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Under American Common Law, your likeness - as well as your signature - is your private property. People can no more snap you without your consent without being liable for violating your property rights than they can take an image of your signature and print it onto whatever they like.

Cite, please. It's my understanding that if you're in public, people absolutely can take your picture and do not need your consent. If you're correct, I'd like an explanation how paparazzi aren't all in jail.

Common practice within the Union about a century ago; I came across it years ago in research and no longer have the historical reference, unfortunately. I did find cites just now, though.

As to the paparazzi, part of it would most likely be that the country's forgotten that by now, or that as public figures celebrities are presumed to be accessible in that regard. I'm honestly not sure how much of which. It would be kind of interesting for celebs to copyright their likeness in this day and age though, and then sue tabloids for distributing without permission.

American Common Law remains in effect, but has been forgotten amid a heap of baseless legislation that lacks the authority to actually be law.

Perhaps we're getting to the core of the issue. You're arguing from a base where law isn't actually law. I can't follow you there.

Yes and no. It's the venue of law the Constitution was written in, and the American variant of Common Law remains the law of the land. However, it is prevalently ignored today by the majority of citizens, who have not heard of it. Yet.

And they now have lasers that can be pointed at windows and pick up conversations based on how the glass vibrates,

Yes, and infrared cameras that see through your walls. I suppose that's what muddies the waters. It comes down to the "reasonable person" test. IIRC, it's been decided (in court) that reasonable people do get protection from being spied on via IR cameras. I think it's reasonable to assume there's not a laser microphone pointed at your windows, too. I just don't feel that unencrypted wifi streaming out of your house deserves the same protection when it's trivial to encrypt it. I don't think we should have to IR shield our houses. I don't think we should have noise generators on our windows. I do think we should encrypt our wifi.

And there we disagree. Or rather, I don't think we should be considered to be obliged to encrypt our wifi in order to secure our right to privacy on it. But I do like how well you've summarized the matter.

I understand your point. And if the data on those papers requires certain software to read and decode, that is a form of encryption

No, it's a form of encoding. If you're going to claim that as encryption, I can as reasonably claim that this is a private conversation between me and you, and that anyone else reading it has violated my rights because I encrypted it in ASCII or Unicode, or whatever prior to uploading it. It's not MY fault everyone else's computer is capable of decrypting it.

Impressive! I honestly don't have a response to that one right now. I'll have to think about that one for a while. Thanks for the new (to me at least) point. Very refreshing to encounter.

True American Common Law, whatever that is

Glad you asked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_United_States#American_common_law

Alternatively, here is the Advanced Law Substitute they're using today.

If replacing fraudulent color of law with the system We, the People actually established is going to be called a teaching a catechism, I'm probably guilty. Knowing what our political system and system of laws actually are is quite a basic skill to have, and ignorance of it has been enabling all manner of corruption. To me, that's what's scary, or at least vexing.

Kind of a combination of Amway and Scientology.

Then by your reasoning, Paul Revere was a potentially great Amway salesman born too soon. Trippy.

Please don't attempt to make a grindhouse film out of efforts for patriotism and civic duty.

I have that interest, too. It sounds like another excuse to boost stocks for pharmaceutical shareholders or to waste billions on Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duesberg_hypothesis
http://www.buildfreedom.com/aidsdir.htm

I suggest everyone here read the articles linked in the site below before you come to any conclusions. http://www.buildfreedom.com/aidsdir.htm

John Stossel did a documentary of it, for one. Or read the Mayflower Compact. Good ol' Rush Limbaugh relates the same story. The primary source for all of them is William Bradford's own On Plymouth Plantation.

Or, you could simly have googled it yourself.

"Some might argue that capital punishment has moral costs and benefits beyond its practical consequences in terms of lives lost and lives saved. Those who make such arguments will want to modify a lot of the calculations in this column."

You can count me among those. However, I would be wary of talking about moral "costs" and "benefits"; that's economics-speak, not morality-speak.

"As for myself, I hold that the government's job is to improve our lives, not to impose its morality. In this, I take my stand with the president of the United States, who, in a 2000 debate against Al Gore, said quite explicitly that nothing other than deterrence can justify the death penalty."

This is where I part ways with the president of the United States and this article. The article is about an imposition of morality, about the way we calculate the value of a human life in money. But this entire research frame is morally suspect, if life and death are really about more than dollars and cents.

Further, policy debates like this one are full of different methods of decision calculus. This economics-inspired utilitarian accounting of the probable increase or decrease in human lives is just the most popular one, the one you learn in Political Science school and war-planning school. These are ethical methods and moralities too; it's not like policy-centered utilitarianism is "science" and deontology (or some other ethical framework) is "morality".

This utilitarian flavor in political science has real effects at the political level. For example, one woman went to nuclear war-planning school and learned to do this, but found that the decision-making methods used to fight nuclear wars are dehumanizing and illogical, not to mention immoral. Why should it surprise us that more of this warped kind of thinking should lead to warped conclusions?

Other ways to talk about life and death are possible in public policy debate; they're just not permissible. They're also not as tangible and easy to use in mathematics and write up in the annual budget. But who said they should be?

"But this essential point remains: Governments exist largely to supply protections that, for one reason or another, we can't purchase in the marketplace. Those governments perform best when they supply the protections we value most. We can measure their performance only if we are willing to calculate costs and benefits and to respect what our calculations tell us, even when it's counterintuitive. Any policymaker who won't do this kind of arithmetic is fundamentally unserious about policy."

Perhaps this kind of measurement is unnecessary... and perhaps it is flawed... and perhaps, when we learn that it is "counterintuitive" but true that we should kill computer hackers to save money, we should not only seriously question our calculations, we should seriously question our sources of inspiration.

I, for one, would be pleased to have policymakers who are unserious, according to this columnist, who will appeal to the heart's reasons, who think that life is valuable beyond a cash settlement. For "The heart has its reasons, that reason does not know." This is what Pascal was talking about: not that the heart's reasons are inferior to the demands of logic, but that they are superior.

raw chicken is wonderful. =). Be sure to get the free-range kind, though - while I've never tried out the "born and raised in a 24/7 cage" kind (like you'd find at your local mega-mart), there's no sense in taking unnecessary risks, right? =) If you get bones, don't forget the marrow.

the superhealth report. you might also look at some of my other posts in this thread - some of them aren't too bad, imho.

The problem I have with his site is that a) he provides no convincing corroboration,

The superheatlh report is only an introduction. It can only serve to enlighten you as to the existence of another path, it is up to you to decide whether the path is worth exploring. But if you want to leave your heatlh 'up to the authorities' (whoever that might be), well, that's a gamble I'm not willing to take...

...and b) he seemingly believes in a lot of other quackery

Something is only quackery until it goes mainstream.

The only thing he really cites are other independent web sites.

There's a 61 text bilbiography at the end. Do those books not count as citations?

His other ideas are also somewhat disturbing. According to him AIDS is a hoax.

Why do you find them disturbing? Have you ever heard that the AIDS is a 'hoax' before? You've obviously dismissed this as a possibility - why? Perhaps you'd like to take a look at http://www.aliveandwell.org - a site that tells one woman's story of surviving being diagnosed with 'HIV'. (without perscription drugs of any sort)

He insists that you should never visit a Doctor.

No, he says Doctors can be good body mechanics - for fixing you up when you get trauma'd. I don't remember the exact statistics, but I believe the U.S. has the most doctors/capita of any other nation in the world. But we are by far _not_ the healthiest developed nation. Doctors are like cops - they come in after the fact to clean up the mess. And they typically don't do a very good job, either (though there are exceptions to this).

He claims that as simple a biological fact as mortality is culturally determined; we only grow old because that's what we're conditioned to believe.

This is something you likely infered from the reading. I suggest reading it again. He says that the mind plays a critical role in deciding one's health, but if that were the only deciding factor - well, there would be no need to eat raw meat, and this whole thread would have never gotten started. =).

These are dangerous ideas if followed.

Perhaps you are a medical doctor. The idea that the individual can have a powerfull influence in determining their own health would certainly be dangerous to you - just think of all the fees you wouldn't be able to charge!

Modern medicine may be imperfect,

agreed,

... to insist that surgery is unnecessary,

The word 'surgery' occurs twice in the superhealth report. These are in a quote by someone who was planning on having a melanoma removed, but no longer had a need for that operation (because it went away on its own). 'Surgery' is a broad term - some are certainly necessary, many are likely not.

that all practicing MDs are engaged in some sort of hoax, is just wrong. Call me dogmatic, if you will, but this is pseudoscience of the worst kind.

ah, not so much a hoax as mass delusion. Very few medical schools teach more than a cursory course on nutrition and/or holistic well being to their students. Hence, MD's are painfully ignorant in this aspect of health (though this is slowly beginning to change - more and more med schools have courses on accupuncture and the like...). 'pseudoscience' is a powerful world, evoking strong responses in the people who read your post. Modern medicine has been full of pseudoscience for years, and yet because it's mainstream it's always been accepted. Pregnant mothers used to be X-ray treated, for the good of the child, i believe. Chemotherapy does a remarkable job of finishing off many cancer patients. (there's a controversial statement!) Early AIDS drugs were highly toxic - no wonder mortality rates are improving! And the list goes on and on.

Take responsibility for your own well being. Doctors can only assist you in finding a path. (but be wary of your doctor's path, as it will likely be commensurate with the path he likely followed in his 'paid for by a pharmacutical drug company' medical school).

• Chicken livers (raw, Mmm... =)
  
• chicken leg/thigh (raw)
  
• pecans (raw, in shell)
  
• pine nuts ("raw", but lightly oxygen roasted)
  
• walnuts (not really raw, but non-cooked)
  
• almonds (raw)

• spinach
  
• Mustard greens
  
• purple kale
  
• celery
  
• some other bitter (yum =) purple-white vegetable (radicco?)
  
• broccoli
  

You lose your money when you pay for the thing, not when you throw it to the garbage can.

See Previous-Investment trap here.

... Overlooking the fact that "the US" is not a volitional entity, how long will it be before "the US" bankrupts itself with the various inefficient security measures it is persuing?

Government Trap #8: The belief that government can conjure up resources from thin air. Everything government has, was essentially stolen at the point of a gun.

suicide: The act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself.
Democide: death by government

Things cannot continue forever the way they are, the laws of economics will not permit it.

The US is well on its way to writing itself out of the rest of the world, and whatever they believe they can't survive alone!

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here, but if it's something along the lines of "'the US' seems to like shooting itself too much to go on being the bully for much longer", I'd have to agree.

i shouldn't waste my time replying to this, but what the hell..

After 25 years, the LP is a complete and utter failure.

There are more libertarians in office now than ever before. It sounds to me as if you could use a little improvement in your thinking skills, but I'll let you make that determination for yourself.

"There are many ways to respond to the information you receive. One way is to instantly and automatically reject it. Another is to instantly and automatically accept and believe it.

"Another is to evaluate it: 'Might there be something useful for me here?'

"Another is to see if it fits with your current knowledge. If there's just one thing "wrong" with any of it, then reject all of it."

(src)

I suppose that pointing out a decade of falling crime statistics doesn't earn me any points toward proving that government can offer protection?

I suppose that you accept it as coincidence that your decade of falling crime statistics mirrored a decade of economic prosperity? (which is another matter entirely - Misean economists say the boom-days were artificially induced by cheap money, and we're now beginning to see the fallout from past monetary policy... check out their newsletter archives, read and think about it for a bit).

even though the page makes it sound like government is pointless and useless.

The buildfreedom site is far more than just another 'government is baad, mkay' page. The many pages make (what I believe is) a convincing argument that not only is "government" pointless, but is actually harmful, coercive, contradictory, anti-freedom, etc. "Government" can actually be quite useful, say, if someone has something you want ("money"), and you think that everyone should help out poor people. You can use "government" to take the producer's money and redistribute it to people who produce nothing of their own. Now, maybe in a few cases this wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but for the vast majority of cases we have at best a "win-lose" situation ("welfare" recipient/tax-victim), but most of the time we have a lose-lose situation (welfare in the classic sense is like a snake pit, once it grabs you it never lets go).

On the contrary--government people are really stupid, and even more so when it comes to computers.

This statement reminded me of a page full of various thought traps people fall into, in particular this one:

Government Trap #5: The belief that government people can do anything better than other people. Government people don't have any special magical powers.

Also worth calling attention to are:

Government Trap #9: The belief that government provides protection. Just look at the crime statistics. (or recent events in New York City)

Government Trap #10: The belief that certain activities or functions must be done by government. Government consists of people. These people don't have any special magical powers.

... and especially this one:

Government Trap #13: The belief that government exists as a volitional entity. This is an aspect of the Group Trap. When having to deal with "government," you always have to deal with individual human beings. Realizing this helps make you much more effective in warding off any attempts by individual government people to violate your freedom. Rather than having to handle "the government," you have to handle one or a few specific individuals. Frederic Bastiat said. "The State is the great fictitious entity by which everyone expects to live at the expense of everyone else." [emphasis added]

Read the rest of this report, "Harry Browne's Freedom Principles" here.

Regular cells may be immortal too:

An experiment which lasted 29 years was to unveil something quite remarkable, something which could have important significance on the life span of man in the future. Dr Alexis Carrell of the Rockerfeller Institute for Medical Research, took small samples of heart tissue from a chicken embryo and immersed them in a solution from which they obtained all the necessary nutrients. As the cells took up the nutrient rich broth, they also excreted their metabolic wastes into the same solution. Each day, the old solution was discarded and replaced with fresh broth. This chicken heart tissue lived for 29 years, only dying when the assistant forgot to change the polluted fluid. (note: when I first heard about this ... "study", they said the cells had died when the project was discontinued, 'csuse the figured they could keep them alive forever.) Commenting, Dr. Carrell said:

"The cell is immortal. It is merely the fluid in which it floats which degenerates. Renew this fluid at intervals, give the cell something on which to feed and, so far as we know, the pulsation of life may go on forever..."

Google search for "immortal chicken cell"

So if you could find a way to quickly & effectively remove remove all wastes from the fluid surrounding your cells every day, and replace that with fresh nutrients (more than those found in the typical refined fare), maybe you wouldn't have to fall victim to "programmed cell death", or at least not so soon. (hey, it's just a possibility, and a remote one at that, everyone still dies eventually)

Cameron: May I assume you're imagining longer, healthier lives?
Harman: Absolutely. The fact is, if you get sick at 65, you're going to be sick for a long time. But if you're healthy and productive well into your 90s and you get sick at, say, 95 or 100, at that age the body cannot tolerate trauma. You die quickly. With the kind of longevity I'm postulating, society gets the benefit of many more years of experience from the elderly (65 and older) and oldest old (85 and older) without the old being a burden on society. Mother Nature did not mean for us to live forever, but that does not mean we should not try to increase our functional life span. In the ideal scenario one would live a long, active, useful life, then die quickly.

A report on Superhealth

---

There are some good suggestions under "GENERAL ADVICE ON OPERATING WITHOUT A SSN" towards the bottom of this page..

It's long been known that a diet rich in nutrients but poor in calories extendeds the life of living organisms. "Calorie restriction (CR) has extended the 39-month maximum life span of mice to an impressive 56 months, which would correspond proportionally to a 158 year-old human. " - http://www.pbs.org/stealingtime/living/calories.ht m.

Just taking a pill will never be enough to extend lifespan in lifeforms more complex than a fruitfly. If you're really interested in life extension, check out http://www.walford.com/, with sample meal plans in the "Anti-Aging program", or this report on superhealth.

Before this armed revolt occurs, people who act in the name of government will likely succeed in passing laws requiring registration of all weapons. G-men will see said revolt coming, and institute confiscation programs, reducing the probability of a successful armed uprising. Instead of your armed revolt ending government as you know it, I think it is more likely that people will continue to find "government" less and less relevant in their day-to-day lives, and continue to remove them from their lives. "Building Freedom" would be one term for this gradual extraction of one's self from the influence of terrorist bureaucrats.

Sure, having the human genome completely mapped will help devise treatment for illnesses caused by genetic irregularity (such as Sickle-cell anemia). But genes are only one of five causes of disease:

• Malnutrition - lack of vitamin C causes scurvy
• Germs - the plague, smallpox, and malaria
• Genetics - i.e. Sickle-cell anemia
• Toxins - lead poisoning, heart disease, some cancers
• The Mind

Having the Human Genome to work with will allow researchers to develop treatments/cures to many diseases, but at what cost? At the dawn of the nuclear age, the power of the atom was seen as the solution for all the problems the world faced. Fifty five years later, we are stuck cleaning up the messy legacy that nobody wants. Today's genetic scientists will likely use the genome to devise genetic solutions for health problems, when no genetic problems exist in the first place. What happens when some scientist creates a genetic therapy treatment for Scurvy, when the only "treatment" needed was to pick up an orange at the store?

see this page for some provacative ideas on being healthy...

So are you saying that the only power for change comes from within the system? This seems like a rather .. ignorant (?) statement to me. There are many people who don't vote, yet still work to change the system. These people don't ask for change (or "demand" change) through their vote, they force change through their actions.

• The Women's sufferage and Civil Rights movements are two examples of change being demanded... Massive demonstrations put "pressure" on politicians to enact change, eventually the activists got what they wanted.
• Prohibition is a very strong example of change being forced. "Government" decided that Alcohol was not going to be consumed in the United States anymore. Many people didn't jive with this, and basically gave the man the finger when he came to take their drinks away. Yes, lots of people were punished for their failure to comply with "the law", but eventually the powers that were had no real choice but to call their war on alcohol off.

Yes, Building Freedom is a lot more difficult & involving than simply going to the polls and voting, but at least you're not relying on someone else to give you the power to make decisions that is rightfully yours.

The banks control the world because they control the money. By allowing the banks to control your money, you allow then to regulate the value of your money. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was a horrific coup of the US Government, and it went completely unnoticed. The Federal Reserve Act sold the exclusive rights to US Currency to a group of private banking families and remains a private institution to this day. The FED is NOT a government institution. Look for the FED in your local telephone directory and you will not find it in the government section, but in the business section right next to Federal Express (which isn't a part of the US Government any more than the FED). If you're interested in all of the details, please read THE ECONOMIC RAPE OF AMERICA

Nothing is done in the interest of National security; it's done in the interests of government security

I can agree that many (most?) things government does are done to serve its own interests, but actions are also caried out to convince people of the legitimacy or necesity of the institution's existence. In these Cryptography stories the U.S. government says that they are doing this to protect us, therefore they are needed, they have a vitaly important purpose. An interesting article advocating this position is availible here. A quote:

"Social contract is currently fashionable, in the ebb and flow of on-line political debate. This is a contract I never signed, that I've never seen, that has no terms, that is binding upon me but not upon the other party, that can be dispensed with at will by the government but must submitted to by me upon pain of incarceration, whose terms may change on-the-fly or even retroactively, from which there is no escape clause, which is binding in perpetuity, which binds my ancestors and descendants, which requires fealty but guarantees no consideration.
And it's bullshit on its face."