Face it: Google runs your life. The search giant turned web ecosystem owns your email, calendar, and even your voicemails. Your most important data lives on Google’s servers. What you may not realize is that, despite the quality of Google’s products, someone else is doing it better—and placing all your eggs in Google’s basket isn’t necessarily the best thing. Here’s a look at alternative services you can use in place of Google’s webapps.

Photo remixed from originals by Jan Kranendonk (Shutterstock) and Alfonso de Tomas (Shutterstock).

You might want to move away from Google entirely, whether you’re tired of things like the Google Plus-ification of your search results or the fact that Google’s mining ridiculous amounts of data and selling you to advertisers, or maybe you’re just plain tired of Google creating services it doesn’t actually improve over time. You may scoff at the idea of using Bing or other less popular competitors, but they’re quite good—sometimes even better—than Google. We’ve just become too entrenched to notice.

If you want to take a serious look at the alternatives, we did some digging and a lot of experimentation to find the best alternatives to Google’s most popular services (and we alsoasked you guys to share your favorites). Most of these services are still from big companies, like Microsoft or Yahoo!, but we’ve tried to include a few services off the beaten path as well. The fact of the matter is just that the highest quality services around are going to be from the companies with the most resources. Below, we’ve listed the best Google alternatives in each category, as well as a few runners-up we think are worth checking out.

CONTINUED at Lifehacker.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday proposed a ballot initiative that would ask Californians to raise taxes on themselves.

Facing huge deficits despite $10 billion in budget cuts last year, California needs new tax dollars in order to avoid catastrophic cuts to schools and government services for the elderly, Governor Brown said.

His plan includes a 1 percent income-tax-rate increase for individuals making more than $250,000 per year, and a 2 percent rate increase for those making more than $500,000. It would also increase the state sales tax by half a cent to 7.75 percent.

In total, at least 10 initiatives that propose tax increases are vying to qualify for the 2012 ballot in California – a sign that the state that led the national tax revolt with Proposition 13 in 1978 might now be considering at least a partial reversal of course.

With many states still focused only on cuts, such a bold statement from California could reverberate nationwide – either giving other states cover to try similar measures or showing that, even with budgets in dire straits, tax increases are a political impossibility.

“A victory for tax increases in California could encourage similar moves in other states,” says Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. “If the tax measure goes down to defeat – in a blue state running a huge deficit – the effect would be to chill such proposals in other states for many years to come.”

Brown’s proposal is projected to raise $7 billion per year and would expire in 2016. On Monday, he dismissed the idea of going through the legislature, where a two-thirds vote is needed for raising taxes. Republicans blocked Brown’s efforts to raise taxes through the budget process last fiscal year.

CONTINUED at Christian Science Monitor.

According to Professor James Otteson, one of the greatest challenges often presented against individual liberty and free markets is that they are atomizing. Essentially, it is claimed that people within a commercial society begin to view one another as competitors. This critique goes as far back as at least Karl Marx.

Although there is some truth to this, what is often overlooked by these critics is the enormous amount of social cooperation that takes place within a commercial society. For instance, a raggedy old wool coat may seem simple enough, but bringing that coat to the market required countless individuals to cooperate with one another. It required people to raise and take care of sheep, harvest wool, transform wool into a usable material, dye material, cut material, sew material into a coat, and transport the coat to market. Each one of these steps required social cooperation and tools made by other people. This insight goes as far back as at least Adam Smith.

Bringing this insight into the 21st century, with all the goods and services that are available to us, you can begin to see the massive amount of social cooperation that takes place in a modern commercial society.

*Taken from AP.

The federal government is taking on a crucial new role in the nation’s health care, designing a basic benefits package for millions of privately insured Americans. A framework for the Obama administration was released Friday.

The report by independent experts from the Institute of Medicine lays out guidelines for deciding what to include in the new “essential benefits package,” and how to keep it affordable for small businesses and taxpayers, as well as scientifically up to date.

The advisers recommended that the package be built on mid-tier health plans currently offered by small employers, expanded to include certain services such as mental health, and squeezed into a budget. They did not spell out a list of services to cover, but they did say that treatments should be cost-effective.

CONTINUED..

Capitalism: it is a word that for some means freedom, prosperity and the answer to all of our economic woes. To others, probably most in the media and in the Capital Beltway, it is a dirty word. See, capitalism is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language. We can blame sloppy cuntpickles like Michael Moore and Karl Marx for pimping their bullshit view of it to the feeble masses. Granted, it is also those feeble masses that grasp onto that skewed misrepresentation of capitalism without fact checking and looking into it for themselves. People, especially liberals and college aged hipster-hippie hybrids, view capitalism as the supreme force of oppression in the world.

Via TheSwash.com

You should probably read this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this to understand where my economic philosophy is coming from. Anyway, apart from reading those, you should probably already see what is wrong with this movement.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

*This is directed at those who wrote these silly demands and anyone who has adopted them as their own personal demands. I know there are good people protesting that get what’s going on. I tip my hat to the few of you.

Over the last few weeks a new movement has risen from the ashes here in America. I guess when the right has the Tea Party, it should be expected that the left would have to answer with their own grassroots movement. And like the Tea Party, this new movement known as Occupy Wall Street isn’t just comprised of one specific group of people. It is full of people from all different walks of life. There is a melting pot of several different political ideologies and I’m sure many of these people, just like the Tea Party, are convinced that they are doing the right thing to help better our country and save us all from economic peril. Unfortunately, like with many movements in this country, there seems to be some confusion between capitalism and corporatism.

Here are some of these OWS idiots that are really confused by their own maroonish doublespeak.

These people, despite their idiocy, are probably good people they are just unable to allow their view of the world to be challenged, even by logic and reason. I guess protesting blindly is easier than dealing with reality and owning up to your own responsibilities and life decisions.

As far as the OWS organization goes, I know that the “demands” of this group, as posted on their website (here) don’t necessarily fit with everyone who is out protesting against Wall Street, however this group is the driving force of this movement. They have organized this thing from the very beginning. This list of demands should scare anyone with their economic wits about them. It should really frighten anyone with a bit of common sense but I understand why these ideas are attractive to the lazy entitled fucks who chose to go to college but now can’t afford it because they are too busy sitting at rallies to go and apply for a damn job. Sitting on their asses smoking hookahs and strumming guitars with their other underachieving buddies while not even being sure what they are protesting can’t be the cause of their undoing. Nope.. it has to be Wall Street’s fault. But at least they feel good about themselves today!

Anyway, this list of demands from Occupy Wall Street is complete bullshit and doesn’t really make a lick of sense, well to a normal hardworking person that has some basic knowledge in economics anyway. So let me break it down for you line by line and explain to the unenlightened why their strategy isn’t just foolhardy, it is laughable and borderline ridiculous. The problem with it is that it reads like a series of random tweets strung together as a blog. I’ll do my best.

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

M’kay.. if you can’t see all the things that are wrong with this demand I’m not sure I can help you but I’ll try.

You see, in a nutshell a “living wage” is, according to Wikipedia, “the minimum hourly income necessary for a worker to meet basic needs (for an extended period of time or for a lifetime).” The needs included in this are shelter, food, utilities, transport, health care and even recreation. Essentially, a person working forty hours a week should be able to afford these things without having to get a second job.

A living wage is incredibly problematic. First of all, it doesn’t actually help the impoverished and long-term it will cause more harm than good for everyone. One of the reasons is due to the high-cost of implementing and managing this sort of legislation. Like with everything the government does, where does the money come from? It comes from the taxpayers (that’s you). However, I understand that this movement thinks that there are seemingly unlimited funds that can be ganked from evil corporations.

Truth is, even though you OWS peeps believe that corporations should be contributing to this stupid idea, they don’t have bottomless pits for pockets. To be forced to pay up in an effort to give fair living wages to those who may be less-skilled prevents a corporation from giving more money to incentivize the highly-skilled workers. Eventually, the highly- skilled workers will stop giving a fuck and no one will benefit. You can’t ride on coattails forever and without consequence.

Another problem with living wages is that if you give someone an inch (especially a lazy entitled fucksack) they are going to take seventy miles. How long would it be before lobbying groups start demanding that their products or services are essential for man’s survival. If these lobbyists succeed, which some will, how much will the living wage have to increase? It is a never-ending cycle of shit that we would never be able to shake off. Besides, all this whining about corporations and lobbyists corrupting politicians and empowering Wall Street would become pretty damn hypocritical if this is the route this takes. Just a little bit of common sense should reveal that this IS the route it would take and therefore this is completely counter-productive to what the Occupy Wall Street organizers truly want. And is that inflation that I smell? How else are you going to sustain an unsustainable economic policy?

The first demand also calls for an end to free trade and for the government to re-impose tariffs on ALL foreign goods. This is completely asinine and it is obvious that the author of these demands has never read Friedman, Mises, Rothbard, Hayek or Hazlitt. Tariffs are bad for business, as is an elimination of free trade. Not only is it bad for business but it is bad for foreign policy. It divides us from the rest of the world and builds barriers instead of bridges. When we all cooperate and have the freedom to choose who we do business with, we all win.

Tariffs do not benefit family farming and manufacturing as the above demand states. Keeping it as simple as I can, tariffs make products that reach our shores from foreign lands cost more. Who pays for that cost? You do! So does this force you to buy American? Does that really matter? Either way you are forced to pay more. This fallacy that foreign companies delivering cheap goods is somehow immoral and destructive to our economy is ridiculous. This fear of jobs being shipped overseas has become a regurgitated talking point that represents a lack of understanding of how we all benefit from free trade.

The last thing this enormous first demand calls for is a twenty dollar an hour minimum wage! What the fuck? So do you want the living wage or the minimum wage? A living wage is typically higher than a minimum wage but a twenty dollar an hour wage is insane and well beyond the amount it would take for someone to live. This calls for everyone to make a MINIMUM of $41,600 per year! There are 312,000,000 people in the United States. When you multiply the number of people by the demanded minimum yearly salary you get $12,979,200,000,000 dollars! That’s just under $13 trillion! Our entire national debt that is strangling us is $14.7 trillion! So essentially these idiots want us to somehow magically dish out almost the equivalent to our entire national debt on a yearly basis! Nope, these people are perfectly sane economic wizards.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Do I even need to tap into this one? Have you paid attention to the criticism of Obamacare over the last few years? If after just these two demands you can’t see the socialist, if not communist, tendencies of this movement, you have to be completely ignorant to the fundamentals of either philosophy. In retrospect, this is just something else that these punk ass parasites want for free without having to really work for it. The people leading this movement are calling for the government to grow exponentially in a way that will take care of absolutely every aspect of their lives. Some people just refuse to be adults and make their own mark in the world. It’s easier to have everyone else wipe your ass apparently.

But I shouldn’t be so insensitive, I shouldn’t come across as so unkind. What I should do is be tolerant of this idiocy, right? I should explain why it is not a good idea to be a complete fucking loser and a burdensome leech.

Truth is, I’ve covered the health care issue already in my article “The Five Developmental Stages of the Progressive Beast, Part V: Barack H. Obama, Hope, Change & Health Care“. I don’t really need to rewrite what I covered there in a whopping 1,900 words. I think I, as well as several dozen other writers or pundits, have been outspoken against the tyranny of universal health care for quite some time. I’m tired of beating a dead horse. Unfortunately, you still unenlightened folks aren’t tired of asking for handouts and welfare that you have no intention of ever paying back because to do so, for you, would be immoral. However, for you, it is morally right to expect others to pick up the tab because you haven’t developed the skills to compete and survive in the real world.

The thing is, universal health care isn’t going to solve anyone’s problem. Medical care is expensive, no one denies that but eliminating competition and forcing people into a poorly-run government alternative is only going to make the problem much worse. Besides, it is government involvement that makes health care expensive right now! So how is more government involvement going to fix the problem? A question I always ask is, “What has the government ever done well?” Apparently to these dreamy OWS organizers the answer is “everything”. If you want to continue down the road of crony capitalism and corporatism, go for universal health care. For this group to not see the hypocrisy of this request boggles my mind.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Man oh man, this is really their third demand. Shouldn’t this be part of the first demand that calls for a living wage? It is like the author of these demands jotted down a quick thought and forgot to re-organize this list before publishing it. In any event, I guess we are revisiting the living wage issue.

So just when you thought the living wage demand was crazy, thy are now demanding it regardless of employment! So do they want minimum wage or a living wage? Which is it? Why isn’t this made clear. I assume that the minimum wage is for those working and the living wage is for those who are or aren’t working. Am I to assume that they are calling for a collection of both? Now a living wage is usually more than a minimum wage and I broke down how much it would cost to give out their proposed minimum wage of twenty bucks an hour. So imagine getting the equivalent to twenty bucks and hour (minimum wage) and then more than twice that (living wage)! Wow! There would be no more poverty! Everyone would at least be in the middle class. Too bad no one can afford this and in the end, this would make us all dead broke.

This demand is completely and utterly preposterous! To even entertain the idea that this is somehow possible is fucking ludicrous! They might as well ask for ten bars of gold to be handed to them by leprechauns every morning they wake up and grace us with their presence.

At the end of the day, who the hell is going to work to provide for those who do not want to work? Where is the incentive? How long would it be before everyone quit to milk the living wage regardless of employment status? When no one is working, then who is paying for it? The answer: no one.

Demand four: Free college education.

Oh Jesus, here we go. Yes education is expensive but there is also education that isn’t expensive. Almost anyone can go to community college and get a good education for next to nothing compared to big universities. At the same time, who is to say that we all need college?

College isn’t for everyone but we’re all programed to accept the fact that this is what someone is supposed to do after high school, just as we’re all programed to get married, have kids and buy a house. The reason I am even using this as an example is to point out that if college is free, everyone is probably going to go. Well, maybe not everyone but a lot more people will go to free college than go to college that they’d have to pay for. While it may seem good to encourage more people to expand their education beyond the high school level, it will be our tax dollars paying for all these half-assed students looking for a free lunch.

Apart from all that, why in the hell would you want the government to handle your continued education when they can’t even effectively run the current public education system? While test scores and student performances continue to plummet, you want to introduce this system into universities? Do you really want a surgeon to cut you open that was educated by a public university? Really? You do?

Like health care, part of the reason why education is so expensive is because of government meddling and their involvement. The crony capitalism and corporatism has infiltrated the colleges and driven costs up. Basically OWS calls for an end to these things by calling for more of these things. Why? Because they don’t have a clue how this all works and really, I doubt they care.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

I had a huge article debunking all the bullshit surrounding alternative energy. Read my article “Recycled Myths & Renewable Scams” for an extensive analysis of every major alternative energy source. I’m not going to rehash all my talking points from that massive article but I will give you a brief rundown.

To start, the entire world is currently dependent on fossil fuels for everything. In fact, you can’t even create most of these other alternative energy sources without using fossil fuels in the process. Fast tracking a process to bring fossil fuels to an end makes absolutely no sense if you understand how this stuff works. OWS obviously doesn’t.

Now there is nothing wrong with trying to work towards getting away from fossil fuels but one has to be realistic about it. Every other energy source comes with its own big list of pros and cons. Just because a bag of goods is sold to you as something, doesn’t mean that the sales pitch was accurate. This is the case with most of these green energy alternatives. You have to keep in mind that the green movement has a pretty diabolical agenda but then again so does Occupy Wall Street based off of their list of demands.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

The question I have is that if they want us to use an entire trillion for infrastructure, can we subtract it from their living wage and minimum wage demands? Nope, I doubt they’d go for that. At least they don’t have a problem forcing the rest of us to pay for it.

The fact that they are asking for this makes me realize that they have no idea how much a trillion dollars really is. Do they think that Wall Street or the government can just write a trillion dollar check? They’re aware that we are already trillions in debt right? Oh but the Federal Reserve can just print more money right? Yeah, the problem with this whole movement is they don’t even know who the enemy is, more on the Fed at the end of this article.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.

Awesome, these parasites want us to throw around another magic trillion that we can somehow manifest from thin air. This demand is equally ridiculous as the last one and virtually the same.

Sure we need to take care of our environment but lets be real about it. Where is this money going to come from? I mean the running tab for these demands is insane and we’re only about halfway through this list here! Again, these people just don’t know how the financial system works and their impression of economics is like something from a Narnia book. I guess shit just magically appears! Must be a cool dream.

As far as the nuclear power point, again alternative energy is nowhere where it needs to be to take over.  Nuclear power may seem scary when buying into all the hype but it is an efficient source of energy and pretty damn safe when managed properly and not struck by a combination of earthquakes and tsunamis. I already debunked many of the anti-nuclear arguments in my article “Recycled Myths & Renewable Scams“.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Actually, everyone should have equal rights if they follow the Constitution. If individual rights are applied to all we would all be able to live equally. However even in the days of the Founding Fathers individual rights were grossly violated as slavery still existed. Point is, if people would respect individual rights we would all be on a level playing field. We don’t need an amendment to legislate this we just need to follow what has already been written.

What OWS is calling for here however is actually a violation of individual rights. Once again doublethink and doublespeak take over and they try to fight against what they perceive as tyranny by employing the same method that they are fighting against. Let me explain their folly.

Essentially, these guys want the government to come in and regulate fairness. This never works, in fact to force people to comply to this “fairness” and “equality” creates an imbalance by having a negative impact on the forced party’s individual and property rights. You can’t force people to play nice and to do business with each other. I mean, you can but at the end of the day it is tyrannical and it violates their constitutional rights.

This is the same argument that Barry Goldwater used, which ultimately didn’t get him elected but just like then, the people today can’t see the forest for the trees. Civil rights laws were tyrannical and monstrous and only made the leviathan bigger. This is just another classic example of how bad consequences can occur as the result of good intentions. Although these OWS shitcocks don’t care, they just want as much free shit as they can get.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

I don’t oppose this demand in theory but I do have my two cents to add. If we were to allow open borders migration, we would have to end the welfare system as it is. In fact, I wrote about this in my article “Conservatives & Aliens“. However, following the track record of this group’s demands can only lead one to the conclusion that they want to implement this with the welfare system still intact. If that were the case, this would be a fiscal nightmare!

People would flock here and our population would explode all because everyone would be trying to get a living wage as well as a job with a minimum wage of twenty bucks an hour. I laid out how horrible this would work out with our current population numbers, well imagine how bad it would be with an explosion in immigration. Again, who would pay for this? These OWS kids haven’t really thought this shit through.

Besides, eventually we would run out of money. It would happen pretty fast mind you and then where would these people go, what would we do? We’d all be poor and trapped in an overpopulated mess with a shattered economy. Wall Street would certainly fall but so would America. There is absolutely no way we could ever sustain these idiotic policies. Even a kindergarten economist should see that!

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Here’s a demand from this group that I fully agree with. In all honesty, the electoral system in this country is corrupt and time and time again these ballot machines have failed. There have been tons of issues over the years, most notably the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore and the 2004 presidential election between George W. Bush and John Kerry. There were also some fishy outcomes during the 2010 midterm elections. Harry Reid’s sketchy victory over Sharron Angle comes to mind.

Essentially, the process we have now is pretty fucked and unreliable. It makes one think that this whole thing is rigged. Not to jump the gun or anything but what is one to think with these closed, secretive electoral processes? We need to control our votes and everything needs to be out in the open. To suggest otherwise is to accept and perpetuate electoral corruption. Why would they want it to be so shadowy if they weren’t tinkering with something? The ruling class is tricky and they will stop at nothing to dictate the direction of government.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

This is beyond idiotic! In fact, this may be the dumbest damn thing on this list of demands and that’s saying a lot! Did Tyler Durden write this? At least he took the bull by the horns and took out the credit card companies like a champ. However Hollywood heroes are typically just that, Hollywood heroes. These people have obviously watched ‘Fight Club’ too many times and are convinced that this is the morally right thing to do. Ah.. that youthful angst!

So OWS really wants to erase any trace of debt whatsoever? So essentially, what they are saying is that they are unwilling to man up to their responsibilities as human beings and they are unwilling to fulfill their contractual obligations with whomever because fuck it, who wants to be forced to pay for what they use. These people are so weak and deluded that it is disgusting. Don’t give me that evil corporations preying on innocent victims bullshit, you idiots just don’t feel that you are obligated to pay the price for the things you have benefitted from. Everything should be free! So again, who the fuck is going to pay for this? Someone has to pay the debt, you can’t just wipe it out unless you intend for EVERYTHING to collapse. Are these people really this fucking ignorant?

Here’s an example. If I am a bank and a customer comes to me for a loan, I should be able to look at his credit and determine if the person deserves a loan and if they do, what the terms should be based off of their own personal fiscal responsibility. Why would I give a loan to someone who has horrible credit and who obviously doesn’t intend to pay me back?

This whole thing is so ridiculous, trying to even argue against it is pointless because the person who would support such a demand is a helpless weakling whose word is worth dirt. Man the fuck up people you’re embarrassing yourselves!

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Are you shitting me? This really just goes with the last demand and my points are virtually the same with this one. Credit agencies exist for a reason and that reason is to inform us how others we do business with handle their money. Granted credit agencies are in the pocket of Wall Street and help contribute to the corruption of corporatism but to flat out outlaw them is just careless and brainless. The pure and utter stupidity of these demands is mind-boggling!

Man oh man do these fucktards want to absolve themselves of any responsibility whatsoever! Let’s fight for a new America where we can be free of tyranny, responsibility, obligation, tuition and our word! I’m surprised there isn’t a demand for weekly drop-offs of Slim Jims, Djarums, Sno Balls and Red Bull.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

Damn it I’m spent. Do I need to rip this shit apart anymore? Unions are garbage and they stifle productivity, eliminate jobs and do way more harm than good. Not to mention that they are typically full of thugs ready to crack your skull open if you oppose them. Unions shut doors, they certainly don’t open them.

Final Statement: These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

These fuckers are so goddamned delusional that this whole laughable list has lost its charm and the funny is gone. Has a single person involved in organizing this movement and their demands ever read a real book on economics? Maybe they’re just recycling some indoctrinated bullshit that they got from some Marxist professor they don’t intend to pay. That final statement in reference to this list is so nonsensical it gave me a migraine and made me throw up a little bit.

These demands would destroy our economy, cripple our country and cost us countless jobs. We would be in one hell of a shitpickle if these totalitarian stooges had their way. It makes me wonder who is actually behind this movement because there is absolutely no mention of the Federal Reserve, who they should be fighting against instead of Wall Street. There is no mention of our involvement in all these wars: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the War on Drugs and the War on Poverty. There’s no calling for Obama to be held accountable for his crimes and his involvement in Wall Street-Washington cronyism.

The best place to start looking at is at the author of this list of demands. His name is Lloyd J. Hart. Apparently he intends to go to his own rally but he needs a ride. To me that is hilarious and says so much about the cockpuppets running this show. I’m surprised the list of demands doesn’t call for free Subaru Outbacks. See for yourself in the picture to the right, that was taken from his profile on the Occupy Wall Street website. I hope you found a fucking ride Lloyd. By the way, check out his Facebook (here), which he no longer uses after trolling and spamming people while only acquiring 16 likes.

It has also come out in the last few days that people like George Soros and Van Jones are supporting Occupy Wall Street. Why is this not surprising? While they publicly offer support, I wonder if they themselves are pulling any strings?

You see people, you have to know who and what you are dealing with. I know many of you involved in this movement don’t follow this bullshit philosophy or want these moronic demands, you just want to end the tyranny that exists between Washington and Wall Street. The people organizing this want so much more however. Realistically, they are calling for pure totalitarianism. These people believe that the more the government gets involved in these matters, the better off we’ll be. Yeah, that same government that is owned by Wall Street. Do you see the hypocrisy?

The problem is, for those of you who truly want to end the tyranny of the financial system, you are fighting the wrong battle. Yes Wall Street is corrupt but the real battle that needs to be fought is with the Federal Reserve. I implore all of you that haven’t to read G. Edward Griffin’s book “The Creature From Jekyll Island“. You need to educate yourself on the tyranny and unlimited power of the Federal Reserve. Until we address the real enemy, going after Wall Street is pointless.

To those of you going down there because it just “feels right” and it “feels good”, stop being fucking joiners and spend some of that time sitting around in the park by putting a book in your hands and educating yourself on what it is you think you know. This country breeds too many weak parasites trying to suck the blood of those of us who truly work hard and earn the fruits of our labor. Don’t be one of those vampires, they are the ones who create these problems that they are trying to solve.

Not everyone is a joiner though, there are guys like the dude in the video below that give me hope because not everyone down there can be classified as blind sheep acting on an impulse.

How refreshing. At least someone down there knows the enemy.

*Taken from the Guardian.

Earlier this week, two senators sent a letter to the US Attorney General, copied to the Drugs Enforcement Agency, alerting them to the existence of an underground website called Silk Road. Like a lawless eBay, Silk Road users can, according to the senators, “freely purchase and sell illegal drugs . . . from cocaine and heroin, to ecstasy and marijuana”. For this they are using the digital currency Bitcoin.

Created in 2009 by an anonymous Japanese computer science student using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin was initially adopted by hackers as a means of bartering services. Now it is fast becoming the unofficial currency of the web.

Anyone can buy virtual “coins” at a variety of online exchanges, using major global currency – but they aren’t just used for drugs. The list of legitimate businesses that accept Bitcoin is growing all the time, from legal services to landscape gardening, video game retailers to makers of alpaca socks. With one Bitcoin currently traded at around £9.22, the value of the whole Bitcoin economy is estimated at around £32.6m and growing fast.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from the Examiner.

It looks like Sony has finally answered the question left probing some gamers minds as they struggle to cling to the fleeting trending topic of the PlayStation Network being down and now PlayStation Network being up. Sony is offering some great games as a “Thank You” for dealing with the inconvenience in addition to some other perks as well.

First off gamers will get to choose 2 out of the following 5 PS3 games to keep for free forever: Dead Nation, inFamous, LittleBigPlanet, Super Stardust HD, Wipeout HD + Fury. On PlayStation Portable you will be allowed to select 2 from LittleBigPlanet, ModNation Racers, Pursuit Force, and Killzone Liberation.

In addition to these free game selections retail rental films will be available through a new “On Us” program. Exactly which movies will be announced shortly.

Non-PlayStation Plus members will get 30 days free PlayStation Plus. Existing members will get 60 days free. In addition we have more details regarding PlayStation Home and Music Unlimited goodies:

• “Existing Music Unlimited Premium Trial subscription members will receive an additional 30 days of free premium subscription.
• Additional 30 days + time lost for existing members of Music Unlimited Premium/Basic subscription free of charge for existing Premium/Basic members.
• To welcome users Home, PlayStation Home will be offering 100 free virtual items. Additional free content will be released soon, including the next addition to the Home Mansion personal space, and Ooblag’s Alien Casino, an exclusive game.

We’d like to thank all of our publishing and development partners who’ve contributed to the Welcome Back program, including Bigbig Studios, Codeglue, Digital Leisure, Guerilla Games, Heavy Water, Housemarque, Lockwood, Loot, Mass Media, Media Molecule, SCE Cambridge Studios, SCE Studio Liverpool, SCE San Diego Studios, and Sucker Punch Productions. We couldn’t have created such a compelling package without them!” - Patrick Seybold // Sr. Director, Corporate Communications & Social Media

*Written by Rob Rimes.

*This article is broken into five parts with each being released a few days apart. This is due to the size of the article. PART I can be found here.

3. Stage Two – Woodrow Wilson and the Rise of Wilsonian Tyranny:

“You are not here merely to prepare to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.” – Woodrow Wilson

After Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson is probably the worst president in history. Although FDR is pretty close. What makes Wilson so bad? Well, he was instrumental in creating the Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission. He also kick-started the income tax system that we have today. Additionally, Wilson intervened in the first World War, which had absolutely nothing to do with the United States. His actions in that war created the snowball effect that eventually became World War II. Sure, Hitler was a sick and twisted fucksack but there is a huge chance that he would’ve never gained power in Germany if it weren’t for the heinous actions of Woodrow Wilson. Shit, the fact that Wilson could have inadvertently caused the Holocaust probably makes him worse than Lincoln.

Wilson’s first order of business was the creation of the Federal Reserve. Contrary to popular belief, the Federal Reserve is not a government entity. The Fed is a private central bank that has the power to print money. Instead of having currency with actual value, Woodrow Wilson birthed a non-governmental establishment that has the power to control, regulate and print paper money! This was a way for the government to control and meddle with the flow of currency. Instead of letting the free market and free trade dictate the cost of goods and the value of money, Wilson thought it best to have supreme control over the monetary system. Many historians, the world over, credit the Federal Reserve and it’s meddling with the American economy as being a major catalyst for the Great Depression as well as our nation’s current economic peril, inflation and the devaluation of the dollar. John Maynard Keynes didn’t see it this way and the progressives of Wilson’s era all the way up to today, still trust in Keynesian economic theory.

Looking past the issue of the Federal Reserve, which is a monstrous issue, I want to put some emphasis on Wilson’s lesser-known progressive follies. The next thing on the docket is the Underwood Tariff Act, also known as the Revenue Act of 1913. What this act did was it lowered basic tariff rates from 40% down to 25%. That may seem positive but tariffs in general are just bad economic policy. Read some Mises, Rothbard, Hayek or Friedman if you don’t believe me.

Apart from the reduction of tariffs, the Underwood Tariff Act created something much worse. In order to off set the loss of revenue from the decreased tariffs, the federal income tax was reinstated. What was once created to pay for the Civil War, was brought back fifty years later to help create a pot of money for the growing progressive agenda. The income tax was previously deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1894 but that obstacle was overcome by the creation of the 16th Amendment, which made a federal income tax constitutional. Wilson used the Underwood Tariff Act as a tool to justify the creation of the federal income tax, which was now within the government’s power to legally implement.

The next piece of shitty progressive legislation to look at is the Clayton Antitrust Act. In a nutshell, an antitrust law is a law that attempts to prohibit monopolies from forming while trying to eliminate unfair business practices. Just like everything pimped by progressives, it sounds like a good idea based off of good intentions but it is counterproductive to what it is trying to accomplish and it essentially creates that in which it is trying to regulate or destroy. It helps the federal government pick winners and losers and thus, kills true capitalism only to replace it with a crony clone wearing the same title.

The Clayton Antitrust Act was created to double up on the control of rogue capitalists that started with the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. These acts created a style of legislation that is still be used today. For whatever reason, lefties on the Hill can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that these practices hurt the economy. Maybe I am being unfair here, as the righties have adopted these practices as well. Because of that, we’re all fucked.

Anyway, the Clayton Antitrust Act was setup to restrict mergers between companies as well as controlling price competition. To restrict mergers is incredibly foolish and borderline chaotic. This punishes the end consumer because the product or service he would receive, may not be as good because of these restrictions. See, two companies merge when they feel that by combining their efforts they will improve their ability to create superior results with whatever good or service they offer. When companies see a greater value in merging, it is the end consumer that really reaps the benefits of that extra value. Often times, mergers happen because the company that is committing the “hostile takeover” of its competitor believes that the smaller company could be more efficient if better run. They believe that they can run it better and if they can, this benefits everyone involved. Well, except for maybe the shitty employees. Should we reward them with jobs in the new company for running the old company into the ground? Often times these “hostile takeovers” are an alternative to bankruptcy.

Like a typical progressive “Trustbuster”, Wilson didn’t just stop with the Clayton Antitrust Act. He also created the Federal Trade Commission or FTC. Today, the FTC is the “National Nanny”. For decades it has overseen and meddled with our economy. Now it is defining the rules and regulations of the Internet. The only truly free thing left in the world is being tyrannized by this archaic progressive institution that has done nothing apart from stifling the free market.

The next piece of legislation to come across Woodrow Wilson’s desk was the Smith-Lever Act of 1914. This act created subsidies for agricultural education and research. Is that a waste of tax dollars? I’ll let you decide.

Following that was another pro-agricultural law, the Federal Farm Loan Act. This established a system that would provide an increase in credit to rural, family farmers. This was achieved by the creation of a federal farm loan board, as well as twelve regional farm loan banks. Essentially, cooperative farm loan associations were able to get long-term loans at very low interest rates (under subsidized terms of course). This was to help smaller farmers “survive” against the harsh competition of larger farmers (or better farmers, depending upon your reality). Farmers were able to borrow up to 50% of the value of their land and 20% of the value of any improvements. This evolved into today’s monstrous Farm Credit System, which received a $4 billion bailout in 1987 that  created a new arm for the beast, the Farm Credit System Financial Assistance Corp.

Wilson then attacked child labor with the Keating-Owen Act of 1916. I know that the vast majority of the lefties and righties are all for child labor laws but in reality, they have very negative consequences. Luckily, at the time, the Supreme Court recognized this and deemed the Keating-Owen Act unconstitutional. Because of the child labor laws that did eventually pass, it is technically illegal for you to give a minor $20 for fixing your computer. However, the government decided that we had to save the children from a Charles Dickens nightmare. Never mind that many of the children of the 19th and early 20th centuries worked to help provide for their poor families. As time progressed, parents made more money and they were able to send their kids to school. The free market was working towards destroying child labor before the progressives created laws to completely eliminate it in all its forms.

In 1916, Woodrow Wilson was faced with a serious dilemma from the railroad unions. The railroad brotherhoods threatened to shut down the railroads. Wilson attempted to get the angry unions and the “evil exploitive” management to work together to find a solution to the labor issues. No compromise was made, so our progressive hero created the Adamson Act which forced railroad management to limit the work day to 8 hours and to pay overtime if the maximum hours were exceeded. Because of this, a strike was avoided but the railroad companies now had a gun to their head. There was no negotiation. The federal government, led by Woodrow Wilson, forced management to comply with these demands.

Wilson initially tried to keep us out of the first World War. However, his know-it-all meddling progressive attitude couldn’t be tamed. Because of that, he tried to mediate the conflict, just like he tried to do but failed with railroad unions and railroad management. The result here was no different and Mr. Fix-it had egg on his face again. That snotty yolk must have left a bad taste in his mouth because Wilson showed that he wasn’t really an objective party when it came to the War. In fact, he demanded the Germans quit their bullshit. As far as the British went, he slapped them on the hand and they called his bluff, continuing to do what they were doing because they knew Wilson didn’t really mean it.

With his first term coming to a close, Woodrow Wilson ran for reelection with the slogan “He kept us out of war.” Funny, because it wasn’t long before his anti-war message was replaced with a pro-war attitude. Kind of reminds me of what Barack Obama is doing now. Damn progressives.

After narrowly winning reelection against Republican Charles Evans Hughes, it wasn’t long before Woodrow Wilson brought us into a war that we had no business whatsoever being in. He built a massive military through conscription. What that means is that young men were forced to fight because Woodrow Wilson said so. The war was bloody and hard-fought. At one point, the life expectancy of a soldier on the front lines was 21 days! These men, just like the soldiers during Vietnam, were practically being shipped overseas with a death sentence. All it took was a gun to the head to force a gun in the palm.

Lives weren’t the only cost of war; the war was incredibly expensive monetarily and this strained the economic stability of America. So, not only were Americans now paying income tax, now those taxes were being raised to fund our idiotic involvement in the war. The progressive-led government also insisted that people eat less, this way more food could be sent to soldiers. The government also tried pimping out war bonds and manufactured a mass amount of pro-war propaganda that pretty much told people that they were traitors and assholes if they didn’t support the war effort. Apparently, you weren’t a patriot unless you were a drone to your progressive masters and their ever-growing collectivist society.

Apart from the war, Wilson had us involved in other foreign affairs. He proposed that U.S. vessels traveling through the Panama Canal would be exempt from paying tolls. This angered the British as well as many others.

Wilson also wanted to avoid trampling on Latin America, as he believed Teddy Roosevelt had done, so he apologized to Columbia for the United States’ role in the Panama Revolution during Teddy’s reign. That must’ve been an inspirational moment for Obama, the Great Apologizer.

Woody then meddled with Latin America, trying to “teach” the Latin American countries on how to “elect good men.” Wilson had troops stationed in Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba and Panama.

Wilson’s soldiers in Nicaragua forced the country to pass the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty after they selected the nation’s president. Haiti was forced to choose the presidential candidate that Wilson hand-picked. They were also forced to adopt a constitution that Wilson wrote! Wilson had our troops go into the Dominican Republic after their president resigned. The American military aligned themselves with wealthy landowners and fought brutally against any resistance they encountered. Wilson’s foreign policy with our closest neighbors was abhorrent!

After World War I, Woodrow Wilson made his famous “Fourteen Points” speech that introduced the world to the idea of a “League of Nations”, his anti-American globalist dream and the precursor to the United Nations. The League of Nations was officially created with the Treaty of Versailles. That treaty also gave birth to the “Stab-in-the-back Legend” that the Nazis latched onto and spread like wildfire, as they rose to power in a Germany crumbled by war. There are many other factors associated with Wilson and his involvement in WWI that inadvertently helped the Nazi cause but that is an article for another day.

After all of this awesome foreign intervention, the Norwegian Nobel Committee showed that they were pranksters of the world when they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Woodrow Wilson. Funny, that is another parallel to Obama. Maybe I should write an article about all their similarities.

Following the Treaty of Versailles and the formation of the League of Nations, Woodrow Wilson’s presidency was winding down. As soldiers were coming home, they were faced with harsh times due to the effects of Wilsonian policy. There was poor planning, very little money and next to no benefits for the four million soldiers who returned to the States. The economy was in serious trouble and the Wilsonian Era nearly caused a depression in 1920 (I wrote about it and how the problem was resolved in “The Forgotten Depression of 1920“).

Wilson’s wartime progressive politics caused the farmland prices bubble to burst, which left many farmers bankrupt or drowning in serious debt. His meddling with the unions and their bosses caused strikes in the coal, steel and meatpacking industries. Class warfare was at an all-time high as race riots broke out in dozens of cities throughout the U.S., most notably Chicago and Omaha. This was the legacy Woodrow Wilson left behind. Well, in reality. The left has deified him with the other ex-POTUSes in this article and for whatever reason, he is heralded as one of the greatest American leaders of all-time. That’s fucking hogwash!

Woodrow Wilson was shit. I don’t think that it can be any fucking clearer. He took the progressive ball and ran with it, completely disregarding what worked in this country, trading it in for a nation wrapped in chains. Wilson did have some second thoughts on his policies however, but it was too little too late.

He had this to say about the creation of the Federal Reserve, after he realized his mistake:

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”

If only he had listened to Andrew Jackson.

4. Stage Three – Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal:

“The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

This article is continued in PART III