DVD Reviews

Weeds- Season Six:
The Botwin family is now on the run after youngest son Shane’s act of “self-defense.” The comedy starts to lose steam about mid-season but the action picks up the last few episodes, ending with another intriguing, cliff hanging, season ending episode. It looks like the show is headed for season seven.
Recommended

The Prisoner:
This 2009, six part miniseries seeks to reenact the late 1960’s creation of Patrick McGoohan- and fails miserably. “The Village” is now an oasis surrounded by unending desert instead of a European seaside resort. Ian McKellen’s work as Number 2 (who now has a son) is the only bright spot. Jim Caviezel plays a much better Jesus than a Number 6. The episodes are tiresome and somewhat confusing, lacking the inspiration of the original. The ending is also very disappointing.
Not recommended

The Next Three Days:
This gripping drama has Russell Crowe playing a meek college professor who, in an act of desperation, devises a plot to break his wrongly convicted wife out of prison. Very entertaining, well acted and even educational, particularly for subversives.
Recommended

Michael Collins:
This 1996 feature tells the story of the Irish revolutionary who led the fight for Irish independence in the 1920’s. Collins is credited with using guerilla warfare to successfully defeat the British empire. Liam Neeson does some of his finest work in a part that I cannot imagine anyone else playing. Make sure to catch the disc’s accompanying documentary.
Recommended

Who is Harry Nilsson- and Why is Everyone Talking About Him?:
This documentary is chock full of information and memories of the late singer/songwriter. I had never known much about Nilsson. I had heard his songs on the radio and knew he was the Beatles’ favorite performer. This film details his quick rise in the music business and reminds us of the incredible singing voice he possessed.
Recommended

Noam Chomsky- Rebel Without a Pause:
Clips from lectures and question and answer sessions make up this documentary about the prolific writer. The material here was filmed during the buildup to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. No new material if you’re even slightly familiar with his ideas. Though Chomsky’s analysis of US foreign adventures are spot on, he seems to think this same state monster can be directed towards and responsive to “social justice” activism.
Not recommended

Conviction:
Based on a true story, Hillary Swank plays a young woman who becomes a lawyer to help free her wrongly convicted brother from a life sentence for murder. Her pursuit is relentless despite overwhelming odds. Very inspiring and well acted by Swank and co-star Sam Rockwell.
Recommended

Four Lions:
This black comedy follows four aspiring suicide bombers who bumble and stumble on their path of Muslim jihad. Hysterically funny at times.
Recommended

Extraordinary Measures:
The one subject that can tweak me emotionally is sick kids. This film, based on a true story, hits at that soft spot. A desperate father (Brendan Fraser) has two children suffering a rare genetic disease and partners with a cranky but brilliant medical researcher (Harrison Ford) to develop a healing drug.
Recommended

The Last Days:
This documentary was produced through Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation project. It interviews five Hungarian Holocaust survivors and follows them as they return to their respective death camps. The accompanying archival footage helps relate to the viewer the unspeakable horror of that event.
Recommended

Frontline- The Wounded Platoon:
An in depth report about an Army platoon from Colorado that has suffered an inordinate amount of attempted suicides, PTSD sufferers, and criminal violence among its members. A documentary not to be missed if you really think that combat stress and violence doesn’t screw people up- especially those who are already a little unbalanced.
Recommended

Enron- The Smartest Guys in the Room:
Even though this documentary was released back in 2005 it is still relevant and educational. Credit the movie makers for taking a story about accounting fraud and making it what it really is- a story about ambitious people and their tragic failings.
Recommended

Tom Russell- Hearts on the Line:
Everyone should experience Tom Russell, the singer/songwriter who paints lyrical landscapes in your mind. Never mind your preference for certain genres of music. It still is worth your time to experience the Americana genius of this artist. This disc is a good place to start.
Recommended

Due Date:
I’ve always enjoyed the energy Robert Downey Jr. brings to the screen. He makes good use of it here as his character suffers the idiocy of airline security and is forced into a cross country road trip with a bungling idiot. The comedy has just enough laughs to make it worthy viewing.
Recommended

Up Syndrome:
A young film maker creates a documentary about his childhood friend who was born with Down’s Syndrome. He follows him over a year’s time during his quest for personal independence.
Recommended

The Scarlet and the Black:
This 1983 drama tells the story of Vatican priest Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty (Gregory Peck), who aided escaped allied POW’s and Jews in Rome during the Nazi occupation of the city. O’Flaherty made good use of his diplomatic immunity and superior wits in outfoxing the German’s Gestapo head (Christopher Plummer). Sir John Gielgud is an extra bonus, playing the Pope. A great true story that includes a memorable final scene in the Coliseum between Peck and Plummer.
Recommended

180 Degrees South:
Some young surfers/mountain climbers are filmed traveling to Patagonia, inspired by another documentary filmed in 1968. Some great scenery to view in this part of the world. It’s always fun to watch the “professional” adventurers- those whose whole existence has been simplified down to enjoying one expedition, then planning the next.
Recommended

Koyaanisqatsi- Life Out of Balance:
This unique 1983 film is the first of a trilogy created by director Godfrey Reggio and composer Philip Glass. No actors, dialogue or narration, just images and music. Lots of time lapse footage of cities and aerial views of natural landscapes. A different kind of film experience to be sure, and each viewer will come away with a different interpretation. The general idea presented is man’s increasing disconnect from his natural environment and increasing connection, instead, to technology.
Recommended

Fair Game:
The feature recounts the story of Valerie Plame, the CIA agent whose identity was revealed by the Bush administration after her husband, Joe Wilson, exposed some of Bush’s lies used to justify his 2003 invasion of Iraq. Since Plame was an integral part of a worldwide terrorist organization (the CIA) its hard to have any sympathy for her plight. But this story reveals how the state will eat its own, if necessary, to continue its agenda and deceive the masses.
Recommended

The Hill:
This 1966 Sidney Lumet film takes place in a WWII British stockade in North Africa where wayward soldiers are “reformed” and recreated into obedient soldiers. Sean Connery stars as a prisoner who resists such treatment and seeks to hold the camp commanders responsible for the death of a fellow prisoner. Harry Andrews shines as the camp Sergeant-Major who won’t tolerate any dissent to his orders, even among his own staff. Lumet’s style of “in your face” close-ups of his characters is quite appropriate for this story.
Recommended

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
"Besides its protective functions, defined by its monopoly on the use of force, the need for a state is often asserted on the basis of its role as a ‘safety net.’ But although few would disagree that individuals need some hedge against sickness, unemployment and the like, anarchism challenges the supposition that such provisions require institutionalized aggression in the form of the state. Moreover, anarchism takes as one of its core theses that the ‘safety net’ realm of state activity, its social welfare programs for those in need, is ancillary to its primary application for plunder.”
David S. D'Amato ·

“For those who understand that the state is always and everywhere the chief enemy of liberty, prosperity, and peace, the term 'failed state’ is a pleonasm. When employed by spokesmen for the Imperial power elite, however, the term is invoked as a prelude to military intervention in order to impose a government-exercised monopoly on force – which in practice has meant becoming local franchises of a U.S.-dominated global political system.”
Will Grigg

“If attempting to undermine the currency of the US is a form of terrorism, why has Ben Bernanke not been tracked down and sent off to the Guantanamo concentration camp?”
Jeff Berwick

“There's so much garbage in the western system today, the only real solution is a complete reset. Until that cataclysmic event occurs, however, you can expect things to get much worse as the political establishment clings desperately to the existing model trying to keep the party going.”
Simon Black

“Racism and nationalism are the hallmarks of an un-evolved, or even degraded, person. I have neither time nor patience for either of them.”
Doug Casey

“Like my land, it requires constant effort to keep our freedoms from eroding and we haven’t been doing our job for far too many years. We have stood by, complacent, angry, and/or bewildered on the road to ‘Citizen show me your papers!’ and ‘Everything not forbidden is mandatory.’ The Legislation passed (unread) this century alone contains everything Hitler used to deliver 'hope and change' to Deutschland.”
Linda Brady Traynham

“Remember that people have come to accept that it is entirely reasonable for a criminal gang disguised as the guardians of law and order to force you to pay extortion fees so that you may voluntarily transact with others in the exchange of goods for money, and use your own property in a peaceful and productive manner. Yes, we pay the state for the sins of our transactions and the privilege of our chosen activities.”
Karen De Coster

“No rational or logical discussion can be had with someone who is arguing from a place of fear.”
John Tyner

“The Pentagon pretends that civilians control it. This is malarkey. The Pentagon controls the civilian government. Solely by the amount of money it commands, the Pentagon controls Congress. Its tentacles reach into almost every sector of the economy.”
Ron Jacobs

“That man is a fallen and depraved creature, is every where apparent in the ferocious dispositions of his nature. Hence, to speak of him as in ‘a state of nature,’ has been to speak of him as ‘a savage.’ A savage finds in war and bloodshed his only means of honor and fame, and he becomes, both in the chase and the camp, a beast of prey.”
Howard Malcom D.D.

"The breaking of men to military discipline, is breaking their spirits to principles of passive obedience."
Thomas Jefferson

"As contrary as cruelty is to mercy, and tyranny to charity, so contrary is war to the meekness and gentleness of the Christian religion."
Jeremy Taylor

“The crimes of the American government – from massacring the Indians and enforcing slavery to invading Iraq and jailing millions of people – are always blamed on something else: American racism or religious conservatism, but usually the profit motive. Never should blame fall without qualification on the public sector – the institutional accumulation of all of society’s evils.”
Anthony Gregory

*****************************************************************************

From the Darkness:

“Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school. It’s about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It’s milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception.”

Chicago school principal Elsa Carmona, explaining why she has banned students from bringing their lunches from home

“We believe, in the words of our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves.”
B. Obama, summoning the forces of Satan

“We are a better country because of these commitments [entitlements]. I’ll go further – we would not be a great country without those commitments.”
B. Obama, summoning the demons of FDR

"We want to have a climate where people are compliant."
John Chakwin, ICE Special Agent in Charge for North Texas, on the latest government crackdown on “illegal” workers that targets their employers

“We need to underscore that we are transitioning, not leaving Afghanistan. We need to ensure that these sacrifices [by the International Security Assistance Force] are not overtaken by political expediency and short-term thinking. We need to worry less about how fast we can leave and more about how we can help the Afghan people build on the gains of the past 15 months.”
Queen Hillary, “ensuring” us that the war in Afghanistan is unending

"I think Ben Bernanke is a student of monetary policy; he's doing as good a job as he thinks he can do. I'm not going to spend my time going after Ben Bernanke. I'm not going to spend my time focusing on the Federal Reserve.”
Mitt Romney, future FED puppet

"He [Obama] realizes now that raising the debt ceiling is so important to the health of this economy and the global economy that it is not a vote that, even when you are protesting an administration's policies, you can play around with."

Jay Carney. Presidential spokesman, on The Emperor’s regret of voting against raising the US debt limit in 2006 as a senator

"I'm the person who is best prepared for us to finish the job so that we're on track to succeed in the 21st century."
B Obma, helping define ‘hubris.’

You Are Emancipated for Three Days

“The usual April 15th [tax] deadline is extended 'til Monday, the 18th this year.

The IRS is observing a little known Washington, DC holiday called Emancipation Day.”

How ironic. "Emancipation Day," celebrating the end of chattel slavery for Africans, delays Tax Slavery Day for all of us. The tax collectors are so moved by the significance of this day that they have chosen to show us tax serfs uncharacteristic mercy. How noble of them. Be sure to show them your appreciation by paying your Fair Share!

Snapshot of the State

"Ah, mastery... what a profoundly satisfying feeling when one finally gets on top of a new set of skills... and then sees the light under the new door those skills can open, even as another door is closing."

Gail Sheehy

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“Batting zero on the battlefield, the mad political scientists have stepped up to the plate again. Despite nothing but failure, President Obama has decided, unilaterally, to squander still more American men and money in a war on Libya, promising that this time he won’t strike out.”
Gerald Celente

“The Obama administration demonstrates that while presidents come and go, the permanent regime rumbles on. Woe to anyone who gets in its way.”
Sheldon Richman

“Americans should identify not with the American government, but with those similarly oppressed by it, wherever they reside.”
David D'Amato

“Given the routine misery and oppression the governments of the world inflict on their subjects as a matter of course, the opportunity for fresh interventions by the Forces of Goodness & Light is effectively unlimited. In cheerleading Obama’s Libyan adventure, the President’s supporters are signing on to a future of perpetual warfare.”
Justin Raimondo

“Because the state is an entity that enjoys a monopoly on the use of violence, it can never make a fundamental error needful of being corrected. Who is to do the correction? Whoever, or whatever, is to be the remedial force would become, by definition, the new monopolist. Would its decisions likewise be subject to review by an even higher violence monopolist, ad infinitum?”
Butler Shaffer

“I will make few friends with the following statement, but let me say clearly that in my opinion, the United States government, and those in the U.S. military who willingly do the bidding of the government by prosecuting immoral and aggressive wars and acts of hostility, and those who are partners in these crimes, are the worst terrorists in the world today!

Aggressive war is the epitome of terrorism, and the U.S. is the king of aggressive war!”
Gary D. Barnett

“While public opinion has to be gauged in either case, the only real difference between a democracy and a dictatorship on making war is that in the former more propaganda must be beamed at one's subjects to engineer their approval. Intensive propaganda is necessary in any case – as we can see by the zealous opinion-molding behavior of all modern warring states.”
Murray Rothbard

“The worst effect of the state is intellectual. It puts our brains in a prison, simply by defining the terms in which we are permitted to think and speak. The one nonnegotiable point becomes the state itself. You are permitted to argue about what the state's priorities ought to be (bombs or butter), but not to question the fundamental model of a state-dominated society.”
Lew Rockwell

“The test of a free society is not the extent to which a regime exercises dictatorial powers against its own people. The test of a free society is whether a regime has dictatorial powers at its disposal that it is able to exercise against its own people.
A kind, benevolent dictatorship — one that is mostly nice to its citizenry but which has dictatorial powers at its disposal — is a dictatorship nonetheless. People living under such a regime are not living in a free society, no matter how convinced they might be that they are doing so.”
Jacob Hornberger

“Regulation hurts the poor, and it hurts them the worst. 'Progressivism,' since it is premised upon the initiation of coercion, is a death-oriented ideology that hurts the poor, and it hurts them the worst.”
B.R. Merrick

“Please don't miss the obvious: Our current tyranny was caused by minarchy in the same way a vast forest fire is caused by a smoldering ember left behind in a campfire (or by some other small but intense heat source). Minarchy creates a coercive power center; that power center attracts people who want coercive power over others for whatever reason (their motives don’t matter in the least) and all too soon the liberty party is over and the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin. The cruelty of State coercion grows like a cancer; find an exception in world history, if you can. There isn't one – if there were, we'd all be moving there.”
Glen Allport

“Diversity is an elitist term used to give respectability to acts and policy that would otherwise be deemed as racism.”
Walter Williams

“State budgets and federal budgets are not records of facts. They are projections based on assumptions. Just by manipulating a few assumptions, politicians can create a scenario that bears no resemblance to reality.”
Thomas Sowell

“If we use Obama’s criterion that violence against one’s people is a sign of government illegitimacy, then how many world governments are themselves legitimate? They all use violence and the threat of violence to maintain themselves. The fact that the threats of violence are effective and prevent outright blood on the streets doesn’t remove the presence of violence as the government’s means of controlling its citizens. Once we look under the hood at the motor of government, we find violence. At what point does such violence mean that the government’s leaders or the government itself – its very form – have lost legitimacy?”
Michael S. Rozeff

“Democracy is essentially one big organized act of bullying whereby a larger group bullies a smaller group in order to plunder it with taxes.”
Thomas J. DiLorenzo

************************************************************************

From the Darkness:

“I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, referring to the burning of the Koran by a Florida pastor and the deadly riots in Afghanistan that followed

"He's playing on a core idea of the radical right, that evil bankers in the Federal Reserve are ripping you off by controlling the money supply. He very much exists in the world of the anti-government patriot movement, whatever he may say. That's who his customers are."
Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, on the conviction of Bernard von NotHaus on conspiracy and counterfeiting charges for making and selling “Liberty Dollars”

“Although discussion is good, we can no longer delay implementing tough action that will make a difference, while quibbling over minor uncertainties in climate modeling. Unlike most recent natural disasters, this one is entirely predictable. Doctors, often seen as authoritative, trusted, and independent by their communities, must make their voices heard in calling for such action.”
From an editorial in the British Medical Journal urging medical doctors to help promote the AGW scam

"We have to monitor inflation and inflation expectations extremely closely because if my assumptions prove not to be correct, then we would certainly have to respond to that and ensure that we maintain price stability.”
Ben Bernanke, whose assumptions have always been incorrect

"The fact is, why should we play doctor? I'm too humble to repeal science."
Sen. Barbara Boxer, objecting to a Republican effort to ban the Environmental Protection Agency from controlling the gases blamed for global warming [“Science?” Is that what you call it?]

''As a historian it always occurred to me that the smart thing for government was always to pay the guys with guns first.''
Robert Gates, on the possibility of troops not getting paid during a government shutdown[Of course, we all know that the state's claim to legitimacy is backed by superior firepower.]

“The amazing thing is a lot of these folks [involved in Middle East uprisings] would be happy if they could get to where Iraq is today. It isn’t perfect, but it’s new. And it is a democracy, and people do have rights.”
Robert Gates, believer in unicorns

“We had to kill innocent people to end World War II.”
John Stossel, supposed libertarian

We Used to Call Them Bums

Now we call them "state workers."

Austin recently hosted a Rally For Robbery attended by state dependents:
“More than 1,000 people from across Texas are in Austin Wednesday morning to protest state budget cuts. They rode in on buses from El Paso to Dallas, south to Houston and everywhere in between.”

I guess you could consider it encouraging that only about a thousand people turned out to rally to sustain state parasitism out of a population of 25 million. But this small group of miscreants have an amazing amount of influence, particularly since their message is passed on repeatedly by the state regulated media.

I find it disturbing that people are so dependent or feel so entitled to other people’s wealth that they will travel hundreds of miles to yell and scream to maintain their handout. I also find it interesting that these are people with state “jobs”- yet they have the free time to travel on a “work” day. Or they are so poor that they need assistance- yet they have the money for bus fare and travel.

“Jobs are on the line; my job is on the line, her job is on the line, all of our jobs are on the line today.”

Try working a job in the market place, sir where your job is “on the line” every day! It’s called the Real World. If you don’t satisfy your customers and make a profit your job disappears! It’s called competition. Your job, however, is financed through coercion and political brutality. We can’t be sure if your job produces anything useful because it is immune to the natural, peaceful forces of the market place. If your job was worthy and actually providing a useful service, people would be more than willing to support it voluntarily. Since it has to be financed through force and theft, I would have to suspect that it is not worthy.

What you see here are the absolute dregs of humanity, all congregating to demand their special favors and who feel they have some divine right to live at the expense of others. Watch these roaches, rodents, and other creatures of the Parasite Class scurry and clamor for their handouts while insisting that the Productive Class has some divine obligation to pay for them! This motley collection of educrats, union thugs, sex molesters, child abusers and common thieves represent the flotsam of the human race. Why do we tolerate them? Isn’t it time to let this debris sink into the depths of their own spiritual squalor?

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“Freedom is a true human value; the whiny emotion-driven mythology of 'social justice' rammed down everyone's throats at the point of a gun is not.”
Garry Reed

“The top of America’s political and economic hierarchy, those who depend on this system of war, cannot afford to see this for what it is. The murder of civilians thus becomes something to explain away rather than lament. The human cost is like all of the other costs, that is, not born by those who benefit from this enterprise of death.
Free market anarchism is constructed on the simple idea that no one ought have aggression at his disposal to achieve his ends, that voluntary interaction is the proper norm for human beings. War and the economic program that lives on it are the ultimate obverse of that idea, where the parameters of human relationships are determined by the continual need to assemble killing machines.”
David D'Amato

“The ugly truth of the matter is that we now have two authoritarian parties (or ‘wings’ of the same unitary party) vying for power. Power over anyone they can get their hands on. The reasons no longer matter much – only the effects. And the bottom line is if you are among the declining few who still believe in such strange and unusual notions as a government that protects your property rather than takes it, that defends your liberty rather than systematically destroying it – well, then you don’t have a dog in this fight – either as a motorist or citizen. Democrat or Republican – ‘left’ or ‘right‘– they’ve got us coming and going.”
Eric Peters

“One thing those of us who love liberty regardless of who attacks it can recognize is that the two statist coalitions in America, the left-liberals and the right-conservatives, are intellectually bankrupt to the core. This should give us hope, because there are limits to what even Americans can swallow in terms of cognitive dissonance.”
Anthony Gregory

“Why are soldiers treated so differently? Why do they get a pass on committing or supporting those who commit murder and mayhem?”
Laurence Vance

“At a time when the decentralization of social systems has taken on great importance, it is timely to consider the advantages that could arise from a more localized – perhaps even individualized – source of electrical power. A principal benefit arising from both a free market system and the private ownership of property – concepts that are corollary expressions of each other – is that both individual liberty and social order are maximized when decision-making authority diverges into independent persons, rather than converging into centralized elites. A major problem with institutionalized systems – particularly the state – is that the adverse consequences of their actions are multiplied, exponentially, as the range of their activities is increased.”
Butler Shaffer

“The genius of the state is that it gets us to voluntarily, without pay, to stand up for it, and to deter, damn, and defriend not just the people who challenge its presumed authority, but to heartily reject both ideas and factual information that challenge the state’s façade of moral certitude, and its mask of justness.”
Karen Kwiatkowski

“When humanity begins to understand that authority is an inalienable individual attribute—as is the self-responsibility that is the natural result of possessing such a natural endowment—only then will we finally emerge from the long dark age of government and begin the renaissance of human freedom.”
Tzo

“Hearing criticism, many people whose being is associated with the nation-state respond by asserting the value of the military and expressing support of it. A person indoctrinated into a supine patriotism of flag-waving and blind support of the state and its wars will naturally rally to its defense against criticism, because their person has been lost or diminished as a result of the indoctrination. They have submerged themselves into the state. Freeing them from these beliefs requires patience and continual exposure to ideas of freedom, peace, and government to which they are unaccustomed.”
Michael S. Rozeff

“Human nature and the structure of reality itself doesn't change. Only the gizmos we use change. We can become poorer or we can become richer. But the fundamental facts of how the world is built are immutable. Things are scarce but the possibilities for economic creation are infinite in a world of trade, boundaries, law, and private innovation.”
Jeffrey Tucker

“As the Hobbesian experiment we call ‘the state’ polarizes along the lines of its own contradictions of ‘left and ‘right’ authoritarianism (Hobbes, meet Hegel!), anarchism emerges not as antithesis, but as synthesis. When the state runs short of convincing fictions (‘constitutionalism,’ ‘dictatorship of the proletariat,’ ‘fuhrerprinzip‘) to disguise those contradictions and stands weakened, near collapse over the pit of its own digging, it is anarchism we invariably see approaching, shovel in hand, ready to bury the failed experiment and turn, with humanity, to new ones.”
Thomas L. Knapp

“In the real world countries that have a greater degree of economic freedom also tend to have more personal freedoms, progressive social values and gender equality. But this is not how liberals would like to see the world. They dislike reactionary social values, and they dislike capitalism and economic freedom. So naturally they put the two together to please themselves.”
Mike P.

“The only solution to the dangers of life on this little ball of dirt is vastly improved technology, and vastly increased wealth. You will arrive at those things most quickly through a completely free and unregulated society. Mankind’s destiny is – or should be – literally in the stars and on other planets. We’re not going to get there if fear and hysteria dominate on this insignificant little planet where we’re trapped right now.”
Doug Casey

“There is a brutal but inevitable and poetic symmetry to the fact that the people of the United States, who show little or no empathy for or even awareness of the intense suffering, mass murder and ecocide that their government visits upon other members of the human family, are now faced with the economic collapse of their own country due to 100 years of military imperialism, and the impoverishment of their own children as one of the fruits of their incessant violence against other human beings and the earth.”
Dana Visalli

"When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves."
Herbert Spencer

*********************************************************************

From the Darkness:

“You have to recognize that I don’t think you win this [Afghanistan] war. I think you keep fighting. . . You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids’ lives.”

Gen. David Petraeus

“We’re not leaving Afghanistan prematurely. In fact, we’re not ever leaving at all.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates

"My personal view is that once you’re involved, you have to recognize that the prestige of the United States is at stake. If Gaddafi stays on, he will think he fought the mother of all battles — against the United States. It will be damaging to us just as our demeanor in Somalia was damaging, the situation in Lebanon was damaging and that will embolden others of his ilk.”
Donald Rumsfeld, promoting still another never ending war

"It's not America's role not to be out and about nation building [in Libya] and telling other countries how to live."
Sarah Palin, apparently forgetting “America’s role” of nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan

“That’s how the international community should work – more nations (with) the United States right there at the centre of it, but not alone, everybody stepping up, bearing their responsibilities. We believe that the world is more secure and the interests of the United States are best advanced when we act collectively.”
B. Obama, promoting collectivist murder

"This bill is about fairness, it is about leveling the playing field. The bills are about removing the unfair competitive advantage that out-of-state e-retailers have over Texas retailers who comply with the law."
Texas State Rep. Elliott Naishtat, introducing a bill that would require Internet retailers to collect state sales tax if the company has a connection to Texas

"I think high-income earners would work well into the 50% tax rate. That would certainly help balance the books going forward."
Bill Gross, founder of PIMCO

“I’m interested in a vote authorizing military action [against Libya]. The president said he’d welcome it and I think it would be helpful. It’d show public support for the effort. And that’s always useful.”
Sen. Mark Levin, a week and a half after the Libyan war had already begun


“If it had been my call, I wouldn’t have gone into Libya. But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I’d literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he’s smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted. I voted for him because I trust him, and I still do.”
Kevin Drum of Mother Jones