Monday, May 28, 2007

Welcome to the Third Market Anarchist Carnival








Welcome to the May 29, 2007 edition of the Carnival of Market Anarchy.



Francois Tremblay destroys an argument in Private justice and "restitution imbalances" posted at The Radical Libertarian.

Paul Birch, and his article "ANARCHO-CAPITALISM DISSOLVES INTO CITY STATES," eloquently demonstrates how one can mount an overly complex argument against a position, and not realize that one single wrong premise destroys the whole argument, making one's efforts worthless



David Gross presents "Off the Books: the Underground Economy of the Urban Poor" posted at The Picket Line, saying, "Author Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh’s "Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor" describes and analyzes the economic and political relationships in a poor section of Chicago. The underground economy there isn't a free market economy, but is squeezed by above- and under-ground governments."

So what seems at first to be an examination of an economic subculture that exists under the radar of government becomes instead a look also at an underground government that has evolved alongside the underground economy.



For fun, Thad Guy presents Feeling Important posted at Thad Guy. He says, "I don't know what the ideal motivation for action is. However, it seems that feeling important isn't it. I thought you might appreciate this comic about preventing self-importance from being a powerful motivation."


Ruby presents Vote with your dollars and your time posted at Frugal Aussie. See, there are ways of voicing your concerns rather than running to the courts or Big Brother.


zenofeller presents The Real Deal. posted at zenofeller.com. If you don't read this, the terrorists win. Or is the the other way around?
Take murder for instance. The only reason we have a law against murder is because one of the most important things about people is that they don't want to die, at least not too often. They do however want other people to die. Pretty often, actually. Interestingly, they don't want others to die as much as they want themselves to survive, as a rule.
...
I can sit here and offer the following, scary argument : There exists no American society, because the fundament of society is the contract, and Americans virtually never contract. When was the last time you shook hands with an absolute stranger over a matter of business ?



Uh...yesterday. So, he doesn't get it, but I thought I'd include it anyway. Perhaps to encourage more of you to contribute. I, in fact, deleted about 6 entries for irrelevance. Some thought this carnival was about "marketing." Some thought this was about protesters who throw things into Big Bad Corporations. But, the more carnivals, perhaps the larger they will get. Now might be a good time to post the link to the Carnival Blog Post and the guidelines for submission.

3. All posts must be related to MA (or agorism, or individualist anarchism) in some conceptual way. Narratives (fictional or not) are fine. Please no posts about how we must make government smaller, how the Constitution is great, who we should vote for, or how this or that specific law should be repealed. All entries by anarcho-leftists or paleo-conservatives will be laughed at, and may be posted for the purpose of public ridicule. Primitivist, Georgist and mutualist entries will be accepted on a case-by-case basis.



That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Market Anarchy ( on the blog No Third Solution, June 29th,) using the carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.



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Sunday, May 27, 2007

Episode 57: Duck and Cover

if-the-bomb-record.jpg

Tops—What to do in case of a Nuclear Attack 1--If The Bomb Falls, A Recorded Guide To Survival
Alleee 1
Jean-Jacques Perrey—The Savers
France Arnell—Moi, Je Suis Comme Ca
Tops—What to do in case of a Nuclear Attack 2--If The Bomb Falls, A Recorded Guide To Survival
Jimmy Smith—The Cat
Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation—Makin’ Whoopie
Tops—What to do in case of a Nuclear Attack 3--If The Bomb Falls, A Recorded Guide To Survival
Werner Muller and his Orchestra—Dobs Dixie
Life Records—Dreams
Tops—What to do in case of a Nuclear Attack 4--If The Bomb Falls, A Recorded Guide To Survival
Harold Smart—Moonglow
Barbara Cartland—I’ll Follow my Heart—Album of Love Songs
Tops—What to do in case of a Nuclear Attack 5--If The Bomb Falls, A Recorded Guide To Survival
Arthur Lyman—Love Dance—Taboo
The Creation—He is There
Tops—What to do in case of a Nuclear Attack 6--If The Bomb Falls, A Recorded Guide To Survival
Ferrante & Teicher—Those Were the Days
Steve Taylor—I Want to be a Clone—I Want to be a Clone
Tops—What to do in case of a Nuclear Attack 7--If The Bomb Falls, A Recorded Guide To Survival
The Monkey’s Guapacha
Hellbound Alleee—Fred Phelps’ Secret Romance—Fred Phelps vs Fernando Lamas
Tops—What to do in case of a Nuclear Attack 8--If The Bomb Falls, A Recorded Guide To Survival
Bruce Hornsby and Ricky Scaggs—Superfreak
Brandenburg Big Band—Habanero aus Carmen
Tops—What to do in case of a Nuclear Attack 9--If The Bomb Falls, A Recorded Guide To Survival
Roland Shaw Orchestra—Twisting with James
Meeting in the Air
Tops—What to do in case of a Nuclear Attack 10--If The Bomb Falls, A Recorded Guide To Survival

Download For Your Life!

Monday, May 21, 2007

Episode 56: Darned Fundies!

So Sad

Brent—False gospel
Alleee 1
Jean-Jacques Perrey—The Savers
Paul Frees and the Mellow Men—The Money Cat—Gay Purr-ee
Abusive Husbands
Johnney Arthey Orchestra—My Boy Lollipop
Brooke Brown—Proud Mary
Common Sense
Werner Muller and his Orchestra—I Only Have Eyes for You
The Carey Garfin Four—Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah
Darwinism is Garbage
Alan Scott-Tie a Yellow Ribbon
Don Reed and his Orchestra—The Lonely King of Rock ‘n’ Roll
He Man—Bad Touches
Charlie Perfume—Charlie’s Tune
The Who Boys—Strange Pyramid
Jesus Comes to Crappyville
Randall Throckmorton—Always Chasing Rainbows
Happy Feeling—Let Your Conscience be Your Guide
Lot was a Good Guy
The Eagles—Maigret Theme
Charlie Perfume—Find Yourself
Luvs Llamas
Gabor Szabo—Night Flight
Jacqueline Taieb—Un Roule A 160
A Mirage in the Desert
Yasoo
Ed “Kookie” Burns with the Mary Kaye Trio—Kookie’s Love Song While Dancing
Alleee End

You Just...Have to Download

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Chilling Effects: Never Defend, Always Attack

'Tom Cruise's Church of hate tried to destroy me'

From The Daily Mail, UK

This week a BBC reporter was shown screaming in fury after being hounded by Scientology fanatics. Here, a Mail writer tells how he, too, was the victim of a vicious cult smear campaign.

The voice at the end of the line was trembling.

"Is that Mr Bracchi?"

"Yes, it is," I replied.

The caller could not have been more relieved. I was supposed to be dead. Someone had started a rumour that I had been killed in a fire.

The same people who had tried to obtain my exdirectory phone number, handed out pamphlets attacking me, and dispatched an American private detective - an ex-Los Angeles police officer - to Britain to frighten and smear the source who had helped me expose their activities.

Almost daily threatening letters arrived by fax and post at the newspaper where I used to work. Messages were left on the answer machine at the home of the managing director.

Strangers turned up in his village asking questions about him.

And the culprits behind this campaign of intimidation? Step forward the Church of Scientology.

This week the Mail exposed disturbing apparent links between the "church" and the City of London Police.

Our report was followed by a Panorama programme in which reporter John Sweeney was seen losing his temper with a scientologist, claiming afterwards that he had been driven over the edge by a concerted campaign of harassment by the group.

I, more than anyone, could understand why.

Sweeney spent six months investigating this socalled religion. I had spent more than a year doing so when stories of my "unfortunate demise" began circulating.

By the time you read this article, the Church of Scientology will no doubt be unleashing their attack dogs - sorry, officials from the Office of Special Affairs - on me again.

The founder of the "religion" - science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard - himself issued directives on how "to handle the press", including tips on how to get a reporter "fired and discredited".

Well, they have tried and failed with me once already.

My first report - The Secrets of Saint Hill - was published more than ten years ago. Saint Hill is the castle in East Grinstead, West Sussex, where the UK headquarters of Scientology is based.

The backlash was swift.

The first principle of Scientology, you see, is "shoot the messenger".

Critics who had contributed to the articles were also targeted. Some of them found Eugene Ingram - who had been branded an "insidious individual" in a court case in the U.S. - on their doorstep.

He "visited" the 77-year-old mother of one of my sources as well as his parents' former home in Staffordshire, and his wife's family.

Ingram knew, of course, that the man's relatives would not "dish the dirt" on my source.

That was not the point. He just wanted to let me - and everyone else who had helped me - know that he was in town. In the parlance of Scientology, this is called a "noisy investigation".

It has only one purpose: to intimidate.

The real victims of Scientology, of course, are not journalists but the parents who have lost sons or daughters to these deluded fanatics.

Their harrowing stories - of which more below - help explain why, in Britain, Scientology is recognised neither as a church nor a charity. It is, in fact, a cult.

Scientologists do not like that word, so let me repeat it - CULT.

Hubbard, the man who created Scientology in 1952, has an unusual CV for a religious and spiritual leader. As well as being a writer, he was a congenital liar: quite simply a "charlatan".

That was the view of a High Court judge in 1984, who said Hubbard's theories were "corrupt, sinister and dangerous".

If nothing else, the movement's survival is proof that with money - Scientology is worth billions worldwide - you can make some people, even intelligent people, believe almost anything.

Stars such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta have given Scientology a profile and showbusiness gloss it simply does not deserve.

Indeed, those who are not familiar with its tactics and history regard Scientologists - who are convinced we are all descended from a race of aliens called thetans - as weird, not wicked.

This ignorance has been ruthlessly exploited in Britain. In October, a £24 million Scientology centre opened in the heart of London's Square Mile, and is now one of 30 "missions" in the country.

Narconon, a Scientology group which claims it can get people off drugs, has been invited into schools and colleges. How many teachers and parents know of Narconon's links to the cult?

"Community Volunteers" from Saint Hill - could there be a more ironic name for the HQ of a cult? - have been enthusiastically lobbying politicians, police officers, and businesses in the City.

The recruitment drive was part of Hubbard's "master plan". It is spelled out in Scientology documents: namely to infiltrate and convert key institutions in society. The process, so the thinking goes, will eventually lead to a Scientology Government.

And the "church" has succeeded in cultivating contacts.

Up to 20 officers in the City of London Police - from constables to superintendents - have accepted hospitality worth thousands from Scientologists.

This included free invitations to a £500-a-head charity dinner where the guest of honour was Tom Cruise; he is now reported to have bought a home near Saint Hill.

One senior police officer appeared in a Church of Scientology video and another, Chief Superintendent Kevin Hurley, spoke at the opening of the new "mission" near St Paul's Cathedral, saying the cult was "raising the spiritual wealth of society".

Here's a question for Chief Superintendent Hurley. What kind of church, back in the Seventies, implemented a series of covert operations in America which culminated in the bugging of the U.S. Justice Department?

His ringing endorsement was a triumph for the spin doctors of Saint Hill.

The "church's" cramped, old London base in Tottenham Court Road could not be more different from its magnificent new home in EC4. Could there be a better place to woo influential new friends?

Among them is Sebastien Sainsbury, one of the heirs to the Sainsbury dynasty, and European executive director at Lakeshore Capital, which has nearly $1 billion under management.

Scientologists with brochures and leaflets, have also descended on investment bank Bridgewell Group, law firms Eversheds, Dechert Llp, Shadbolt and Co, and PR consultants Merlin.

The organisation is believed to have a huge expense account to wine and dine contacts, but then it can afford to be generous.

Scientology is worth millions in the UK alone, and much of its wealth is derived from members paying for courses.

The Scientologists, it now emerges, secured relief of £281,344 on the full rates of £351,680 on their London base - a discount of 80 per cent.

The City of London Corporation said the group had been entitled to the huge reduction because it carried out "charitable works".

A member of the Corporation, Alderman Ian Luder, a partner with leading City accounting and consultancy firm Grant Thornton, spoke at the building's grand opening of the "effective" help Scientology provided for drug users.

In 2003, the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint by the Church of England over unsubstantiated claims that the Scientologists' Narconon programme, a combination of vigorous exercise, vitamin therapy, counselling, and sauna sessions to sweat out toxins, had saved "250,000 people from drug abuse".

Scientology's promotional drive is said to be spearheaded by the group's Office of Special Affairs.

Officially, this department is responsible for public relations and legal matters. But OSA operatives are also, it is claimed, Scientology's secret service.

Those who undermine the mores and beliefs of Scientology - including journalists - must be ruthlessly dealt with. Hubbard said they were "Fair Game" and could be "tricked, sued or lied to, or destroyed".

That policy, the cult claims, no longer exists. The following account reveals a different story.

A woman, who we shall call Sarah, claims she and her husband, who briefly joined the "church" a few years ago, received death threats after he was wrongly suspected of stealing Scientology documents from Saint Hill.

"One day two well-built men in dark suits from Saint Hill arrived at my door," she said.

"I told them my husband wasn't in but they forced their way in and started riffling through the bookshelves. When my husband returned they bundled him into the car.

"Finally he came back shaking from head to toe. He told me they'd threatened to kill him if he didn't tell him the whereabouts of some stolen documents."

Later, a typed note arrived in the post branding him a "Suppressive Person" (an enemy of Scientology) and informing him he was now Fair Game. Other notes followed.

"For months after, we had anonymous notes delivered in the post almost daily," said Sarah.

"They said, 'You Bastard', 'You're Dead', 'Nothing will save you' - it was terribly frightening. After three months we moved and didn't tell anyone where we were going."

Where does the organisation get the money to hire these goons? Well, organised religions can be very lucrative - as L. Ron Hubbard himself recognised.

Giant photographs of Hubbard adorn the new London headquarters, and his many pronouncements (such as "Man is basically good and it is this basic goodness we want to set free") are stencilled on walls.

A comment you won't find displayed, though, is the one Hubbard made to an author's convention before he invented Scientology.

"Writing for a penny a word," he said, "is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars he should start his own religion." Basic introductory sessions for Scientology cost up to £80. Then there is another course which costs £300, then another...

Indeed, passing all the stages to Scientology "enlightenment" - the so-called Bridge to Total Freedom - can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and has left some people with inheritances frittered away, re-mortgaged homes, and debt.

One elderly couple "lost" their daughter Emily when she married a Scientologist in 2002.

Her father said: "My wife noticed it straight away but I tried to dismiss it. But it became obvious that she wasn't the loving, caring daughter we had nurtured.

"We sat her down and tried to discuss my findings and what I saw shocked me to the core. After a few minutes of talking rationally and reasonably to her, Emily erupted: 'How dare you question my religion? What you have read is all lies; if you raise this issue one more time I will never contact you'.

"I think to say she had been brainwashed would be too simplistic. This was mind manipulation at the highest level.

"If she chooses to come back to us we would welcome her with open arms, but I can't just live with it. I can't bear the thought of that happening to my beautiful daughter."

What was the phrase Chief Superintendent Hurley used to describe his new neighbours in the City? Ah yes, they were "raising the spiritual wealth of society".

For those, like me, who have faced the wrath of this cult, they are words which ring as hollow as the baloney on which the Church of Scientology itself is founded.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

eBay's Tribute to Jerry Falwell

Own One Pound of Jerry Falwell's Lard!

Up for auction is one pound of lard - exactly like the lard which composed Jerry Falwell. Place this tub of lard high on a shelf or on your mantle, should you need a tub of lard to look-up to. Place this lard on the back of a donkey or pig should you need a tub of lard to mindlessly follow.

The perfect keepsake with which to remember him.

100% of the proceeds of this auction, less any eBay/Paypal fees more than 5 dollars, will be donated to Doctors Without Borders.

Shipping via standard mail via USPS to be paid for by auction winner.


Be sure to check out the outraged comments!

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Episode 55: Fred Phelps is Totally Heterosexual

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Open
Alleee1
Westboro Baptist Church—God Hates America
1 Fred Phelps—Mmmm, gay sex
Johnny Arthey Orchestra—Wishin’ and Hopin’
The Who Boys Choral Society—Stayin’ Alive
2 Fred Phelps--America is Doomed
The Who Boys—San Fran Chopin
Westboro Baptist—Pledge
3 Fred Phelps—The President Gets off HOW?
Lyn Larsen—Rubber Ducky
Don Reed and his Orchestra, featuring the Voice of Love—Nature Boy
4 Fred Phelps—The Red on the Flag
Brita Koivunen—Kaaskaparti
The Ladybugs—If I Knew
5 Fred Phelps—Church of the Holy Pedophiles
Arthur Fiedler—Night on Disco Mountain
O. C. Smith—Witchita Lineman
6 Fred Phelps—Sodomite Whorehouse
Westboro Baptist Church—US Smarmy
John Rowles—One Day
7 Fred Phelps—Anal Rape at the Supreme Court
Liberace—The Impossible Dream
Tommy Vig Orchestra—Serious Fun
8 Fred Phelps—The Rod of God
The Shangri-Las—Footsteps on the Roof
Mr T—Treat Your Mother Right
Twiggy—I Need Your Hand in Mine
9 Fred Phelps—The Catholic Pedophiles
Asha Bosle & Mohammad Rafi--Yeh Ladka Hai Allah
Westboro Baptist Church—Wicked Land of Sodomites
10 Fred Phelps—9/11 Victims in Hell
Dean Milan—Cherry Bomb
Alleee

God Hates Downloaders

Monday, May 07, 2007

Mondo 54: Christian Persecution (for fun and profit)

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Christian Persecution

Mondo 54

Ron Ormon--Christian Persecution
Alleee1 Blog Carnival link
Jean-Jacques Perrey--The Savers
Avon: Campaign 13--Welcome to the Club
Adam Carolla--Coulter 7/06/06
Allied Radio--Good Day for the Media
Kay Martin--The Book Mama Gave Me About Sex
Ron Orman--Only Fidel can Provide Candy
American Standard-- It's Revolution
Ferrante & Teicher--Oliver
Avon: Campaign 13--Sweet Honesty
Pedigree Dolls--Sindy Meets the Dollybeats
Bellport Highschool Jazz Rock Ensemble--White Room/Sunshine of Your Love
Pastor Deacon Fred--Pokemon
Floyd Cramer--Foolin' Around
Bingostarr--Freakin' in St. Tropez--Back Door Beauty
Avon: Campaign 13--Natural Sheen for Women
Bonnie & the Treasures--Home of the Brave
Bulldozer--J'Suis Punk
Billy Bob Neck--Just For Today
The Roland Shaw Orchestra--Dr. No's Fantasy
Cal Smith--The Lord Knows I'm Drinkin'
Ron Ormond--Step on Jesus
Dick Whittinghill--Apology at Bedtime
Alleee 2

Downloading this may Offend Someone

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