The cold wars are the false flags against deadbeat Dads, racists, chauvanists, and other designates of the politcal criminal class.
The white line fever, is the highway hypnosis we undergo, when we drive towards our destination in a complete mental daze. Its the goal oriented blindered behavior we use to win at sports, get laid, finish a job, and avoid responsibility and getting involved.

To regain our freedoms, we need only turn off this automaticity feature when dealing with the state, and turn this automaticity feature up to eleven, regarding anything else, including things we dislike or find wrong.

Take nothing of the state for granted. Proceed slowly, grudgingly, finding fault with every detail; opposing its will at every opportunity and in every instance. Treat everything non-state as permissible, common, and automatically sanctioned. The things you yesterday found morally wrong or ethically reprehensible, hold your peace with, unless and until they involve the state. No matter how uncommon or unpopular someone’s actions or words are, accept them freely and without reservation, so that you may isolate and defeat your one true enemy, the parasitic police state.

The state is defined as any organization or ally that is part of our national murder based system. A smoker, a speeder, a truant child, a loiterer, will eventually get locked up. If they then try to escape, they may be legally killed. Anyone officially part of that system, aiding the capture into this system, or one who uses these same methods, is our enemy, and is the state.

There are millions eager to become libertarian soldiers, if we can show them how to fight. This total war technique is why zionists, communists, catholics, muslims, and other totalitarians dominate and why we libertarians and anarcho-capitalists will also thrive.

If forced to use the post office or DMV, become dumber and less responsive than depleted uranium. Fill out everything wrong, in illegible

chickenscratch. When they protest, ask them condescendling if they know how to read plain English, and what is their problem. Do not go along, or be remotely hygenic, or at all pleasant and socially homogenous.

If forced to show your ID, complete the transaction calmly. Once you have your goods, let the vitriol flow. Turn to your friend and comment, that fat fuck old mexican bitch thinks she needs to see my identification? What a bootlicking saggy old snitch, let’s get out of this nazi shithole and never come back.

Zionists, Nazis, Brittish, Japanese, Commies, French, Regular Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Spaniards, and other groups succeed and dominate because they adhere to their rituals and white lined paths to the exclusion of everything else. Libertarians, to rise, must be no different.

In every interactions with the state, be as uncivilly obedient as you can. Concede nothing and be a category 5 asshole as often as you can.

Give every worker the stinkeye. Discriminate freely against the female, old, obese, ugly, dark complected, approval seeking, incompetent, foreign, and every other enemy subclass imaginable. Answer their command and control questions in a whisper, or in overloud barking doubletalk. Never understand what they’re saying. Argue every item of minutae. Push all their buttons you can find mercilessly Give them no quarter or respite whatsoever. Fail to accurately follow instructions.

Waiting in a government line is the perfect opportunity to pick up new females, have heated discussions about race, religion, and politics, tell offcolor jokes, scratch your ass, pick your nose, and reminisce about everytime a cop, teacher, soldier, or anyother parasite did you wrong. Be sure to bring all the kids on your block as well, buy a treat for whichever one acts the worst. Keep both eyes on the white line that leads to whatever you want in the moment, have no empathy for anything else.

This unceasing obstinance and untrainability is the only thing the state respects and will defer and make concessions for.

An Executive order seeks to punish U.S. citizens even for “indirectly” obstructing dictatorial rule in Yemen

By Glenn Greenwald

There is substantial opposition in both Yemen and the West to the new U.S.-backed Yemeni President, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Hadi was the long-time Vice President of the Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, and after Saleh finally stepped down last year, Hadi became President as part of an “election” in which he was the only candidate (that little fact did not prevent Hillary Clinton from congratulating Yemen “on today’s successful presidential election” (successful because the U.S. liked the undemocratic outcome)). As it does with most U.S.-compliant dictators in the region, the Obama administration has since been propping up Hadi with large amounts of money and military assistance, but it is now taking a much more extreme step to ensure he remains entrenched in power — a step that threatens not only basic liberties in Yemen but in the U.S. as well:

President Obama plans to issue an executive order Wednesday giving the Treasury Department authority to freeze the U.S.-based assets of anyone who “obstructs” implementation of the administration-backed political transition in Yemen.

The unusual order, which administration officials said also targets U.S. citizens who engage in activity deemed to threaten Yemen’s security or political stability, is the first issued for Yemen that does not directly relate to counterterrorism.

Unlike similar measures authorizing terrorist designations and sanctions, the new order does not include a list of names or organizations already determined to be in violation. Instead, one official said, it is designed as a “deterrent” to “make clear to those who are even thinking of spoiling the transition” to think again. . . .

The order provides criteria to take action against people who the Treasury secretary, in consultation with the secretary of state, determines have “engaged in acts that directly or indirectly threaten the peace, security or stability of Yemen, such as acts that obstruct the implementation of the Nov. 23, 2011, agreement between the Government of Yemen and those in opposition to it, which provides for a peaceful transition of power . . . or that obstruct the political process in Yemen.”

In other words, the U.S. Government will now punish anyone who is determined — in the sole discretion of the U.S. Government — even to “indirectly” obstruct the full transition of power to President Hadi. But what if someone — a Yemeni or an American — opposes Hadi’s rule and wants to agitate for a real election in which more than one candidate runs? Is that pure political advocacy, as it appears, now prohibited by the U.S. Government, punishable by serious sanctions, on the ground that it “obstructs” the transition of power to Hadi? Can journalists who report on corruption or violence by the Hadi regime and who write Op-Eds demanding a new election be accused, as it seems, of “threatening Yemen’s political stability”?

Jeremy Scahill, who has reported extensively from Yemen over the last year, reacted to the news of this Executive Order this morning by writing: ”This Executive Order appears to be an attack on Americans’ 1st Amendment Rights and Yemenis’ rights to self-determination“; he added: ”apparently the 1st Amendment had an exception about Yemen in it that I missed.” He then asked a series of questions, including: “What if a Yemeni citizen doesn’t believe in a one candidate ‘election’ and is fighting to change their government? US sanctions?” and ”How would Obama define an American citizen as ‘indirectly’ threatening the stability of Yemen’s government?” and “what if an American citizen doesn’t support Yemen’s government and agitates for its downfall? Sanctions from US Treasury? Wow.” Marcy Wheeler has some typically astute points to make about this as well.

The Post article notes that, as unusual as this Executive Order is, Obama issued a similar one for Somalia in 2009, and it has one other precedent: “In 2006, President George W. Bush issued a similar order regarding Ivory Coast in West Africa.” Newspapers should just create a template that says that for every article: this radical and controversial power that Obama has just seized for himself has its genesis in the executive power and war theories of Bush/Cheney. Except for the power to secretly target U.S. citizens for due-process-free assassination-by-CIA and the manic war on whistleblowers — those are Obama originals — that’s a reliable claim to make, which is the point.

When I first began writing about Bush’s War on Terror abuses, I would sometimes be asked whether America still protects certain liberties more than most other countries, and my answer would always be the same: First Amendment rights in the U.S. of free speech and a free press are still more robust than most other countries in the world. It was one realm which the Bush War on Terror had by and large — not entirely, but by and large — left alone. That is just no longer true. Under Obama, we have seen a series of aggressive erosions of even this right in the name of Terrorism.

The Obama DOJ persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court in Holder v. Humanitarian Law to adopt an extraordinarily broad interpretation of “material support” statutes, such that, as Georgetown Law Professor David Cole put it, the Court “–for the first time in its history—[held] that speech advocating only lawful, nonviolent activity can be subject to criminal penalty, even where the speakers’ intent is to discourage resort to violence.” We now routinely see from the Obama DOJ Terror prosecution of Muslim Americans grounded in the expression of their pure political views. Long before any alleged evidence emerged that U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki had any involvement in any Al Qaeda plots, the Obama administration placed him on a “hit list” because of its fear of the efficacy of his anti-American sermons. American Muslims are routinely targeted by sophisticated FBI entrapment campaigns if their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy (constant bombing of Muslim countries) is sufficiently strident.

There seems to be little question that the Obama administration is devoted to imposing dictatorial order on Yemen through the use of force and liberty abridgment. As Scahill previously reported, Obama has played a direct personal role in the ongoing imprisonment of a Yemeni journalist who committed the crime of documenting the large number of civilian deaths from a U.S. cluster bomb attack on his country as well as exposing the joint lies of the Yemeni and U.S. Government. The latest U.S. drone strike in Yemen yesterday, even according to Yemeni officials, killed more civilians than alleged “militants.” The bombing campaign in Yemen now increasingly resembles the one conducted in Pakistan, though Yemen saw more drone strikes this month than any previous month in Pakistan. AP reported yesterday that there are now U.S. troops on the ground aiding Yemeni soldiers in their fights against alleged AQAP members.

What’s most amazing about all of this is how covert it is. What percentage of Americans even know that the Obama administration is continuously bombing and killing civilians in Yemen, or that American soldiers are now on the ground there in an advisory capacity? How many network news shows air any questions about any of this, and how many MSNBC shows (other than this one) have ever stopped talking long enough about all the supreme GOP Evil to even mention to their progressive audience that any of this is happening or aired questions and challenges about it? I’d be willing to bet that the vast, vast majority of Yemen mentions — almost all — entail little more than grave warnings about the scary threats emanating from there against the U.S., combined with gleeful celebrations of all the glorious Terrorist Kills our strong, resolute, brave Commander-in-Chief has commanded. In the meantime, not only endless militarism and war march on unabated, but so, too, does the erosion of core liberties which it entails.

* * * * *

Speaking of ongoing erosions of core liberties: a bipartisan group of House members is attempting to enact a law specifying that the indefinite detention powers vested in the President by last December’s passage of the NDAA does not apply to those arrested on U.S. soil; in other words, they are trying to ban military detention on American soil without charges. Even though President Obama, after he signed the bill into law, said he does not intend to use these powers for that purpose, the sponsors of this bill are concerned that — because the law does vest this power — Obama could change his mind at any time or a subsequent President could use those powers. Unfortunately, they are being opposed by key Democratic Senators such as Carl Levin in close cooperation with standard neocon members of Congress. As one tweeter wrote to me yesterday about this: “The fact that government has to be told NOT to do that is insane.” Indeed, and it’s easy to forget how frequently true that is. But the War on Terror has so normalized even the most warped powers — warrantless eavesdropping, torture, indefinite detention, renditions, due-process-free-assassinations, Executive Orders like the one today — that it’s sometimes easy to forget that this is the only real reaction that should be needed.

UPDATE: Those wishing to defend actions such as the issuance of this Executive Order typically argue that although it has the potential to sweep up legitimate and innocent political activity, the U.S. Government intends to use it only to constrain the Bad People: those who seek to use violence or other illegitimate means to achieve their end. Click here for a very partial history of that assurance and then decide if you feel comfortable trusting it.

John Derbyshire—The Gift That Keeps On Giving!

After the fuss about my April 5 column in Taki’s Magazine blew up, I assumed that within a week or two it would all have faded into the Cosmic Microwave Background of stale news, and I’d be able to get on with writing about other things that interest me: Far Eastern affairs, math and the physical sciences, the human sciences, history, religion, politics, literature, and poetry.

No such luck. Once the Lefties have a real live racial heretic in their sights, and understand—as of course they now understand very clearly—that they can use him as a stick with which to beat the race-whipped Respectable Right, with nothing coming back at them from that quarter but squealing, supplicatory protestations of racial orthodoxy, they’re going to milk the situation for all it’s worth. This show will run and run.

I suppose I only have myself to blame. As a close friend told me: “For goodness’ sake, John, in the U.S.A. not even the world’s greatest living geneticist can say true facts about race out loud. What chance did you think you had?”

Which is right, of course. Like James Watson and other somewhat-Aspergery types, I fall rather easily into the childish assumption that truth trumps everything, and that statements based on facts, including statistical facts, may fairly be challenged only by a set of facts that better fits the actual world of actual reality, so far as we are able to apprehend that world.

That stuff does happen. It’s called “good science.” It forms, however, only a minuscule part of human social activity.

Far, far more of our social life consists of polite nothings, convenient falsehoods, calculations of relative status, testing of comfort zones, mutual grooming rituals, angling for favors, hot flushes, raised voices, jabbing fingers, and ad hominem remarks about opponents’ habits, appearance, and personal histories, none of which has much to do with coolly testing propositions about the world against empirical evidence. We are, after all, just smart chimps.

My last week’s VDARE.com piece on nomenclature therefore got the lefties a-jumping and a-chittering all over again.

To judge from the small amount of this stuff I could be bothered to look at, its principal characteristic was poor reading comprehension. As James Fulford has pointed out, the Elspeth Reeve [Email her/Twitter] who commented on Atlantic Wire got this link confused with this one, apparently not having bothered to click on either, or even to read the imbedding text with any understanding.

Ms. Reeve’s incompetence at handling her chosen material is pretty plain. But in other cases it’s hard to decide between journalistic slovenliness and malicious misrepresentation.

Here, for example, is something I wrote in my original April 5 TakiMag piece : “Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.”

Here is how I was quoted on The Blaze by one Erica Ritz[Twitter]: “Avoid concentrations of all blacks not known to you personally.”

Notice the subtle shift? Sloppiness or malice? Whaddya think?

My default assumption in ambiguous cases like that is stupidity. It’s a particular and peculiar kind of stupidity, though: a willed self-enstupidation that all liberals engage in when talking about race.

(I am indebted to Fred Reed for the beautiful word “enstupidation.” And since I have brought up Fred’s name, I may as well mention that he was for some years a crime reporter in Washington, D.C., riding in patrol cars with cops through the ghetto. Fred’s race realism makes me look like Alex Pareene.)

Heaven forfend that when speaking of race, you should show any awareness of the difference between English words like “some,” “many,” and “all.” Heaven doubly forfend that you betray any understanding of esoteric statistical notions like “average.”

Hence comments like this one, from a thread on Huffington Post. The commenter carefully typed out 91 words about her brilliant black nephew, words rendered completely null and void by my phrase “in the statistical generality,” which she had actually quoted!

(For a similar case, see here. A very high proportion of the negative comments on my pieces, in fact, consist of some commenter pointing out the existence of a brilliant or admirable black person known to them. Not only would I never deny the existence of such persons, I explicitly acknowledged it in my original April 5 piece: “There are black geniuses and black morons. There are black saints and black psychopaths.” Taste the liberal self-enstupidation!)

I fear, in fact, that statistics is becoming a dangerous subject, like history in a communist country.

(Or, come to think of it, like statistics in a communist country: When the results of the 1937 Soviet census were displeasing to Stalin, he had several of the senior statisticians sent to the Gulag. The Left, the Left! They are always the same!—always and everywhere.)

If knowing the meaning of “average” marks you as a person of interest to the Thought Police, what kind of social peril are you in if you know about variance and kurtosis? Kill the Stinking Ninth!

The main current of thought here, in fact, if you read many of these comment threads, is anti-intellectual, sometimes explicitly so. You must not think about this stuff. Just repeat the approved phrases. That’s the plain message.

As a person who rather likes thinking, books, reasoned argument, and open debate, I cannot help but see this as an appeal to barbarism—as, of course, are the many calls for physical violence against my person. But this is not news: the Left has always been the party of barbarism, of “‘Shut up,’ he explained,” and “We know where you live.”

What generated the most shrieking and swooning from the guardians of racial orthodoxy in this cycle was this remark in my VDARE.com column:

“White supremacy, in the sense of a society in which key decisions are made by white Europeans, is one of the better arrangements History has come up with.”

On the John Locke principle, though—i.e. “I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts”—the overwhelming majority of black Americans agree with me, and always have. From very early in the Republic, free blacks not only had the opportunity to escape from white supremacy, they were encouraged to do so by abolitionists.

The gentle Harriet Beecher Stowe, for example, closed out Uncle Tom’s Cabin with an appeal, grounded in Christian charity, for freed blacks to be educated and trained…so that they would be better able to survive in Liberia!

Let the church of the north receive these poor sufferers in the spirit of Christ; receive them to the educating advantages of Christian republican society and schools, until they have attained to somewhat of a moral and intellectual maturity, and then assist them in their passage to those shores, where they may put in practice the lessons they have learned in America.[Concluding Remarks, Chapter 45]

Abraham Lincoln was keen to help blacks escape white supremacy, too. In August 1862 he invited a delegation of free blacks to the White House…in order to urge them to leave America.

(Lincoln’s entire speech is here. I note in passing that the 150th anniversary of it is just a few weeks away. I await with keen interest the many articles that will no doubt appear in the Main Stream Media to commemorate the occasion.)

But with all this opportunity and encouragement, how many freed blacks actually chose to escape from under the iron heel of white supremacy? Most sources give 15,000-20,000—out of a Civil War-era black population of around four million. That’s less than half of one percent. Ninety-nine point five something percent preferred white supremacy. That’s an even bigger proportion than voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.”

Apply John Locke’s apothegm to the sloppy, dishonest, thuggish, anti-intellectual actions of the guardians of racial orthodoxy in today’s America, and you get a pretty good insight into their thoughts.

(Original, with  links in text, here: http://www.vdare.com/articles/john-derbyshire-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving)

Most people do not understand this.

For instance, when it is announced that New Technology X will “cut tailpipe emissions by 10 percent,” which sounds very impressive, the truth is usually less spectacular. They invariably neglect to mention that new cars are already 97 percent “clean” at the tailpipe – and have been, for years. That is, only about 3 percent of the exhaust output of a late-model car is other than water vapor and C02 – neither of which have any bearing on smog formation or air pollution.

Hence, New Technology X will actually (if the claim is taken at face value) reduce that remaining 3 percent of “bad stuff” by 10 percent. And 10 percent of 3 percent is a great deal less than the implied 10 percent of 100 percent. In fact, it is a fractional reduction. Almost unmeasurable – and more to the point, negligible as regards the vehicle’s “impact” on air quality. Put another way, the difference in emissions output between say a 2000 model year car and a 2012 model year car is on the order of 1 percent or less.

And these literally fractional improvements often come at great cost relative to what’s gained – exactly the opposite of the first-generation emissions controls, which made huge strides without adding massively to the cost of the car. A simple catalytic converter, for example, massively alters the quality of the exhaust output, curbing the harmful emissions by double digits – for about $200-$400 or so. A simple throttle body fuel-injection system achieves a similar reduction relative to a carburetor – and (again) without adding a massive expense to the car. Adding an overdrive gear to the transmission dramatically cuts fuel consumption – which also lowers total exhaust emissions simply as a result of burning less fuel.

All of these things have been in widespread use  since the mid-1980s. This is the period when the major gains, in terms of reducing vehicle emissions, were achieved. Put another way, the basic problem has been solved for more than 20 years. Cars have been “clean” for decades.

So why do we – why do they – continue to tilt at windmills? Why continue to invest huge sums – and impose huge costs – for ever-diminishing returns? Mostly, it’s because of the lingering perception that cars are still “dirty” – which they aren’t. This, in turn, provides the rationale for increasingly unreasonable federal regulations – regulations that demand fractional reductions of the remaining fraction of vehicle exhaust that’s not clean. That previously mentioned 3 percent.

Whatever the cost. To be paid by you.

A better (because more cost-effective) solution would be to mass-market relatively simple, much-lighter-than-current-average vehicles equipped with updated versions of something like Honda’s old CVCC engine of the mid-1970s fed by a throttle body injector (TBI) teamed up with a modern six speed overdrive transmission or CVT. Such a vehicle, weighing about 1,800 lbs., let’s say, would not need more than about 100 hp (probably less)  to be powerful enough for most A to B driving, would be capable of 60-plus MPG, and – critically – would burn probably 40 percent less fuel than the typical current 270 hp V-6 (and 3,400-plus pound) sedan or crossover – which mostly never sees the high side of 80 MPH anyhow and thus is as pointless as giving a eunuch Viagra.

If such vehicles became mass-market vehicles, the result would be a massive reduction in emissions output (and fuel wastage) without the need to pursue ever-more-elaborate, ever-more-expensive technological solutions in the quest for diminishing returns, tailpipe emissions-wise. Such a machine would not need gas direct injection, or variable cam/valve timing, or multiple sequential turbochargers – just a sampling of the technology the car industry is currently deploying in order to “save fuel” and “lower exhaust emissions” in cars that are morbidly obese and thus require bigger, more consumptive engines that burn more fuel – and produce more total emissions.

The best part is that this approach does not require mandates on new cars – or restrictions on old cars. In fact, getting rid of the mandates currently in force would make it possible to build sensible cars again. The watermelons (because green on the outside but red on the inside) say they want to see low-polluting, high-mileage cars. Well, why not build them? We have – have had – the technology for decades. It would be so easy. A car like the 2012 VW Jetta diesel gets 42 MPG. It also weighs more than 4,200 lbs. Imagine the mileage this car could deliver if it weighed 3,000 lbs. – and instead of a 2.0 liter engine, had a 1.5 liter engine.Let’s say 60 MPG – a fuel consumption reduction of about 40 percent. Just by dintof burning 40 percent less fuel, our hypothetical Jetta would also produce a great deal less in the way of total emissions, since the total volume of fuel used (and emissions produced as a result of burning that fuel) would be 40 percent less. No additional technology – or expense – required.

This is where the big gains are to be made – by lightening and deregulating cars, not by straining to eke out a less than 1 percent “improvement” in the exhaust stream of morbidly obese, over-regulated, over-teched cars.

The first step is getting people to understand they’ve been conned. The next step will take care of itself.

Throw it in the Woods? 

By Paul Craig Roberts

May 14, 2012 “Information Clearing House”

If there were any real terrorists, Jose Rodriguez would be dead.

Who is Jose Rodriguez? He is the criminal who ran the CIA torture program. Most of his victims were not terrorists or even insurgents. Most were hapless individuals kidnapped by warlords and sold to the Americans as “terrorists” for the bounty paid.

If Rodriguez’s identity was previously a secret, it is no more. He has been on CBS “60 Minutes” taking credit for torturing Muslims and using the information allegedly gained to kill leaders of al Qaeda. If terrorists were really the problem that Homeland Security, the FBI and CIA claim, Rodriguez’s name would be a struck through item on the terrorists’ hit list. He would be in his grave.

So, also, would be John Yoo, who wrote the Justice (sic) Department memos giving the green light to torture, despite US and International laws prohibiting torture. Apparently, Yoo, a professor at the Boalt School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, was ignorant of US and international law. And so was the US Department of Justice (sic).

Notice that Rodriguez, “The Torturer of the Muslims,” does’t have to hide. He can go on national television, reveal his identity, and revel in his success in torturing and murdering Muslims. Rodriguez has no Secret Service protection and would be an easy mark for assassination by terrorists so capable as to have, allegedly, pulled off 9/11.

Another easy mark for assassination would be former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who staffed up the Pentagon with neoconservative warmongers such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, who in turn concocted the false information used to justify the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Rumsfeld himself declared members of al Qaeda to be the most vicious and dangerous killers on earth. Yet Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Richard Perle, together with neoconservative media propagandists, such as William Kristol and Max Boot, have been walking around safe for years unmolested by terrorists seeking revenge or bringing retribution to those responsible for as many as 1,000,000 Muslim deaths.

Condi Rice, Colin Powell, who delivered the Speech of Lies to the UN inaugurating the invasion of Iraq, and Dick Cheney, whose minimal Secret Service protection could not withstand a determined assassination attempt, also enjoy lives unmolested by terrorists.

Remember the deck of cards that the Bush regime had with Iraqi faces? If terrorists had a similar deck, all of those named above would be “high value targets.” Yet, there has not been a single attempt on any one of them.

Strange, isn’t it, that none of the above are faced with a terrorist threat. Yet, the tough, macho Navy Seals who allegedly killed Osama bin Laden must have their identity kept hidden so that they don’t become terrorist targets. These American supermen, highly trained killers themselves, don’t dare show their faces, but Rodriguez, Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice can walk around unmolested. Indeed, the Seals’ lives are so endangered that President Obama gave up the enormous public relations political benefit of a White House ceremony with the heroic Navy Seals. Very strange behavior for a politician. A couple of weeks after the alleged bin Laden killing, the Seals unit, or most of it, was wiped out in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

If you were a Muslim terrorist seeking retribution for Washington’s crimes, would you try to smuggle aboard an airliner a bomb in your underwear or shoe in order to blow up people whose only responsibility for Washington’s war against Muslims is that they fell for Washington’s propaganda? If you wanted to blow up the innocent, wouldn’t you instead place your bomb in the middle of the mass of humanity waiting to clear airport security and take out TSA personnel along with passengers? Terrorists could coordinate their attacks, hitting a number of large airports across the US at the same minute. This would be real terror. Moreover, it would present TSA with an insolvable problem: how can people be screened before they are screened?

Or coordinated attacks on shopping malls and sports events?

Why should terrorists, if they exist, bother to kill people when it is easy to cause mayhem by not killing them? There are a large number of unguarded electric power substations. Entire regions of the country could be shut down. The simplest disruptive act would be to release large quantities of roofing nails in the midst of rush hour traffic in Boston, New York, Washington DC, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco. You get the picture: thousands and thousands of cars disabled with flat tires blocking the main arteries for days.

Before some reader accuses me of giving terrorists ideas, ask yourself if you really think people so clever as to have allegedly planned and carried out 9/11 couldn’t think of such simple tactics, plots that could be carried out without having to defeat security or kill innocent people? My point isn’t what terrorists, if they exist, should do. The point is that the absence of easy-to-do acts of terrorism suggests that the terrorist threat is more hype than reality. Yet, we have an expensive, intrusive security apparatus that seems to have no real function except to exercise power over American citizens.

In place of real terrorists carrying out easy plots, we have “terrorist” plots dreamed up by FBI and CIA agents, who then recruit some hapless or demented dupes, bribing them with money and heroic images of themselves, and supplying them with the plot and fake explosives. These are called “sting operations,” but they are not. They are orchestrations by our own security agencies that produce fake terrorist plots that are then “foiled” by the security agencies that hatched the plots. Washington’s announcement is always: “The public was never in danger.” Some terrorist plot! We have never been endangered by one, but the airports have been on orange alert for 11.5 years.

The federal judiciary and brainwashed juries actually treat these concocted plots as real threats to American security despite the government’s announcements that the public was never in danger.

The announcements of the “foiled” plots keep the brainwashed public docile and amenable to intrusive searches, warrantless spying, the growth of an unaccountable police state, and endless wars.

The “War on Terror” is a hoax, one that has been successfully used to destroy the US Constitution and to complete the transformation of law from a shield of the people into a weapon in the hands of the state. By destroying habeas corpus, due process, and the presumption of innocence, the “War on Terror” has destroyed our security.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. www.paulcraigroberts.org

The Mini is also inexpensive – around $19k to start, which is cheap for a new car. And it’s very fuel efficient:  Almost 40 MPG on the highway. It has a pleasantly spacious – even practical – interior for such a small-on-the-outside car. It is easy to drive, fun to drive – and affordable to drive.

In a very real sense, the modern Mini is more like the old VW Beetle than anything else on the road ( including the New Beetle  – which is too big, too thirsty, too expensive and probably too sporty, too.)

Well, what about this new two-seater Mini coupe?

Has it got the Mini mojo, too?

WHAT IT IS

The Mini coupe is a two-seat version of the regular Mini – the nomenclature being a tad confusing since both cars have two doors for passengers and a hatch in the back for accessing the cargo area. So technically speaking, they’re both hatchback coupes.

The coupe differs from the regular Mini from the tops of the doors up. It has  a steeply raked windshield and its roof sits about an inch lower than the regular Mini’s. It also has unique bits such as a Porsche-like rear airfoil that deploys automatically at 50 MPH.

Like the regular Mini, the coupe is available as a hardtop or convertible and in standard, turbocharged S or even-more-turbocharged John Cooper Works (JCW) versions. Base price for the hardtop coupe is $21,300. A JCW coupe lists for $31,200. The convertible starts at $24,530 and tops out at a $34,500 for the JCW version.

WHAT’S NEW FOR 2012

The two-seater version of the Mini is all-new.

WHAT’S GOOD

Same great gas mileage as regular Mini.

A different look than the regular Mini.

WHAT’S NOT SO GOOD

Same performance as the regular Mini, in spite of the much more aggressive looks.

Much less room inside than the regular Mini.

Diminished view of what’s outside and all around you due to to the lowered roofline and thick C pillars.

UNDER THE HOOD

The Mini coupe has the same drivetrain options as the regular Mini – and this could be a problem for Mini with this model, which is built around its sportier-than-normal image.

As in the regular Mini, the coupe’s standard engine is a 1.6 liter, 122 hp four cylinder paired with either a a six-speed manual or (optionally) a six-speed automatic.

There is a significant difference in performance between the manual and automatic-equipped Mini coupe: The six-speed stick version can do the 0-60 run in a sprightly 8.2 seconds; the automatic is more than one full second slower, solidly in the mid nines. That’s not a bad number for the regular Mini – which doesn’t present itself as a sporty car as much as a fun-minded economy car. But in the aggressive-looking coupe, it’s disappointing. Just my 50 cents, but if I’d been in charge at Mini, I’d have given the Mini coupe  a few more oats – and better acceleration – than the regular Mini.

Same issue with the S and JCW versions of the coupe. They’re not borderline slow – the turbocharged S, with 181 hp, gets to 60 in a presentably quick 6.4-6.7 seconds (even with the automatic). And the JCW version – which gets a higher-boost version of the 1.6 engine jacked-up to 208 hp, is capable of getting to 60 in just over six seconds flat with the six-speed manual.

These are good numbers – but they’re also the same numbers as the regular Mini.

Which isn’t surprising, given the engines are identical. Even the curb weight is identical – or nearly so. The hardtop Mini coupe is actually a bit heavier than the standard Mini. It specs out at 2,557 lbs. vs. 2,535 lbs. for the regular Mini hardtop.

Gas mileage is also virtually identical: The base coupe with 1.6 engine and six-speed stick gets 29 city, 37 highway. Even the high-performance JCW manages a very respectable 25 city, 33 highway.

One fly in the pie, though. All the Mini’s engines – including the base non-turbo 1.6 engine – require premium fuel.

ON THE ROAD 

If you’ve driven the regular Mini, then you already know how the Mini coupe drives. Acceleration and handling is indistinguishable. Both are as agile as a greased trout in a cold stream – and just as capable of darting around obstacles and passing through what in almost any other car would be an impossibly small space. Parking is point-and-click easy; in – and out. No backing in, then out – then in and out again.  You will have room left over in your garage, too.

The major difference between the two is visibility. In the regular Mini, you’ve got an almost panoramic view all around, thanks to the high glass that envelopes you. This makes the car easy to drive fast in traffic without second guessing. You know where you are – and you know where other cars are. It  also makes the regular Mini’s cabin feel even roomier than it is. Like the original 1960s Mini, it’s a small car that even very big people can drive – comfortably.

But the coupe is a different story. The windshield is much more steeply raked – and the roofline about an inch lower. So far, no problems. Even very tall people (like me – I’m 6 ft. 3) still fit inside with room to spare, including airpsace between the top of my head and the Mini’s ceiling. Forward visibility is still ok, too – although not as expansive as in the regular Mini.

The problem comes when you turn your head to see what’s coming down the road before pulling into traffic. Because much of what you’ll see is the Mini coupe’s passenger seat headrest (to your right) which almost entirely occludes the tiny rear quarter window. The unusually shaped roofline conspires to make matters worse. It tapers backward and then just behind the driver’s door, each side of it begins to extend down several inches, kind of like a baseball batter’s helmet, as the leading edge of the molded-in roof spoiler sprouts toward the back of the car. It looks neat from the outside, but the downside is that from inside the car, you won’t see much to your sides. The view behind is also compromised. You learn to use your mirrors – and your front seat passenger – to confirm what’s coming.

Have him or her lean out the window and look – before you leap.

AT THE CURB

The Mini coupe looks smaller than the regular Mini but both are exactly the same length (146.6 inches) and share the same wheelbase (97.1 inches). The only significant dimensional difference between the two is height. The regular Mini stands 55.4 inches – the coupe, 54.3 inches.

I’ve mentioned the sharp-angle windshield and “batter’s helmet” roof. You also get an automatic-deploying rear spoiler that pops up whenever your speed hits 50 MPH. Its job is to provide additional downforce on the car’s rear end, to aid traction and stability.

The inside is similar to the standard Mini: Same large centrally-mounted dial-type speedo, tachometer mounted on the steering wheel in the driver’s line-of-sight, old-timey Limey-style toggle switches to operate the power windows and other functions. Behind the driver and front-seat passenger are molded “speed cones” that taper back to the cargo area. Which is a decently usable, if not over-large, space.

The back hatch opens low and wide, maximizing access to the available space. But, there is much less space (just 7 cubic feet) than in the regular Mini, which has more than triple the available real estate at 24 cubic feet with its back seats folded down.

Like the regular Mini, the coupe can be highly customized with dealer-available accessories, including custom graphic packages.

THE REST

I understand why Mini added to the coupe to the mix. The regular Mini has been around for ten years – can you believe it? – and like any other automaker, Mini knows that newness keeps people interested. And, the Mini has always had a sporty character – even if it started out as an economy-minded car. ’60s-era Minis were almost immediately hopped-up for better performance – and the S and JCW versions of the current Mini are popular with buyers. It’s a reasonable step to add a more obviously enthusiast-minded Mini to the lineup. Even the absence of back seats in the coupe is not-unreasonable, given that the back seats in the regular Mini are not fit for people anyhow.

So, the basic idea seems sound to me.

But I’m not so sure about the execution. The coupe should at least be lighter than the regular Mini. That all by itself would have given it a performance edge. Failing that, the coupe could use some extra horses – not necessarily a stampede of them. But enough, at least, to put some daylight between it and the regular Mini. That’s what Fiat did with the Abarth version of the 500 – which gets a unique-to-that-model turbocharged engine and much-improved performance over the regular Fiat 500.

If it’d been my call, the base coupe would have come with the regular Mini Cooper S model’s upgraded suspension and wheel/tire package, plus at maybe 10-20 more hp out of the non-turbo 1.6 liter engine. A free flow exhaust and some tuning should be all that’s needed to get there. The coupe S should have 200 hp – and be almost as quick as a JCW regular Mini.

And the JCW coupe ought to be quicker still. Cutting its curb weight by 200 pounds would do the trick.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Absent better performance, one wonders (well, I wonder) how many people will put up with the coupe’s compromises without the compensation of better-than-standard Mini performance.

I guess we’ll see!

Throw it in the Woods?

* Fuel filters -

Back in the days of carburetors, these were obvious, easily accessible and inexpensive to replace. But in a modern fuel-injected car, the fuel filter is typically not “right there” under the hood, where it’s easy to see it – and so, think about it. It is usually mounted not-so-accessibly underneath the car – or (sometimes) in the fuel tank. And modern fuel-injection fuel filters cost a bit more to replace – though the good news is they’re not (usually) exorbitantly expensive. What they do have in common with the old-style filters is they need to be replaced regularly, too – and for the same reasons. When you pump gas into your vehicle’s tank, you are also pumping in grit and other small particles that are in the fuel. This is stuff your engine does not want to eat – hence the filter. But the filter eventually fills up – it gets saturated with contaminants and can no longer filter effectively. This also creates the mechanical equivalent of atherosclerosis in your car’s “arteries” – its fuel lines. The fuel can’t easily pass through the increasingly clogged up filter. Or, crap passes through it – and into your engine – instead. These are very good reasons for replacing it, as per the recommendations in your vehicle’s owner’s manual. Every 15,000 miles is a typical interval.

Don’t neglect this important service. Just because it’s out of your sight doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be on your mind.

* Cabin filtration filter -

Over the past ten years or so, cabin filtration systems have gone from being a high-end car feature to a fairly common feature. Most of the cars I’ve test-driven recently – including even economy-minded cars in the $15k range -  have them. And just like any other filter, cabin filters need to be periodically replaced, too. Failure to do so may not invite mechanical problems, but if you have allergies, you may not breathe so easily if you forget about the filter. Usually, they are easy to get at – and your owner’s manual will usually give you detailed instructions as to where to find the filter and how to remove/replace it – along with recommended changeout intervals. Keep in mind that these filters are air filters – and do the same basic job as the air filter that filters the air your engine breathes. If you do a lot of driving down dusty gravel roads – or in high-soot areas (urban areas) then, as with the other air filter, your cabin filtration filter will probably need to be checked – and changed – more often.

* Transmission fluid (and filter) -

Both manual and automatic transmissions benefit from regular fluid (or gear lube) changes and it’s critical to replace the filter (in automatics) before it gets clogged because if you don’t the hydraulic fluid that powers the transmission – and which makes your car move – won’t circulate. And then, your car won’t go. In the typical automatic, fluid is sucked through the filter and the pressurized fluid circulates through the valve body and torque converter, transferring the engine’s power to the driveshaft and ultimately, causing the drive wheels to turn. But if the filter is heavily obstructed, fluid can’t circulate – or small bits of debris aren’t caught by the filter – and now you’ve got problems. In a manual, periodically draining and replacing the lube (or ATF, as some use) will remove metal shavings and other contaminants – helping your gearbox live longer and operate more like-new than like-old. The job itself is not difficult, just messy (have a big catch pan, if you plan to DIY). And if you decide to have this service done for you, be sure to check the fluid/lube level yourself, after the work has been done – just to be sure.

As RR once said, a long time ago: Trust – but verify!

* Hose down the radiator (and AC condenser) -

At least twice a year – once in spring, once in the fall – you should get a garden hose and thoroughly wash down the exterior surfaces of your vehicle’s radiator – and also the radiator-looking thingie that is (typically) bolted right in front of the radiator. (This is your AC system condenser – and like the engine radiator, it is made of rows of tubes with very thin cooling fins.) Bugs and other road debris smack into the surface of the radiator (and condenser) as you drive, lodging in between the fins like a piece of corn between your teeth. The bug-mash can impair airflow over the cooling fins, which could lead to a hot running car – and problems that can be avoided, just by periodically washing off the small-scale roadkill. Use your thumb over the hose end to create some water pressure, but don’t use too much (as via a squirt-type hose handle), just to be on the safe side (the fins are fragile and you don’t want to damage anything).

The best part about this service is that you don’t have to get dirty, no tools are need – and, it’s absolutely free.

* Transmission filter (and fluid) -

* Crankcase breather filter -

Throw it in the Woods?

This idea that risk – note, not recklessness, not irresponsibility – just “risk” – is something to be stamped out at all costs is perhaps the most cancerous notion of our era, right behind egalitarianism and democracy.

Columbus accepted some risk when he set sail across the ocean sea. It would have been much safer, I suppose, to stay home. But then we’d not even know his name – much less celebrate a day in his honor. Those bold men who strapped themselves into a tiny capsule mounted on a very large Saturn V rocket and rode it all the way to the Moon took a risk, too.

Risk is rightly viewed as synonymous with challenge – which necessarily entails the possibility of failure. One does not seek it, one is aware of its possibility. But one accepts the possibility as the necessary price to be paid in order to meet the challenge. To strive, to achieve. To be competent rather than complacent. To do – as opposed to not doing. Risk is the very thing that makes human progress possible. To refuse to act – or to limit action – until and unless all risk is removed is to negate the possibility of acting. It is to embrace stasis – and even that amount to a false sense of security, since failing to act out of fear of risk can itself be lethally paralyzing. Think of the prey animal that freezes rather than bolts at the sight of a predator.

Yet risk-avoidance has become the cornerstone of the red giant phase American police state, whose lurid glare we all live under today. Every new authoritarian measure is proposed – is justified – on the basis of risk-avoidance, no matter how infinitesimal the risk. Any risk is too much risk. No price too high, no imposition too extreme. If it makes us safer. If it reduces some risk.

Recently, for example, the government issued a ukase that all new cars will have back-up cameras as standard equipment – even though the number of children (and others) run over by a backing-up car (more precisely, an incompetently backed-up car) is too small to even be described as a fraction of a fraction. During the past ten years, the government claims about 650 flattened toddlers. A tragedy for those involved, certainly. But does it constitute a national epidemic – a risk so great that it justifies forcing every single person in a nation of 310 million people who wishes to purchase a new car to also purchase a back-up camera?  Do the math. What is the ratio? The percentage? Let’s call it an even 1,000 – out of 310 million.  Oh, yes. I forget. If it saves even one life.  That is the mantra.

And the result of allowing it to pass, unchallenged by reason, is that costs will be imposed on 310 million – most of whom face an immeasurably tiny risk of ever being backed-over by an SmooVee. But who will be throttled (and charged) in the name of avoiding this picayune risk.

Passing zones are disappearing. Too “risky.” More probably, not enough revenue was being generated when people could lawfully pass. The most grotesque assaults on our former right to travel unmolested are committed against us in the name of risk-avoidance.

Kids can’t play football – or even play outside. Too risky. I like to backpack. I wonder how long it will be before that, too, is declared too risky. I might fall. I might twist my ankle. I could pass out from dehydration. A snake might bite me on the ankle. There are no cameras in the woods, no emergency call boxes. It is all very, very risky. But not really. The majority of these risks – like the risks discussed above – can be reduced to almost nothing by prudent action and common sense. I watch where I step. I wear boots that prevent my ankles from flexing too much in the event I lose my footing. These keep me safe from ankle-biting snakes, too. I carry plenty of water – and keep a gun at my side for just-in-case. These put my risks down to the peripheral. They are still there. Yes, something could happen.  But it probably won’t.   And so, I am willing to assume the risk – rationally, reasonably.

It is – or ought to be – the same in other aspects of life, cars included. There is, for example, an element of risk involved in not wearing a seat belt. But the risk of being involved in an automobile accident can be greatly reduced by attentive, skilled driving. In which case, the not-wearing of a seat belt incurs virtually no risk at all. But rather than encourage rational risk reduction by prudent individual action, our red star police state pulsates with authoritarian fury at the merest suggestion of a theoretical risk – and pours forth its radiation upon us.

And the end result is not unlike living under the sway of an actual real-life red giant sun: We are forced indoors, our actions curtailed and limited. Everything we do is done under the oppressive heat and remorseless, never-flinching gaze.

I’d rather run a little rational risk now and then myself. Even if it means I occasionally get a sunburn.

Throw it in the Woods?