So beautiful and inspiring:

The photo above is Philip Gould standing over the grave site where he will soon be buried in a few weeks.

Wow.

Some things are hard to accept. Some things feel impossible to accept. While watching this video, I realized that I’m unable to accept what happened to me, that I still hoped it was a nightmare I could wake from. Seeing Philip Gould so accepting even of his own inevitable approaching death is what I needed to see to realize that I need to accept what cannot be changed, that I can accept it, and that no matter how awful something is, I can appreciate that I have my life and my health and my drive to create a good future ahead.

Sometimes you smile at the world and the world smacks you hard. I hope I’ll have the strength to always face the difficulties of life as bravely as Philip Gould.

“Acceptance is the absolute key. At that moment you gain freedom, you gain power, and you gain courage.” – Philip Gould

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I’m not religious, but I do come from a large religious Orthodox Jewish family. I’ve been to enough orthodox temple services to get a good idea of the one main issue that matters to most religious Jews when they vote for a presidential candidate:

Is he a friend of Israel?

I’m a supporter of Israel. Especially after I visited in 2007. I kind of just assumed it was a big desert with a bunch of odd religious fanatics. I was wrong. What a beautiful country. Tel Aviv was such a fun city. The nightlife, the beaches, the ancient castles, the shopping, the people with a lot of attitude. Israel is like a big playground. I was surprised to find that most Israelis are NOT religious, but they do love and respect their country, very much. What these people have built among all their hardship is undeniably inspiring; and it’s just such an enjoyable place to be.

At the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Israel

If you walk around Israel and speak with the people about Israeli politics, it’s completely not controversial for everyone to acknowledge that Israel is more or less the puppet of the United States. Many Israelis talked about this with me. Everyone says the same thing. If a European nation or the UN condemns Israel, no one gives a damn. If the US is ever slightly annoyed, Israel jumps to address it. No one I met in Israel had any difficulty articulating that.

No one I met in Israel denied that their nation was under the thumb of the US Government, and yet, and yet every single one of them was grateful for US “support”.

I want to ask all my Jewish friends to think about this next question:

How can we call Israel a Jewish Homeland when it is ultimately controlled by the whims of the voters of the American population?

(pause to let that set in)

They even have waterfalls in Israel!

We don’t have a homeland yet. Not unless we’re independent to make our own decisions. This aid comes at a heavy price. Our sovereignty and our ability to pursue our best interests should be for sale to no one. Certainly not for $3 Billion.

The Republican Jewish Coalition has strongly disapproved of Ron Paul, refusing to allow him to join their presidential debate they hosted on December 7. This is a mistake. If Republican Jews are going to remain consistent with their small government principles, they must oppose welfare for their causes just as they oppose welfare towards causes of other groups. As all limited government advocates know: welfare makes one dependent and weak.

Friendly Israeli Soldiers :)

Israel believes that it is dependent on America. This is not true. The people of Israel are capable and competent. They’ve been tested, and they’ve proved themselves many times. If Jews around the world are capable of raising hundreds of millions of dollars each year just to send students on a free trip to Israel, they are certainly capable of managing the lack of $3 Billion in annual US Aid.

Conventional wisdom has failed us because it is divorced from common sense. Going along with the mainstream is not virtuous when the mainstream is leading us off a cliff. We don’t need to bleed American resources in outrageously expensive wars in order to protect our homeland. We don’t need the hostility. We don’t need the loss of control. We don’t need the aid. Just like a young man doesn’t really have a place of his own while his parents are still paying some of the bills, we will never have our own homeland while seeking aid. Foreign aid is given in order to purchase precisely that which should not be for sale. For any Jew to state that Israel cannot exist without American aid, is to insult and degrade the Jews around the world and the capable people of Israel.

Being a douche-bag on a tank

Aid is for the sick and helpless. Foreign aid should not be taken away FROM us, it should be resoundly rejected BY us. Instead, we need to claim the courage we have earned, for Israel to finally become a sovereign nation under the thumb of no one.

In 1981, when the UN and most of the world, including the entire US congress and Ronald Reagan, condemned Israel for attacking a Nuclear Reactor under construction in IRAQ, at a time when Iraq was our ally against Iran, Ron Paul was the only single congressman to support Israel. Ron Paul DOES NOT want to destroy Israel, he is the only one who will free Israel from the shifting whims of the American public.

 
Should American voters be determining how Israel defends herself and where she draws her borders? If not, then our Jewish support for Ron Paul is our step towards reclaiming our dignity and a bold step towards achieving a higher level of strength and power for Israel.

That is one reason why you should encourage other Jews to support and vote for Ron Paul.

———————–

Now I would like to focus on another matter. Ron Paul has gotten heat for the existence of anti-Semitic Jew-hating racists among his supporters. About which I would say… Fantastic!

These bigots represent a tiny drop in the bucket among the vast world of Ron Paul supporters (unfortunately a couple have even served as his ghostwriters on old newsletters, yes that is unfortunate). What encourages me is that previously these bigots existed only in their small self contained world of bigots. Getting these bigots to step out of that world and join a larger broader coalition may be one of the greatest gifts of the Ron Paul campaign towards Jewish people and other minorities.

Bigotry and racism are a problem. It’s an American problem that existed long before Ron Paul and his movement. Finally someone like Ron Paul has come around to expose these bigots to other ideas, even to get them to work together with those they once considered an enemy.

Digging for Treasures

I discussed this matter with a Jewish Libertarian who opposes Ron Paul because he refuses to distance himself from his bigoted supporters. My friend doesn’t wish to be a part of any group that includes anti-Semites, explaining that one must draw the line somewhere. He asked if I would allow a Jew-hating anti-Semite in my home. “As long as he doesn’t damage anything, I would welcome him eagerly” I responded. “And I can pretty much guarantee that when he leaves my home he will not be an anti-Semite any longer.”

That is my approach. And I am grateful for a man like Ron Paul to get racists and bigots out of their shell to focus on a greater cause. It’s a very positive thing that he’s managed to get racists to donate to an agenda of liberty.

Speaking to young students at an Israeli school in Ashdod

I don’t hate the racists who hate me. They’re just scared of me and they don’t know why. Their ideas may well be shit, but their ideas don’t make them a piece of shit. Ideas are not people. People are not ideas. You now hold views you didn’t before and might not in the future. We all started from nothing. A wrong turn on our journey shouldn’t disqualify any of us from being capable of getting back on track.

I am grateful that Ron Paul is wise enough to disavow Racism while refusing to disavow misguided people. For the same reason we don’t disavow toddlers for being ignorant, but instead we help them learn and understand; we too should not disavow ignorant and misguided people, but instead try as best we can to help them learn and understand.

That is a far more effective approach to getting through to people and accomplishing our goals.

Minorities should seize upon this great opportunity to connect with those who were once afraid of them, while working together to promote the cause of greater liberty for us all by supporting Ron Paul to become our next US President.

 
Please share this article with any and all of your Jewish friends. Let’s get a discussion started on this.

Here Ron Paul explains his position on Israel in his own words:

This video shows the Prime Minister of Israel (Benjamin Netanyahu) making the same talking points regarding Israeli-American relations that Ron Paul makes:

The Compassion of Dr. Ron Paul – A powerful and moving Ron Paul ad that demonstrates his true feelings towards racism

Do Black Americans Believe Ron Paul Is Racist?

This is me addressing the points I made in this article during an interview with Shirley Husar of Urban Game Changer

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Everyone looked amazing. Check out all the pictures below:

(Many more photos below at the end of this article)

As many of you know, I’m a massive fan of Peter Schiff, he’s had a significant impact on my economic understanding, and I watch all of his videos that get posted online. I even named him “Man of the Year” in a previous article. To say the least, I was extremely excited to have him over to speak at my house. I know I was warned a thousand times by many people that he can be difficult to deal with. Still, I was surprised that for a moment even I was pissed with the guy.

The night before my event he spoke for 2 hours at UCLA to a sold out paying audience of about 500 people. His talk was extraordinary, one of the most powerful, insightful and entertaining talks I’ve ever seen anyone give. He was brilliant and on fire. That talk came quickly after an hour long 3 way debate that was full of fireworks with opposing established economics professors. The night before that, he gave a 2 hour talk at UC Irvine.

After witnessing the extraordinary UCLA talk he gave, I was excited to impress all my friends with Peter’s brilliance. Hopefully he can carve out about 20 minutes of pure insight and wit and follow it up with an engaging Q&A. This is going to be great!

When strong personalities are involved, things don’t always work out as planned…

About 25 minutes after he arrived at my house and after about 3 drinks, Peter tells me, “Judd, this is a good party, everyone’s having a good time. Let’s just have a party, I don’t want to speak.” I look to my left and I see a couple hundred people. I look to my right and I see a couple hundred people. “Um… dude!” “Judd, let everyone have a good time. I’m Dr. Doom. If I talk it’s going to ruin the night.”

I suddenly saw something I hadn’t seen before in Peter Schiff. He didn’t want to be the one with the bad news. I was SHOCKED. After all that loud scolding on TV of anyone who’s remotely optimistic about our current economic situation, I can’t count how many times he’s said that the party is over for America; and now he REALLY doesn’t want to be the one to ruin this party.

“Peter, you always have a lot to say, and people here do want to hear what you have to say.” “Judd, let’s just have a party, I don’t want to talk, my voice is getting sore, I don’t feel like it.”

Every 5 seconds people came up to Peter and introduced themselves, telling him how excited they were to hear him speak, and that bastard told each and every one of them that he’s not going to talk, he’s just here for the party.

 
I got Peter to do a Q&A. And it was fine. He was a little bit drunk by that point, but he was still pretty insightful and entertaining and pulled it off well. He was worried that what he has to say would ruin the party, but it definitely didn’t, people enjoyed it. In fact, I think Peter Schiff has unwittingly created a new form of comedy as a stand-up economist. He wasn’t at the same extraordinary level I saw from him just the night before, but I understand he is human after all, and after all his recent exhaustive speeches and media appearances and his 2 hour daily radio shows, I guess we should let the guy relax a bit one night and enjoy a decent party. And the good news is, as was clearly very obvious to everyone who was here and hung out with him, Peter Schiff definitely had a great time at the party ;)

I posted the first 5 minutes of his Q&A on Youtube. Check it out:

The most noteworthy thing about the whole event actually had nothing to do with Peter Schiff. Not only was the legendary Nathaniel Branden here, but Yaron Brook also came by. And they talked! And everything was cool and friendly!

For those of you that don’t know why this is historically significant: Nathaniel Branden is my greatest hero alive. It’s impossible to know how many millions of our lives have been significantly impacted by him. Since the 1960s, he revolutionized the field of psychology as the Father of the Self Esteem movement. I’ve told him that I feel like I was raised more by his books than my own parents. I was honored to host his 81st Birthday Party at my house this last April. Check out his reviews on Amazon.com to get an idea of how significant he is.

Long before his career in psychology gained international prominence, he was the protege to one of the most controversial philosophers of all time; Ayn Rand. As an arrogant 28 year old who was determined to teach the world about how it all works, Nathaniel launched the Objectivist movement back in the late 1950s with his philosophical lecture series that wildly spread around the country into a large movement whose ideas have gone on to reshape the political discussions of our day, and all of our facebook comment debates. After many successful years together, Nathaniel and Ayn Rand eventually had a messy split over a personal matter. Many students of Objectivism took different sides, eventually developing subtle differences of opinion and approach among a large group of intelligent, opinionated and stubborn people. Unfortunately this schism between like minded people has been maintained for several decades through the personalities involved. No one has really budged and nothing has been mediated well, while attacks have been thrown between sides that have further entrenched opposition with each other, when they should be allies. The “situation” regarding Nathaniel Branden is dead center to all of this fire and controversy. If this sounds silly, it’s because it is.

Yaron Brook is President of the Ayn Rand Institute, the organization that has been unwaveringly faithful to the life, ideas and memory of Ayn Rand. Yaron is a brilliant thinker, a great communicator, and in my opinion has done amazing things to open the Ayn Rand Institute to better cooperation with other liberty organizations. While many on both sides of the schism are hung up on harbored resentment for each other, most people in the Objectivist and wider Libertarian movement are simply far more focused on promoting liberty. Despite what many believe, I feel that way about Yaron as well.

To those of you who have said that it’s simply not possible to get Nathaniel Branden to meet with Yaron Brook and have a friendly chat, let alone begin a more cooperative alliance, this picture above is worth at least 2 words:

It’s possible.

Oh, and my friend Shirley Husar from HipHop Republican TV surprised me with a totally ridiculous and hilarious movie trailer she made out of the event. Check it out:

UPDATE: Reason.tv has posted a video of the event here:

Related posts:

1. My First Experience at Freedom Fest 2011 (with Photos!)
2. Hustle Bear Award: Man of the Year 2010 – Peter Schiff
3. I’m So Relieved, The Atlas Shrugged Movie is Fantastic

The xx – XX

		Islands Crystalised Shelter VCR Infinity
(Click image for Amazon.com)

 

This is one of those albums you’ve got to let grow on you. When I first listened to it I remember thinking that I couldn’t believe I actually listened all the way through that boring piece of shit album. I couldn’t understand what the buzz was about, it didn’t click with me, and I never intended to listen to it again.

This music is sparse. Very minimal electronics over a minimal acoustic sound with a male/female duet that goes for personality over precision. I like simple soft minimal music, I just didn’t like this album.

Some day later I heard the song “Islands” come on the radio again. I was in jammed traffic and frustrated in a hurry. It kind of hit me, whoa, this is really pretty, and it’s so soothing right now. I was kind of pissed that the song ended so soon and some crappy My Chemical Romance song came on and totally ruined the vibe. I gave the album another chance and I couldn’t believe I didn’t first realize how awesome this is. Even almost 2 years later it’s still one of my favorite albums to play in my room while I do whatever various things I do. I literally could listen to this on repeat all day.

The Beatles wrote a lot of very simple and light hearted songs that were surprisingly epic and touching. That’s kind of how I approach XX. Everything is stripped away, the vibe is very easy going and playful, yet the undercurrent is deep and soulful. I love this album. Lower your guard, clear your head, enjoy.

[Video after the break]

Cool video for the song VCR:

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The full details are at the Facebook Event Page:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=217273151661724

Confirm there if you’re coming.

So my friend Joe Lonsdale is a guy with big ideas and incredible results. An early executive at Clarium Capital, he worked closely with Peter Thiel, the super famous Billionaire who founded PayPal and funded Facebook into glory. Together they funded and developed some incredible projects, and separately Joe has begun several prominent business ventures and organizations. One of his latest projects is California Common Sense (aka CACS). Information technology is rapidly transforming the world, and Joe wants it to transform our government.

CACS is a nonprofit organization devoted to opening the books of our state government and making all that data easy and fun to play with, so you can easily understand what’s actually going on. The goal of this increased transparency is to increase accountability and reduce the massive waste.

The public interest in withholding these records outweighs the public interest in the disclosure of them.
   –Erin Peth, Deputy of Legal Affairs for Governor Jerry Brown

After all, as citizens we’re paying for this (state income tax, property tax, payroll tax, every time we buy something in a store, etc). We are all shareholders in this organization known as the California Government and we should know what’s going on with our money. Even if our government wasn’t in a serious fiscal crisis, which will soon force massive cuts in the important services we do rely on.

CACS just launched and they are already making waves. Their transparency tools are already empowering citizens, journalists, and even state representatives to begin to concretely understand just what exactly is actually going on. CACS is already cited by all the top state newspapers and they’re causing some fantastic news stories to be generated. Seriously, check out this news article titled “Calif. Lawmakers Resist Calls To Open The Books”

Their Transparency Portal makes it easy for anyone to explore the how California spends its money and compensates its employees. Check it out:

Here check out their visualization map of the 3600+ departments (and each department budget) in California’s government and ask yourself if it’s humanly possible for any person to comprehend it all:

It’s a vague feeling, but we all know that things are way out of control with our government. We know the way they are spending our money is extreme and wasteful, but the issue is so big we really can’t digest it. It’s not just the citizens, our representatives are unable to digest this. CACS is making the blurryness clear and more concrete. When we know where exactly the problems are, we can hold our politicians accountable for those problems and force our politicians to address and reduce the waste of our money if they hope to continue to represent themselves as a representative of our best interests.

In a free economy, when someone has a bad idea, it fails. No one is forced to pay for a bad idea they don’t want. Every single agency on that California State Government Map represents someone’s “good idea”, permanently protected from failure, because we’re going to have to pay for it whether anyone likes it or not. With security like that, of course people are going to move into government jobs, and of course these government agencies are going to multiply and grow. If making money selling popsicles was guaranteed by the tax payers, we’d be complaining about the massive burdensome Big Popsicle industry and all its wasteful inefficiencies.

Seriously, look at that map. We’re not just talking about roads and police and firefighters here.

You don’t have to be a Libertarian like me to get behind this. Whatever your views on the role of government and what services it should offer, WE ALL AGREE that it should respect our taxed dollars more and reduce the massive waste in how it functions. It shouldn’t be controversial to anyone that those we pay to serve us with services be responsible and open and transparent about what they do with our cash. These are not abstract academic concerns. We deserve real answers and accountability.

When California Common Sense sent a request for the details of the state checkbook for only the last fiscal year, they received the following response from Erin Peth, Deputy of Legal Affairs for Governor Jerry Brown:

“We are denying your request as currently framed because it is so onerous that the public interest served by not disclosing the records clearly outweighs the public interest served by the disclosure of the records.”

What???? She clarified herself with this:

“The public interest in withholding these records outweighs the public interest in the disclosure of them.”

Wow! Really?

Governor Jerry Brown’s spokesman Gil Duran later flippantly clarified: “Their demand for millions and millions of pages of documents detailing every stamp, paper clip and pen purchased in the past five years was unreasonable and overly broad.”

I wish the IRS would be as understanding with us. Why is our government asking for a level of consideration they are unwilling to grant us? It is WE who are opening our wallets. Who is a servant of who?

(long pause to let that last question sink in)

And besides, if no one knows how our money is spent, not the Governor, not our representatives, let alone journalists and citizens, how can we hope to avoid rampant mismanagement, abuse, corruption, and eventual total disaster?

What I love about the California Common Sense organization is that they bring the vague into the concrete. We can see clearly that it’s all the silly little details that add up.

Why does it cost the state of California $1.75 to print a page of paper, when they can go to Kinkos and do it for 5 cents/page? Who’s benefitting from the millions of dollars in unnecessary cost there? And why are we printing 1700 copies at that excessive rate for every house document, proposed bill and proposed amendment when we only have 40 state Senators and 80 Assembly members? In fact, why are we printing, sorting and managing all those documents at all when convenient electronic distribution to 120 people would save us many millions right there? I’m waiting…

Another small example. We can legitimately debate whether our escalating prison population is too high in our state, but why does it cost us over $47,000/year per prisoner for a total of $9.5 Billion a year to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation while Texas has an equivalent prison population of about 171,000 prisoners and spends only $3.1 Billion a year?? We are paying 3 times as much! Why? Why does it cost us $133 a day (or about $4000/month) to house a prisoner? Seems like awfully high rent for a 48 square foot cell of concrete and metal bars . Most California apartments are about $1 to $1.50 per sqft/month. Rare ultra luxury plush Beverly Hills penthouse apartments with jaw dropping views, gym, valet, concierge and pampered management can reach as high as $8 per sqft/month. Why are prison cells often over $80 per sqft/month (per person!) when their featured amenities are a bed (now often stacked 3 high) and an exposed toilet bowl?

And then there’s education funding which is California’s largest single expense and represents HALF the spending of our General Fund. It’s so full of waste and abuse outside the classroom, I don’t know where to begin…

Contrary to the statements above from Governor Brown’s office, it’s clear that the public interest is damn well served by the disclosure of its expenses.

Every dollar taxed from us to pay for this inefficient nightmare is a dollar we cannot spend productively in our economy. With unemployment so high, with opportunities continuing to diminish, with our economy in the state its in, with state governments in debt and budgets strained, the burden of a protected class of wasteful bureaucrats and the plunder of their petty orders, it’s way past tolerable at this point.

Every detail of our government contributes to a big mess of institutionalized mismanagement and waste. And why would we expect it to be any different? You’re going to pay for it regardless, you don’t have a choice.

And hell, you’re not paying attention anyway.

Let’s change that. Shall we?

We can start by removing the protection of government privacy. As a shareholder in our government, let’s open the books and take a look. See what we find.

For more info on CACS:

Joe has an excellent Letter From The Chairman

And Dakin has a great piece in the Huffington Post:

And here is the flyer for tonight’s event that CACS has been circulating to its crowd.

I’m really honored that I have anything to do with these guys. It’s impressive stuff, come check it out.

See you Tonight at 7:30!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=217273151661724

(Confirm now if you plan on coming!)

Related posts:

1. Movie Review: Robin Hood – A Tea Party Tax Avenger?
2. Gary Johnson, Running for President, and Speaking at My House this Friday!
3. I organized an event for Peter Schiff at my house, some difficulties ensue… (with Photos and Video!)

(There is A LOT here, so take your time. Each day of the conference easily warrants its own separate blog article, but I hate splitting these things up. Each person here is significant and warrants his or her own blog article, so this is actually concise. Consider this a crash course in many of the leading figures of the current liberty movement, with photos and links.)

I’ve never been secretive about my thoughts and outlook. I’ve actively been a part of the pro-liberty movement since high school, when I first discovered Ayn Rand, the world’s most controversial philosopher. Before I got to college I read everything I could find that she ever wrote. My mind was racing then, her material got me thinking about everything in new ways. I started to train my mind to approach every situation by searching for the fundamentals. I tried to find the core of every issue, and I’d consider its philosophical implications. In time this in-depth philosophical background became so damn powerful for me. I could analyze and understand issues with more clarity. I began writing more confidently. I even began making bolder serious life and business decisions much more quickly. The world is more intelligible the better you understand its matrix.

Very few of my friends gave a shit.

I don’t criticize people for not caring about philosophy and politics. That’s how it should be. These abstract issues shouldn’t have to be an important part of everyone’s life. We should be able to just enjoy our relationships and our friends and parties and our cars and smart phones and movies and music and enjoyable tastes in our mouths. We should enjoy as deep or as shallow of a life as we like.

Some of us are just not content with a simple set of 10 commandments handed to us. We’re compelled to sniff around and dig deeper. Yet this powerful deeper understanding turns frustrating when you recognize the ignorance and irresponsibility everywhere. That would be tolerable, until you recognize the ignorant and irresponsible have a gun to your head, and they’re giving you orders, and they’re even charging you for your chains. Now that sucks.

So yeah, I sought out and found others who also don’t like to be constantly fucked with. That’s the pro liberty movement I came to be a part of. They’re all different. Different values. Different cultures. Different philosophies (that’s controversial…). Different academic levels. Different hygienic levels. Different styles.

We did share the same belief that we are not the pawns of others. That we each own our life. That as long as we harm no one, government should only protect us to do as we like, no one should ever be able to use government power as a tool to interfere with our voluntary decisions.

The great terrible Carmageddon was descending on Los Angeles last month. I live smack dead center in the heart of it, just off the 405 freeway. The 405! Sometimes known as Earth’s most congested parking lot. Los Angeles officials made a big scene and screamed at us to get the hell out of LA while the 405 freeway is shut down for a whole weekend! Wait a second? Freedom Fest is in Vegas that same weekend…

Oh hellz yeah! Peace out LA!!

Looking over the all star line up of speakers and attendees, I couldn’t buy my plane ticket fast enough. I mean seriously, they had Peter Schiff (I wrote a whole blog article on him), Senator Rand Paul (dude!!), Peter Thiel (Billionaire founder of PayPal and initial large investor in Facebook), Nick Gillespie (I watch him almost every day on Reason.tv), Judge Andrew Napolitano (the incredible host of Freedom Watch, I’m a huge fan), John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods), and too many other heroes of mine to list.

Wednesday:

So I arrive on Wednesday evening to the opening reception, before the conference kicks off in the morning, and the very first person I see and talk to is David Nott, President of the Reason Foundation, which might be my current favorite pro-liberty organization. Besides all the incredible policy research they’ve done to bring awareness and impact policy, their print publication, Reason Magazine, isn’t just my favorite political publication, it’s the only physical magazine that I actually read. The writers are brilliant, the content is always eye opening, the style is clever and engaging. Dare I say it’s an influence on my own writing. What makes Reason Foundation’s print and media content so awesome is that they’ve managed to make their content accessible and engaging without dumbing it down. I could write several articles articulating how incredible these guys are, so yeah I was happy to start off the conference bumping into Reason’s President, David Nott. He knows of me from the recent spate of successful pro-liberty cocktail parties I’ve been throwing at my house over the last year or so. And while we’re chatting, Sharon Harris is getting a plate of food next to us. Sharon Harris!! President of Advocates for Small Government. Those guys who promoted the cream cheese out of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz (give it a try, takes a second). I’ve been reading her Liberator Online newsletters for the last 15 years, and I still read them. Of course I took a picture.

Then I saw Rob Kampia walking by. As many of my friends now know, Rob is Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project. Only a few days before this, I hosted a dinner party for MPP’s largest donors at my house and then opened it up into a cocktail party for about 200+ people as a great way to bring awareness to their cause and have a great time with great people. Marijuana Policy Project is the largest drug legalization political organization in the world, notably getting these various medical marijuana and legalization measures on ballots in all these states around the country. They’ve organized a massive effort to end our current prohibition state by state. And they have demonstrated surprising success in fighting this juggernaut of power. It’s amazing to talk to Rob and hear him talk about which states he’s going to next flip to legalizing medical marijuana and which states he’s going to flip to actual full legalization. No one else I know alive has the ability to talk like that. And he’s kind of a rock star at these conferences. He knows everyone and they’re all eager to chat with him.

The rest of the first day I walk around with Rob and he just kept introducing me to all these incredible people, many are heroes of mine, and he’s speaking so well of me to them. Man, I can’t even begin to tell him how much I appreciated that. I particularly loved meeting Wayne Allyn Root. He was the Libertarian Party’s Vice Presidential Nominee in the 2008 election. Wayne is just so fucking badass. He’s a large powerful burst of warm intensity and one of my favorite commentators to watch on TV. I asked him how he has all this energy and he told me he takes like a million of these natural vitamins every morning. I told him I’m sold. I want was he’s having!

The biggest draw for me to come to Freedom Fest was Peter Schiff. I am in awe of him. He is fucking amazing. The guy is a brilliant thinker, a powerful speaker, and such a fucking bastard on national TV. I always immediately feel bad for other commentators that challenge him on these news shows, they don’t know what they’re getting into, they don’t know what they’re up against. Peter Schiff is operating on another level. His book Crash Proof is probably the most insightful thing I’ve read in over a decade. He’s had such an impact on me, altering my understanding and outlook of the economy so severely that I can no longer, in good conscience, sell Commercial Real Estate to my clients. I just can’t do it, especially after all the devastation I’ve personally seen from Real Estate in the last few years; witnessing just one of my best developer clients lose over $80 Million of net worth in one year. Peter Schiff’s commentary is truly exceptional, incredibly insightful and hilarious. Here, listen to this clip from his radio show the other day where he takes down the widely respected Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, who just suggested a fake alien invasion would get us completely out of a recession. Or this clip from a week ago where he takes on Alan Greenspan’s suggestion that our credit is sound because we can print money. His response to both of them literally had me laughing out loud. Hell, just read my whole blog article on him, there’s so many gems there. No media personality has a record of being anywhere near as insightful, articulate and spot on as Peter Schiff. That’s why he’s amassed such a massive loyal following which I’m certainly a part of. I couldn’t wait to see him at the conference and meet the guy. Though I did hear he can be a bit difficult to deal with in person…

So I see Peter Schiff walking through the hotel lobby Wednesday night with a posse from his brokerage firm. A friend and I don’t hesitate, we go up to say hi. My friend reaches out his hand, “Hi Peter, how are you?” Peter doesn’t extend his hand in return, “Not Good” he blurts. I ask what’s wrong, his brother Andrew Schiff explains that Peter was marketed on the main page of the Freedom Fest site but doesn’t have a slot all to himself on the main stage to address nearly 3000 attendees. Peter is upset, ranting something about Skousen (the organizer) not honoring his word to him, and threatening to leave the whole conference over this. Ok, he is a bit difficult. Some people might say that Peter Schiff is acting like a prima donna, and they might be right, but the truth is he’s right to be upset here. He has a lot of fans at the conference, he certainly helped fill seats, and he seems to be the only speaker heavily marketed with the event who doesn’t have his own slot speaking to the general audience. I calm him down by telling him “There’s nothing we can do right now. It’s almost 10pm, and I’m sure Skousen is already getting some sleep for his big opening day tomorrow. I’ll get up early at 6am tomorrow and talk to him about finding a speaking slot for you on the main stage in front of everyone. You’re right Peter, you’ve got a lot of fans here and you give great talks, it would be foolish of him not to make room for you on the main stage. After I talk to Skousen in the morning, I’ll call your brother to let him know how it goes.”

Maybe I’m crazy. Mark Skousen is the organizer of this huge Freedom Fest event. I don’t know him. In fact I didn’t even know he was the event organizer before that moment. And I have no idea where he’ll be in the morning. What have I gotten myself into? Well, what the fuck, let’s see if there’s anything I can do about this. As the saying goes… when there’s a will, there’s a way. Or as I like to say… anything is possible if you’re crazy enough!

Thursday:

I’m not a morning person, I’m an insomniac. Sometimes it happens that I go to sleep at 6am. Thursday morning I wake up at 6am. And I’m on a mission. Find Mark Skousen, get Peter Schiff an extra speaking slot in a packed established schedule of all star speakers. No big deal. I start asking people if they know where Mark Skousen is. “Oh he was just here, check the exhibit hall.” I feel kind of stupid as I realize I don’t actually know what he looks like. It’s after 7am, the first talk is at 8am, and the exhibit hall is packed with people checking out the different exhibit booths and grabbing a few bites to eat. How am I gonna find this guy? What the fuck am I doing right now?? Bingo, someone points him out for me half way across the room. I beam over to him, while he’s beaming out in a hurry to get to the main large conference room to be ready for the opening talk.

In business I use the green light, yellow light, red light system when I’m about to pitch an idea. I only pitch the idea if I see a green light (i.e. he’s not busy and has a couple anxiety free minutes to play with the idea). I never speak with someone when I see a yellow light, unless I absolutely have to. Mark Skousen was in a rush and moving fast, he was about to kick off the opening talk to his nearly 3000 person event he’s been planning all year. When I caught up with him the light was clearly red.

“Mark, Hi, my name is Judd. This is amazing what you’re doing, I’ve already met many incredible people. I talked to Peter Schiff last night and frankly he seems upset that he doesn’t have his own speaking slot in the main auditorium addressing the whole conference.” Mark interrupts me, “Peter is on a panel discussion in the main auditorium, is he aware of that?” “Yes, but he also wants his own time slot. And I honestly think he should have it. I’m a huge fan, many who are here are huge fans, he always gives powerful memorable speeches, it will make your conference that much more powerful and memorable. After all, you did market him on the front page of the web site. Could you find 10-20 minutes in the schedule to squeeze him in somewhere?”

Peter Schiff got 15 minutes to speak right before Rand Paul addressed the whole conference. I certainly cannot take credit for it. Peter legitimately was ready to leave the conference over this and his brother was on the phone trying to resolve it. But it certainly didn’t hurt that attendees were accosting the organizer, persuasively encouraging some speaking time for Peter Schiff. This definitely ingratiated me with Peter Schiff’s crew and I got to know them a bit better. In fact, this is kinda hush hush, but I’ll very likely be doing an event with Peter Schiff in the Fall. That is a big deal for me.

Thursday’s kickoff speech by Wayne Allyn Root was awesome. The guy is such a fun, powerful, and edgy speaker. The other talks were cool, but I couldn’t wait for the luncheon with Judge Andrew Napolitano. That guy is fantastic. His show Freedom Watch is hands down the best program with the Fox brand name attached. Listen to any one of his episodes to hear how principled, articulate, strong, and convincing he is. On my way up the elevator to Napolitano’s luncheon, David Boaz is in the elevator with me. David Boaz!! He’s pretty much the face of the CATO Institute, one of the most prominent Libertarian think tanks. They are so exceptional that I actually contribute a small amount of money to them. I even use their info and reports when I put together articles. We are all wearing nametags and David Boaz recognizes me, presumably from my events, and he asks “What do you do besides throwing parties all the time?” Pretty cool that he knew that! We chat for a bit as we exit the elevator and walk to the luncheon, where he is then seated at the reserved table right next to Judge Napolitano. Of course I took a picture.

After everyone is seated at the luncheon, and right before Judge Napolitano is about to talk, John Stagliano runs into the room, searching for an open seat. John Stagliano is awesome! He is one of the worlds largest pornographers (with his Evil Angel empire [TOTALLY NSFW]) and is a hardcore libertarian, and a massive contributor to the cause. I’ve known him for several months, initially at events I had at my house. We had an empty seat at our table so I waive him down and he joins us. Judge Napolitano gives an incredible talk. Truly a rarity among Judges and media personalities. Each of us in attendance received a signed copy of his book “Lies the Government Told You“; I love seeing books like that written by a Judge. Man, what a fantastic speaker he is. Judge Napolitano just might be the most articulate speaker I have ever seen ever. He has a powerful ability to take complex ideas and communicate them simply, clearly, and convincingly. Full of energy and power, he always sounds like he’s shouting at you when he speaks, but somehow it never comes off as overbearing. When Judge Napolitano is about to speak, his brand name leaves you certain that it will be clear, powerful, entertaining, and always enlightening. Following his luncheon he gave a speech to the whole conference in the main auditorium and it was probably one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard. 3000 people erupted into thunderous applause. Judge Napolitano is on the path to legend status.

One interesting thing was that at the talk given by John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods) he said that we will no longer publicly broadcast his opinions on current events. Apparently his article against Obama’s Health Care act caused his company a lot of problems 2 years ago, especially as his target market often is Obama supporters, and he can’t afford to put his company through that sort of public outcry again. Amazing how in some ways, the more powerful you get, the less power you have.

It was also cool to get to know Tad Lumpkin a little better. I met him at an event I threw for Gary Johnson at my house a couple months ago. He created an excellent animated video called “The American Dream” that explains the financial crises and influence of the Federal Reserve. It went viral! Achieving millions of combined youtube views. When you have 30 minutes, it’s definitely thought provoking and worth checking out:

One of the coolest things about the conference is all of the Students for Liberty crew. Students for Liberty is one of the most exciting things in the pro-liberty movement. That organization has their shit together. These kids know their stuff! They’ve got 10s of thousands of students in campus groups in over 500 colleges, all discussing and learning the ideas of liberty. I’m even more impressed with the group after chatting with their president Alexander McCobin (watch Alexander’s historical moment defending social tolerance against a bigot at CPAC 2010). The conference was big, there were more awesome people to meet and talk to than I was physically capable of meeting. But more than half the conference was old people. That’s not necessarily bad, but it would have felt like a big geriatric society if it wasn’t for all these Students for Liberty everywhere. Seeing all of these smart attractive cool younger people made the whole event feel so much more positive and hopeful. I hope they’re sponsored to come to more liberty themed events. They’re young and excited about this stuff, it’s cool to have them around. Reminds me of when I was 19 and flying on my own across the country for the first time to attend conferences like this.

One of the Students for Liberty is my friends Michelle Fields. I’ve met her several months back when I hosted one of the events for Gary Johnson at my place. Michelle has hosted some fantastic videos for liberty causes, and she just recently blew up all over the internet when her confrontation with Matt Damon went viral, leading to some great media appearances. You’ve gotta check out that Matt Damon scuffle:

So after all the talks were finished for the day, I was invited to join the whole crew of Reason Foundation for a nice dinner at a table of 18. Dude!! I got to hang out with Matt Welch (Editor in Chief at Reason Magazine and co-author the new book Declaration of Independents), David Nott (President of Reason Foundation), John Stagliano (badass guy mentioned earlier, more on him later), and of course Melissa Palmer (really cool chick at Reason), among other great people. I already told you how much I love the Reason Foundation, so yeah I’m seriously honored.

After dinner I head over to a party at a room at the Cosmopolitan hotel across the street. My friends Dana, Flavio and Carlos, from the Libertarian Party of California, rented a suite and invited a whole bunch of people, including all of the Students for Liberty crew. Must have been about 50 people packed in a hotel room suite. A lot of fun, but it was HOT in there. I took A LOT of pictures.

At one point one of “students” got a text about some other party and the whole Students For Liberty crew decided to go to that one; so like 30 people suddenly emptied out of the room and they told me to come along. But as we got down the elevator to the lobby it became clear that no one really knew what was going on. Everyone started scattering around aimlessly as everyone was trying to figure who knew what was happening, which was apparently not actually happening. Fucking kids… It’s obvious that these young libertarians needed some more central planning…

Among all the confusion the crowd kept splintering off. Everyone lost track of each other and we walked around Vegas a bit with a dwindling group. Eh, it was fun anyway and I took even more pictures :)

Friday:

The big thing I was looking forward to on Friday was the luncheon with Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor who founded Paypal, and helped launch Facebook into the big time. No one can deny that the guy is a visionary. Peter Thiel is no stranger to controversy, encouraging hyper achievers to leave college for the better opportunities and education of the real world, and supporting Patri Friedman‘s vision for the Seasteading Institute, which aims to build floating cities (plural) in the ocean as alternatives to the less than desirable governance options we have today. I took a seat near the front. As I sat down, Senator Rand Paul comes in and sits down at a seat 2 feet from me.

Of course I took a picture.

Peter Thiel’s talk focused on why our technologies are at the state they’re at today and where he sees things going in the future. Really fascinating stuff, especially as he explained how other sectors such as transportation and energy are not improving anywhere near the rate that computing is, primarily because computing and the internet are mostly free markets while most other sectors are bogged down in crippling union and environmental regulations, which cannot be understated.

I mentioned before that I grew up during my high school years on Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism. Which is why it was so awesome to keep bumping into David Kelley, executive director and founder of the Atlas Society (the other Objectivist organization that represents the ‘tolerant’ side of the movement) [the picture of us to the right was actually taken a few days before Freedom Fest at a beach in California]. Seriously, I read David Kelley’s books in highschool. At 19, my very first flight on my own across the country was to attend my first of several of his organization’s yearly summer conference. Not only did I learn so much every year I went, but I made so many brilliant friends that are still close friends to this day, 12 years later. David Kelley is brilliant, insightful, and just a really good person. I love to walk among giants, and as leader of a prominent organization aimed at bringing reason, rights, responsibility, tolerance, peace, and voluntary cooperation back to this planet… yeah, David Kelley is a giant, with giant mountains to climb before him.

Gary Johnson showed up on Friday. I’ve kinda sorta gotten to know him a bit since I’ve organized a couple surprisingly awesome events for his presidential campaign at my house and seen him out on a number of other occasions. In my opinion, compared to Ron Paul, the biggest difference is that he tries to keep the libertarian message simpler and easier to understand. But don’t think he has a simplistic understanding of these matters. I’ve personally grilled him on economics and he knows his stuff! It’s good to know presidential candidates, but even if he wasn’t running for president, he’s a really cool guy who is very genuine and passionate in life. I don’t always like to brag, but… that picture to the left that appears on his campaign website, yeah I took that photo at my house. Ok enough bragging…

After all the talks were through that day, a friend and I went to an event rather far from the Hotel that promoted an all star lineup of speakers. We’re talking Peter Schiff, Governor Gary Johnson, Wayne Allyn Root, Rob Kampia, and several more. Well, there was supposed to be like 200 people there. But it didn’t quite work out that way. Only the speakers showed up. It was literally the speakers speaking to an empty room with a handful of the other speakers. The speakers were… pissed! I was… stoked! Damn man that was some awesome one on one time with some prominent people! I didn’t have to wait in the pile of animals that usually circle these guys just for a second to say something. They were actually kind of bored and happy to talk. I’ve thrown many events before, this one was actually coordinated really well, they had large shuttles, a whole restaurant reserved with awesome appetizers, and a fantastic lineup of speakers, but there was NO PUBLICITY. I guess they only publicized the event by putting flyers down at booths and expected 200 people to show up. Well that didn’t work, and thank god for me; I was loving it! I already know Gary Johnson pretty well, but it was great to get to know the other speakers better. I particularly loved getting to know the guys from Peter Schiff’s company, Euro Pacific Capital.

After his talk, Rob wanted to bail, so we took a taxi to a casino hotel way out in the middle of nowhere to go to some party that Penn Jillette was throwing. Penn Jillette is the vocal half of the famous Vegas comedy magic duo, Penn and Teller, they host a show called “Bullshit” on Showtime; and now Penn is also the author of a new book on Atheism called “God, No!“. He’s an outspoken Libertarian and an Atheist; and a couple days ago he published a fantastic piece on CNN.com called “I don’t know, so I’m an atheist libertarian“. I highly recommend everyone save that article to read later. Bullshit is a great show; Penn is always funny and informative. Through his show, he exposes many of the popular beliefs and myths we often take for granted without looking into or thinking about too much. I am a fan of Penn Jillette, and I was excited that I was about to meet him.

Penn and I have communicated before, but it wasn’t necessarily on good terms. Last year he ran an episode of Bullshit focused on the Self Esteem movement. In it he interviewed Nathaniel Branden, a very prominent psychologist and philosopher, who among other things is known as the Father of Self Esteem. Nathaniel is a very close friend of mine. Before I met him personally he was one of the biggest influences on me growing up; so much so that I’ve told him that his books were a bigger influence on me growing up than my own parents. I also told him that being on the “Bullshit” show was a good idea. Nathaniel has been railing against the nonsense in the Self Esteem movement for decades. I figured the show was a great opportunity for Penn to expose the bullshit in his special style, while treating Nathaniel and his material very sympathetically, probably as the antidote to all the silliness in the current self esteem movement. It didn’t exactly happen that way. I was at Nathaniel’s place for the whole interview. The truth is he isn’t doing so well lately; he’s in his 80s and he’s much weaker and slower than he used to be. When the show finally aired I watched in horror as Nathaniel was trashed and lumped in with the worst of the other crackpots in the field. I was pissed! I felt bad for Nathaniel, and for encouraging him to do the show. I wrote Penn an email telling him how off base he was for tearing the guy down over things he never said or claimed. Especially a writer and thinker as prominent as Nathaniel Branden who has actually contributed something genuine and important, influencing a legion of legitimate prominent figures. Penn replied with this (his actual words):

——
I’m very sorry. I don’t do all the research myself. We didn’t really know how to play that. We went back and forth with a few different takes on it and angles, and I guess didn’t get it right. I’m sorry.
——

Ok cool, so he apologized. I just wish he did it more publicly (well, it is now!). In any case I was looking forward to an opportunity to chat with him at this party he was throwing. Apparently he was throwing some party for his “No God Band” and it was called a “Bacon and Donut Party”. I didn’t know what to expect. Was this a small thing with like 30 or 100 people, and what the fuck is a bacon and donut party??

I was shocked, SHOCKED, at what I soon discovered.

So we’re at this casino far away from the strip in the middle of nowhere. When you walk in you realize no one here cares about any of the glamour of Vegas, these are a bunch a rednecks with gambling sickness. Whatever, the party is upstairs, and what I saw when I walked in cannot be unseen, no matter how hard I try. I know Penn has a twisted sense of humor, but I didn’t know he’s this fucked up. This wasn’t a small gathering, there must have been about 2000 people covering the whole top floor of the casino, and they were all… OBESE. None of these gorillas was under 350 pounds. Bacon and Donut party was exactly what that sounds like. There were huge lines of fat people waiting for all you can eat piles of greasy bacon and donuts. Everywhere I looked they were holding greasy handfuls of bacon in one hand and donuts in the other. And they were devouring this shit together. I couldn’t have constructed a more revolting nightmare if I tried. One of my friends called me and told me he’s on his way and asked me if there’s any cute girls. I asked him “Have you ever seen the movie King Kong? Imagine a room with 2000 of them, and add a lot of bacon and donuts. Unless you want to play bumper cars with these hippos in a pile of fat, bacon, and donuts, don’t fucking come!” We got there at 11:00pm and we left at 11:02pm. We checked our limbs and bodies for any bite marks and fortunately we escaped without any mauling attacks from those beasts. To Penn’s credit, he did give fair warning. I really wanted to meet Penn, but I’ll have to meet him another time.

Saturday:

Sleep deprivation was really starting to affect me by Saturday, the last day of the conference. Hard to wake up early when you go to bed late, but there’s no way I was gonna miss the talk by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch from Reason about their new book they wrote called the Declaration of Independents. Nick Gillespie is a hero of mine. I’ve learned a lot from him. It is amazing how well he handles himself on TV (dude, seriously, watch him here on the Bill Maher show. Fan… tastic!). I love how he presents Libertarian ideas. So much of the libertarian movement is a bunch of nerds lecturing (or screaming) at people to WAKE UP. Nick Gillespie takes a very different approach. He makes the material entertaining, keeps it relevant, and simplifies the subject without dumbing it down. That’s not easy to do with abstract issues of philosophy and politics. Check out any single video on the Reason.tv Youtube channel. I don’t drink coffee everyday, but watching a new Reason.tv youtube video is a part of my daily routine. With all of their humorous yet informative videos and graphics, their Freedom Fest talk shook up the vibe of the conference with a lot more edge.

I was looking forward to seeing Robert Murphy’s talk soon after. Robert Murphy earned some cool points with me when he publicly and loudly challenged noble prize winning economist Paul Krugman to a public debate. He’s currently raised over $67,000 for the cause (including a small contribution from me), but it looks like Krugman is scared of debating an articulate free market economist. On Saturday, by the time Bob Murphy started speaking to the packed small room, I could barely hold my eyes open. I have no idea what he was talking about, I think it was actually something about taking out a life insurance policy and then borrowing against it. I was drifting in and out of sleep while he was speaking. Struggling to keep my eyes open, but I just couldn’t concentrate on what he was talking about and I’d fall back asleep. I’ve got a terrible consistent case of insomnia. This may be the cure I’ve been looking for! I need to package Robert Murphy into a product I can keep by my bed to put me to sleep every night.

The big thing for me on Saturday was Peter Schiff’s private luncheon. Whenever he speaks his words are dripping with insight and attitude. I told John Stagliano that he HAS to check out Peter Schiff and see what this guy is all about. After Peter Schiff ended his talk and all the applause died down, the first thing John Stagliano had to say was “I owe you. Thank you for this.” (you can hear it at the end of the video below). I told him “there’s too many fans around right now wanting their books signed, but I’ll introduce you to Peter Schiff later, I’m sure he’d love to meet you”. The speech was indeed epic. I recorded it, you can see it below:

Matt Kibbe, President of FreedomWorks, one of the largest Tea Party organizations, also gave a presentation that day on their Freedom Connector social networking site. Really cool to meet him and see his famous sideburns in person. I like him, he’s a cool guy. I asked him privately why in most media appearances on TV when discussing presidential candidates, why he doesn’t seem to ever discuss Ron Paul or Gary Johnson among the others, especially as they seem to line up better with the Tea Party’s fiscal values better than any of the other candidates. He flatly said that he doesn’t think they have a credible chance of winning. Personally I think they’d have a better chance if a figure of his standing in the Tea Party would at least discuss them publicly. Personally I love Michelle Bachman’s stance on many economic matters, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable voting for her if that’s packaged together with gay hating and Patriot Act support. I think it would go a long way to help FreedomWorks come off as more principled for free markets if they at least acknowledged the most principled free market candidates in the race. But no one can deny the good that Matt Kibbe is doing and how much energy he has put towards his valuable accomplishments of educating and pushing for the Tea Party core values of lower taxes, smaller government, freer markets, and reduced government spending.

The conference ended with a formal dinner banquet, and the guys from Reason offered a seat for me and my friend at their table. Damn man, I love Reason, I’ve looked up to them for a while, and they’re being so damn cool to me. This is awesome, and I’m really grateful, especially since they are my favorite group at the conference.

Before people were seated, I was talking with John Stagliano about that speech Peter Schiff gave earlier and what it means for the economy going forward… and then Peter Schiff was by himself walking right by us. So I grabbed him by the hand and said “Peter! You’ve got to meet my friend John Stagliano. He’s just discovering your work and he was really impressed with your talk today.” Now, I know that Peter Schiff has a reputation for not being the most socially savvy guy, but I DID NOT expect what was about to happen. Peter Schiff pulls out his cell phone and starts texting. John Stagliano holds out his hand to shake Peter’s and begins congratulating Peter on his fantastic talk at lunch. But Peter doesn’t acknowledge him, he just keeps texting. He doesn’t look up and say “just a sec”. He doesn’t even look up. John is just standing there with his hand out, and asks Peter a related question about something he said in his talk. Peter doesn’t acknowledge John at all, just looks more intensely into his cell phone. Eventually John drops his hand awkwardly and turns to talk to a friend of his. It was awkward man. Really awkward. I put my arm around Peter’s shoulder and spoke into his ear “That was John Stagliano. He’s a prominent figure around here and a MAJOR contributor. You should take the opportunity to meet this guy. He’s really impressed with you.” But Peter kind of mumbled something, looked at his phone again, and walked off. He seemed really uncomfortable with people he doesn’t know well. He’s totally comfortable and in his element on national TV or when speaking to an audience of 3000 people, but he doesn’t seem to handle normal social situations too well. Now, I noticed earlier that he was clearly not the most personable guy at the conference. I could see how he seemed kind of annoyed as people constantly came up to talk to him or take a picture with him while he was busy eating or talking to someone else. But I’ve never met anyone that uncomfortable with a simple friendly introduction.

Let me give you a little background on John Stagliano. Some of you might have watched the film The People vs. Larry Flynt. A fantastic movie starring Woody Harrelson that chronicles the free speech fight to the Supreme Court that defeated the obscenity charges against Hustler Magazine and set a precedent that pornography is protected free speech. Many groups and government officials are upset about this and feel that free speech precedent against obscenity laws only extends to print pornography. These groups and officials are funding and organizing campaigns to pursue obscenity charges against video pornography. John Stagliano famously got caught up in this bullshit and had to spend $1 Million defending himself in court. Like Larry Flynt, John Stagliano put up a strong principled fight for Americans’ rights to free speech. He won. Unfortunately the case was weird, prosecution was sloppy, and the case was dismissed without clearly defined precedents establishing film pornography as protected free speech, let alone the ultimate goal: a precedent to declare any and all obscenity laws as unconstitutional and void. Having these large legal bills and potential real life long jail time stare him in the eye only hardened his liberty activism and increase his significant support for Libertarian causes. All 1000+ people in that banquet hall owed John Stagliano some respect and gratitude for his fight and financial support of the causes they are all working to advocate. Peter Schiff could have at least raised his head to acknowledge the guy.

I felt really uncomfortable about this with John. A little while later I told this to a friend of Peter Schiff, and believe it or not Peter Schiff did come back over and apologize personally to John Stagliano. Peter is an arrogant guy, his shell is thick, he wasn’t really that humble and heartfelt, but you can tell he was trying his best. John was glowing after that. Thank god, what a relief! Peter Schiff is a good guy after all :)

Hanging out at the Reason banquet table was great. I really like these guys and what they’re doing. It was fun to see Rand Paul speak at the banquet. He started running some Jeff Foxworthy (You might be a moron if…) type jokes. “You might be a moron… if you think an 80 year old lady in diapers is going to take down an airplane.” “You might be a moron… if you think invasively touching a 6 year old girl will protect an aircraft.”). The friend who joined me at the table is my buddy Alexander Meyer. He’s an incredibly talented graphic designer and he runs a cool blog. Gary Johnson’s campaign manager, Ron Neilson, came by to say hello to me. Ron is an awesome guy. I introduced him to my friend Alex, and told Ron this guy is an incredible graphic designer, you should have him work on the Gary Johnson campaign. Fortunately Alex had some samples of his work on him. Ron was impressed, and just like that, right then and there, Alex was offered a position as the Gary Johnson Campaign’s graphic designer. He was stoked!! (Alex is genuinely talented. If you need some high quality graphic design, you should contact him)

As the banquet was ending, the guys at Reason were planning to meet up after with a bunch of people at a lounge at the Paris hotel. I told them I’m gonna say a few quick goodbyes and I’ll head over there with them. As I was rushing out to catch up with them, Peter Schiff stopped me, shook my hand, kind of apologized about before, and asked a few questions about me. WOW! This guy is seriously one of my heroes. I wrote an article about Peter Schiff and gave him my blog’s man of the year award. He tells me his group is going to head over to the Cosmopolitan for some drinks. I’m not quite sure if that was an invitation to join him. Man, that would be incredible! But… I’ve got the whole crew from Reason I’m meeting up with in a minute and I’m supposedly on my way. I shake Peter’s hand, tell him I’m really looking forward to when he comes out to LA in a few months, and I run off.

I took a lot of cool black and white photos at that lounge at the Paris hotel. The Reason crew and their friends are fun, providing me many great photo opportunities.

I never warn people when I take pictures. I try my best to capture people in their element, as they are naturally when there isn’t a camera around. That’s easier to do as a photographer if you hide in the corner with your big telephoto zoom lens. It’s a totally different experience when you have a pocketable SLR with a wide angle lens and you’re right in their face with it. That takes some social skills, and speed. So I often take some rapid fire shots right in people’s face before they realize there’s a camera around. Often before they even met me or know who I am. One of those guys that night was John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods. I actually didn’t recognize him. I did see him speak at the conference, but I was kind of far back and didn’t see him up close. So I’m like “Dude, I got some great shots of you and those two girls, take a look!” I put my camera up to his chest to show him and he likes the pics. “Cool, if you want I’ll send them to you. What’s your name?… John? Nice to meet you, I’m Judd. Do you have a card?… Oh I didn’t realize you’re John Mackey of Whole Foods…” He looks at my card and replies “I didn’t know you’re Judd Weiss of Weiss Investment.” Cute. But fuck man, if I knew that was the CEO of Whole Foods I probably wouldn’t have rapid fired some shots in his face while he was chatting and laughing with 2 girls. But… well they are pretty cool photos:

I also didn’t realize until later that I had been hanging out and snapping some shots of John Papola. Yes that’s right! That guy created that utterly epic Hayek vs. Keynes viral rap video. Probably the highest quality and coolest libertarian production of all time. Hell, it’s probably the highest quality and coolest production presenting economics of all time. Everybody at the conference loves that video. That dude is a rockstar here. For over an hour I had no idea while I was hanging out in his group and snapping shots here and there. When he told me who he was, I was like “DUDE! That’s the best fucking video ever made on the subject of economics!” He said he knows :). While making it, in his head he was thinking that he’s got to create something of such high quality, that if he dies, he will be remembered for it. Mission Accomplished. Watch this video all the way through, pay attention to the lyrics, you’ll see what all the acclaim is about:

It was great to hang out with everyone. As they got tired and the crowd dwindled off, me and Alex decide to check out Vegas a little on our own for the first time this weekend. As we step out onto the strip, the first thing we see is 2 girls in mini skirts pulled out of their car by cops and handcuffed against the squad car. I don’t know what that was about, but what a great first moment into the real world after stepping out of a Liberty conference! And it made for a memorable photo opportunity of cops in action. I’m sure these girls must have posed a legitimate threat to the public.

We walk across the street into the Cosmopolitan Hotel and we meet some girls at the lounge. They were literally the only normal people (not freaks) there, so we all quickly connected, forming some sort of protective shield from all the sketchy people around us. Honestly I would feel bad for them if we didn’t walk by; they would have had to fend for themselves against all those creepers. Alex really hit it off with one of the girls, talking to her for hours. They were cool, it was fun, I took some cool photos. A good way to end our last night in Vegas.

 
Not a bad first Freedom Fest conference…
It’ll be more intense in the 2012 battle election year. I’ll be there. You coming?

Birth of an Army:

Yeah, it was so much fun, I had one of the most amazing trips of my life, I got to hang out with so many of my past and present heroes, and I met so many other exceptional people. This conference was significant for another reason. It’s the birth of an army.

They’re young. They’re smart. They’re cool. They can think for themselves. And when they’re given orders, they say no.

They don’t want to be pawns in the central planning from others. They don’t want their life to be a series of restrictions and mandates. They don’t want their rights voted away. They don’t want their earnings and property milked and pillaged to support those who demand it without even asking politely.

And they’re willing to respect the same for others.

No one’s trying to take this country back. They’re just trying to take their lives back. Woe be unto those who try to stop them.

Look at the trends, the movement is growing. Information and ideas are spreading more freely than ever. It’s hard to find a political discussion online where the libertarian position isn’t represented and articulated by someone. Mainstream media is only escalating its irrelevance by ignoring it. Large movements are rising up demanding economic liberty. Large movements are rising up demanding personal liberty. Liberty is on a war path to liberate itself.

I’ve seen it. The army is born. And it’s growing. Generic Republicans and Democrats are a dying breed; they won’t be able to stop this wave. It’s coming. Fight us. Or join us.

Related posts:

1. I’m So Relieved, The Atlas Shrugged Movie is Fantastic
2. I organized an event for Peter Schiff at my house, some difficulties ensue… (with Photos and Video!)
3. If you believe government shouldn’t tax you and spend away your future then you must be a RACIST!!!

Groove Armada – Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)

		Suntoucher Drifted Raisin The Stakes Fogma Healing
(Click image for Amazon.com)

 
Sticking with Groove Armada, compare the sound of their later albums I’ve reviewed with their earlier sound here on “Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)”. They used to have this more chilled jazzy house electro soul R&B vibe; yeah just check it out. A masterpiece in its own right, this album flows between intimate and increased energy, fantastic for playing during chill get togethers. I like how each song has a long intro to set the vibe and establish itself as it draws you in. As the band’s name suggest, their grooves always kick ass. For more of Groove Armada’s jazzy chilled house vibe check out their even earlier album that put them on the map: “Vertigo“.

[Video after the break]

Here’s a cool video for “My Friend”, one of the singles from this album:

Related posts:

1. Music Pick – Groove Armada: Soundboy Rock
2. Music Pick – Groove Armada: White Light
3. Music Pick of the Day – Apparat

Everyone’s got hobbies. Some follow sports. Some play video games. Lately mine is photography.

I’m not a photographer. I’m humble here because I have no formal knowledge of the craft at all. It’s just a hobby for fun. I don’t charge anyone, and I don’t intend to. It’s more like I’ve got a toy that I play with a lot and I’m getting better with it. I don’t even know what an F-stop is. I know my photoshop skills are still a bit amateur (I just discovered layers). I do know how to frame a decent shot and snap it. Last year I got a compact SLR (I’ll review later it on this blog) and I’ve been taking it with me everywhere. Now I’m taking more pictures than a Japanese school girl. I love how it’s going so far, and as I get better with photography I’m enjoying it more.

We live the moments of our lives, and then those moments are gone, forever. I’m happy when I can capture one of those moments in a striking and dramatic way. And I’m eternally grateful to the rapidly evolving technology that allows me to do that more easily.

I’ve been getting some good reaction to my photos, and since this blog is my way of sharing, from time to time I’ll start sharing a bit of my latest hobby with you. I’ve already shared a ton of pics from my recent Burning Man trip. Today I’ll share some shots of one of my favorite subjects to shoot, cute girls :)

I don’t know if I can call these “photo shoots” since I was just walking around with a camera in my hand with no setup and often terrible natural lighting. Especially because I’ve never even been to a real photo shoot and have no idea what it’s really like. But anyway yeah, fuck all that, here’s some pics from 2 “shoots” I did. Let me know what you think :)

[Full Gallery after the break]

First set is of Ashley and Stefanie at a house in Beverly Hills

Second set is of Kristin at a beach house in Malibu

Related posts:

1. About Hustle Bear
2. My First Burning Man Experience – 2010
3. I Put My Mom on an Internet Dating Site

Groove Armada – Soundboy Rock

		The Things That We Could Share Paris Love Sweet Sound The Girls Say Lightsonic Drop That Thing
(Click image for Amazon.com)

 
I love this album, but I was really upset when I first heard it. That’s because I loved Groove Armada’s more intimate jazzy chilled house of their earlier albums, and this clearly was not that. But Soundboy Rock grew on me, to the point that it’s now my favorite Groove Armada album to listen to.
Soundboy Rock sounds like it was created by completely different musicians than their latest Black Light/White Light albums that I previously reviewed. This has an urban soul hip-hop electro beach dance party vibe. Yeah listen to it, you’ll see. Feels like I’m walking down the Venice Beach boardwalk in the 90s, but transported into the future. This is a perfect Summer album.
I immediately hated this album when I first heard the jarring opening song “Get Down”. My mouth dropped. What the fuck is this shit? Sounds like I’m being skinned alive in a Vietnamese prison camp. Fortunately that horror ends there, it’s consistently high quality for the rest of the album.

Highlights:
I always skip that bastardized shit that precedes it and start this cd off with track 3 “The Things That We Could Share”. It’s got a cool urban groove, and sets a cool tone for a great LA pool party.
By far my favorite song here is “Paris”, even though it doesn’t quite fit in. Lush atmospheric electro soul. Holy shit, this is fucking gorgeous! I would love if they came out with a really chilled out album of songs of this type.
I’ve got a secret to tell you, I don’t like rap. Except for a few cases, like here. I just can’t deny that “The Girls Say” is actually a fun, clever, well constructed rap song. Check it out above.
“Love Sweet Sound” is 70s disco soul diva vocals meets electro-house dance party.
“Lightsonic” is reggae vocals meets electro-house dance party.
“Drop That Thing” is not the sort of song I’d normally like, it’s aggressive electro-hip hop about shaking your ass, but the music is really clever and captivating.
“Song For Mutya” is a totally respectable urban pop song with a nod to the early 90s, and probably would have been a massive hit back then.

Groove Armada keeps reinventing themselves while consistently showing us how creative and clever dance music can be. Soundboy Rock is a must have.

[Video after the break]

Here’s an awesome raver friendly remix of Song 4 Mutya performed live

Related posts:

1. Music Pick – Groove Armada: Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)
2. Music Pick – Groove Armada: White Light
3. Music Pick of the Day – Apparat

If you haven’t heard much about Gary Johnson, that will soon change. He will be running for President of The United States and there is a strong rising wave of excitement behind him.

This Friday at 7:30pm, he’ll be speaking at my house. I’m honored, and I’m also looking forward to seeing you there. In my living room, Gary Johnson will speak about his vision for the direction of our country and how his campaign can make a legitimate difference. After he speaks there will be a some Q&A time and then everyone can hang out, meet people, and even talk to Gary Johnson personally.

Event details are here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=217037961645020

Please confirm there if you’re coming.

Gary Johnson is the former 2 term Governor of New Mexico. He’s famous for setting a national veto record by vetoing more legislation than the other 49 Governors combined, thus slashing the state government during his term and leaving the state with a large budget surplus. He pulled it off when many of his actions were thought political suicide, and yet he got re-elected. He gained even more notoriety for his attack on our failed War on Drugs, by becoming the nation’s most prominent politician openly advocating legalization.

I’ve spoken with Gary Johnson and I was extremely impressed with his mutual appreciation for Milton Friedman and his thorough understanding of Free Market Economics. There are strong principles behind his strong stance for reducing taxes, spending, bureaucracy and government involvement in our lives.

Gary Johnson is running as a Republican, and the thing is, he has less of a challenge in the General Election against Obama, than in the Primaries against Republicans. That’s because Gary Johnson is far more openly liberal than Obama on many social issues. Besides advocating Drug Legalization, he’s also Pro-Choice, and he openly supports Gay Marriage, while Obama still staunchly states that a marriage can only be between a man and a woman. Gary Johnson is the true anti-war Presidential Candidate. Obama ran on that platform, and it was repeatedly threatened that if we voted for McCain we would be at war in a 3rd muslim nation; yet here we are, our nation voted for Obama and we are now fighting a messy and expensive war in Libya. Obama correctly blamed George Bush for irresponsibly spending our nation into a massive debt, yet increased our spending and debt to a level no American has ever seen before. Few in this country can deny that Obama has been extremely disappointing. It is obvious that in a general election Gary Johnson would steal a large percentage of Obama’s independent and even democratic support, while riding the massive republican sentiment against Obama. Gary Johnson has a real possibility of representing the majority in our country and getting elected.

2011 CPAC Straw Poll - Click to Enlarge

The real challenge is the Republican primaries where he butts heads with Old Guard Republicans in the same way that Ron Paul does. In fact, Ron Paul and Gary Johnson are more or less identical in their stance on most issues. Because the beliefs of both men spring from the same ideology of liberty that this nation was founded on. Both Ron Paul and Gary Johnson are refreshing for their ability to be authentic, and for their guts to stand up for what they believe in. Neither shy away from controversial territory, even issues controversial to their own party. In fact, at the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Gary Johnson had the music turned up on him and his speech cut short after he spoke about Marijuana legalization and supported looser immigration policies, even though he was explicitly told not to discuss those issues. And yet! And yet In that 2011 CPAC straw poll of the top potential Republican presidential candidates, Ron Paul won with a distant lead, Mitt Romney came in second, and Gary Johnson came in third place. There is a sudden massive Libertarian movement within the Republican Party propelled by younger voters and represented by Ron Paul and Gary Johnson. I can say clearly that I am not a Republican, never have been, and, unless they start to become more like Gary Johnson, I never will be. I’m sure many others share that sentiment. Ron Paul may not run for President, and it is possible that Gary Johnson might have wider appeal with American voters. If Gary Johnson is somehow able to capitalize on this powerful Libertarian trend and attain the presidential candidate nomination of the Republican party, I believe he has a very likely chance of becoming the next President of our country.

Friday night is your chance to hear Gary Johnson speak in person, ask him questions in a general Question and Answer session, and even talk to him one on one afterwards. And it’s a great opportunity to meet a lot of other cool people, maybe even make some new friends.

There is a minimum suggested donation of $15 towards Gary Johnson’s campaign. It’s not much, but it helps the cause. None of that is going to me. Throwing the event with drinks and food and cleanup, that’s my small contribution for someone who represents ideas that I strongly support. Whatever happens, I’m pretty sure the 2012 elections are going to be intense and epic, maybe even historic. Here’s a chance to be a part of it, to meet someone running for President, and meet some other quality people.

See you Friday at 7:30!

Please confirm on the Facebook Event page:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=217037961645020

Related posts:

1. My First Experience at Freedom Fest 2011 (with Photos!)
2. End The War On Drugs. Start By Legalizing Marijuana.
3. I organized an event for Peter Schiff at my house, some difficulties ensue… (with Photos and Video!)

A couple nights ago, at a private screening for Atlas Shrugged Part 1, I took my seat, closed my eyes, dropped my head, and for the first time in my life, I said a prayer. “Please don’t be cheese ball. Please don’t be cheese ball. Please don’t be cheese ball.” A vision flashed in my mind of John Travolta, on the cover of a Battlefield Earth poster. Petrified, my fingers hardened into a grip around my arm rests. “No!! Please don’t be cheese ball. Please don’t be cheese ball…”

No doubt, the excitement in the room was mixed with fear. The producers of this film had the balls to make a motion picture out of one of the most thought provoking and controversial novels of all time. A Library of Congress reader’s poll ranked Atlas Shrugged as the second most influential book of all time next to the Bible. Other prominent reader polls of Best Novels ever written have listed Atlas Shrugged as #1. It’s a 1000+ page classic epic packed with action, philosophy, adventure, politics, romance, mystery, and a whole lot of attitude. Back in the 1500s, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of a prominent Catholic church, sparking The Reformation. Ayn Rand nailed these 1000+ pages on the door of the world’s churches and state capital buildings, sparking what history might record as the beginning of the next renaissance. The next cultural movement to bring a focus on reality and reason and freedom and productivity back to the world.

This novel isn’t about running a railroad. It’s about society crumbling. And what causes that. It is so ambitious and controversial because it dramatizes the different fundamental values of our culture, and how that plays out through people in a society in crisis. When times get tough, more is demanded and taken from the achievers and high earners. So they work harder, they try harder, but the chains pile on, until they strike. Yes, the business leaders strike, not the employees. The title references the Greek god Atlas, who strains to hold the weight of the world over his shoulders. The load gets heavier and he struggles through blood and sweat to keep the world up. Until he changes his mind, shrugs, and drops the world. Let it fall. Let the world burn. Let all the ungrateful leeches and apes have it to themselves and enjoy it. Atlas is done.

The parallels to what is happening today are extraordinary (causing massive sales spikes for the novel). The achievers and producers are blamed for the problems of the world today. People voted into office politicians intent on further regulating and controlling the producers in our country. More and more are becoming the needy and more mouths are opening. Amidst an economic crisis, the popular political solution is to demonize, then chain the hands that feed us.

Take a second and just imagine what would happen to your quality of life if all the leaders of the vilified oil companies, pharmaceuticals, ISPs, and Zuckerberg suddenly said “Screw you all, I’m out.”

This blog is written for achievers. Ayn Rand took a bold stand in support of those who produce and create. My blog is both inspired by her, and in a small way it’s my own form of tribute to her. Hustling ain’t easy, especially when you don’t have anyone at all sticking up for you. By taking her stand so firmly, Ayn Rand became one of the most widely revered and hated public figures of the last 100 years.

Everyone in that screening room knew the power of this book. And now, they’ve filmed this historical document. Actors and camera men and movie sets are going to bring it to life. Terror strikes you harder when you know the circumstances surrounding its creation. Many have tried to make this movie for decades. Over the years, many famous stars were attached to a wasteland of terrible scripts. Angelina Jolie made waves for being cast in the lead role a few years ago, but then she got pregnant, or something like that, and that production attempt died a bitter death.

As the rumor goes, the option on the film rights to Atlas Shrugged were expiring in June of last year, 2010. Last April, John Aglialoro, the producer who held the option on the film rights, begged for the rights to be extended, but was denied. He had 2 months at that point to start production or lose the millions he already invested in the project over the years. That meant he had 2 months (!) to get a new script together, get the financing together, get the available cast together, choose a director, find film locations, and all that other stuff, while attempting to faithfully and successfully adapt a deep complex legendary novel onto the screen.

Fans were pissed! And so was I. You know, I always push people to take on tough challenges, not to give up when things get more difficult. But even I can acknowledge reality. Not only is this impossible, but the producers are about to ruin one of the most important novels of all time. This book, profound and packed with so much insight and story, is about to get discredited and humiliated before the public. I didn’t believe. In fact, along with many fans, I wanted this movie stopped. Word on the streets was this was going to be a train wreck. We all want to see this film made, but let’s take our time and do it right. If I could speak with the producer I would have said, “John, don’t do this. I know you don’t want to lose your money, but please don’t drag this classic down with you. Please let go and give up on this. It’s too important. You are about to cause a lot of damage and harm. There is no way for you to pull this off as a rush job.”

I WAS WRONG!!!!
Holy shit man, of my fucking god, I was wrong!!!!

Now, does this movie carry the same power as the novel? No man, there’s no way. A movie is just a visual representation. A graphic novel, if you will. Pictures and dialogue truly can not carry the weight of all that writing, but can only allude to it. And that’s the point. It seems obvious that this movie never meant to replace the book, but merely serves as a phenomenal advertisement for it.

The highlight of the film is its script written by Brian O’Toole. Witty and full of attitude, it successfully and faithfully adapts the novel to the screen. Part of what keeps this film enjoyable throughout is that you can hear Ayn Rand’s attitude shine through in the dialogue. The theme was well preserved. This is a war between creators and blood suckers.

Let’s get a few things out of the way. This was made for $10 Million. That’s a lot of money, but tiny tiny for movie production. You’re not going to see Avatar production quality. Directed by a TV director and starring a TV cast of actors, this is actually TV Movie production quality, BUT very good TV Movie quality. We have all seen excellent TV programs that we’ve enjoyed, so this is not points against the film. That being said, the filmmakers clearly did an incredible job squeezing production value out of a small budget.

The production quality was saved by excellent cinematography. The man behind the camera was obviously catching up on his Dr. Zhivago, going for epic sweeping landscape shots that mark (legendary director) David Lean’s claim to excellence.

The acting was ok. It’s not going to win any Oscars, but it pulled it off. The worst acting was unfortunately from John Galt’s few scenes. He’s not supposed to even appear until the 3rd part of the novel. I don’t have a problem with briefly introducing him in part 1, it’s just that it wasn’t done so well. At least he always appears in the dark and you could never really see him, so any better actor can easily take over that part in the future sequels.

By far my favorite actor was Grant Bowler. Perfectly cast as Henry Rearden, he truly brings out the strong accomplished businessman bewildered as he’s surrounded by all the ungrateful bloodsuckers supported by him. Actually, maybe the best cast was Rebecca Wisocky as Henry’s wife, Lillian Rearden. She did a fantastic job of playing a cold bitch; putting genuine terror deep into the heart of any man who’s not yet married. Well, at least she accomplished that for me. Seriously, check out that leaked scene of Rearden giving his wife a gift and tell me if you honestly still feel like ever getting married.

The film was about 100 minutes. It should have been a little longer. Even though this film represents only the first 3rd of the book, there is still too much material to cover, even after editing down the story, and it caused the pacing to become very fast. Some scenes don’t have a chance to set in and build the gravity of the situation. Perhaps this is where art meets reality. 3 hours would have allowed for a lot less compromise, but that much film time would have required a bigger budget, and surely would restrict the distribution considerably, as theaters would be restricted to renting fewer seats. Still maybe it could have used another 20 minutes of film time.

So, the movie is not perfect. But you know what? Fuck that, I don’t care. Hardcore fans will no doubt have the opportunity to find a million ways they can pick apart the film and complain over details. But the truth is, the film is intelligent, it is engaging, it is faithful and it is entertaining. The movie is excellent as it stands, and the fact that John Aglialoro pulled this off and achieved this feat, well that’s a story worthy of being among the pages of the novel itself. And it also opens up some ideas for fun exercise challenges to give the producer next time for the sequel. Apparently some of us work better under extreme pressure. Ok dude, you’ve got only one month this time, make it better. GO!

I kid.

John Aglialoro, my deepest apologies for my previous misgivings. I salute you sir.

Here is a leaked scene from the movie. This is representative of the quality of the rest of the film.

 
The trailer isn’t bad, but it doesn’t actually do the movie justice.

 
IMPORTANT: This film will only open in a few theaters initially, skipping many major cities. If you want to get this film into a theater near you make sure you demand it. Let’s make sure this film has the biggest opening weekend it possibly can. Share this review and the youtube clips above. The release date is Tax Day, April 15, 2011. No doubt this film represents a movement. Let’s be a part of it.

 
For more info check out
The Official Atlas Shrugged movie site
The unofficial Atlas Shrugged news update blog
And our friends at The Atlasphere who have been following these developments for years

Update: The film is now released. Opening weekend showings feel more like a concert or an event for fans. People were cheering and clapping. I’m not surprised that critics are completely trashing the movie, and yet audience reaction seems to be very positive. I honestly don’t remember a time when any movie has ever had this severe of a difference of opinion between critics and audience. The film’s response is playing out the same intellectual battle the novel has always encountered. To be fair to the film critics, as far as the film elements go, this is low budget, the acting is ok (except the actors who play James Taggart and John Galt are horrible), some of the editing is amateurish, and yeah, the love scene should have been a little edgier. Eh, fuck all that. The movie is smart, the dialogue is great, it’s thought provoking and full of attitude. People are enjoying it. And to be able to pull this off with such a low budget and short time constraint is absolutely incredible.

And yeah, hey, it’s great to see a film that comes from a different perspective. Hollywood has been pretty consistent in sending the same messages in children films and adult films. Atlas Shrugged is a film that defies those messages, boldly, without apology. It’s no wonder the hollywood film community has shunned it fiercely, so that it had to be funded independently, distributed independently, and even marketed independently (Yahoo Movies wasn’t even listing the film on its opening day until it seems fan outrage forced it to).

Atlas Shrugged the novel created a movement. It tried to change the direction of our country. Ayn Rand saw us blindly heading for a train wreck. And here we are today, our train conductors aren’t asleep at the wheel; even worse, their eyes are closed, but their feet are on the gas. This movie only scratches the surface of the novel, but right now it represents that movement. People are excited because this could be the beginning of a huge wave that moves in a different direction. Go see the film to be a part of it. Or go to see what the big deal is all about.

Related posts:

1. My First Experience at Freedom Fest 2011 (with Photos!)
2. Movie Review: Robin Hood – A Tea Party Tax Avenger?
3. Video of the Day – Matt Ridley: When Ideas Have Sex

Groove Armada – White Light – Black Light

		Warsaw (White Light) Time and Space (White Light) History (White Light) 1980 (White Light)
(Click image for Amazon.com)
		Paper Romance (Black Light) Just For Tonight (Black Light) Shameless (Black Light)
(Click image for Amazon.com)

 
If you feel like popular dance music has become a race to the bottom, I’d agree with you. Who can make stupider music than the rest? That race is raging full steam at the dance clubs. Ah, the Dance Club, a magical place where they not only are NOT embarrassed to play the dumbest music you’ve ever heard, but they make sure it’s so loud you can’t hear your friend screaming in your ear. Yeah, the dance floor isn’t a place to hold high level discussions; but when that “Like a G6″ song comes on, does no one snap out of it to look around and wonder what they’re doing surrounded by all these monkeys?

Thank god for Groove Armada. They make great dance music, the difference is it’s consistently interesting and brilliant.

Their new White Light album is incredible. It’s a companion to their Black Light album, but very different. The same songs are on both albums, just completely re-created and re-invented. Black Light is the dark version, White Light is the bright version. These albums have this surreal early 80s glam rock disco vibe, which totally caught me off guard; because it’s such a departure from their more accessible urban house past. This sounds like it’s from completely different musicians. In theory I’d usually be more interested in the darker version; however, except for a couple phenomenal songs, I’m just not so into Black Light, but I LOVE White Light. These songs are powerful, clever, unique, epic, and it’s still fun dance music. I already loved Groove Armada, but they have outdone themselves here.

To hear just how incredible they are at totally reinventing their songs into something else, check out this version of History and compare it against the one above.

 
[Videos from this album after the break]

Related posts:

1. Music Pick – Groove Armada: Soundboy Rock
2. Music Pick – Groove Armada: Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)
3. Music Pick: The xx – XX

Let’s bring some perspective here. People have become hysterical. They are DEMANDING Net Neutrality. Now. Right NOW. But, wait a second… they already have it. Right now, we all enjoy a neutral net. It’s here. It exists. It’s alive. And it’s fucking fantastic.

Bless their hearts. Net Neutrality advocates have good intentions. They are typically very intelligent, sophisticated, and they obviously care enough to get involved in bringing about a better world. I hope that this article will help some of them realize that they are fighting to destroy their own goal. They are fighting for their enemy.

Our Enemy. We all have a common enemy here, because we all have a common goal. Everyone on all sides of this debate wants the same thing, an open and free Internet.

Just like Castro’s army and Lenin’s army gathered followers blissfully marching for their future freedom and prosperity only to later become shocked in horror, Net Neutrality Advocates will soon realize that they are marching and singing in support of The Boot. This boot stomps without precision, without emotion, without representation.

My friends, now is a time to stop and reflect. Before we continue fighting, let’s briefly go over this issue so we can understand the perspectives.

There is no truly free country left on this planet. That’s becoming less of a problem, because, we have the Internet. The Internet, as it is right now, is humanity’s last bastion of pure freedom. We plug in, we say what we like, we view what we like, we play, we connect, we share, we learn, we grow.

It is incredible how much the Internet has already changed our lives. And the possibilities for the future are astonishing.

The Internet is currently completely unregulated by our government. There’s no government regulating our content, our activity, or our Internet connections.

So what is Net Neutrality? And why is it so important?

Senator Al Franken has said that “Net Neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time.”

Moby is really concerned about it. He was crying about the threat 4.5 years ago.

FACT: The Net Neutrality cause is a response to a hypothetical problem. We’ve never had this problem. It’s a hypothesis, by those who are simply afraid of business. They’ve confused a ton of people and got them all riled up. Let me let them explain their concerns in their own words through some visual diagrams from http://www.theopeninter.net/

Click to Enlarge - The Internet now and as it's always been

Click to Enlarge - Scary propaganda against Business about their intent for the Internet of the future

So… greedy companies “might” restrict us from things, or they “might” prioritize content delivery to the highest payer. We need to give the government the authority to regulate the Internet for the first time ever in order to protect us from what alarmists think companies “might” do.

So the logic for Net Neutrality legislation is that we need to regulate the Internet in order to keep it free. Yes that is the logic.

Yes, that really is the logic. This IS NOT a debate about whether the Internet should remain open and free. WE ALL want that. This is ONLY a debate about whether control over our access should be in the hands of Internet Service Provider companies (ISPs) or… the Government.

Let us explore that, shall we?

It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.
— Voltaire

ISPs VS Government

ISP companies provide access to the Internet. They’re profiting, so many assume they’re only out to rip us off and take our money.

No one needs to explain how valuable internet access is to our lives. But let us remember a few things:
Remember when we actually had to print out flyers and make a bunch of phone calls to throw a big party?
Remember driving without Nav-Traffic on our phones because we had to go to the news stand to get magazines (!) for current info on our favorite topics?
Remember when the only way you found out your friend also loves Pink Floyd is when he actually told you?
Does anyone remember making mix tapes, before we had online access to music, videos and pictures, games and fun interesting sites and blogs (like Hustle Bear)?
And of course, how much less productive were we all way back when, even before 28k dial-up, without email (remember the fax?), online research, and collaboration tools?
Rather than disconnecting us, commonly available internet access has enabled us to become tremendously more connected to each other, tremendously more productive, and tremendously more entertained than anything else in human history. The ISPs have set us all up with a sweet bargain.

It’s amazing how some of the most intense internet users are unwilling to give ISPs credit for anything. At great expense of Billions of dollars, ISPs have laid down and installed cable to our homes. Almost everyone now has access to simple high speed broadband for $20 to $30/month (I pay $45/month for higher speed cable access, and it’s soooo worth it). One problem with the diagram above is that our homes are not connected to just one big ISP. The FCC’s own data shows that as of June 2008, 98 percent of zip codes have at least 2 broadband providers, and 88% of zip codes have at least 4 broadband providers. You can even still get unlimited slower dial up internet access for like $10/month if you’ve got a home phone line. And most people have access to 3g wireless internet, and very soon even higher speed 4g wireless internet.

What is with the vilification of ISPs? Has everyone totally forgotten that none of us would have internet access if ISPs didn’t invest the billions, the energy, and the years of coordinating to bring us all internet access conveniently and cheaply?
ISPs ARE NOT our enemy. They certainly should not be feared. Thank god for them. Really. Think about it.

What we need to understand is that while ISPs aren’t currently regulated by the government, they are already severely regulated. Not by government. They are regulated by YOU. You are their customer. You are the boss. You hold the checkbook. ISP companies are regulated by profits. That’s right, profit is the regulator. Like every company that is in business for profit, they have to answer to their customers. All successful businesses are constantly sniffing; trying to figure out what customers want. Profit makes them care about you. Customers will only voluntarily hand over money if it’s worth it. Right now we have de-facto Net Neutrality, because that’s what you want. That’s what we all want. We have to understand that the Internet has evolved by virtue of the decisions of billions of users and content creators. If you are on Facebook, you are a content creator. ISPs have responded to our needs and continually invest tremendous money and resources to provide better options. They ARE answerable to you, and thus they ARE highly regulated by you.

As demonstrated by the history and progress of America and other (even more) free market economies, these fears against businesses seeking profit have shown themselves to be unfounded. Profit seeking is our protection. If customers want a neutral net and an ISP attempts to block access, the ISP will suffer until they’ve learned their lesson. Comcast DID briefly attempt to slow down illegal file sharing (via BitTorrent protocol) that was overwhelming their cable lines with massive traffic. Comcast caved to increasing consumer complaints and bad press well before the FCC issued any order. De-facto net neutrality was restored. That’s the power of a free market.

The government… they don’t bend so easily

If we can’t trust people with freedom, how can we trust them with power?
- Anonymous

As for the FCC, they haven’t given us access to anything. They’ve only spent our money. On what? Well, they were formed to license out our limited radio spectrum to radio stations. They’ve since overstepped that authority and moved on to censoring radio, and then TV. They have no authority to regulate the Internet, but that’s where tech is obviously moving. If they don’t step into internet regulation, their agency will be rendered useless in short time. So this small body of bureaucrats will be downsized out of business soon, but can keep their jobs if they start making decisions about the future of the Internet. I don’t blame them. When your options are fuck or die, what are you going to do?? The FCC is not in the business of making profit. They get paid whether they do a good job for you or not. They don’t have to care about you, or all the customers for that matter. Forcing bureaucrats to respond to our requests is SO MUCH more difficult than forcing companies to respond. With companies, customers quickly desert them for a better value, forcing companies to quickly change course (Windows Vista, Volvo, the old Apple Macintosh, etc.). With bureaucracies, you’ve got to wait for the next election cycle, contribute a lot of campaign funds, pester all your friends to join your cause, and then… hope.

And, who’s regulating the FCC? The fate of several hundred million American internet users should reside in the decisions of what a small panel of appointed bureaucrats decide is best for us all? The rules can be pretty vague. The FCC will decide these matters on a case by case basis.

Where’s the fire??

It’s petty to complain about things that have never been a serious problem. Usually you institute regulations AFTER an industry has been shown to violate us. In this case we are fighting over hypotheticals.

Well I’ve got a hypothetical for you. The FCC needs to survive. It starts regulating ISPs to impose Net Neutrality and ensure that they don’t prioritize content. The FCC makes exceptions for spam. Obviously it’s ok for the ISPs to restrict spam. Soon, under pressure from Homeland Security, the FCC begins monitoring and censoring illegitimate online content, such as Wikileaks. They assure us they aren’t here to censor the Internet, as long as the content is legitimate. Then the FCC, under pressure from major media conglomerates, forces ISPs to restrict access to pirated material. The ISPs complain that the burden is just too large for them to monitor and track pirated material. That’s quite alright, because the FCC will help with that too. They can hire a bunch of bureaucrats (at our expense) to simply monitor and censor only pirated material “with a light touch“. Then it comes to be one day soon that it only takes a 3-2 ruling for the FCC to start censoring pornographic and other objectionable content, without needing a public vote. Like with TV and Radio, children need to be protected, and a large portion of the public want this protection. The religious right and politically correct left have found common ground. Be careful not to say “fuck” on your blog or in the forums, it’s objectionable. Our whole internet experience is reduced to the intellectual level of a Barney episode. The former Net Neutrality advocates are OUTRAGED. They are screaming, “We didn’t intend this!!” “The FCC was going to regulate WITH A LIGHT TOUCH!”

Sound far-fetched? Read FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s own words on the government website www.openinternet.gov:

…And this principle will not constrain efforts to ensure a safe, secure, and spam-free Internet experience, or to enforce the law. It is vital that illegal conduct be curtailed on the Internet. As I said in my Senate confirmation hearing, open Internet principles apply only to lawful content, services and applications — not to activities like unlawful distribution of copyrighted works, which has serious economic consequences. The enforcement of copyright and other laws and the obligations of network openness can and must co-exist.
- FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski

If you enjoy access to controversial content such as sensitive government data from Wikileaks, or file sharing of copyrighted material, and you believe the government will be on your side to protect your access, you are simply mistaken.

Once our open and free internet is out of the market’s hands and protected in the hands of government officials, there’s all sorts of other things our government can protect us from. To quote from a new Washington Post article:

“Venezuela President Hugo Chavez’s congressional allies are considering extending the ‘Social Responsibility Law’ for broadcast media to the Internet, banning messages that ‘disrespect public authorities,’ ‘incite or promote hatred’ or crimes, or are aimed at creating ‘anxiety’ in the population.”

But… that’s Venezuela were talking about. That shit could never happen here.

Oh.

Really?

Then what the fuck is THIS??

S.3480 – Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010. Sponsored by Senator Joseph Lieberman. “Creates the Office of Cyberspace Policy and National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications to set standards and coordinate cybersecurity efforts within the government. Gives the NCCC broad powers…”
This new Senate bill proposes to give the president the authority “to seize control of or even shut down portions of the Internet“.

Now if we’re going to pre-emptively legislate based on hypotheticals, which hypothetical scenario is more likely? The FCC overstepping its current authority, or ISPs delivering services that its customers are not happy about?

Notice that the FCC took a vote on this just before Christmas when Congress is not in session and a lot less people are paying attention. Also note that they never had any authority to start making rules about the internet. They are already acting tyrannically. Already the new rules agreed to by the 3-2 ruling are confusing people and mystifying even Net Neutrality advocates. No one is happy about it. Even the paranoid zealots at SaveTheInternet.com are upset. It’s just beginning.

The scariest thing is actually what will happen to the ISPs as they become more answerable to government bureaucrats and less answerable to customers. Government power distorts businesses, turning them into the menacing form of corporations we all hate. The ISPs will have to step up their lobbying to survive, that is when they will blatantly attempt to get politicians in their pocket, and that is when they will begin caring more about political dominance and less about our user experience. All the money, time, and energy “invested” in lobbying and lawyers isn’t invested in building our high speed tech future. The ISPs have already spent over $40 Million of customer revenues to lobby in Washington on this matter. How much more customer revenue should they divert to fighting Net Neutrality advocates?
If we want business to stop interfering in politics, we need politics to stop interfering with business.

But hopefully this nightmare can be aborted before it is born.

From a recent article at Reason.com:

“Earlier this year, a federal court ruled that the FCC had no Congressionally granted authority to regulate network management. Congress hasn’t updated the agency’s authority over the Net since then, but the FCC is now saying that, well, it has the authority anyway. [Chairman] Genachowski’s team has come up with a different legal justification, and they’re betting that this time around they can convince a judge to buy it.”

A bunch of Republicans in congress are vowing to defeat this new ruling. I will admit that unless the Republicans have truly altered course (maybe they have), I am personally afraid of them being our line of defense for the future of free speech and an actual open internet.

Should these guys decide the future of our internet?

The FCC chairman Julius Genachowski is promising to regulate with a “Light Touch“. The same agency that censors radio and TV broadcasting with a “Light Touch” by throwing a big fit and leveling massive fines disproportionate to the “crime“.
(CBS is still fighting the FCC over the fine for Janet Jackson’s split second nipple slip)

Let’s let our ISPs (wireless and wired) be free and motivated to continue their heavy investment towards the future evolution of the Internet. The public good is not served by doing things to discourage massive future internet investment.

Even if; even if we get the terrible nightmare hypothesis feared in all the Net Neutrality propaganda of ISPs offering higher level of services to people willing to pay more for it, well that’s not really so horrible, and certainly not justification to start regulating. All great technologies enjoyed by the common man today started out as luxuries for the few; heated running water, the automobile, the telephone, the cell phone. Sometimes that is the necessary approach to fund technological development. Imagine if early in this century our government passed “Transportation Neutrality” laws ensuring that no one travel faster and more comfortably than another simply because they pay more for it. The automobile industry would never have gotten off the ground, and automobiles would not be accessible to the masses today. WHO KNOWS how the Internet will develop and progress? It would be so foolish to get in the way of the companies investing in our future and bringing value far above the price they are charging.

Don’t let people scare you about the ISPS. The sky is not falling. Our internet is not going to be ruined. Unless… Government gets its boot in the door.

Net Neutrality is the doorway to regulate the Internet. The intent of the legislation is to keep the Internet free and open. But the result of imposing legislation makes the Internet less free and open.

We MUST stop judging government policies by their intentions and start judging them by their results.

Intentions may change.
Regulatory structures rarely do.

Regulation = Freedom only in George Orwell’s 1984. Central authority monitoring does not lead to “openness”. Burdening the Internet service providers with extra hoops for oversight and regulation will not ensure a brighter future for our internet and its ongoing evolution.

Regulations are a tax. We all pay for a company’s massive loss of efficiency needed to deal with regulations. It might be worth it when we are protecting our air and drinking water, but it is SILLY when we’re paying it to protect us from a problem that never happened.

Do companies who invest their time, energy and money providing us access have a right to a voice here? What do the ISPs have to say?

ATT says:
“[We disagree with the need for Net Neutrality regulation] especially given the utter absence of any evidence that abuses are occurring in the Internet market, let alone any of the gravity to justify government intervention. … Too often, well-funded ideologues have used intimidation, vilification, and fear-mongering to advance their goal that government control the Internet and other forms of communication without regard for their impact on the jobs and livelihoods of millions already challenged by a difficult economy.”

Verizon says:
“The FCC appears to assert broad authority for sweeping new regulation of broadband wireline and wireless networks and the Internet itself. This assertion of authority without solid statutory underpinnings will yield continued uncertainty for industry, innovators, and investors. In the long run, that is harmful to consumers and the nation.”
(Verizon has always held this position)

Is that greedy profit seeking nonsense, or is that actually correct?
These statements from the ISPs are especially bold considering they are concerning their potential future masters who can jeopardize the Billions of dollars they’ve already spent on their infrastructure.

Indeed a new Slate Magazine article states that “the new rules could in particular upend the best engine of innovation the struggling economy currently has.”

When you run at the speed of Congress it is hard to keep up with Moore’s Law.
- Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun Microsystems

 The solution to a problem that doesn’t exist IS the problem.

At least Al Franken is consistent!

Senator Al Franken might be right. Net Neutrality might become the most important free speech issue of our time, IF we follow his advice.

When you hear Net Neutrality arguments, pay attention to the unintended consequences of their good intentions.

Remember: This isn’t an argument about having a free open internet. This is an argument about whether our central government planners should be given the power to start regulating it.

Ultimately this is an old ideological battle playing out again, between those afraid of the free market and those afraid of government intervention.

If you look around at all the problems with our country, they are caused less by outside aggressors and mostly by ourselves. If we want to improve things we need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. An unregulated free Internet is just too important to harm.

The Internet has none of the problems that Net Neutrality advocates are wailing about. And yet for the last 5 years the Net Neutrality movement has been furiously demanding immediate government action, constantly scaring people with impending doom if we don’t act RIGHT NOW PEOPLE, RIGHT NOW!! And yet they are clutching at trivial examples to justify the need to SAVE THE INTERNET! The 2 million strong coalition to save the Internet is nothing more than an embarrassment, demonstrating that it is still possible in this day and age to whip people up into a passionate frenzy over vague confusion.

It’s one or the other, Regulation or Freedom. Ask yourself which you support.

When they tell you we need to impose regulation to keep the Internet free, tell them we need to prevent regulation to keep the Internet free.

The Internet doesn’t need to be saved by bureaucrats. We don’t want their protection.

Here are 2 fantastic videos created by Reason TV that clearly explain this issue:

 
Please share and spread this article so we can put a stop to this silliness.

(ps. If you have a legitimate disagreement, please share it. Through open discussion we can find a solution to our common goal. But if you ignore the points here and have the urge to publicly dismiss this article on online forums as “must have been paid for by the ISPs”, please would you be so kind and shoot yourself so your genes don’t pollute the future of humanity. Thank you.)

 
 
1/28/2011 UPDATE from Egypt:
“The Internet blackout in Egypt shows that a country with strong control over its Internet providers apparently can force all of them to pull their plugs at once”

 
 
1/20/2012 The recent SOPA/PIPA legislation controversy validates the dangers I warned about in this article. We do not want government regulating our internet experience.

Related posts:

1. We Are Not Pawns, We Are Not Pawns
2. If you believe government shouldn’t tax you and spend away your future then you must be a RACIST!!!
3. The Art of Smearing the Tea Baggers – Part 2

Delerium – Karma

		Silence Enchanted Duende Euphoria (Firefly) Til the End of Time Heaven's Earth
(Click image for Amazon.com)

 
This is a classic.
Taking cues from an erotic electronica genre pioneered by Enigma and Deep Forest in the early 90s, with their album “Karma” Delerium forged a darker ethnic tribal sound. This album kicked off the genre of electronic worldbeat. There are a million knock-offs now, but when this came out, there was nothing like it. Despite all the imitation, and years of advancing technology, this still holds up as a serious contender for best electronic worldbeat album ever. Dark, erotic, ethereal, atmospheric, with driving grooves that keep it all still accessible.

“Karma” spawned a sleeper megahit with Sarah McLachlan’s signing featured on “Silence”. I noticed that the track and consequently Delerium got massively recognized a few years and a couple albums later, when “Silence” remixes became club hits. I only picked this cd up in 1997 because I was into dark industrial at the time and this was one of the many side projects of the underground metal industrial band Front Line Assembly, which is the duo of Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber. This cd was a shock to the fans of their underground industrial side, way too poppy and commercial. Consequently, Delerium fans were in for a major shock if they looked for other work by this duo.

You’ll have to go back to 1997 to remember how exciting this new sound was, but the album hasn’t lost its awesomeness. This is a classic that will persist. You just can’t deny that this is a brilliant and beautiful album.

[Videos after the break]

Here’s a cool remix of Silence from Paul Oakenfold over some night driving footage

Tiesto’s remix of Silence got super popular

This is probably my favorite dance remix of Silence, by Niels Van Gogh and Thomas Gold

Oh and this is a phenomenal remix of Heaven’s Earth (a great song that didn’t actually appear on the original pressing of Karma)
Heaven's Earth feat. Kristy Thirsk (Key South ReMix)

Related posts:

1. Music Pick: The xx – XX
2. Music Pick of the Day – Govinda
3. Music Pick – Groove Armada: Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)

Have you ever seen the movie “Monsters Inc.”?

It’s a cute animated Disney film about Big Scary Monsters. All day long they go through magical doors, each leading into a bedroom of a young child sleeping at night, and the monster’s job is to scare the shit out of that kid and extract screams for money.

That’s very much like the life of a lawyer. He goes about his work day, new situations come up, he gets involved and scares some people, he gets paid. The better he is at scaring people, the better paid he is. I’m not attacking lawyers for doing their job, everyone’s got to eat and earn a living. I just want to show you how best to deal with him.

You have to understand this fundamentally: When someone hires a lawyer to threaten you, he’s not hiring someone to figure out the legal matters involved, he’s hiring someone to threaten you. Crushing you and making you bend is the first priority, the law is just a tool.

In earlier times, when a dispute arose you would hire some muscle, or even a hit man to take care of it. In civil society we hire attorneys. They are the modern day muscle men. Unfortunately the law is often unjust or unclear and attorneys are therefore able to exact injustice, sometimes terrible injustice, on behalf of their clients.

“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it.” George Bernard Shaw

THE APPROACH: After a busy day scaring people, when a monster enters your bedroom to scare you, you need to scare HIM. He should open the door, step inside, THEN you close the door, lock it, terrify the living shit out of him until the monster begs you to let him out.

A threatening attorney must be made to realize that his life is much better returned to intimidating average people. He should want nothing to do with you. You are the pig who enjoys getting dirty. When your name is mentioned to him, it should trigger a recurring nightmare and sudden stomach pain.

That’s my approach anyway. And it’s worked well for me.

Back in the glory days of my career as a Commercial Real Estate Broker, I would receive a very threatening attorney letter at least once a month, but often about once a week. They are like toilet paper to me, the words on the paper didn’t concern me.

That’s because involving attorneys is such a common negotiating practice when dollar values rise and several million dollars are at stake. The attorney letter is always written to sound as terrifying as possible; threatening enormous amounts of money, threatening life as we know it, threatening to sue everyone and everyone’s grandmother.

The more threatening the letter, the more references to precedent case numbers, the more terrifying the tone, the more they’re covering up. The more they are compensating for lack of a legitimate case. Learn to smell a bluff.

What I do next depends on the attorney’s tone on the phone when I call him. I’ve noticed 3 types.

It’s true, and it is rare, sometimes you call a lawyer and his tone is actually warm and a little friendly. That’s good. He might actually be a reasonable guy and might try to make a fair situation out of this. Go ahead and work it out fairly. Getting an attorney involved is a hostile act, but see if there’s still an opportunity to resolve the matter cooperatively.

Usually his tone is cold and technical. That’s just fine. I usually cut right to the chase and tell him “the letter I received is without any merit whatsoever. You’ve given us 1 month to send your client $350,000 before you file a lawsuit. That’s nice of you, but let’s not drag this out and create movie suspense. Go ahead and file the suit tomorrow if that’s in your client’s best interest. But if I receive any more communication from your office beyond that this matter is dropped, I will sue your client and sue you personally for malicious prosecution according to CCP 128.7” Surprisingly, often enough that got the attorney to drop the matter.

Remember, attorneys do not want legal problems resolved. Resolution of conflicts dries up his billable hours. He wants as much chaos and destruction as possible. That way he becomes more important.
However, it’s amazing how despite a tolerance for causing pain for others he will usually have a very low tolerance for pain himself. Most attorneys have no balls. They aren’t businessmen and they’re usually unwilling to take even the slightest personal risk. Attorneys are very uncomfortable about being attacked personally, and they’re not used to it. You have a lot of leverage over them by going after their license and their reputation, two things they guard dearly. They just won’t risk anything important on a bluff.

I’ve even had attorneys hang up on me mid sentence realizing it’s not worth their time speaking with me for another second, let alone pursuing further nonsense legal action. That is a good outcome.

The third type of encounter is when, often enough, the tone of the attorney picking up the phone is rude, nasty, and extremely condescending. I’m not going to deny it, I get a certain sense of excitement when I hear this. My blood starts rushing and I can’t hold back my smile. This situation now merits my favorite legal response.

I tell him “We’re going to keep this short and sweet. Do you have a pen and paper? I don’t want to send back any letters or emails, I want you to write down my formal response. Are you ready? Good. The formal response to your client is, ‘Eat Shit and Go Fuck Yourself’. Did you get all that, or should I repeat it?” That should catch him off guard. Always, he’ll quickly ask me why I’m behaving so unprofessionally. I don’t tell him to please look in the mirror when he asks these things, I just tell him to “Be a good professional and pass along the message. Goodbye.”

That is a powerful approach for so many more reasons than you can quickly realize.

In a fight you want to limit your opponents moves and force him in the direction you want him to go. The other side is now forced to carefully consider their options, their options have just been drastically limited.

I make sure I don’t seem like I’m crazy and emotional, I seem crazy and deliberate. No one wants to get into a legal fight with someone who’s crazy and deliberate.

Also the nasty rude condescending attitude usually comes from the big fish lawyers that charge $500 to $900 an hour. His client went through pains to find the biggest baddest most expensive weapon to fire at me. Someone really wants me scared. The attorney just received a fat retainer and must justify his cost. After all that puffery and bravado, he really really doesn’t want to have nothing to show for himself but to relay a message to eat shit and go fuck yourself.

He has a reputation to uphold among his profession and beyond. Everyone knows him as a big shot. He does not like to doubt himself. His wife, children and friends ask him how things are going. No one speaks to the king of the jungle like that! But what can he do about it? Someone paid him a lot of money to scare me and I’m not scared.

The big shots are usually more sensitive. They may dress expensively, speak eloquently, be well educated, but make no mistake, they are not that sophisticated, they are savages. The way I deal with them is I think about how to deal with a 3 year old throwing a temper tantrum for attention. If he behaves, I’ve got a cookie for him. Otherwise he’s going to enjoy some discipline.

The point is that I make it very clear that I’m completely uncooperative when anyone tries to strong arm me with bullshit. I’ll usually demonstrate that clearly by doing something that will not look good in front of a judge. Because IT WILL NEVER GET IN FRONT OF A JUDGE. As I said earlier, most legal cases are without much merit. The bible is interpreted in a million different ways, and unfortunately our legal code is even more widely interpreted. Attorneys need your cooperation to intimidate you with the law. If you’re not cooperative, there’s no way the other side will take a questionable business dispute all the way to court, spending a couple hundred thousand dollars doing so, with a very shaky chance of winning. It’s not a smart business move, and ultimately there is a businessman paying and authorizing the attorney’s actions. So when an attorney gets hostile with me, I remain very uncooperative and demonstrate that clearly by doing things that could look terrible in front of a judge.

Let me be clear, I would never tell a moderately reasonable attorney to “eat shit and go fuck yourself”. I tell that to the hardcore condescending assholes. I’ve done it many times. It has NEVER defused the situation. They always get pissed and riled up. That’s fine with me because they were already uncooperative and hostile to begin with. This is not a bluff technique, I’m making it clear that being a dick is not a productive way to deal with me. And since, in my experience, their cases have always been vague or based on bullshit, their ONLY options left after that are to pursue trial on a weak case, or become friendlier.

Quick tip: When you do engage the other side (or their lawyer), whatever you do, never say the line “I’m taking this all the way to trial, I don’t care what this costs me”. Everyone says that. Everyone. That doesn’t work with someone like me. I smell blood. “Oh really, you don’t care what this costs you? Alright then, let’s find out how much you really don’t care.” People who say they don’t care about the costs often cave sooner, because they are showing that they’re weak. They’re showing that they really don’t have much solid to fight you with except their loudly stated tolerance for pain. That tolerance is easy to test. And it’s usually very low when there’s not much else but puffery to back it up. Any modestly wise person cares about the financial effects of litigation. Don’t try to pretend you’re stupid, or else you’re going to look stupid.
A much better approach if you want to demonstrate you’re unconcerned about a lawsuit is to find a creative reason why you might actually enjoy a lawsuit. Maybe tell the attorney something like this, “While no one enjoys a grueling court case that wastes everyone’s time, energy and money; now that I think about it I would be really excited for the opportunity to depose your client. He has acted in bad faith and illegally on a number of matters that I personally resent and I simply can not wait to hear how he will answer for himself under oath. Do me a favor and tell your client to file the lawsuit and let’s take this all the way to court. I think this will be very interesting.”

There’s more to this than I can describe in this article, but you get the idea. I’m not advocating bluffing, I’m advocating standing up for yourself. That’s what this article is about. Ultimately you’re dealing with a hostile situation that probably won’t be able to be resolved cooperatively anymore. A legal fight, like any other kind of fight, requires that you take some risks or else the other side will have all the leverage and will wipe the floor with you. Once someone is attacking you and you’re in a fight, you either grow some balls, or you bend over.

Attorneys are hated because they’re in a great position. They get to attack you with no repercussions. In fact the more fighting there is, the more they benefit. You will need to get creative to gain leverage and find their pressure points.
Attorneys are smart to intimidate people into settling large amounts of money over absolute bullshit. Because too often it works. Most people who work hard to build their life and savings are too confused and afraid of the law to adequately fight back and defend themselves.

If you have clearly done someone wrong, then you deserve to pay for it. I’m not writing this to help assholes. This advice shouldn’t help much if the other side has a legitimate claim against you for clear injustice. This is about standing up to legal intimidation as a negotiating tool. From my experience that is what most legal action has been about. If you’ve ripped people off and they’re suing you, I hope you get fucked, and I fully support the lawyer that will help do the fucking.

Truth is I don’t totally consider the attorney the bad guy. Someone hired him to reek havoc and terror to get his way. The attorney is just doing what he’s paid to do. It is the attorney’s client that is pursuing justice or injustice.
Attorneys have gone through extra years of school at considerable expense, and endured grueling hours to pay their dues. They want to get paid for it. They don’t usually care if they damage or ruin your life unjustly.
That’s why people need to know how to stand up to them.

The higher you rise and the better you do in business, the more legal challenges you will encounter. You’ll be surprised at the reasons people invent to take from you, gain leverage against you, or just harass you.

Many good friends of mine are lawyers and I’ve had a lot of experience with a wide assortment in the business world. I can safely say that few people have less respect for the law than lawyers. Abuse of law is not just common, it defines the industry.

Don’t let them push you around.

If you’re willing to look a monster in the eyes, you just might find that he has no teeth.

UPDATE: This article has spread like crazy, but I’m not sure how I feel about the most often quoted line being “eat shit and go fuck yourself”. This is not at all how I normally conduct business and deal with people. ONLY with people already attacking and trying to strong arm me. Virtually all of my business interactions are extremely cooperative and I go out of my way to resolve disputes fairly. A great counterpoint to this article and demonstration of how to resolve normal disputes is in my article lovingly titled How to handle Neighbors Pissed Off over a Crazy Late Night Party. It’s a fun read, and it’ll better prepare you for normal conflict resolution.

UPDATE 2: On a serious note, to get a better sense of how serious and pervasive the problem of Legal Abuse is, please read any story from this excellent site:
Faces Of Lawsuit Abuse

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Ours – Mercy

		Mercy The Worst Thing Beautiful God Only Wants You Live Again Willing
(Click image for Amazon.com)

Tortured. Glorious. Sad. Aggressive. Beautiful. Powerful. Brilliant. Epic. Jimmy Gnecco’s music is intense. Jimmy Gnecco is Ours (essentially), and I’d say he’s the most talented vocalist in rock music today. His range is incredible and there’s so much feeling in his voice. It’s obvious the late Jeff Buckley is a massive influence, which is a good thing, because Jeff Buckley was the most talented vocalist in rock music ever.
Mercy, Ours’ 3rd album, is a continuation of their debut Distorted Lullabies, but everything is ratcheted up several notches, boundaries pushed and he went even darker; enough that Jimmy Gnecco is no longer a Jeff Buckley clone, but is unmistakably recognized for his own sound.
I waited 6 years for Mercy to finally come out 2008. It kept getting pushed back again and again. I had heard songs from it at live shows back in 2002. It was being recorded with Rick Rubin, a legendary producer; yet I was scared I’d be disappointed. Ours’ second album Precious WAS so disappointing. But Mercy shocked me and blew me away.
The album starts with the title track “Mercy” which is one of my favorite songs ever. Gorgeous, atmospheric, aggressive and intense.
The next song “The Worst Thing Beautiful” is fantastic. If it was recorded by U2 it would be their next big hit blowing up the airwaves. Except it’s a bit more edgy than U2. Still this is the album’s most accessible song, I don’t know why it wasn’t pushed hard enough and turned into a major hit.
“God Only Wants You” is truly haunting. It’s strange to hear the piano over the arpeggio guitar, I loved when he played this song acoustic live back in the day. Anyway whatever, this is such a beautiful song.
“Live Again” is intense! Whoa! Opens with a Marilyn Manson like edge. Gorgeous, deranged and heavy.
“Willing” is cool. Another U2 inspired song that’s accessible enough to have been a radio hit.
Muse is a cool band. Ours is better, and should have had that kind of success. Unfortunately this album didn’t get the backing it deserved. It’s true that this album isn’t 100% consistent. There are some low points that I skip past (Saint), but the high points are epic, original, and lay a path for others to follow.

[Video after the break]

Here’s an early live version of God Only Wants You from 2002

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Ours – Distorted Lullabies

		Fallen Souls Here is the Light Sometimes Medication Dancing Alone
(Click image for Amazon.com)

I played the shit out of this album when I was about 22. A couple years before, I discovered Jeff Buckley and he quickly became my favorite musician ever, certainly the best rock singer ever. Sad to discover him a couple years after he died, and to know that there will be no new music or concerts to ever look forward to. Enter Jimmy Gnecco, who for all intents and purposes is the band Ours. I’m certain many Jeff Buckley fans look to Jimmy Gnecco as the continuation of Jeff Buckley’s legacy, as if he’s still alive and there’s new quality albums from him coming out. There’s just no denying it, Jimmy Gnecco is channeling Jeff Buckley. And no one is complaining. Sure, Jimmy Gnecco is darker and much more rock focused and he screams a lot more, but It’s scary, he even looks just like Jeff Buckley in the album art.

Jimmy Gnecco	Jeff Buckley

The opening song “Fallen Souls” kicks ass, and I love how despite its aggressive metal energy it pulls you into a beautiful trance. My favorite song is probably “Here Is The Light”, gorgeous, intense and tortured. “Dancing Alone” is so bitter-sweet, should have been a hit single.
I fell in love with this cd when I was younger, and after listening to it again I remember why.

[Video after the break]

(When I was younger I’d go to several concerts and live shows a week. Now I rarely do. The exception is Jimmy Gnecco. When he’s performing, I’m there. You’re in for an experience if you see him, especially his low key acoustic shows without a band. Those are the most powerful.)

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Thanksgiving, this time my mom outdid herself. There were about 12 of us, family and friends, but she prepared enough food to feed 7 armies. I still have another 3 weeks to go before I can eat something again. But I’m beyond grateful to have one of the coolest moms the earth has ever seen.
My sister named my niece Lorraine after some great grandmother of ours, but we all call her Rainy. Rainy is 5 years old, and she fights dirty. She’s already been kicked out of 11 schools for being unruly, rambunctious, disobedient and a smart ass. I’m proud to know that she takes after me. Often she’ll like to surprise you with a punch in the back and then she’ll turn and run so you’ll chase her. We’ve learned our lesson that the nicer and quieter the restaurant is the more she enjoys playing the game “how to make the biggest disturbance humanly possible”, usually involves animal noises.

But this Thanksgiving, we just discovered what will make her stay quiet in her seat.

Rainy had a school Thanksgiving arts and craft project to list what she’s thankful for. She is to number her answers 1-5 and roll up the art paper with a nice ribbon around it. Well my mom silenced all 12 of us at the table as we are to listen to what Rainy is thankful for. Rainy removed the ribbon, unrolled the paper, stared at it and for once was silent. We’re all staring at her and waiting, then everyone starts pushing her, “Come on Rainy, read it to us” “Ok Rainy, let’s do it together, I am thankful for…” “Rainy, tell me, what are you thankful for?” Wouldn’t open her mouth, just stared back at us blankly. No high energy, she was frozen. Odd, I thought, until I took the paper from her and read it…

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Midterm elections are coming up with a host of policies to vote on. This month I’m going to talk about several political matters whos fate our ballets will determine. Starting with the most obvious and easiest disaster to see: The War On Drugs.

Anyone with eyes to see can recognize the total disaster of The War On Drugs.

More Prisoners. More Police Abuse. More Corruption. More Gangs. More Crime. More Killings. More Fear. More Waste. More Debt. More Government Spending. More Government Control.

Less Freedom.

“Drug Prohibition is the biggest failed policy in the history of our country, second only to slavery.”
-Retired California Superior Court Judge James Gray

If you do nothing else to look into this issue, at least watch this video from a hero of mine, Milton Friedman, who explained decades ago in great detail why drugs should be legalized:

What have we gained from all the deaths, police crackdowns, and money spent? What have we gained?

Have people stopped doing drugs? No
Is drug use less prevalent? No
Are kids prevented from doing drugs? Find me a high school in this country where you can’t obtain virtually any illegal drug.
Should we try to stop people from doing drugs?

Let’s back up a little and get to the heart of this. Look down. You see your arms, legs, fingers, stomach? Who does that belong to? Who takes care of your body? Who’s responsible for it? If you don’t hurt anyone, your body is your business, and only your business. What you put in your mouth is no one else’s business.
This is fundamental and crucial to every other political matter you will ever encounter.

As long you harm no one, what you do with your body and your life is your decision.

This country was founded on that principle. How did we lose sight of it?

Some people believe they know what’s best for you. And, sometimes they might even be right. But your body is yours. That’s what freedom means. The only way to deal with others who have the ability to think, is to respect their rights to live by their own decisions. That’s what rights are. What you do with your life and your body is your decision. And that includes your right to make bad decisions. If you want to drink Drano, it’s your body, it’s your right. If you want to shoot heroin , it’s your body, and it’s your right.

Some people, they disagree. Citing a number of statistics to show how drug addictions impair performance and thus are a detriment to society, they push hard to make drug use illegal. Let me ask you, are all drug users addicts?

I look down on junkies. They’re kind of pathetic, and I routinely make fun of tweekers and coke heads. They’re not innocent victims. Someone who casually drinks alcohol is not an alcoholic. People aren’t alcoholics because touching alcohol makes them that way. There’s usually underlying problems in their life that aren’t simply solved by taking away the alcohol. Turn on Jerry Springer and sometimes you can see some morbidly obese people. Is the problem that if we all have access to food that we all will simply gorge ourselves beyond capacity? The same goes for junkies. There’s usually underlying problems that make them feel like they need to rely on drugs. Someone who casually enjoys some drugs is not a junkie.

Someone who enjoys drugs for occasional recreation can definitely live a productive life. Even junkies (like alcoholics) can still live a productive life. The questions is: Do these drug law supporters have any right to plan our lives according to their vision in the first place?

I’m a sober person. Life is more productive that way. I like my brain to be quick and on top of things. I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t smoke cigarettes. I don’t even drink coffee. Until my recent trip to Burning Man, I haven’t smoked weed since 2007. The time before that was once in 2005. Am I part of a social problem? I enjoy marijuana very rarely and only when I’m on vacation and have no work to deal with. Should I be penalized for that crime?

What about users who enjoy it more regularly, should they be punished? Should they live in fear of getting caught doing a personal recreational activity?

The guy in this drug raid video had a small amount of marijuana in the house. Did he deserve to have a Swat team barge into his home in the middle of the night and shoot dead his 2 dogs in front of his 7 year old son?

This is CRIMINAL. This is what drug laws have brought American citizens. Drug laws turn our government and police into criminals, who violate our rights to our property, our privacy, and to do with our body what we like. These police officers created violence where no violence had existed before. Read this excellent article about this drug raid. Apparently “raids just like the one captured in the video happen 100-150 times every day in America”. Luckily no one was killed in this raid. Many other innocent Americans were not so lucky. Check out this Map from Cato Institute of Police Drug Raids Gone Wrong:

View Original Map and Database
Click on a pin to read any of the stories. Red pins are deaths of an innocent.
(Like this one about Donald Scott who was shot and killed in front of his wife in a raid that was later discovered to be motivated by the desire of corrupt police intent on seizing his 200 acre Malibu Ranch)
How terrible. Not one of these raids should ever have occurred.

It gets worse. Despite the extra fear we have to live with from our police searching for recreational drug users instead of violent criminals, despite the extra court nightmare tying up and ruining peoples lives, all taxed at our expense, we are bankrupting ourselves by filling up our prisons with drug users.

From a report created by a Washington, DC criminal-justice think tank: “According to the US Department of Justice, 30-40 percent of all current prison admissions involve crimes that have no direct or obvious victim other than the perpetrator,” the report shows. “The drug category constitutes the largest offense category, with 31 percent of all prison admissions resulting from such crimes.” Nearly a third of all prison admissions are from non violent drug offenses! And it costs an average of about $47,000(!!) per year to incarcerate an inmate in prison in California. Imagine also the salary the inmate could have received with a real tax paying job. Are addicts better able to contribute to society while whittling away behind bars surrounded by violent offenders? California has about 150,000 inmates in overcrowded prisons. Imagine how much money we would save and how much more contribution our society would receive if we didn’t incarcerate drug users. The money we spend enforcing drug laws is actively used to harm us.

Oh, and yeah, there is no constitutional authority for any federal agency to enforce drug laws. Whether sanctioned by a majority of the public or not, those who arrest drug users and throw them in jail have no authority to do so, and are simply acting criminally. We have inalienable rights in this country and a binding constitution document that is intended to protect that.

We’re told that we need to fight this war against drugs because of all the harm drugs cause us from those who become addicts. Look, we have drugs laws, tough ones, and we still have addicts, many of them. Are we to believe that legalization will expose us all to a much larger epidemic of addiction? Will Grandma start shooting up heroin when it’s no longer illegal for her?
Well, they’ve legalized drugs in Portugal. Read this article to see how decriminalization actually reduced drug use and improved other related social issues.
Drug-friendly Netherlands is closing 8 prisons, because there’s Not Enough Crime.

Reality: there is a demand for drugs. Whether its from people who enjoy it, or need it, clearly people are willing to pay a lot to get ahold of it. Drug laws do not stop drug use. These laws do not stop buying and selling. Drug laws don’t reduce demand at all, they only reduce supply. Creating a shortage, in a very interesting way. It’s a shortage that can only be supplied by criminals. The only thing drug laws do is create a black market. Black markets do not operate by our laws. There is no legal way to settle disputes in a black market. What are you going to do, tell a judge your cocaine supply was stolen by a rival seller? Simple understanding of supply and demand makes clear that shortages of items in demand always cause price increases. Always. With an increased price and thus an increased profit, the stakes are high (very high) for criminals to deal. Criminals have a nasty reputation for not respecting human life, let alone property rights of others. If you’re going to operate on the black market, you will need to protect yourself. You will need to arm up. When selling drugs is criminal, only the criminals sell drugs.

Congratulations Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman Loera! By selling drugs and murdering the many who got in your way, you’ve made the Forbes list of Billionaires! Glad to see you’ve already thanked our president for helping you in this achievement.

 
No one opposes Drug Legalization more than violent Drug Cartels and Local Gangs. They need the profits to keep coming in to purchase more weapons and amass more power and control to grow their territory. When the DEA actually does make a large bust they further restrict the supply, which serves to only increase the profits and make it that much more lucrative for other criminals to now step in. This is a war that can never be won.

To quote a Reason Magazine article on this issue:
“Iran has a repressive theocratic regime that imposes severe penalties for using and selling drugs—including death by hanging. Yet it has one of the highest rates of addiction in the world.”

Let’s look at what’s happening now.
Watch this video

While I do support Republicans on many economic matters, I am disgusted with them on The Drug War. Republican supporters of Ron Paul or Gary Johnson (former Governor of New Mexico) do support complete legalization, but most Republicans are the ones on the front lines pushing for harsher penalties (although many Democrats are afraid to support legalization). If Republicans are going to speak about defending freedom, they need to start supporting decriminalization, in mass, now. The video above is actually from Fox News and it gets the issue right.

There’s even a prominent organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)
Check out this CNN special on them

CNN has an excellent commentary here on the situation

What are drugs financing in Mexico?

What are drugs financing in our streets?

Drug law supporters say they don’t want businesses profiting by selling drugs to people.
Well, would they rather violent gangs and drug cartels profit? It’s one or the other, someone’s going to supply it. Especially as marijuana is a $113 Billion (!) industry in the US. Better that desperately needed revenue stay in our economy.

Let’s keep that revenue out of the hands of violent criminals. We have lived with violent gangs in our country for several generations now, so that people now living don’t remember a time before they existed. Generations of children have now been raised with a violent code of survival, while poor communities have been ripped apart and devastated.

Drug law supporters say they don’t want children to have better access to drugs.
Children have BETTER access now. It’s much easier for a 16 year old to buy marijuana or psychedelic mushrooms than it is to buy a beer. They check your ID for a beer. No one checks your ID when you buy PCP or crack. When I was in high school 13 years ago, there were 2 sellers competing to sell marijuana on the bus ride to school every day. Even with our rules and strict penalties, it’s easy and profitable for any high school kid to start selling.

Drug law supporters say that drug use harms communities.
Please! There is no comparison between any productivity loss of a recreational user or an addict and the terror caused by gangs springing up to supply the black market.

Look, we gave up on alcohol prohibition in the 1930s because it was an obvious menace to our society.

John D. Rockefeller, the wealthy industrialist legend, stated it best in 1932 when he wrote:
“When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.”

If you ignore the past, you are doomed to repeat it.

A kid gunned down in a drive by shooting is a totally innocent victim. A crack head who can’t kick his habit is not an innocent victim. At considerable taxpayer expense we are increasing our government debt to increase police harassment, overload our prisons with non violent but otherwise productive users, and encourage violent gangs to sprout up who terrorize us, steal from us, and leave so many dead in our streets. And FOR WHAT?

To try and reduce drug use?
To protect users from themselves?

I’m normally very diplomatic with people I disagree with, because I know ultimately they want to do the right thing. Not about the Drug War. This is too obvious and too extreme to be politely understanding. The only thing I can say to anyone who supports The War On Drugs is Shame On You! Shame on you for telling people what to do with their bodies. Shame on you for turning a blind eye to the crime and killings that have sprung up. Shame on you for throwing people in prison who have harmed no one. If you vote this November to keep Marijuana illegal, shame on you. You have blood on your hands. You are harming the free people of this country. I am embarrassed to call you a fellow American.

I have a personal story here. When I was in high school, a friend of mine who (I soon found out) did sell drugs was surprise ambushed by 10 wannabe gangsters with broken bottles and a gun, upset over a previous dispute. Unfortunately I was hanging out with him when this happened. I had no idea what was happening or why. But one of them stuck a gun in my mouth and the 10 of them then beat the shit out of both of us. I had no idea where the next punch would come from. Even after we fell to the ground, they didn’t stop kicking, until they eventually ran off with our wallets and a clear message for my friend. This happened in the nice Los Angeles suburb of Encino. I couldn’t sit for a week. The bruises lasted longer. I told my parents I got into some stupid fight at school. And I never hung out with that friend again. But I know that if it were not for the War on Drugs, that situation would never have occurred. Whenever I hear about The Drug War, I remember looking into the eyes of that degenerate holding a gun in my mouth. He’s smiling and enjoying his power. If he was literate enough, he should have sent a thank you letter to our drug law supporters for helping him find a great way to quickly make a lot of money.

What are you going to vote to support? Individual liberty? Or spending, debt, prisons, law enforcement abuse, waste, and power to violent criminals, gangs, and cartels?

Vote Yes on Prop 19. Let’s take a step towards reversing this War on Drugs nightmare by legalizing Marijuana in California.

UPDATE: Our country has a lot of financial problems.
According to a study published by the Cato Institute “legalizing drugs would save roughly $41.3 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition”. Additionally the report also estimates that “drug legalization would yield tax revenue of $46.7 billion annually, assuming legal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco”. That’s about $88 Billion (!) that we are paying to ruin our American way of life. Aren’t you glad we’re setting aside that large sum for funding narcotics officers hunting down non violent drug users to throw them in prison?

UPDATE 2: Scratch what I said about Democrats and Republicans above. Check out this youtube video of an attack ad from the Democrat candidate for Senator of Kentucky against Rand Paul (Republican) for not supporting the Drug War:

I do agree with one sentence from this ad, “Lives, families, and whole communities are destroyed everyday.” That’s true. I hope the makers of this ad will stop, look, and think about what’s causing that.

UPDATE 3: Reason TV has an excellent new video explaining the economics of our prohibition to the lovely Hillary Clinton.

UPDATE 4: You’ve got to check out this video of Ron Paul vs. Barack Obama on the The War on Drugs!

UPDATE 5: I am so impressed with Reason.tv. This is a fantastic music video on the Drug War.

UPDATE 6: Even Conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia now believes that Federal Drug Laws were a mistake by straining the courts and diminishing “the elite quality of the federal judiciary.”

– If you agree with this article, please share it with your friends and spread it around –

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Apparat – Walls

		You Don't Know Me Hailin' From The Edge Useless Information Limelight Holdon Arcadia
(Click image for Amazon.com)

Very creative and clever electronica. Combining IDM with Post Rock with Ambient with Soul with a bit of Hip Hop and Jazz. Just a really imaginative sound that’s still accessible and sexy. Full of atmosphere, but still with a groove, and so much subtle brilliance. There really isn’t a clear genre that this falls under as it’s kind of all over the place, but overall it’s a solid consistent album without any tracks that need to be skipped. I almost smell a masterpiece.

[Video after the break]

This is a pretty cool animated video for Arcadia:

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