This is the sign that a member of that very government has on his desk. If you ever read any other article from this block you know that I am supporting Ron Paul - the person with that sign on his desk as you can see in the picture to this article.

I sometimes wonder how this guy got so far up into government without being eliminated. I mean, look at all the ‘accidental’ death that people suffer when they are about to expose somebody high up in the power structure…

There is either of two possibilities that Ron Paul could maintain to be a pain in the butt of the tyrants - either he is not considered to be that dangerous and is used to get intelligence about all those people who are dissenters, or, and this is what I hope is the real reason, Ron Paul got so much into the spot light that it is now very difficult to eliminate him without creating a martyr and be even more damaging as such.

But whatever it is, it seems now time to remove our ‘Ron for President’ signs from the cars and yard and look into the future. Ron Paul himself had indicated that his run for the nomination would not necessarily be successful, but that it was the start of a campaign that would eventually lead for America to find back to its roots.

Now Dr. Paul has officially started this campaign and I certainly have joined and I want you all to do the same.

Our Mission

The mission of the Campaign for Liberty is to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a noninterventionist foreign policy, by means of educational and political activity.

This from the new website Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty that I want you to go to, join, and think about the best way to contribute and get the word out - the word that there actually is an alternative, now that after his nomination “Barak Obama bin Laden” changed course from a peaceful warrior to just warrior, willing to continue the Middle Eastern policies.

Here is Dr. Paul’s announcement of his Campaign for Liberty…

Posted by Merlin - June 22nd, 2008

Coldplay’s Violet Hill all by itself is already a very good piece of activist’s art, but with the following imagery it becomes even better. Maybe the meaning shift a bit by being way more shocking, but I have to say, that it confirms that I am an anarchist - I don’t want anybody in a position to send me - or my son - into a war to be killed and just dumped into a hole in the ground - - and then dance about it…

And, to make things more complete, so that you can sing along happily…

Was a long and dark December
From the rooftops I remember
There was snow
White snow

Clearly I remember
From the windows they were watching
While we froze
Down below

When the future’s architectured
By a carnival of idiots on show
You’d better lie low

If you love me
Won’t you let me know?

Was a long and dark December
When the banks became cathedrals
And the fog
Became God

Priests clutched onto bibles
Hollowed out to fit their rifles
And the cross was held aloft

Bury me in honor
When I’m dead and hit the ground
A love back home unfolds

If you love me
Won’t you let me know?

I don’t want to be a soldier
Who the captain of some sinking ship
Would stow, far below

So if you love me
Why’d you let me go?

I took my love down to Violet Hill
There we sat in snow
All that time she was silent still

So if you love me
Won’t you let me know?

If you love me,
Won’t you let me know?

Posted by Merlin Silk - June 18th, 2008

About a year ago I wrote about my great wonder what our government, especially the federal one, has to do with regulating how much water we use to flush our toilets.

And things have gotten better and betters since then. Just listen to this speech…

Congress man Ted Poe addresses congress for five minutes explaining how ridiculous and unconstitutional it is to require all Americans to use fluorescent light bulbs exclusively soon. The bulbs might be more energy efficient but bring with them a whole lot of problems that make them environmentally very unfriendly to say the least.

There is a three page paper outlining the procedure that should be followed when such a light bulb is accidentally broken - these bulbs containing mercury, the procedure probably comes only a little bit short of calling the HazMat for the rescue.

Another interesting point made by congressman Poe is that all of those ‘energy saver’ light bulbs are made in China taking more jobs away from America and bringing them over-sees.

This appears to fool Americans into buying new things they believe are good for them and the environment while actually hurting them. Another example is the fact that more and more big chain super markets now started to offer ‘organic food.’ These foods might - or might not - be grown by the rules established by the FDA to be called ‘organic’ but if we tally in the fact that these ‘organic foods’ are mass produced in often far away farms and that lots of fuel need to be expended to bring those foods to the local super market, then most of the advantages of organic food are negated. The FDA just forgot the one rule that, in order to call a food ‘organic’ it needs to be grown locally. But when was the last time a big machine like our government did get such a complex issue right?

Posted by Merlin - June 15th, 2008

There has been plenty of rumors, opinions, ideas and conspiracy theories that our government is not quite as honest with us as it could be. There is even the theory that the whole moon landing coverage was shot on a sound stage somewhere on good old earth.

But all this aside, let’s assume all our ventures out into space and to other planets is actually true, then this fascinating image of our Earth-Moon system as seen from Mars (actually from one of our space crafts up there) is in fact authentic.

But unfortunately it is totally misleading. It tries to create this feeling of being this small twin system out there in the void - alone but still the moon so close that we can identify with it.

Still, let’s still assume that this image is not photoshopped, then it uses the treacheries of three dimensions to mislead us. The moon must be either much closer to the observer - the little green Martian - or much further away.

How come?

Let’s do some simple math. The Earth diameter is about 12000 km (OK, I think in metric - so what?) and the distance of Earth and Moon is about 360000 km, that would put the Moon at the distance of about 30 Earth radii. In the NASA image the distance seems to be 6 Earth radii - pretty big difference, don’t you think?

If we - or the Martians - would look at our system at a time when the real distance of the two heavenly bodies in one image would be shown, we would see two specs of light without any awe-inspiring effect.

What do you think with they do this manipulation?

Posted by Merlin - June 9th, 2008

I watched a mini series about Merlin’s story on TV today. No, not my story, the story of the other Merlin you might have heard about. We all know the basics of the story, what was new to me was the underlying struggle between Merlin and Mab, the Queen of the Old Ways.

It appears that Mab is winning most of the time, giving Merlin a little success once in while, which is then soon lost. But what prompts me to write this post about it is the deep wisdom in Merlin final permanent victory over Mab - everybody forgets here and she ceases to exist.

This made me realize again the only real way to handle the problems with our politicians, who certainly have become the evil overlords.

Merlin and the people of Camelot turned the back to Mab and forgot about her. Attention-units seems to be the substance evil overlords feed on. If this is withdrawn they wither and die. So, why don’t we just start to handle the problems with our so-called ‘public servants’ in a similar fashion - turn around and take away any attention units. They try to tell us that we need to do this or that to ‘protect our children’ - but we know that this is not the real agenda and we just tune out those statements as white noise.

Found a very interesting little video that demonstrated how the news might look, when this behavior is implemented even on the level of the dominant media - which probably will be the most difficult level because this segment of the work force directly depends on those who get a lot of attention units and then hand some of them out to their minions, what’s laughingly called the ‘free press.’

Now, here the video

Posted by Merlin - May 18th, 2008

There hasn’t been a forwarded article from Larken Rose for a while. It’s not that Larken was quiet, neither did I dislike what he had to say, I guess it was just that I did not really had to add anything to what he had to say.

But in his last newsletter he wrote something eye opening, at least for me. For you it might have been actually totally obvious. He argued that we are already living in an anarchy because there is no other way, it’s just that we have made the bully the boss.

When I read this, I had to pause, look over that and had to agree. If there was some higher authority, then some other form of living together might be possible, but as long it’s all humans that make up our rules and regulations, it makes no difference if one of the groups that has formed calls itself government or mafia. It is easy to see if we create an alternate reality in which the mafia of the 30s has grown in power and has just become so strong that it supplied all the politicians, had take over the press and staged propaganda to white-wash its actions and finally gotten into the position of making the laws of the land.

Today we would happily life in a society which would call the boss Godfather instead of president. There would be factions of the mafia competing to get the next Godfather into the godfather chair for a period that all the factions had agreed upon in an all-mafia meeting. With good propaganda on TV and in the press we would probably be gladly rallying behind one of the Godfathers in spe and make donations that our Godfather would be THE Godfather.

Do you see any difference to what we have today?

That’s what I had to think about when I read this article of Larken Rose…

Make Good Choices!

The idea behind “government” is that we need something to make sure everyone makes the right decisions. And wouldn’t that be a great thing? Don’t we need some entity which enforces moral, just laws on all of those flawed, careless, sometimes malicious human beings? Isn’t that a good and necessary thing to do?

Well, it might be, if something OTHER than human beings were going to run the thing. But guess who decides what the “laws” will say? Guess who decides what those “right decisions” are, which are going to be forced on all of us? That’s right: PEOPLE. In fact, usually the worst people around. So the question becomes, if we NEED something making us mere mortals make the right decisions, how do you make sure that IT makes the right decisions?

For example, lots of people say we need “government”–a big, powerful, authoritarian control machine–to stop those nasty people who might decide that MURDER is a good idea. Yes, it would be nice to have something that did that; something to protect us from all the sadistic thugs of the world. And has the “government” beast done that? Hardly. In fact, the number of murders committed in the name of “government” (NOT including wars) exceeds a HUNDRED MILLION in the last 100 years. Put another way, an average of over a million people every year, for the last CENTURY, were “legally” murdered. (See “Death by Government” by R.J. Rummel.)

But we neeeeeeeed “government” to protect us! Why? Because some people might choose to harm us! And when you build that big authoritarian “protection” machine, what happens when the very people who want to harm us get control of it? Open a history book and find out.

But we neeeed “government” to protect us from gangs of thugs! What do you think the IRS is? In the name of “government,” thieves steal around two TRILLION dollars a year now, in this country alone. That averages out to around $14,000 for every man, woman and child in this country, stolen in the name of “authority.” And people are STILL batty enough to say that we NEED “government” to protect us from thieves! Look how “legal” murder, theft, oppression, and assault compares to “illegal” crimes, and you’ll see how utterly insane it is to think that “government” is a PROTECTOR.

Furthermore, authoritarians don’t limit what kinds of “right decisions” it will foist upon everyone else. Yes, I’d like someone forcibly stopping murders, but both history and basic logic say that “government” is NOT the thing to use. But the “government” control freaks like to meddle in all manner of non-violent, non- fraudulent choices people make every day as well. As a sickening recent example, a bunch of federal fascists recently raided a business and swiped lots of property. Guess what the guy was selling. Crystal meth? Nope. Cocaine? Nope. Rocket launchers? Nope. Something far more sinister.

Milk.

I wish I was kidding. You see, some god-complex psychos imagining themselves to be “authority” decided that, for your own good (of course), THEY will decide what is best for you. And they decided that milk that just came out of a cow (aka “raw milk”) isn’t fit for human consumption. You might agree. The trouble is, they didn’t just make that decision for themselves, or for their kids, they made it for everyone in the country, and hired MEN WITH GUNS to go after anyone who makes a different decision. In case you think I’m making this up, here’s the story:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63225

I can’t think of a better example of why it’s profoundly IDIOTIC to think that it’s a good idea to let politicians choose and forcibly impose “good choices” on everyone. In the case of raw milk, I happen to agree with the farmer: it’s a lot more healthy than the usual processed kind. There are lots of other areas–most, in fact– in which I think the government “regulatory” commands are not just wrong, but dangerous. Vaccinations is another fine example of something authoritarians want to forcibly impose on everyone (Hillary has harped on it in the past), despite all the evidence showing that many vaccinations are far more dangerous than they are helpful.

But ultimately, whether the busy-body government regulators are right or wrong on any given subject, letting them forcibly impose THEIR decisions on everyone is utterly idiotic, not to mention evil. This is true even when they get something right. For example, I think snorting snuff that fries your brain is a pretty stupid thing to do. But it’s not nearly as idiotic, dangerous, evil, or destructive to society as putting two MILLION people in CAGES for possessing substances that politicians (who probably all drink alcohol) have decided count as the “wrong decision.”

The entire premise behind the “government” myth is that SOMEONE has to decide what is right, and then impose it on the rest of us. Otherwise, there will be chaos! Well, if you could find someone INCAPABLE of ever making the wrong decision, such logic might make sense (though it would still violate the right of every person to be free). But if you don’t trust your neighbor to make the right decisions, why on earth would you trust some crooked windbag in D.C. to make the decision, and then FORCE it on your neighbor? Where is there the slightest indication that those in “government” make better choices than anyone else?

And if your neighbor commits the unspeakable sin of drinking raw milk, or makes some equally heinous decision, and it ends up being unhealthy, he harms himself. He doesn’t harm you. But the “government” myth dictates that the politicians get to MAKE you comply with THEIR decisions, even if you know darn well that their decision is WRONG (as I believe it is in the case of the milk issue).

Individuals make decisions. Some of them are bad decisions. That’s called life. Deal with it. The idea that creating a big, powerful authoritarian machine–RUN BY PEOPLE–can eliminate, or even reduce wrong decisions, has no basis in logic or history. With every issue from murder to what kind of milk you can drink, “government” has shown time and time again that it will come down on the WRONG side of the issue, and then violently impose its stupidity on millions of people who would have made the right decision.

People say that anarchy “will never work” in the real world. So, in the real world, see for yourself whether the myth of “government” works, by taking the following quiz.

1. Which occurs more, “illegal” murder, or “legal” murder? (Don’t forget that little thing called “war.”)
2. Which occurs more, “illegal” theft, or “legal” theft? (Don’t forget the IRS, and state tax collectors.)
3. Which occurs more, “illegal” fraud, or “legal” fraud? (Don’t forget the IRS and the Federal Reserve.)
4. Which occurs more, “illegal” assault, or “legal” assault? (Don’t forget the military, the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, the INS, beat cops–no pun intended, etc.)

As a bonus question, name ONE person in Congress who you think would make BETTER decisions about your safety, your health, your future, your finances, and your life than YOU would. Good luck.

Sincerely,
Larken Rose

(P.S. The one guy in Congress who might be almost on par with you is Ron Paul, who would also agree that YOU should be the one making such decisions, not “government”–not even himself. In other words, the one guy in Congress who is smart enough to make decisions worth respecting is the one guy who–with very rare exceptions–does NOT want to impose his decisions on you.)

(P.P.S. It would be the right decision for you to go buy and read my book, “How To Be a Successful Tyrant” (www.tyrantbook.com). Therefore, I intend to come to your house and make you do the right thing at gunpoint. Oh, I forgot, I believe in freedom, so I can’t do that. I guess I’ll just have to let you decide for yourself whether that’s the right thing to do. Darn.)

Posted by Merlin Silk - May 6th, 2008

What is the image you get when you think of a scientist?

I bet it’s usually a middle aged guy, most likely wearing a lab-coat, probably classes and definitely not cool.

But we all know by now that TED does not promote the ‘normal,’ so, when they have somebody on to talk about the Large Hedron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland we do not necessarily expect a guy in a lab-coat.

I still was positively surprised by Brian Cox’s talk. There is a cool guy who not only makes it interesting to show what the LHC does but also represents a new breed of scientist that seem to be in awe of creation and taken by its extent.

When I turned my back to physics after I was all done with my degree, the scientific scene was immensely more arrogant. So, listening to Brian Cox made me happy because I think that science will succeed when it develops the right amount of humility and recognized that it, itself, is part of that creation and is searching for itself.

You want to know where the LHC actually is? Glad you asked because it has a some fascinating facts about its location. CERN, which is also the mother of the World Wide Web, is located in two countries, Switzerland and France. The Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN) is located close to Geneva, Switzerland and stretches across the Swiss-France border. So, you might cross the border between the two countries many times during the day while remaining in the CERN complex. Nowadays that has not much of a significance, but when I was there it was a fascinating fact, that you could go across the border without showing your papers.

So, here it is…

View Larger Map

The LHC is to the top and right of the green arrow indicating the offical address of CERN.

Posted by Merlin Silk - April 29th, 2008

Sometimes two email that first seem to be unrelated, turn up to create a 9 on the Richter scale of synchronicity.

Today I got first such a self-evident definition and explanation of a free society that I wonder why there are so many who don’t get this…

You may watch the full Flash Animation.

It might not be quite easy to follow in some areas of the text, but I think everybody must be able to get the gist of it!

The next on is a more practical application of the first…

If you combine those two little clips and form an action item out of them, what would you get.

No, this is not a rhetoric question - I would really like to get some answers because I am not so sure what to do.

Posted by Merlin Silk - April 28th, 2008

I had heard about the Wim Wenders movie “Paris, Texas” but never attempted to see it. It came out in a time when I had been very busy moving my life around and there never was time enough to sit down for two hours and spend them on a movie. It took me many years for it to sink in that the title actually referred to a town of Paris in Texas. Never nurtured the idea that there was any other than THE Paris, the capital of the country right over there.

But now that I have seen these two pictures…

Paris, Texas, and …

Paris, France

… maybe I should see the movie.

Joking! - Obviously the movie has nothing to do with the subjects of these images (just a cheap hook), but it’s about Travis, an amnesiac who has been lost for four years and is taken in by his brother. He later tries to put his life back together and understand what happened between him, his wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski), and his son Hunter - I mean, it’s a Wim Wenders film!

Posted by Merlin Silk - April 24th, 2008

I want to pass on a story I have heard/read before at least once but maybe more. I am sure that it is on the internet many time. As a matter of fact, just let me check…

… hmmm, it’s actually less than I thought, Google only found about 200 instances of the story. But then again, Google eliminates duplicates and so there will be more. I just checked Yahoo and then find about twenty thousand instances of a key phrase of the story I’m about to give you - that’s more like it.

But before I get into any ranting and philosophizing, here’s the story…

Jerry is the manager of a restaurant. He is always in a good mood.

When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would always reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

Many of the waiters at his restaurant quit their jobs when he changed jobs, so they could follow him around from restaurant to restaurant.

Why?

Because Jerry was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was always there, telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him: “I don’t get it! No one can be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, I have two choices today. I can choose to be in a good mood or I can choose to be in a bad mood.

I always choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be victim or I can choose to learn from it. I always choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I always choose the positive side of life.”

“But it’s not always that easy,” I protested.

“Yes it is,” Jerry said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk every situation is a choice.

You choose how you react to situations.
You choose how people will affect your mood.
You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.
It’s your choice how you live your life.”

Several years later, I heard that Jerry accidentally did something you are never supposed to do in the restaurant business. He left the back door of his restaurant open.

And then ???

In the morning, he was robbed by three armed men.

They want?

#123*+!@$%&*~

While Jerry trying to open the safe box, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found quickly and rushed to the hospital.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Want to see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied. “Then, after they shot me, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared?” I asked.

Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the Emergency Room and I saw the expression on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘He’s a dead man.’ I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, there was a big nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’

Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead’.”

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude.

I learned from him that every day you have the choice to either enjoy your life or to hate it. The only thing that is truly yours - that no one can control or take from you - is your attitude, so if you can take care of that, everything else in life becomes much easier.

OK, that’s the story! Obviously I like it, otherwise I would not have posted here on this site together with 20,000 other versions of it. The email in which I got it then continued on to indicate that now I had two choices as well, either to delete the message or pass it on. Mostly I don’t like to pass on email messages like this because, even though well intentioned, they add to the spam and interruption of my work flow. If I want to share I put it up on a blog and everybody interested in what I want to say is welcome to subscribe to the RSS feed for MerlinSilk.com.

If the unsolicited message is small and just contains a little story, then, in my eyes, it’s excusable to send, but many of the mails I get contain megabytes of video attached. It does not matter, time-wise, as I am lucky enough to be on a fast internet connection, but it is still wasted of band-width, as pretty much all those videos are on YouTube or any other video sharing site and a link to that video would suffice. All these extra bytes transferred just wear out the tubes of the internet and they might need replacing much earlier.

But now back to the subject at hand: why, if there are thousands of people posting this story on the internet (guess I am the 20,001st), are there so few practicing what this story suggest? I mean, I am throwing with stones here while sitting in a glass house. I was rather poopy with my loved once the other day. So this question is a real one, not rhetoric.

What do you do to keep up the good mood and don’t react to negativity in kind fashion?

Posted by Merlin Silk - April 23rd, 2008

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