff.”

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It looks like to me the police are surrounding the protesters.
http://anonops.blogspot.com/

#occupywallstreet

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Its to dark for pictures but the east and west side of the block is covered with cops caring zip handcuffs and portable fencing. They are about to flank the protesters and start arresting!

Google will be combining their individual product privacy policies tomorrow. Is this a scary event?

These two sides will argue this classic discussion until they are blue in the face and neither will get what they want because there is only one state. That means that at any given time, only a single implementation will be forced upon everyone. And that single implementation is neither capitalist or socialist, it's some kind of disgusting authoritarian corporate state that nobody wants.

Impressionism

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Windows 7 for iPad. Free. (Yes, really.)

Interesting reddit thread on how a deaf person thinks.

"I'm deaf.....So, to answer your question, I think in ASL (American Sign Language). I guess deaf people's thinking process is little different from hearing people. When I think, it's like I'm seeing myself signing from either my point of view or third person view and when I'm imagine a hearing person speaking, I imagine him/her actually signing instead of speaking because I can understand him/her that way."

In a letter announcing its sponsorship withdrawal, Philips wrote that it was concerned the commission's work "may appear to support bi-partisan" instead of "non-partisan" politics. YWCA similarly wrote that it was dropping out because it is a "non-partisan" women's organization.

(1) Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd;
(2) Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow;
(3) Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to board their cow at the farm of a farmer;
(4) The Zinniker Plaintiffs’ private contract does not fall outside the scope of the States’ police power;
(5) Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice;
(6) DATCP [Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection] . . . had jurisdiction to regulate the Zinniker Plaintiffs’ conduct.

Mitt Romney's statements taken apart pretty soundly by "Guns, Germs, and Steel" author Jared Diamond.

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Good Guy Vader

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According the US Military, Wikileaks is an enemy of the state on the level of al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Note that Wikileaks as an organization has not ever committed any acts of violence nor promoted them, but merely attempted to provide a platform for whistleblowing.

Under NDAA, anyone could easily be viewed as a threat to the state even by just reading Wikileaks. And then indefinitely detained, tortured, etc....

Take a second to notice how this works. Try to ignore the points both the Young Turks and Lou Dobbs make and rather focus on the larger, more general effect of what is happening here.

1. It immediately sets up a false dichotomy of liberal vs conservative. Everybody will fall into line either agreeing disagreeing because the opinion is so heavy-handed and absolute. There is no room for a third opinion or nuance when complex concepts are reduced like this. You've just been boxed up into one of two camps whether you wanted to be or not.
2. The vilification placed upon the topic creates an atmosphere of hatred and despair (large, sweeping agendas that out of our control). This is responded to with ridicule and return vilification. The dialogue is never about anything real but rather more focused on loaded meta concepts (liberal Hollywood, agendas and indoctrination, and also massive outrage).
3. The outrage is a poor response, this is exactly the desired effect of this kind of "story". A strongly divided and angry group of people cannot be rational and effective as a collective society. This is a validation of the false dichotomy and perpetuates the myth of a black and white world.

#Obamney2012 I coined it first.

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Perfect.

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How to update your Facebook status from Google+ without an extension:

1. Access Facebook.
2. Go to http://facebook.com/mobile
3. Copy your email address unique.
4. Go to page Circles + Google
5. Add the e-mail from Facebook in a new circle (Hint, call the circle of “Facebook update”)
6. When you want to publish something on Facebook, simply add the circle.

Great infographic, or greatest infographic?

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Wow

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Erupting volcanoes photographed from space
An image taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) of a large plume of smoke, steam and ash erupting from the Sarychev volcano on the Kuril Islands, Russia. It is thought that the eruption has caused a hole to form in the cloud layer above it.

Informative infographic.

Insulting language will no longer be a criminal offense in the U.K.

The Pirate Bay is "going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air. This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war."

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Did the 13 year olds come up with this word or was it some lame adult?

"The Pentagon is fielding a new weapon called the Switchblade, a 5.5-pound precision-attack drone that can be carried and fired by one person -- a capability sure to be envied by terrorists."

Wait. Other people can use drones too?!?!?

Here's a cool idea for the plot of a hip, action-thriller movie set in some alternate dystopian universe: a country is spying on itself by secretly harnessing ancient security technology BUT it doesn't want the public to know, so it is using hackers to send DDOS attacks against whistleblowing websites. Everyone says "that sucks" and then goes and watches the Olympics.

If you decide to try this out, let me know who wins for you.

This is not a form of brainwashing

This is not a form of brainwashing

This is not a form of brainwashing

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Huh

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Update: photos from the SD card that provide clues are in the album

For Sale: Canon EOS 1000D
Description: only used underwater once, in the Pacific Ocean, for approximately one year.

Actual story: found off the end of a wharf in Deep Bay, BC while I was diving on a job for the harbour. I removed the SD card, cleaned it up, stuck it in a card reader and after being underwater in a corroding camera since August 2010 - it works! Approximately 50 pictures on the card from a family vacation. If you know a fire fighter from British Columbia that won the Pacific Regional Firefit competition in 2010, has a lovely wife and (now) 2 year old daughter - let me know. I would love to get them their vacation photos :)

There are other clues on within the pictures - I think I should be able to track them down (not sure he'll want the camera back tho).

Just got certified Website .NET Developer Certification for #Sitecore CMS 6.5! Woot.

Heh

Self-sculpting Sand

New algorithms could enable heaps of ‘smart sand’ that can assume any shape, allowing spontaneous formation of new tools or duplication of broken mechanical parts.

"Arguing the case for the Obama administration, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. defended the law as a constitutional exercise of congressional power under the charter’s commerce clause to regulate interstate commerce."

Wait. How is health care interstate commerce?

I don't know if "it's your fault" is the right way to phrase it, but to me this is the right take on the Google's privacy problem this week.

Google is not a stalker or Peeping Tom. When you "plus one" something you are giving them data about what you like, which they then can use to improve the services they provide you. This isn't about privacy at all. It's about information. If you want ads all over the internet that have nothing to do with you and no integrated services than you can shut off your cookies. Your subsequent internet experience will be terrible.

:D

In case you care, the US is installing cameras everywhere with facial recognition technology.

The problem with the "Social Contract" is that there is only one.

Chase Bank just set me a snail mail informing me that their records indicate I don't want any offers from them. It also informs me they are "updating [my] preferences" to state that I DO want offers from them, unless I fill out a form saying I don't. #fuckthesebanks

‎"The executive claims that residential customers have thus far shown little interest in TWC's top internet tiers. "A very small fraction of our customer base" ultimately choose those options, she said."

Read: "A very small fraction of our customer base can afford those options."

Wallace Monument, Stirling, Scotland

This is the social contract: that there is one and only one way. The very powers that make this good also make it evil. If Santorum were ever elected president, all of the arguments for the social contract would instantly look like a really bad idea while he's writing federally imposed laws banning gay marriage, requiring prayer in schools and putting MMJ patients in jail etc...

Voluntary association, where these laws could not be imposed upon you without your consent, is a structure that allows people to select from multiple options. This keeps the power wielded in check - pinned directly to popular participation. Here in the US, you have to participate or go to jail.

The GOP Then and Now

This is the funniest thing I found on the internet today.

Cool social contract, bro.

A very in-depth review of #Google vs. #Bing search results in light of recently announced changes to Google's search algorithm.

In summary: "I disagree with these atheists, therefore I will stereotype all atheists as dicks."

New idea for a NYT New Yorker op-ed piece. Make a bunch of shit up and then say it's crazy.

The ACA is such a massive mess.

Really? We're talking about utterly harmless medical marijuana and they send in the "Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force"? This "crime" situation does not need to happen at all.

“This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high. At the same time, companies from that country is chasing a competitor from other countries, bribing police and lawmakers, threatening political parties and physically hunting people from our crew. And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information.”

This is a fairly amazing conversation, illustrating two clearly contrasting point of views (points of view?) on American foreign policy with global implications.

Godspeed you, Pirate Bay.

“All communication with users goes through TPB’s load balancer, which is a disk-less server with all the configuration in RAM. The load balancer is not in the same country as the transit-router or the cloud servers,” The Pirate Bay told us.

This is over a year old, but I thought it was a good point of view.

It's obviously not high up on their list to add a feature that cuts into revenue and that nobody respects anyway.

Sad to lose him. I guess he's in heaven now, though.

Yessss!

Americans pay four times as much as the French for an Internet triple-play package—phone, cable TV and Internet—at an average of $160 per month versus $38 per month.