Your Smartphone, Please

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Bad enough that we are required by law to present our “papers” – government-issued ID cards, egregiously mislabelled as driver’s licenses – whenever a government bullyboy so demands. Just as in the former East Germany, just as in the former Soviet Union – and in another place whose name it’s hardly necessary to mention.

But in those places – in those times – tyranny was limited somewhat by technology.

In our time, the technology available to tyranny is almost limitless – and the laws which used to at least somewhat protect us have become the means by which technology tyrannizes us.

Corporations, which give a damn about our rights as much as Ted Bundy cared about his victims, provide the technology – and exploit the law – to profit from tyranny.

Government, in a kind of twisted quid pro quo, enacts the laws – and uses the technology created by corporations to intrude ever deeper into our lives.

Think of the loathsome body scanners we must pass through at airports.

Think of the Mobile Biometric Driver’s License.

You haven’t heard?

It is the brainchild – and hoped-for profit center – of something called the MorphoTrust – which is one of those corporations that doesn’t give a damn about our rights if there’s a buck to be made from eviscerating them. Morpho – as in morphology – wants to use your smartphone and facial recognition technology it developed to convert your cell phone into a mobile, scannable and downloadable version of your “papers.”

In theory – and in technological fact – a cop would not even need to pull you over to examine your “papers.” He could simply access your phone. Without you even necessarily knowing.

And not just your “papers,” either.

Whatever else you’ve got on your phone. Texts, images, emails and Internet searches. It’s the electronic version of a free-for-all rifling of our persons and effects without our persons or effects even being aware it’s happening.

They do this already, in a way, via Automated License Plate Readers (APLRs). A cop drives around, the ALPR scans every plate within its range and records, cross-references and takes general note of who is where and when. Ostensibly, it’s to help find Bad Guys – car thieves and such. In fact, it’s a way for the government to monitor and record the movements and whereabouts of vast numbers of people who’ve done nothing criminal or even suspicious – two things that were once the necessary legal prerequisites for initiating investigations but no longer.

The Mobile Biometric Driver’s License takes it up a notch, given how much personal data could be mined from our phones.

And we won’t be given the option to opt out.

The precedent for this business goes back to the aftermath of the 911 attacks. Corporate friends of Michael Chertoff (co-author a priori of the USA Patriot Act and director of the Homeland Security Department it birthed) used the pretext of “security” to create an opportunity for profit.

Chertoff – via his Chertoff Group – pushed for body scanners at airports. To Keep Us Safe. As it happened, and just by coincidence, one of the Chertoff Group’s clients happened to be Rapiscan, the manufacturer of the body scanners. (See Washington Post account of this sordid business here.)

Pass a law, make a buck.

Rape the Bill of Rights along the way.

MorphoTrust is pushing for effectively the same thing: A legal requirement that people accept biometric/facial scan driver’s licenses embedded in their cell phones – the app and other necessaries provided by MorphoTrust.

Which will make a tidy profit off the involuntary transaction.

That is a key element, the thing which makes the MorphoTrust, Rapiscan and other such corporations evil.

It’s not too strong a word.

The use of force against peaceful people is the very essence of evil. Unfortunately, it has also become the way “business” is done in the metastatic stage of America’s decline into overt tyranny.

The word is in air quotes to mock the abuse of what used to be decent plain language.

Business – properly defined – is the free exchange of value for value. You are free to buy – or not. If force enters into the transaction then the exchange is not free. If the buyer is under duress – if he is told he must buy the product or service or else – then he stands in relation to the seller very much in the same position as the victim of a mugging in relation to the person mugging him.

This is bad enough when mere money is being extracted from the victim. Electric car crony capitalists such as Elon Musk, for instance.

But when degradation of our rights is a part of the transaction it becomes the apotheosis of loathsomeness. Like being made to dig the ditch that will soon contain your bullet-riddled body.

MorphoTrust – in partnership (surprise) with the Department of Homeland Security – has got the Iowa Department of Transportation to launch a “pilot” program. Similar programs are in process in other states, including North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona. The company was paid $1.47 million by the Amt der Heimat Sicherheitsdeinst (that’s Department of Homeland Security in its proper German) to develop the Mobile Biometric Driver’s Licenses.

These are the first steps toward general implementation, a requirement that people submit to being biometrically ear-tagged, like cattle, in order to be allowed to function in this not merely increasingly but actually Orwellian society.

They’ve got us by the short hairs.

Because who can function without their “papers” – paper or electronic – in this society? You cannot (legally) drive a car, it is impossible to open a bank account or obtain employment (other than in the underground economy) without “papers.”

Having accepted that, it is hard to imagine how this will be resisted. It will be touted – as all technological tyranny is touted – as being for Our Safety. And a convenience. It will make things so much easier.

For whom, is never asked.

Some states already fingerprint people as a requirement for them to obtain the driver’s license/”papers” they have to have in order to be other than an economically Untouchable.

Scanning their faces and forcing them to carry around a portable and very smart ear tag is the logical next step.

Soon, you may have as much choice about whether to have a cell phone as you do about having to carry your “papers” with you everywhere you go.

Both will become one and the same thing.

With MorphoTrust profiting handsomely from the deal.

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145 COMMENTS

  1. Nunz, how dare you minimalize an award ceremony for biggest booger? For some of us nosepickers, that could be the biglyest moment in our lives.

  2. So we would be compelled to buy a smartphone, I am guessing? I am one of the few cave-dwellers who have resisted this device. I simply never wanted one or developed any need for one, or enough of a perceived need to pay $100+/month for it anyway. (I have a basic phone that makes calls and texts and I neglect to charge it for days at a time. I went on vacation to Las Vegas and didn’t realize for three days that I had forgotten it at home. In other words, I never use it. ) I use a Garmin gps to find my way around if necessary. I use my office phone to make most calls and I check the internet at home. I don’t want a smartphone and if it is ever required to get a driver’s license, I guess I wouldn’t be getting a driver’s license.

    • I they want me to have more than the flip-phone that I get about a call a week on, they’ll have to give it to me. I’ll wrap it up in aluminum foil and put it in my storage unit along with all the other stuff I don’t need or use.

      • I eventually broke down and got one because it had a wifi hotspot on it. The only other thing I use it for is making and receiving phone calls and a few texts once in a blue moon. The thing that really amazes me is all the apps this thing has. I have no idea how to use them because Microsoft requires an email account and I seem to have lost my password so I can’t use it and can’t seem to open a new account either. I did just download a gps app that seems to work really well and just found out after reading one of Eric’s articles that it offers information on speed traps and congested traffic. It was worth it to me just for the wifi and the gps. I used to get the $14.95 flip phones at Walmart, but I finally broke down and got this one for a little over $40.00

          • No, I’m on a family share plan with my mother. I pay her $120.00 a year for my part of the cell phone plan and $20.00 a month for the wifi. It’s a metered plan, but I never got close to using all of it. I cancelled it for a year while I tried CenturyFink. I think I’m probably going to cancel the CenturyFink plan at the end of my contract and go back to the wifi plan. For some reason they don’t feel any need to play games with the price.

              • I talk on the phone less than an hour a month at the most. Usually probably less than half an hour. I do spend too much time online though. I have a pretty big flat screen tv so can sit back a good 8 to 10′ away from it, but I don’t think that makes that much difference. These things will rot your brain from any distance.

                • Hi Teo,

                  I avoided smartphones until last fall. This was when I got divorced. If you are not married a cell phone is almost impossible to live without – unless you have decided to completely quit society. Which I am on the fence about. I have – as many here know – thought about dating, even put myself in a few Likely Situations. But it’s such a bleak wasteland out there and my interest is declining to nil. Besides which I still (god help me) miss her.

                  Ach.

                  • Hey Eric, Polite society is quickly becoming a legend; a myth. Smartphones are also becoming Smarterthanme phones, but I like them because a lot of people are relying upon them to the exclusion of the cable and internet companies which in turn are having to cut their prices to compete. I’ve got an internet connection until October when my contract runs out, but I’ve got them by the balls. They play these games where they try to raise the price, and I just call up and ask why they broke our contract; a contract that I no longer am responsible for paying early termination charges. They always cave because they’ve still got plenty of suckers willing to be railroaded due to their addiction to cable/internet etc.

                    As far as women go, it’s probably much worse than you can imagine. I’ve been engaged a few times, and always insisted that we go to a marriage encounter. The first one went to one meetings and was a no-show at the next one. The second one flat out refused, and the third died due to complications from chemotherapy; well, to be blunt the chemo killed her. What I’ve noticed is that even if you are just hanging out with some women, there comes a point where you are spending enough time that they will begin to think that they’re in a relationship with you or it’s as if they’re pulling some sort of covert relationship. You’ll pick up on it because all of a sudden you’ll notice that they’re asking for all these favors, “honey-do” etc., and then one day they start nagging you like you’ve been married to them for 50 years. It’s sad because they just can’t help it; they’re miserable and so desperate that they’ll just pretend they’re in a relationship with whoever is in the closest proximity to them. It seems to be their mo with sex too. They remind me of those fish that bury themselves in the sand, and just wait for some unsuspecting…and BAM, they just up and swallow them whole.

                    • Teo,
                      Why would anyone need to pay for Internet access when wifi is ubiquitous and becoming more so by the day? Add to that the benefit of the anonymity of using someone else’s IP address…

                    • Well bill, it’s like this. I live out in the sticks. I’ve got wifi on my phone, but I’m right in between the outskirts of where two cell phone tower’s range ends so depending on which way the wind is blowing I don’t get that great of reception. I’m in the woods and the trees are pretty tall so that doesn’t help things either. I’m just not into driving into town to get online.

                    • Teo,

                      re: Zombies filming things instead of living,

                      You don’t know the half of it. Try going to a concert in an arena sometimes.

                      Thousands of kids all standing their filming the event with their cell phones.

                      A big line of buzz cut bouncers standing in a row facing the wrong way and staring at everybody.

                      Every few minutes, one of them runs down the aisles and randomly confronts one of them for recording.

                      What a Wonderful World.

                      I see citations of white. And heroes of blue. I see them protect and save me and you. And I think to myself. What a Wonderful World.

                    • Ditto where I am, Teo. If you’re lucky, on a good day, you can get 1 bar of cell phone reception. Forget about anything else. And that’s the way I like it. Hope it stays this way!

                      Such is the matrix though, that they make sure that before long, their “web” covers the face of the earth, so that there’s not a nook or cranny where ya can go to escape it.

                    • Dear Tor and Teo,

                      Re: Zombies filming things instead of living.

                      Walker Percy’s “The Loss of the Creature” from 1975 addresses this issue profoundly.

                      “Why is it almost impossible to gaze directly at the Grand Canyon, under these circumstances and see it for what it is — as one picks up a strange object from one’s back yard and gazes directly at it? It is almost impossible because the Grand Canyon, the thing as it is, has been appropriated by the symbolic complex which has already been formed in the sightseer’s mind. Seeing the canyon under approved circumstances is seeing the symbolic complex, head on. The thing is no longer the thing as it confronted the Spaniard; it is rather ‘that which has already been formulated-by picture postcard, geography book, tourist folders, and the words Grand Canyon. As a result of this preformulation, the source of the sightseer’s pleasure undergoes a shift. Where the wonder and delight of the Spaniard arose from his penetration of the thing itself, from a progressive discovery of depths, patterns, colors, shadows, etc., now the sightseer measures his satisfaction by the degree to which the canyon conforms to the preformed complex. If it does so, if it looks just like the postcard, he is pleased; he might even say, “Why it is every bit as beautiful as a picture postcard!” He feels he has not been cheated. But if it does not conform, if the colors are somber, he will not be able to see it directly; he will only be conscious of the disparity between what it is and what it is supposed to be. He will say later that he was unlucky in not being there at the right time. The highest point, the term of the sightseer’s satisfaction, is not the sovereign discovery of the thing before him; it is rather the measuring up of the thing to the criterion of the preformed symbolic complex.

                      Seeing the canyon is made even more difficult by what the sightseer does when the moment arrives, when sovereign knower confronts the thing to be known. Instead of looking at it, he photographs it. There is no confrontation at all. At the end of forty years of preformulation and with the Grand Canyon yawning at his feet, what does he do? He waives his right of seeing and knowing and records symbols for the next forty years. For him there is no present; there is only the past of what has been formulated and seen and the future of what has been formulated and not seen. The present is surrendered to the past and the future.”

                      Jeremy

                    • Jeremy,

                      THAT describes perfectly why it is that I am so glad that I grew up before the advent of the internet and Google Strret View, etc.

                      I used to go exploring far and wide- walking, and taking trauns and buses- oftentimes just going places on a whim, simply to see what was there.

                      Once you know in advance what’s there; what it looks like; what tio expect- the fun is gone.

                      Sometimes, I wished I had had a camera to document what i saw- but in retrospect, I’m glad i didn’t. The memories of many places still in my mind from 40 years ago, are the REAL images- and likely not the ones i would have chosen to document, which, if documented, probably would have altered my perception and memory.

                      Ditto when you see these parents videoing every perfunctory occasion their kid participates in.

                      In reality though, it’s not the birfsday parties and graduations and award ceromony for pulling the biggest booger out of your nose, which form the cherished memories- but rather the small everyday things which are seemingly of no consequence at the moment- and those are the things never documented- but since the others are, they may well drive out those little cherished memories; the oft-repeated and familiar physical record, pushing out the more frail purely mental images- and thus replacing quality cherished and personally unique memories, with common run-of-the-mill “you did it, i did it, we all did…yawn” memories of mediocrity.

                  • Eric,
                    If it had been up to smartphones, most of us wouldn’t be here. I can’t imagine a need to own a smartphone. They are exacerbating the decay of our society far more than enhancing it.
                    I’ve been divorced since 1984 and the only time I think about my ex- is when I am grateful that I didn’t knock her up before I ran her off. I’ve had one “date” since then, and I have been thankful that didn’t pan out since I’ve seen how things turned out for the guy she caught.
                    America is abolishing itself through diversity, as most empires have.

                    • Nunzio, I probably use my phone more to save a trip somewhere than anything else. I’ll call the auto parts stores for the best price on a part. I’ll call Walmart or big lots, Ace Hardware or Home Depot to see if they’ve got an item in stock, etc. I’m hoping as I downsize the time I spend on all of these projects diminishes as well.

                    • Oh, me too, Teo- I’m a maniac with my land line, or on the interwebz, tracking down parts and stuff- so that when I do go to town, I have it planned out, everywhere i need to stop, and can get in and out….or have stuff ordered in advance and confirm that it’s arrived…or just order it on the internet. Especially living here in Bumblefook….you don’t want to find out that no one in Bumpkinsville has what you need, and then have to drive 30 miles Incesttown……who can waste the time and gas?

                  • Dayum! I quit society when I was 6. Seriously. It was then that I realized that I had little to nothing in common with 99.99% of those around me.

                    The few friends I’ve maintained over the years (I don’t have much in common with them, except trivial things- but I’ve known them for decades, so they’re just kind of friends by default- we’re comfortable with each other, and provide each other with entertainment), I like having a real conversation with on a real phone- not just some words on the go, like an afterthought; and not some silly text.

                    The only thing, IMO that cell phones are good for, is if you’re in business- especially a one-man business- as they save you having to have someone to answer the phones.

                    These phones are proving to be thje greatest friend the STATE ever had. They can track your whereabouts; have a convenient record of who you know; what you said; what you listen to; what you look at; financial transactions, -all sorts of things- all in one handy little box.

                    And since they all have built in cameras/video recorders, there’s no such thing as any semblance of privacy, anywhere, anymore…

                    Not to mention the social and mental implications, as people are so addicted to these things, and rely on them/interact with them constantly to the point of being virtual zombies.

                    Something is terribly wrong when 90-something percent of the population are walking around with Google or Apple in their pocket 24/7, watching everything they do.

                    Even if you’re a social-type person, these damn gadgets trivialize life/relationships.

                    There’s something to be said for just bneing able to be out somewhere, and NOT having your music with you; access to all of your friends; access to the internet; games, etc. To just be on your own; and to have to rely on what you see around you, and your wits; and to be quiet; and to not have constant outside stimulation, but to be able to think indepednently, and hear that inner voice (Mine sounds like Bugs Bunny!)

                    • Hey Nunzio, when there’s some sort of event like a hurricane, or Charlottesville I don’t pay much attention to it until maybe a month or so later, but recently I clicked on some video about Charlottesville and watched someone walking around filming what was going on with their phone which as it turns out was just a bunch of other people doing pretty much the same thing. All these people filming each other filming each other documenting each other filming each other. So they’re all saving this for posterity? I’m grateful for their efforts as it confirms my suspicion in staying away from all of these zombies. God bless the selfphone’s ability to document all this nonsense. Every so often I’ll get this idea in my head that maybe things have changed for the better, but all you have to do is look at a few minutes of that to know its only gotten worse.

                    • HAhaha! That’s hilarious, Teo!

                      I thought maybe the one good thing about everyone having these phones, is that they could now document all of the police brutality/crimes. Which of course they do, by the thousands….but of course, it doesn’t matter, because juries and TPTB still let the pigs off scot-free.

                      It’s funny, too- all of this technology in everyone’s pocket, but still, nothing is faster and easier than whipping out a piece of paper and writing something down. Or doing the math in your head, ’cause you still can ’cause your brain hasn’t been fried by EMF and reliance upon gadgets.

                    • Nunzio, I’m sure you have had this same thought run through your head when you’re about to get to a cashier and the computers go down. You think back to the good ol’ days when they had those old school cash registers that the cashier would manually push the price in. The checkers all knew the price of everything so it didn’t even matter if there wasn’t a price tag on something. I used to marvel at how fast they could punch all those keys and have the groceries bagged, but progress now forces us to stand there and wait, or just drop our stuff and leave if we have places to go, people to meet, etc. Or if the price comes up wrong, and they overcharge you, you have to go to customer service and wait in that line for half an hour as well…

                    • Teo, my thoughts exactly! Only I don’t even have to wait for the computers to be down- I remember the old manual cash registers in the supermarkets, and the cashiers, and how much FASTER it was….and how much better the stores were stocked then, before bar codes and computerized inventory control- just because people cared, and were competent.

                      Now you go to a “Supercenter”and although the store covers a few acres, the shelves are always half empty, and if there’s one person on line ahead of you, you’ll be there for half an hour.

                      In 1969, there could be 4 people on line with packed carts, and you’d be up to the counter in 5 minutes.

                      But now everything is dumbed down, because you can’t expect people working for $10.hr to possibly possess ANY skills or the slightest hint of intelligence or I-give-a-damn. But meanwhile, people with less edumacation in 1969 would learn the simple skill of being a cashier, and then instead of having to perpetually bounce from one low-paying unskilled job to another, they’d have a marketable skill, and improve their position.

                      Today, they just pass laws to make employers pay the unskilled more, just for showing up.

                      Damn, I miss those days!

                    • Nunzio, sever of my old codger friends have smartphones for doing business, but I haven’t noticed any disconnect with them.

                      Maybe us old hosers are able to commune with the world as though we don’t have a phone in our pocket, whereas younger people make it their everything.

                      The one negative about an old hoser with a smartphone is that you are going to be buttonholed and shown pics and vids of his grandkids if you get within arm’s reach of him.

                    • The operative term, Ed, is “for business”. That’s the difference- as opposed to “just because everyone else has one”. Probably doesn’t need to be a smart phone though…but any form of cell phone is a great tool for business….until they start dragging out those pics, and texting inane messages…..

                  • Hey Nunzio, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme of reason for good or bad reception. Sometimes a week will go by where I can’t make a phone call. Then I’ll get a dozen messages from people like my chiropractor or veterinarian leaving courtesy messages to remind me about appointments I’ve already gone to. If you really want to get away from it all ( I know I’m sounding like a broken record) a few miles offshore and cell reception falls to nothing.

                    • Ah, yes, Teo- Ah, yes….another glorious advantage of the sea!

                      Not that I’d notice though- I never turn my phone on, except on the rare occasion I need to make a call; and maybe three people in the entire world have my number…. And I don’t even have my voice mail set up, so it’s kinda pointless to call me anyway, unless I’m expecting your call, and thus have my phone turned on.

                • Why would any flat screen television need to radiate any signal, except light, comparable to a cellphone? It isn’t rot, it is, supposedly, genetic mutation of the genome of the nerve cells that does it, although less than 10% of malignant tumor have any replicated mutations in them when biopsied, so the SMT is highly suspect, IMO.

      • I have a TracFone. $9.99 for a 30 minute (really 120 minutes, as most of their phones tripkle the minutes) + $54.99 for 1 year (no minutes) service extension = $65 a year -which works out to c. $5.75 a month. Which is still too much for me, considering I actually use the phone maybe twice a year. As long as you keep the phone active, the minutes never expire. I have THOUSANDS of minutes built up!

          • Nunzio,

            Not bad if you not need to talk much per month.

            Redpocket also offers monthly 1000 minutes/txts + 1 GB data for $200/yr. (~16.67/month). This worked well for me until recently.
            I’ll move up to the ($300/yr plan)

            If you have access to hi-speed internet ooma.com is worth looking into.
            Buy the equipment, then just pay monthly taxes (usually ≤ $10/month) to have unlimited calling in the US.
            This could be fine for a land-line type phone.
            Granted it is not a cell phone, but I think you can use a Wi-fi capable cell phone to make calls (to US numbers) with an app. (To receive calls w/the app costs extra IIRC)

        • I have two prepaid phones, one each from Tracfone and Verizon. Since Tracfone adds 90 days to the accounts expiration date with every addition of time, it is good until sometime in 2019, even if I buy no more time. The Tracfone is a lemon, it can’t answer calls, nor does the screen function for dialing through voice mail or to hang up, which requires a battery removal. I use it for spam phishing.
          The Verizon phone’s time is 2/5’s the price of the Tracfone’s, but it resets every month instead of rolling. I get more “free” emails from Verizon than I get everything else from anyone else. Outstanding minutes are not displayed. I have to call #min to find out how many are left. When I go feral in a couple of months, it will be the only way to get in touch with me aside from waiting for email.

    • I only pay $45 per month for cell phone service that is covered pretty much nation-wide by a mainstream carrier.
      I avoided the smart phone as long as possible, but the trucking industry jobs I ended up with made owning those types of phones mandatory. You can get a smart phone with the same available service as AT&T or Verizon for half the price like I have done. Indeed; Verizon refused to create an account with them when I was buying a smart phone because I had no utility bill payment stubs even though I had an account in flawless standing with them a couple of years earlier. I was living off-grid except for a phone line that also allowed high speed internet. I used batteries and a portable generator to recharge them. I bathed with rain and creek water. I bought gallons of drinking water. I refilled propane bottles for my cooking needs. I built an enclosed front porch to install a wood stove in order to heat my travel trailer with. Stating these facts with the cell phone dealers credit department resulted in their minds going into tilt mode.
      I hate Walmart for several reasons, but they do sell phones with service from Straight-talk that will use the exact same cell phone towers that the name brand companies use for half the price.

      • I switched to Ting, a reseller of sprint and tmobile service. I chose the later. Down to $11 a month with taxes. Their bill structure is strictly usage based. I am not sure if it’s a bargain for a lot of use but for minimal use it’s the cheapest thing out there with out the pay-as-you go phone hassles.

      • “Only $45 a month”? -That’s $540 per year- over $1000 every two years…… (And that’s assuming that that $45 includes all the taxes and other crapola). It’s so easy to get caught -up in the “only $_____ a month” thing…..

        Re: The Major carriers: Tracfone works like that too. They lease space from the major carriers- so your phone operates on the major carrier’s network which is most robust/prevalent in your particular area. My Tracfone, for instance, does it’s thing via the AT&T network. (There’s actually a letter in the SIM card number that corresponds to which network that card is configured for)

        • Nunzio, I’ve been needing a phone that has worked in western Texas/ New Mexico, and works here in Missouri. Had I bought the Verizon/AT&T phone at that time, it would have cost me about $85 per month with a 2 year CONtract. I bought a nearly top of the line phone outright at Walmart for $165. I also have to take pictures of my shipping papers and send them to my employer on a daily basis. I just got hired elsewhere yesterday, and I doubt that I will be needing to use data very much any more. I may get some other phone service since I don’t talk very much either.

          • If I worked for someone who wanted me to subsidize their billing process, there would be a full reimbursement somewhere or forget it.

          • By “almost top of the line phone”, I meant of those choices of phones that I had at the store. Why buy an obslete phone for $50?

            • O-K, Brian, your excuse is officially approved! 😉

              Hey, I have me a fancy phone too! 😮 It woulda cost $29 if I had had to pay for it…but since my old Tracfone went obsolete (it wasn’t 3G), and I had no plans on upgrading, Tracfone sent me this thang for free! -Guess they don’t want to lose a long-time customer who spends $65 a year with them! 😉

      • Straight Talk is just Walmart’s Tracfone offering, and Tracfone uses interoperability contracts with all the major carriers to provide service since they don’t own anything except their call centers.

    • That’s it Jeremy, a buddy and I hiked up to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite about 30 years ago. It was in the off season so we saw two people on the way up and one on the way down. We hung out at the top for a few hours and just soaked it up. Then about ten years ago I went up again with a couple buddies, but this time it was in the middle of the tourist season. When we got to the base of Half Dome there was a line going all the way to the top. What would have normally taken us no more than 10 minutes to climb ended up taking over an hour and when we got to the top it was packed with people. There was a line of people waiting to take their pictures on a rock that overhangs the face. The experience was worth the trip just because of how weird it all was. Occasionally while we were waiting on the cables to get to the top we would see a plastic bottle come sailing by. Someone would pull one out to get a drink and drop it, and off it would go flying down to the bottom of the canyon below. As someone once said, “This is what I love about nature, it’s just one big toilet”

    • C,mon Bill. you have to come up with your own scam if you want to get paid. You have to cash their fake check for rent, or that car you’re selling, etc., and then send them the difference, or you’ve just been selected as beneficiary to a few million dollars, but we’ll just need you to fill out this form along with a nominal fee , or you could buy your sweetie pie a star. Same scam, different wrapper.

      • The United Nation’s scam works just fine to provide travel documents that are accepted officially by all but a half dozen nations on the planet. A World Service Authority passport has nothing to do with getting paid, just with getting into a country that may or may not be where you should be, like Cuba. Did you bother to look at the website?

        • Bill, it’s a scam. You have to pay for their “passport”, but the fact is that Cuba doesn’t stamp passports for US citizens. They just stamp a piece of paper and you keep that in your passport while you’re there. You can still go down to the Cayman islands, or anywhere in central or south America and then just fly over to Cuba from there. Even people who aren’t US citizens know not to get their passports stamped or they’ll catch flack from US customs and immigration.

          If you want to see Hemmingway’s Cuba, better do it soon before relations are resumed with the US because they’re going to turn that place into a strip mall.

          • That is Cuba, which wouldn’t have a reason to not stamp a WSA passport, especially if the holder asked them to, which I would. I wouldn’t use the WSA passport to re-enter the US if I had a US passport. Because the WSA passport cites nationality instead of citizenship, it might be less aggravating to UN types, since it is issued pursuant to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
            I’d be more interested in Russia or China than Cuba anyway.

            • You still wouldn’t want to stamp your WSA passport because you’d run the risk of it being found when you reenter the US. Cuba is just someplace to visit before they spoil it; China and Russia are definitely places to go for longer stays; that’s where all the money is going.

                • It’s not paranoia Bill. They don’t stamp your passport in Cuba as a courtesy. They do it as a favor so you don’t have to worry about being hassled if/when you go back to the US. No one from the US or Canada especially would ever go to Cuba if they started stamping your passports.

                  • Would you also purge your devices before re-entering?
                    I wouldn’t re-enter from Cuba. There wouldn’t be any questions about returning from Mexico or Canada, both of which are neutral with respect to Cuba.

                    • Bill, nobody reenters from Cuba. I don’t take devices with me usually. If I was going to Cuba I wouldn’t take a device with me; there’s no point really.

  3. The technology for “Gubmint” to do this ALREADY exists. It’s simply a matter of (1) setting up the necessary protocols (2) getting it widespread via marketing gimmicks and (3) elimination of the old, ‘non-compliant’ vehicles via normal attrition or government “fatwas”, or forced “upgrading” of same to allow further use on public highways or even mere possession, even as a “garage queen”.

    Presumably, via Carnivore or other apps, which supposedly the NSA et. al. bailed on (yeah, right), the cops could already access all your private info held on your trusty SmartPhone as long as there’s some 4G LTE connectivity available, let alone public wi-fi. There are other sneaky ways that your phone could possibly “fink” on you without your knowledge. For example, it can be shipped with embedded code already installed, completely invisible to the user, to transmit relevant data whenever it’s in proximity of wireless and/or cell phone networks (like the very one you’ve ostensibly purchased a plan through, but as they have agreements with one another, you could be easily monitored once you roam regardless of what your cell provider does) contracted by various Government agencies to collect info. Else, what IS that huge NSA facility in Draper, Utah, doing? Naturally, IF, somehow, the details of such a scheme, which I’d find credible already existing in a fully-functional status, were leaked out or admitted to, the fallback explanation would be the “War on Terrorism”.

    I may have used this analogy on this site before, but it bears repeating. As of some 46 years ago, even an innocuous film franchise known as “Planet of the Apes” recognized this very concept in their third film, “Escape” (1971), which by then had the production values of a typical TV or B- movie, as APJAC films didn’t necessarily expect that the franchise still had that much steam. Once the two talking chimps from the future, Cornelius and Zira, have stated that not only were they from Earth’s future, but that they saw the Earth destroyed in the year 3955. Originally they’d been accompanied by a fellow scientist, Dr. Milo (Sal Mineo), “A Genius, ahead of His time, who salvaged the space craft, ‘half’ understood it, and somehow repaired it and figured out how to get himself and the chimp academic couple to get off the Earth and thus escape the destruction of the mysterious and hugely improbable ‘Alpha-Omega’ cobalt-encased thermonuclear weapon), but the good ‘genius’, for all his smarts, still manages to get himself strangled to death by a psychotic gorilla in the adjacent cage in the Los Angeles Zoo. After the chimps are treated as celebrities and feted well about Los Angeles (including the part where Zira speaks to a Woman’s Luncheon Club and gives her own view of Ape feminism (or Women’s Lib as it would have then been known): “A marriage bed is made for two…but every damned day it’s the woman that has to make it!”), Cornelius attends a boxing match and finds it “beastly”, while Zira is given a VIP tour of a museum, and faints (presumably because she’s expecting and has a hypoglycemic moment, and not the lecturn’s boring recital). The “evil” German scientist and chief science adviser to the US President (William Windom), takes the fainting Zira back to her hotel room and plies her with some “grape juice, plus”, proclaiming it an “excellent restorative”, never mind the potential for chimp fetal alcohol syndrome. As Zira has a few and gets a good buzz going, Dr. Otto Hasselein (it’s always an “Evil German”, and this actor, Eric Braeden, was not only born in Germany as Hans-Jorg Gudegast, he played the perpetual adversary to the “Rat Patrol” in the 1960 series as Hauptmann Dietrich) surreptitiously interviews her, learns of details of the end of the Earth some two thousand years hence, and later plays the result for the President. He identifies the two chimps as a clear and present danger, to even the alarm of the President, who asks “do we kill the two of them, or three now that the female is pregnant? Herod tried that with the Christ child, and became VERY unpopular…historically unpopular”. Dr. Hasselein’s response? “Mr. President, with all due respect, Herod lacked our facilities”. So there you have it. Recognition that it’s not the WILLINGNESS of Government to snoop, intrude, bully, or even murder, but the ABILITY to do so, even in a rather forgettable movie nearly 50 years old. The President is finally convinced to authorize a more through, invasive interrogation of Cornelius and Zira, which the NSA operatives conduct in ruthless fashion, outraging Cornelius at the mistreatment of his pregnant wife, scaring hell out of them both, and after an accidental encounter wherein an attendant is accidentally killed by Cornelius after he unintentionally insults their unborn child (to the apes of that fictional future Earth, calling any of them a “monkey” is their “berserk button”, as they find it extremely offensive), the two apes flee and are ruthlessly pursued and ultimately killed by Dr. Hasselein, presumably accompanied by Federal Marshals, and the police, but, Zira having given birth to “Milo” in a circus owned by a friend (Ricardo Montalban, before he was running a mysterious island resort) of the two animal psychologists (Bradford Dillman and Natalie Trundy, the latter the widow of the POTA film franchise creater, Arthur P. Jacobs), and, having switched their child with another baby chimp recently born in that circus (who documented birth, a “month, a MONTH” before the arrival of the talking chimpanzees, provided a cover for “Milo” (later renamed Caesar) to live out his life undetected. So, the fear of the “Evil” German scientist ends up precipitating the events that he’d hoped to prevent, a common film trope.

      • Jesus loves me, Nunzio, despite that He KNOWS that I’m an “Asshole” (but Pablo, Picasso, was never called one…)

        • Ain’t THAT the truth*, Douglas?! And thank God for it!

          [*=Not you being an asshole, but Jesus loving us despite the fact that we all are!]

        • Douglas, Nunzio, So I caught the reference to the song. My favorite rendition has always been by Burning Sensations, but I’ve always looked at the song as quite ironic because Picasso did have a bit of a turbulent relationship with women and was not only called an asshole, but his name was incorporated into the ridicule, e.g. “Hey look, it’s Pablo Picasshole”.

            • Hey Nunzio, the song is called “Pablo Picasso”. There are many really great renditions of it by everyone from David Bowie (a great version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Ro_QC2V9U

              to John Cale. Here’s my favorite version

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGcffXXZYEg

              Most guys know what it’s like to be rejected by women and the song speaks to some sort of longing to alleviate this predicament. The answer lies in developing a passion for life, or at least something to be passionate about. Pablo Picasso was passionate about his art, and passionate about his women; women are attracted to men who are passionate about something, but the irony here is that Pablo Picasso was called an asshole just like Stu Padaso

              • I guess that’s why women like us Dagos: We’re passionate about stuff. (I’m passionate about wanting to stay the hell away from women!)

                I’ll have to give those songs a listen. Thanks. Never heard of ’em.

                Maybe they call Picasso an assho’ because of his name….like my cousin and I used to when we were kids- to us, every time we heard Picasso, we heard “Pick Asso” -except when my high-falutin aunt would say it, as she’d always be sure and say “Pih-KAH-soh”…. 😉

                Now Andy Warhol is a different story….I always refered to him as Andy Asshole…and NOT because of the name! 🙂

  4. It’s going to get much worse. As most of us know the orange buffoon in the white House just pardoned that piece of human fecal matter Joe Arpaio. Now Hill Billy lawyer and redneck Attorney General, Jethro Sessions wants to provide the goon thugs with badges with even more military gear, saying, it’s for public safety. Nothing could be further from the truth. A militarized police force is the greatest threat to Americans, their own safety and well being. A militarized police force as it stands right now considers the rest of us as the enemy and thanks to the asshats in the Fraternal Odor of Police and the cop’s union, the goon thugs with badges can get away with anything including robbing you at gunpoint, raping your wife or daughter, even molesting your children ….and you can’t do a thing about it.
    America is now a lawless nation run by a lawless government that resides from within the ten square mile cess pool known as Washington, D.C.
    America has fallen and it can’t get up. will there be anybody at all left to help it regain its feet and return ti to a Constitutional Republic? Or will the rest of the world allow it to degenerate into chaos and failure? Like all democracies, this one will exhaust and waste itself. It is now in the act of committing suicide. John Adams may have been a despicable president but at least he got this one correct.
    Since I don’t own a cell phone or any mobile device, does that make me some kind of terrorist?

        • Yeah, they make the prick out to be some kind of saint; meanwhile, talk to someone who lives in his jurisdiction…..they’ll tell you, get a traffic ticket, and you’ll end up in jail for several days wearing pink underwear.

          I gotta get out of this country! We have two sides of authoritian collectivists battling each other; and no matter who wins…we lose.

          • Nunzio,
            This is a trend I’ve noticed in the “freedom” movement for some time.
            Most peoples’ heroes tend to be what I’d call traitors, and vice versa.
            I doubt if the “nutjob” in North Korea would be acting that way if we would stop lining up our warships off of his coast, as he has requested.
            The world’s biggest bully also tends to be quite narcissistic as well.
            You can leave the country all you want, the whole freaking world is occupied by our military and that mentality. My approach is pretty simple, poverty. I’m not worth enough to be worth trying to take it from me.

            • Hey Bill, you’re right about our military presence all over the world, but our military isn’t interested in the entire world; that’s key to moving. The best places to move to are those places that our government doesn’t really see as all that valuable. As powerful as the US is, it’s power is also waning, and it doesn’t have time to reach for anything but the low hanging fruit anymore. If you’re inside the wall, they can just simply pinch a little here and there, but they can’t pinch economies where your money buys more; at least not as much as inside the US.

              I think you’re on the right track, but when you put yourself into an environment where everyone else is like you, then you will see that when the dollar collapses, no one will care because everyone is independent already.

              I used to work with migrants from central and south America, and they would always grow their own food when they came up to work. They shared it, and I was suddenly sold on growing my own food. It just tastes better, but it’s also a great way to save money, time, effort and you become less dependent on government assistance. I don’t depend on government regulated food in stores anymore, but the real benefit is not having to eat tomatoes that taste like red balls of water or spinach that tastes like binder paper.

              • That’s right, Teo. That’s my number one criteria when evaluating a potential place to move to: Does the US have ANY business with it; or do they have any resources that US wants? If the answer is no, then it’s a possible candidate. There are still a handful of places- little out-of-the-way offbeat places, which aren’t even in the UN- these are the places I really want to look into- because ultimately, any place which accepts a UN presence/”help”, or which cooperates with the UN’s agenda, will ultimately turn to crap.

                • Hi Nunzio,

                  I have Swiss citizenship, my mom was born there and so I get the perk. The problem is Switzerland is a very pricey place to live and the Swiss regulate the schiesse out of everything. The whole country is a giant HOA.

                  • Hey Eric, you’re farther along the path to freedom than you may know. Just because they regulate the hell out of everything is besides the point. Having dual citizenship is one of the main components to freedom from uncle Sam. As a Swiss citizen, you can stuff money into pretty much any bank in the world without any bankers taking a second look at you. A US citizen is persona non grata around the banks in the rest of the world. They don’t want anything to do with US citizens because of all the paperwork uncle requires.
                    I think Singapore was one of the last places that told uncle to go pound sand, and Switzerland caved in a long time ago, but your Swiss citizenship allows you to go anywhere an open an account. You can also travel to more places on that passport.

                  • Hey Eric!

                    Always good to have a spare citizenship lying around! Ya never know, right?

                    I know aboutv Switzerland though. Some people try and paint it as a Libertarian paradise, but like you say, it’s not only expensivem, but regulated like a …..Swiss watch! Same deal with Austria. So many beautiful places over there….but stupid white people are the modern slaves….and voluntarily so- thinking it’s a wonderful benefit to be so!

                    That’s why I always say, as far as finding a place to go: We can rule out ANY place in the first, and even second world. By now, all such places are worse than the US, because they’ve gone nukular with legislation to control every aspect of life and economics, and qwithout even having what little remains of the Constitution we have here to restrain them (Not that idt restrains us anymore, but it somewhat used to in the past- so we’re not as far “advanced” in tyranny as many of these other places).

                    Those who deny a conspiracy for a one-world government are delusional- it virtually exists already- just not overtly.

                • Nunzio,
                  If vandwelling is too limiting, you could always live on a sailboat instead. I considered that once upon a time, but my sailing instructor was recalled by his wife before I could buy the boat he was going to teach me with.

                  • Hey Nunzio, living on a sailboat doesn’t have quite the stigma attached to it that living in a van has. Anchoring out in some bay or river just appears as if you’re on vacation to the lanlubbers, and most other sailors just don’t care unless you’re in some swanky marina that doesn’t allow that kind of thing.

                    • Yeah, I’d find the boat thing REALLY appealing, Bill! You have a little more room; you can go just about anywhere in the world, and almost for free! The sound and motion of the water rocking you to sleep at night……ahhh!

                      Of course, today, if you were anchored out in the bay somewhere, you could be sure in most places, the fuzz would come a’knocking…..

                      But daaaaarn! The possibilities would be endless! My very first occupation/micro-business when I was a teen, was working on the water….I enjoyed it more than anything! I owned a boat before I had my first car! Used to commute to it every morning by train and then a several mile walk, to go to work!

                      Best part was lunch time! I just sit out there bobbing up and down on my 21′ flat bottomed boat, enjoying a coupkle of sandwiches and iced tea, and getting so wrapped up in day-dreaming that an hour would fly by before I knew it….then I’d drag myself back to work!

                    • Nunzio, the fuzz isn’t quite the same in all bays. Some are much more notorious than others. San Diego is policed by Nazi’s, and it’s almost as bad in the rest of California, but there are places where you can disappear and be left alone. I spent a little over five years anchored out in the Sacramento Delta, and it was great. The Sheriff’s department came aboard one time, but I didn’t have anything to hide, and they had been told that I was cooking meth so they were wasting their time and knew it. This didn’t stop them from playing their games to try and get me to move, but when you know the law, there’s nothing they can do really. Out here in King’s Bay you can call a number and a buy comes out compliments of the taxpayers and pumps out your holding tank whenever you need it done. They actually want you to stay on your boat if it’s anchored because so many people just end up abandoning them. West Palm Beach is a similar story, but one of these days they’ll just suddenly start charging anyone who drops their anchor for more than a few days.

                      I didn’t just live on the water, I worked on the water as well so it was cool being on the water all the time. Work didn’t even really feel like work.

                  • Teo,
                    Complete freedom is a fantasy for the entertainment of the ignorant.
                    Being left alone is much easier than being free if you choose the right platform.

            • Hah! Yeah, Bill- But it’s amazing how many people think that NK “threatened us”. Oh, yeah…that makes sense- this little country, the size of KY. just walked up to the school bully and said “I don’t like you! I’m going to hurt you!” and so now the bully is justified in punching the little kid in the nose to “defend himself”….LOL. That would be like walking up to a cop, with his tazer and gun and baton and radio and handcuffs and throwdown gun, and punching him in the face.

              Ahhh, we think alike! The poverty thing definitely goes a long way in keeping us off the radar! Of course, what they call “poverty” is still a higher lifestyle than what 99.9% of people who have ever lived upon the earth up until now have known….

              If we believe the numbers about “poverty”, so many Americans could be much freer than they are, except they take the bait of free redistributed wealth, and thus sign their rights and privacy away for some cheese.

              • Nunzio,
                I’ve never been much about being on the dole, but since I (over)paid into Social Security, I don’t mind taking everything I can get from being on it. If I’d been able to find a job, I would have worked until I was 66, but since I couldn’t, $952 a month is all I’ll ever get short of an unlikely COLA. Having lived in a van (sometimes down by a river) since the fall of 1984, I’ve found ways to save money even on my meager SS.

                • Way I see it, Bill: All of these fucktards voted for this redistribution of wealth; they force you to pay all of these taxes; might as well take what you can get, if it doesn’t compromise your freedom to do so- and as far as I know SS is pretty non-intrusive that-a-way. Might as well get a little back of what they robbed from you, and of what they’re robbing from everyone else.

                  • The best parts about living on SS is that it is untaxed unless I make over $15K a year in addition, and I don’t have to do anything to make more as long as I’m cool with having very little disposable income. Needless to say, this will give me a lot of time to do spot jobs for cash. I’ve been thinking about starting my own talkshow, to be supported by donations to pay for celltime and shortwave airtime. I could cobble the studio together from my junkbox.

                    • Nuncio,
                      How many radio talkshows have you written into? Seriously, all it would take is one of my 4 laptops for Skype to get the signal to the broadcaster and 2 cellphones to take calls from listeners. The airtime would be from $25 to $75 an hour depending on the station, and the cellphones could share an unlimited airtime account. I wouldn’t need a producer, time delay, or advertisers. This is very similar to how Art Bell started Coast to Coast AM, which made him rich when he sold it to Clear Channel.

                    • Awwwww! Ya didn’t “get it” Bill!

                      I was doing Roseanne Rosannadanna (Gilda Radner) from the original SNL…. (I thought it was you who mentioned her earlier? Must’ve been Teo!)

                    • Hey Nunzio, I didn’t make the comment, but I caught the SNL reference. Those were the best days of SNL imo.

    • Amen, JohnZ!

      There’s no saving a country which has strayed so far from the principles of liberty, truth and justice; whose people applaud, support and vote for state-sponsored violence. This country is going down in flames, and any who fail to abandon ship with go down with it. Do we wait till we’re in the FEMA camp and then lament that we didn’t get while the getting was good, like the Germans did in the concentration camps, or do we learn from history and common sense?

  5. A former friend of mine worked for a company that created a gizmo that could be remotely activated to reveal your exact location. It would be a nice piece of safety equipment for boaters, hikers, etc., to assist in rescues. So far, so good. Then he told me the business plan: pass a law to REQUIRE every boat, plane, hiker, etc., to carry one. When I argued that this was immoral, he looked at me, puzzled. It’s just business, he said.

    They are out there.

    • http://www.aspentimes.com/news/breaking-news-another-climber-dies-on-capitol-peak/

      As more of these sorts of devices are out there, more people will be overconfident in their abilities and expect to be rescued. After all, when help is just a push-button away what’s the risk?

      I once knew a sailor. He dreamed of taking a stab at trying to set a record for running up the east coast. He very calmly explained how easy it is, just ride out in front of a hurricane. I asked what happens if you get stopped or misjudge the weather? Of course he was just talking in a bar over a few beers, he wasn’t stupid, so I doubt it ever got much past the dream stage. But add in a few emergency rescue devices and more safety gear and everyone will be gunning for the record.

      • Readykilo, I did something similar. I wasn’t in a bar drinking beer, but I’m stupid. I’m one of those idiots who bought a boat and fell in love with the thing, and proceeded to continue buying and selling boats. The last one I picked up in Texas. I was planning on sailing it to Florida, but the wind was blowing the wrong way. It wasn’t a hurricane, but it was damn close. The wind finally changed directions around 3 am. We pulled out of the marina hoisted the mizzen and the jib and were almost instantly doing 12 knots. We were flying.

        I had enough sense to eventually conclude that I couldn’t sail this 56′ ketch by myself and as soon as we were sailing the guy I found on craigslist pointed out that the prop was still spinning and may burn up the transmission. After trying to put it into gear and reverse with no luck, we tossed some rope down into the bilge and it seized up the shaft. When we got down to Galveston a tanker was soon behind us and after a few toots on the horn he just let it blow for a good long while because I just couldn’t see how I was in the middle of the channel, but as his wake began to push us aside we headed for the rocks, and had to figure out how to get that rope off the shaft so we could start the engine and avoid the levy. Then we noticed two more tankers coming up the channel as well as ferries crossing in front.

        The next night the mizzen malfunctioned, then the carbon monoxide alarm began shrieking followed by the smoke alarm. The almost one inch thick elbow bolted to the back of the engine’s exhaust had cracked. McGuyver grabbed a can of olives trimmed the rings off the top and bottom creating a sleeve, and in less than ten minutes the engine was back running smoke free again. A few days later the fuel filter became clogged but I had picked up the wrong size replacements. We were adrift for a while, and eventually ended up close enough to shore to call vessel assist for a tow, but our cell phones were all dead.

        Again, MacGuyver grabbed some D batteries and taped them together with duct tape, then sliced up his charging cord revealing a multitude of variously colored hair like filaments, perhaps dozens. Somehow he seemed to be able to decipher what they all meant and which one’s belonged together and somehow was able to charge his phone and call vessel assist.

        • “If the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.” -Red Green.

          When I’m in my element I’m usually pretty good at MacGuyvering up a solution. The problem is not having all the little “put this aside it might be useful someday” pieces. And when I do have one I usually can’t find it. Pretty sure there’s a portal to another universe in my garage. Stuff that I KNOW was there the last time I saw it no where to be found. Then a day or so later, there it is. I always ask the item if it had fun in the other universe.

          • Ready, we may have some overlap on the alternate universe.

            Maybe I’m looking for a filter and can’t find what I need even though I’m sure I have one. ….somewhere.

            Digging around I find a new Amsoil air cleaner but just looking I know it won’t fit anything I own. I look it up. It fits a Taurus. WTF, I don’t know anyone with a Taurus. You want it? Maybe if I give it away I’ll find the one for the Cutlass.

            Digging around one day I find brand new Delco points, rotor, and other ignition parts. Now comes the strange part. I’d had to replace everything on the distributor on my 68 4020 and had the old parts in their boxes (you never know )when the points had a real familiar look. Went to the newly discovered Delco parts and damned if the Delco and JD points were identical…along with the rotor. I probably needed those Delco parts over 40 years ago. I probably bought another set too.

            • Hey 8south, your post is timely for me in that as I am going through my junk and getting everything organized parts, and tools as well as oil and filters are beginning to accumulate next to my remaining motorcycle, as well as my boat, and vehicles; no sense holding on to this stuff when its gone. I’ll change the oil on everything before they go up for sale so I can throw out the old oil and containers.

              My old shovelhead ran on Blue Streak points and condensers ($12.00) verses the ones with HD logo on them which were around $50.00. I also carried an extra set of timing weights in my tool bag because they’d blow out about every 4 to 6 months. None of that remains except the tool bag which doesn’t fit the chopper I just unloaded; maybe it will fit on the crotch rocket. The tank bag is also a great backpack so I’m keeping that. I have a whole box full of filters for a generator from my last boat. I sold the generator because it ran great but didn’t produce any electricity; somehow that stuff migrated from the boat to my shed.

              The plan is to get everything organized then separate into categories ranging from “can’t part with” to “burn” and “take to the dump”. My hope is that after everything that I can live without is gone, I will be able to part with some of the stuff I can’t live without. There’s a sort of inertia that develops when one starts unburdening themselves of the clutter in their lives. It’s like stepping into a parallel universe…

        • Two people I really liked. RIP

          We had a pit bull named Ace,a white headed hoodoo. He was a real people dog and was keen on watching TV. He’d fly off the couch and try to catch those horses running across the screen, then go around behind the TV and check to make sure they weren’t hiding out.

          We bought the original Dracula and started watching it and so did Ace. We’re at the part where they open the hold on the ship and Boris walks up the steps looking totally berserk and begins that laugh. Ace jumps in between the screen and my wife and I and blocks the picture. He knew crazy when he saw it and wasn’t about to let us be hurt somehow by this berserk being. We finally gave up watching it figuring he’d forget and we’d see it some other time.

          So one day he’s asleep in his room so we start watching it again. He comes flying in from a deep sleep and protects us once again.

          We put him in the kennel the next attempt but he’s having a fit so we have to stop. Seems like we dug it out a decade later after he’d passed on but it was just sad by then. Don’t think we ever enjoyed it.

  6. Actually, Mofotrust is doing God’s work. As Calvera said in the Magnificent Seven, “if God had not wanted them sheared He would not have made them sheep.”

    • Mark,I love that line and often quote it. It’s an apt observation. If I could persuade only 20 percent of the people I know to stand up and give the badged thug crowd the same comeback as I, we’d not be lying in the furrow begging for someone to help us to our helpless feet.

      One thing I learned early in life was something that made me have a total dislike of sheep.

      Probably few people know that sheep are the only animal that can lie down in a furrowed field and not be able to get to their feet. They’ll lie there and paw at the sky and bleat in defeat till they die of thirst.

      That may be the reason I don’t really care for mutton. OTOH, cabrito is mighty good.

        • Teo, this city guy said “I figured a cast sheep meant one of two things, it had a broken leg or had gotten a part in a movie”.

          Now that’s solid gold as a Kiwi shepherd would say.
          .

        • Teo, as the old song goes :City girls just seem to find out early how to open doors with just a smile, but every encounter I had with city boys left me wondering what you were supposed to do with the things they’d try to teach country boys.

          A nephew, a city boy, was helping my dad do some carpentry work but they ran up against a problem they had no proper tool for. I was away from the farm but told my dad I had what they needed in the barn. He and my nephew came out to get it. The driveway to the barn is beside a grass patch so the nephew sees these two big horned cows grazing and said he didn’t know we had 2 bulls. My dad said We don’t to which my nephew replied There were two side by side. Dad said No, the bull must be in the pasture, I didn’t see him.

          My nephew says It’s the bulls who have the horns isn’t it?

          My dad told him the bull was polled which confused him more. After more conversation my dad figures out he thought the 2 cows with obvious big teats were bulls. Later that day I saw them at the house where they were working. My nephew says out of the blue OK dammit you can quit laughing and my dad just broke up. Then he told me the bull/cow story.

          They kept at it all day so driving along and seeing cattle we’d wonder why ranchers had so many bulls.

          I’m sure the nephew still remembers it. I just hope he explained it to his boy before he was grown

  7. Well, the reason some/many corporations go along with Uncle is because he’s got a pretty big carrot and a Thor’s hammer sized stick. The formula is pretty easy too: Get someone as they exit the revolving door and put ’em on the board or payroll or executive suite. Make sure they bring their rolodex with them. They become your salesmen. Then hire a bunch of veterans or former regulators, again make sure they have their rolodex too. They become your marketing team. Also helps to get a think tank or university involved to produce “facts” and studies. Get a few American engineers to slap together a product. Doesn’t matter if it works or not, in fact probably better if it doesn’t. These engineers aren’t exactly Apple level anyway. But your mark (I mean customer) doesn’t know anything about technology and won’t be able to tell the difference between a pinball machine and a Swiss watch, just so they can crow about creating jobs and whatnot.

    And the best part is that it never ends! The genius of GW Bush was that he declared war on a tactic, and a pretty nebulous one at that. Imagine declaring war on carpet bombing, or regimental marching formations. If one were to take the time (as I did in 2001) and really think about what exactly the War On Terror™ meant we’d all laugh him out of the room. But instead it was sold to us like Campbell’s soup.

    • Ready, I DID knock the war on terror as the lie it was. The video of the Israeli news team highfiving,dancing and laughing with the twin towers burning in the background told me everything I needed to know about that supposedly terror attack. That was shown the day after. I couldn’t understand why everyone else didn’t catch the lie right then and only the day after did it come to light how the whole bin Laden family was flown out of the country. This was quashed soon thereafter and removed from the Internet ASAP. Unfortunately, only a minute part of the public got their news from the Internet. Everyone else got their news from the MSM where the truth died very quickly.

      It should be noted, and I find it ludicrous I’m having to repeat this almost 2 decades later but the Internet is controlled by Google…….and for all you frickin idiots out there, Google was created by the CIA.

      To this day I’m still amazed that EVERYONE doesn’t know this.

      WTF does it take to make the entire world realize this?????????

      • 8, if there’s one I’ve learned (and I learned it early on) in my life, it’s that the majority of people stumble through life, going from one deception to another. They’ll even fall for the same tricks over and over again. “Saddam has WMDS!”…”Syria’s gassing children!”…

        They believe whatever the oracle says- it doesn’t matter if what they’ve been saying for 40 years is now wrong- the people will believe what they say today and discard what they believed yesterday, and do the same again, next time. “Eggs salt and butter are bad!”….”Eggs salt and butter are good, and what we told you to eat instead, is bad!”…

        If the TV tells them it’s going to rain today (not mentioning that there’s only a 20% chance), even though there’s not a cloud in the sky…they believe.

        I was watching this vid the other night, on the virtues of being an introvert- where this guy “MGTOW expat” basically says “Most people are ass-hats and stupid, and I don’t enjoy being around them”

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2BAyiBwQEs

        Pretty much sums it up.

  8. The Palestinianization of America – ARE WE SAFE YET?

    When us fellow Palestinians are forced to blow ourselves up as a last resort in resisting this malignancy, we will be labeled “natzee,” terrorist, monsters – oh wait we are already called that. So, then they will “crack down” on us, you know murder us on deserted streets like Lavoy Finnicum for daring to bring attention to their abuses, or be sharphooted for trying to live outside of their grid – oh wait, they already do this and have been for 25 years+. Maybe, we can be left in peace on our own compound – oops then we get burned alive by the ATF, like they did in Waco.

    Maybe we will have to work within the system, oops I forgot about the quota system and the official policy of European Christian Demonization. Wow, so we can’t resist nor participate? What can we do then?….. Hmmm… We are not allowed to live, not allowed to be left alone, the low masses are told to hate us, tell us how they want to kill us and the government makes certain that we can be found – sounds like the only place 60% of the US population is wanted is in a mass grave.

  9. Knew that name sounded familiar. Morphotrust also raped the wallets (and privacy) of every American who works in or around the transportation industry, via the TWIC racket. These people are lower than snake excrement.

  10. I don’t have a smartphone yet. Think i’m buying one to please them? Nope! Just like the “mandatory” healthcare crap, I’m not participating.

    • Ditto for me, too!

      No Obozocare/health “insurance”.
      No smart phone (I don’t even use a cell phone)
      No Facebook. etc.

      All the sheep line up, salivating to give up their privacy voluntarily- I guess one more intrusion won’t matter to them.

      Face it: If you stay in this shit-hole part of the world, you might as well forget about personal freedom and privacy. Sing the praises of Libertarianism/anarchy all you want, but all it amounts to is a doleful lament.

      Time to head to more remote climes- or, like the Germans (Nazi or modern-day) just accept whatever comes, because you have no choice. The noose is tightening, and even the most creative can no longer wiggle out.

      • Hey Nunzio, A few years ago a friend of mine had a baby and wanted me to check out the pictures on Facebook so I had to create a Facebook page for myself. At the time I didn’t have any “selfies”, but I did have a few pictures of my dog so I posted one of them instead. No problems for a few years and then one day I couldn’t log into my Facebook page, and my security questions didn’t work either. Facebook then contacted me and requested that I send them some pictures of myself, e.g. driver’s license etc. I declined. It suddenly dawned on me what was going on, better late than never…

        • Yeah, Teo- and people just don’t care. I can Google the names of my neighbors and come up with their pictures. (Can’t do that with me!). Facebook has become the largest repository and owner of pictures IN THE WORLD!

          People would always tell me that “See my pictures on Facebook”. I’d tell them I don’t do Facebook- but it takes YEARS before just that fact finally sinks in! I’d always tell them “Email them to me”- and of course, few ever do. If they can’t bothered taking 20 seconds to create a personal email, I don’t have any use for them. I guess their interest wasn’t in having a mutual relationship with me, but rather just promoting themselves.

          Every site on the internet seems to want your cell phone number “for security” (of course!)- Ebay; email sites, etc. and of course, anyone knows (except those who are foolish enough to actually give it) that they are using it to build a database.

          And this Orwellian world is being created with the explicit consent of the victims. You even see these guys on Youtube, who make videos decrying the loss of freedom and privacy, etc. and then they say “Visit us on Facebook!”!! I wonder if they’d pass out boiler-makers at an AA meeting, too?

          • Hey Nunzio, yeah the whole self promotion thing gets old after a while; not mine, but others. I never seemed to get into it, not because I was concerned about people collecting information on me, but because I really had better things to do. Now I don’t spend as much time doing those other things, but I’m still not going to go plastering my face or my actual name anywhere.

            I buy these cheap self phones and cheap computers, and recently discovered that when they break down they’re so easy to just toss up in the air and use as targets. I use these things, but really just despise them, and one day hope to walk away from them completely.

            • Exactly, Teo! Even if there weren’t any privacy issues and censorship, etc. with Facebook, I still wouldn’t use it. If I communicate with someone, I want it to be one on one.

              To me, the real value of the internet is the ability to do research and learn things- from repair videos on Youtube, to being able to track down hard to find parts. Youtube is getting Orwellian now, and soon that will be over. It may be time to walk away from the internet before long- ’cause all the rest is just entertainment- which is OK, but it wastes so damn much time.

              I tend to keep my computers long- I’ve only had two since I started interwebbing in ’99. I use Linux operating systems, many of which run great on older stuff, and don’t require the constant upgrades that Microsoft and Apple force people into.

              My cell phone (Which I just keep in the glove compartment for emergencies) was so old, it became obsolete…so Tracfone sent me a new one for free! 🙂

              I’m due for a new ‘puter though- as this one’s been a POS from day one- and I guess one should get a new ‘puter every decade or so….. (You can actually get them to give you $80-$100 back for the pre-installed Windows I’ll never activate, which of course I’ll delete the minute I start the ‘puter)

  11. The idea of using ID for everything (except voting for some reason) is the excuse used to replace drivers licenses with something, once humans are banned from driving. If there is no reason for ID’s few people would waste their time getting them. So they create the demand.

      • eric, I don’t know what to say. The Texas Justice League is trying to combat this simply because it’s so bad here. Recently courts have ordered cops to stop their Sting Ray operations since it’s illegal,as if they give a shit. In large cities they have “supposedly ” shut down Sting Ray’s they used to target, among other things,Waze and similar apps.

        It is nothing more or less than war……..WAR against the non badged crowd.

        This is building to a point of choosing sides. Fortunately, clovers are idiots. Unfortunately, clovers easily give their money and “support” to their suppressors or what they see as their “betters”.

        Remember when we had the mortgage fail? We’re headed that way with power, power of who will be treated as serfs.

        I’m lubricated, cleaned, zeroed and holding thousands of rounds…along with large amounts of fuel. “They” have the next move.

    • Imagine a herd of cows singing “Land of the Free” as they stand in line at the slaughterhouse. We’d guffaw. Yet 99% of those chuckling at the cows ARE THE COWS.

      • I maintain cows are smarter. Good managers attempt to keep cows headed to slaughter well away from the immediately about to be slaughtered since it upsets them and changes their blood chemistry.

        Anton Chigur demonstrated several times how clueless humans are, not catching on to imminent danger.

        • Yeah, cows ain’t no dummies! I’d only keep 8 or 9 at a time here, and I’d always have ’em trained like dogs!

          It was interesting to observe how they had a “society” too. Like: All the cows would go and graze, while one would stay and take care of all of the calves. Then on another day, a different cow would watch the kids, while the other grazed with the herd. The calves would play with the bull- play-fighting and stuff. I had never known that cows had such an advanced society!

          Had this one calf who fell into every sinkhole on the property! His mother would always just stand by the sinkhole and bellow…and I’d know it was time to get a ladder and some rope….

          I’d give ’em some grain for a treat- and they quickly learned that when I said “Heeeeeeeere coooooooows”, to come RUNNING from wherever they were…..

          This one steer I had once, would alweays follow me home, to the gate of my yard, and wait there. I’d have to bring him out a carrot.

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