Investigation Discovery: Wicked Attraction- Kidnapped (2008)

Source:IMDB- from the Wicked Attraction episode.

Source:Real Life Journal 

“Wicked Attraction examines the kidnapping of Colleen Stan who was held as a sex slave for seven years by Cameron and Janice Hooker.

In 1977, twenty-year-old Colleen Stan hitchhikes from Oregon to California to surprise a friend for her birthday. She never arrives. Colleen is picked up by Cameron and Janice Hooker, an unassuming couple with a newborn baby. When Colleen climbs into the back of their car, it is the beginning of a seven year odyssey of physical, mental and sexual abuse. As time passes, Colleen stays with the Hookers and endures the abuse, even when it seems she is free to leave…leading many to wonder if she was ever truly a captive at all.”

From IMDB

“The Kidnapping of Colleen Stan The Girl in the Box Crime Documentary. Documentary crime, crime, documentary, murder, killer, serial killer, criminal, documentaries, murderer, lawyer, crime documentary, prison, gang, evil, rape, true crime, serial killer (film genre)”

Source:Kono Hunas- from the Wicked Attraction episode.

From Kono Hunas

This photo should give you an idea of what sexual slavery (for lack of a better term) can look like, when someone is kidnapped simply to meet the sexual pleasures of the sick kidnapper or kidnappers.

Source:Real Life Journal- this is not from the same episode or story, but hopefully the photo gives you some idea what Colleen Stan went through when she was kidnapped.

I’m not sure how a couple could successfully hold someone hostage for seven years without anyone knowing or having any idea where the kidnapped victim is. I mean playing the percentages the victim would probably have multiple opportunities to escape. 

Criminals don’t tend to be so efficient to the point that they can’t go that long without making some mistake that gets back to the authorities and screws up their operation. The kidnappers have bills to pay and have to go out from time to time, they have to keep their victim not only alive, but healthy to do whatever they are expecting from that person. 

For Colleen Stan who went through that amount of pure torture, worst than spending long periods of time solitary confinement in jail, she seems pretty healthy both physically and mentally.

Reason Magazine: Matt Welch: 'Purging The Ghost of Bill Clinton's Economics From the Holy Spirit of Barack Obama'

Source:Reason Magazine- President's Barack H. Obama & William J. Clinton at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

"One of the more interesting and regrettable ideological developments over the past eight or so years has been the Democratic Party's repudiation of Bill Clinton's economic policies (a repudiation, fortunately for Clinton, that does not require rejecting the Big Dog himself, nor renouncing credit for his economic successes).

What form does the Clintonomics-purging take in our current political context? In complaints that President Barack Obama's economic policies are being guided by Clinton deficit-scold holdovers who do not sufficiently understand that deficits don't matter right now. Here's Jim Tankersley, writing in The Washington Post:

[Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert] Rubin espoused an economic philosophy that would dominate Democratic policy circles through the Great Recession: one that favored opening global markets, deregulating Wall Street and limiting federal budget deficits. […]

For all its success in the 1990s, much of Rubin's philosophy took a beating in the following decade. The financial crisis spurred a move back to stricter rules on Wall Street institutions and financial products such as derivatives, which Rubin had advised Clinton against regulating. The disappearance of millions of manufacturing jobs in the face of technological change and foreign competition cast the downsides of free trade in a harsher light. […]

But the Rubinesque focus on the deficit, if anything, is stronger in the Obama administration than it was in Clinton's. Even before his first inauguration, while the economy was in a job-shedding, recessionary free fall, Obama's advisers were discussing an eventual pivot to deficit reduction. Now, by tapping Lew as Timothy Geithner's successor at Treasury, the president is signaling clearly that budget negotiations with congressional Republicans will dominate economic policymaking in his second term.

Let it bleed

Tankersley's canned history of the last two decades omits a crucial word: spending. (Except for this sentence: "Protecting federal spending on education and innovation is an attempt to keep the middle class from slipping even further, but it's nowhere near the fundamental overhaul in skills training that many economists believe is necessary….") Federal spending, in fact, has doubled since Bill Clinton left office. At least some of the economic thinkers who Tankersley disagrees with believe that jacking up government spending produces the very economic sluggishness he aims to combat, and that cutting spending would spur growth." 

From Reason Magazine

New American: 'Interview With Alan Scholl- Guns Across America Rally'

Source:New American- Alan Scholl speaking to New American.

"Alan Scholl, Director of FreedomProject Education, talks about the nationwide rally that was held on January 19, 2013. He specifically talks about the rally held in Madison, WI, which he spoke at." 

From New American

Another example of Libertarians being defensive on gun control. Because instead of trying to come up with or offer solutions to what causes violence in America and these horrible shootings and finding ways to prevent these tragedies from happening in the future, all they have instead to offer are these pro-gun rallies in defense of the Second Amendment. When the fact is no one serious in power in trying to abolish the Second Amendment. And as a result Libertarians and other supporters of the Second Amendment end up just speaking to themselves.

If Libertarians ever want to be taken seriously in American politics, they got to stop taking Alex Jones, Breitbart and escaped mental patients on the Far-Right as credible news sources. And instead treat these conspiracy theorists as, well, conspiracy theorists. 

People who base their politics on beliefs and faith, even if all the objective evidence as well as facts contradict what they're saying. And instead have a positive proactive approach and realize the right to life is also part of the Constitution, along with our property rights and right to privacy. And instead offer positive limited government solutions to our gun violence problem. 

Drop Dead Lauren: Coyote Ugly (2000) Piper Perabo: One Way or Another

Source:Drop Dead Lauren- Hollywood Babydoll Piper Perabo's One Way or Another.

Source:Real Life Journal

"Official video of Piper Perabo in coyote ugly singing one way or another." 

From Drop Dead Lauren (not my nickname)

The women of Coyote Ugly (2000) the movie) They're all beautiful (at least) but Maria Belo, (far left) Tyra Banks (far right) and Bridget Moynihan to the right of Tyra, really stand out to me as far as how sexy they were in this movie. And Coyote Ugly has more than that, but this is a sexy movie intentionally with the bar dancing, the leather jeans, or in Bridget's case the leather chaps over denim jeans. And Maria, Tyra, and Bridget, really make the movie memorable. And Piper Perabo does a great job singing in the movie.

Source:Coyote Ugly 2000- Left to right: Maria Bello, Piper Perabo, Izabella Miko, Tyra Banks, and Bridget Moynihan.

Left to right: Piper Perabo, Izabella Miko, and Bridget Moynihan from Coyote Ugly. Piper has the voice , Iza I guess has the comedic timing, and Bridget is drop-dead gorgeous and has the sex appeal in this film. Especially the way she moves in those black leather jeans, and Levi's denim jeans, with the black leather chaps and boots.

Source:Coyote Ugly 2000- Left to right: Piper Perabo, Izabella Miko, and Bridget Moynihan.

First of all: I don’t believe this scene is believable and at risk sounding valley, it looks totally Hollywood. Which is sort of another way of saying that it looks made up, not real. 

I mean you essentially have a bar fight if not riot in the bar and this very young woman who could pass as a little girl (if she needed too) gets up on the bar and starts singing and the fighting stops to hear her sing. 

Now having said all of that, Piper Perabo did a very good job with a very good song. She doesn’t make you forget about Joan Jett, but I’m not sure that is possible. 

One of the great things about Coyote Ugly, the movie or the real business is the music. And this is an example of that. And the music might only trail the women of Coyote Ugly as far as importance to it. 

Reason Magazine: Matt Welch: 'Barack Obama's Warmed-Over Collectivism'

Source:Reason Magazine- President Barack H. Obama (Democrat, Illinois) giving his 2nd inaugural address.

"Much of President Barack Obama's mercifully brief second inaugural address yesterday was familiar to anyone who has been listening to his rhetoric and policy ideas since 2007.

Once again, the president rejected the false choice between "caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future," a formulation that simultaneously waves aside the relentless growth of entitlement spending (from 37 percent of federal outlays today to a projected 50 percent by 2030) and valorizes Washington's other frequently wasteful expenditures as transactions from which we can expect net financial returns.

Once again, he has made the factually dubious claim that future "economic vitality" depends not only on "sustainable energy sources" that will "power new jobs and new industries," but on making damned sure that America leads the world in this sector. "That's what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared," he added, oddly.

And once again, Obama has asserted the centrality and indispensability of the federal government to just about everything worth caring about. Here is the passage that best encapsulates the president's post-Bill Clinton ideology, including the feinting, to-be-sure stuff in paragraph four. I have italicized the action words:

Editorial illustration

Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce; schools and colleges to train our workers.

Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play. 

Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life's worst hazards and misfortune.

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society's ills can be cured through government alone.  Our celebration of initiative and enterprise; our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, are constants in our character.

But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.  For the American people can no more meet the demands of today's world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias.  No single person can train all the math and science teachers we'll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.  Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people. […]

My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together. 

This is a man who literally cannot envision a world in which a Golden Gate Bridge gets built without central planning from Washington, or where the 21st century doesn't rely on a transport technology invented in the 19th. The true fact that "no single person" can train all the teachers and build all the networks is no more a clarion call to collective action than the fact that no single person can make a pencil from scratch. We have an app for that, you know. Maybe the next president will figure that one out." 

From Reason Magazine

Liberty Pen: Thomas Sowell: 'Why Drugs Should Be Legalized'

Source:Liberty Pen- Professor Thomas Sowell: no fan of the War on Drugs.

"Professor Sowell understood the economic and social dynamics of drug illegality more than 25 years ago."

From Liberty Pen

I'm not ready to legalize all narcotics in America even as a Liberal but we definitely need a new policy on how we deal with narcotics in America. And move away from criminalization and prohibition and to a system thats based around decriminalization.

Decriminalization would mean we would no longer arrest people and send them to jail or prison for simple possession or usage of narcotics. Meaning cocaine, heroin unless they commit other crimes while under the influence. But instead they would pay a fine for it and be stripped of those narcotics and addicts or people caught under the influence of cocaine, heroin or meth or addicts would instead be sent to drug rehab at their expense. Where they would stay until their doctor clears them and feels they have been rehabilitated and no longer want those narcotics.

We would save billions of tax dollars each year with an approach like this in law enforcement as well as with our corrections system. Instead of making criminals out of people who use narcotics we would get them the help that they need. And get them off of those narcotics.

As far as marijuana: again as I've blogged before we are talking about a drug that has similar side effects as alcohol or tobacco. That if anything people would be better off smoking and using marijuana rather than tobacco. But because of the influence that the alcohol and tobacco industries have on our politicians in this country, marijuana is illegal so we should legalize marijuana and regulate and tax it like alcohol.

Reason Magazine: Nick Gillespie & Damon Root: 'Gay Marriage, Drunk Driving, and Property Rights: 3 Supreme Court Cases to Watch in 2013'

Source:Reason Magazine- talking about the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The Supreme Court is back in session with major decisions coming on gay marriage, the limits of police power during drunk driving investigations, and the rights of property owners to develop their land.

How are the justices expected to rule in these cases and what are the likely implications of their decisions?

Reason.com Managing Editor Damon Root sat down with Reason TV's Nick Gillespie to talk about the cases to watch in the Supreme Court's current session.

Shot by Amanda Winkler and Meredith Bragg; edited by Bragg." 

From Reason Magazine

Here's a prediction from a Liberal whose not a lawyer: the Defense of Marriage Act and at least one state gay marriage band will be ruled Unconstitutional with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the "Liberal Justices." And property rights will be strengthen as well.

Reason Magazine: Peter Suderman: 'The Public Option and the Future of ObamaCare'

Source:Reason Magazine- a rally for the public option for health insurance.

"Here's a preview of ObamaCare battles to come: The Huffington Post notes that a group of House Democrats have revived calls to add a government-run insurance option to ObamaCare. The push comes in the wake of the fiscal cliff deal, which killed $6 billion in funding for non-profit health insurance cooperatives. Coop funding was included in the law largely as a way to quell liberal legislators unhappy that the law didn't include a full-fledged public option — a government-run health insurance alternative that would compete with the private health insurance plans sold in the law's health exchanges.

Given that Republicans control the House, these Democrats don't have any real shot at getting the bill passed. But it's likely an early shot in what's likely to be a long battle over how to manage health policy post-ObamaCare.

As parts of ObamaCare either fail to produce results or are stripped away, piece by piece, in budget deals, we're likely to see stepped up efforts to revise the bill in a more liberal direction. At the request of the Health and Human Services Department. some health insurers, for example, are proposing additional penalties be added to the law's health insurance mandate, which they argue isn't strong enough in the law's initial years. And in Massachusetts, the passage of a statewide ObamaCare-like program presaged a massive political showdown over rate increases in 2010 and years of increasingly aggressive calls for greater cost control measures — calls which last year resulted in the creation of a what is essentially a price control commission for health care in the state." 

From Reason Magazine

Economic Policy Journal: Robert Anderson: 'Gun Registration Is as Bad as Seizure'

Source:Economic Policy Journal- publisher Robert Wenzel.

"Silence rarely conveys knowledge, especially when it’s the result of intimidation. There are moments when it’s prudent to remain silent, but hardly when you’re in the midst of a gun ownership debate. The political class, and its anti-gun proponents, are today engaged in a massive legal assault on citizen gun ownership through regulation and/or abolition. Their arguments are well-known and much has been written on the subject, both in favor and in opposition to the idea.

Unfortunately, silence due to "political correctness" is hampering a frank and honest discussion of the fundamental issue of citizen gun ownership. While gun ownership for personal protection or sporting uses are being heatedly defended, these are only secondary considerations to the more critical concern over citizen ownership of guns. The preeminent and fundamental case for gun ownership by citizens is to secure and preserve the means for individuals to safeguard their lives and property from a potentially threatening oppressive government.

Of course this tends to sound paranoid, for after all, most citizens today view our government as a responsive political institution, primarily engaged in helping its citizens to secure a better quality of life. Such common sentiments about one’s government are not new. Even the Germans shared such a view of their own government at the beginning of the 20th century. So, to express concerns today that our politicians and bureaucrats could someday turn against their own citizens and inflict violent harm upon them is harshly condemned by many as being ludicrous.

After all, many politicians and anti-gun proponents today are convinced no democratic government could ever become so oppressive and dictatorial, certainly not our own. But what we believe and what may prove true are not always the same. We know the face of the future is forever veiled by the hand of God and none of us can ever know with certainty where we’re headed. But acquiring an understanding of the past is another matter, and we’d all be wise to heed it. Too often the past is prologue to the future so it’s always prudent to remind ourselves of Edmund Burke’s famous line, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And it’s equally important to remind ourselves that the essence of government is a sovereign power with a monopoly over initiating force upon others, a coercive power which has become deadly and violent many times throughout the ages.

For anti-gun proponents to ignore the ravages of 20th century history and believe today’s citizens should be denied the means to protect themselves from the risk of future oppressive tyranny is both dangerous and foolhardy. Have we forgotten how Germany, Russia, and China disarmed their citizens in the 20th century, and shortly thereafter their governments slaughtered tens of millions of their own citizens? Have we forgotten the "killing fields" of Cambodia where disarmed citizens were slaughtered close to annihilation in the 1970’s by their own government? Those slaughtered were the helpless victims of their well-intentioned citizen ancestors who acquiesced to government mandated gun control.

Of course, today’s anti-gun proponents and their political allies will argue, those places were all different and such horrors could never happen in our country, so why do our citizens need to own guns? Indeed, citizens may not need guns to secure their lives and property from our government today, but can anyone argue with certainty that future citizens will never need guns for that purpose? After all, today’s anti-gun proponents are essentially betting on the lives of future citizens, and while making such a costless bet among themselves, do so by placing a deadly bet on the lives of future citizens, should their bet today prove horribly wrong tomorrow!

Every decision imposes costs in our imperfect world, and the issue of citizens owning guns is no exception. We all know gun ownership will surely bring some harm as long as evil and ignorance remain a part of the human condition. Without question, guns will continue to be used in many gruesome and horrible murders by deranged and evil people. But peaceful citizens must have the means to protect themselves from not only the isolated acts of criminals but also from an oppressive government tomorrow with the capacity for evil mass murder. These threats far outweigh any perceived "benefit" from permitting an intrusive government to disarm its citizens today. Such a threatened act, at the very least, would transform future citizens into helpless victims, should an evil authoritarian government someday try to subdue them.

Citizen gun ownership is ultimately a form of "insurance" for a future, unknowable risk. Switzerland, as well as our own country, has acknowledged and practiced this form of "insurance" for a long time. We all know gun ownership by citizens can impose heavy costs, but they are costs dwarfed by the greater horror of millions of future citizens being denied any means to defend themselves against an evil government slaughtering them with impunity.

We would like to believe such a future scenario unimaginable, but we know it’s not, as our violent 20th century history has tragically reminded us. Governments murdering millions of their own citizens have inflicted monstrous horrors in our lifetimes, and there is nothing in the history of the human experience to give absolute assurance it will not happen again. The drafters of our Constitution understood this, and hopefully today’s citizens will remember it, even though mentioning such a horror makes people uncomfortable, a reaction usually encountered when discussing unpleasant truths.

Finally, there are few instances in a citizen’s relationship with government where non-intervention in their personal affairs is more vital than with gun ownership. The Second Amendment was established as a safeguard for citizens, should the government they created ever become evil and oppressive, to have an effective means to defend themselves against that government. With that thought in mind, what would be more devastating than for a future evil government to possess individual records on every citizen who owns a gun, what kind of guns they own, and where he lives? Draw your own conclusions: Is it either prudent or wise to surrender individual gun ownership information to any government today which could become your evil oppressor tomorrow? Can’t happen? Tell it to the Germans and Russians a century ago!

Robert Anderson taught economics at Hillsdale Collage and was executive secretary of FEE." 

From the Economic Policy Journal

Ron Paul 2008: 'Wealth Belongs To Those Who Generate It- Not To The Government'

Source:Ron Paul- on wealth in America.

"Wealth Belongs To Those Who Generate It- Not To The Government"

Source:Ron Paul 2008

I would add that most of the wealth that individuals create belongs to those individuals, but that government also has a duty to provide the services that it has the constitutional authority to provide that we need it to provide. Not what we want government to provide and takes taxes to finance what we need government to do for us.

Even if you believe in limited government, which I do as a Liberal, you believe in at least some form of government. Even if you believe in small government, which is what a lot of Libertarians believe in, you believe in at least some level and form of government. 

If you're a small government Libertarian and believe in the nation-state, you believe in at least some form of a national government. And generally small government Libertarians believe in federalism and the federal republic. 

All forms of government needs revenue to pay for the operations that the people need government to do. Unless you want high tariffs and discourage foreign companies from investing in your own and don't support free trade, or you want to borrow most of the money that government needs to fund itself, you need a tax system to pay for your government operations. And that means the people people who consume those services pay taxes for those services. Low tax rates on everyone who can afford to pay them would fund your limited government. 

Cato Institute: David B. Kopel: 'The Second Amendment in 2013'

Source:The Cato Institute- David B. Kopel.

"David Kopel, associate policy analyst at the Cato Institute, evaluates prospects for changes to federal gun laws following the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.

Video produced by Caleb O. Brown and Austin Bragg." 

From The CATO Institute

Robert Wenzel: 'US Tells UK That It Should Stay in European Union'

Source:Economic Policy Journal- blogger Robert Wenzel.

"Yup, the collapsing EU is just where the US wants Britain to stay. In other words, the former Empire is getting a little lesson on how Empires treat underlings. The Guardian reports:

The Obama administration issued a direct challenge to David Cameron over Europe, on Wednesday when it warned of the dangers of holding a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.

A senior US official questioned the merits of holding a referendum as the prime minister's campaign to reset the terms of Britain's EU membership also came under assault from Brussels and Dublin.

With just weeks to go until Cameron delivers a landmark speech in which he is expected to promise to hold a referendum on a "new settlement" for Britain in the EU, the US assistant secretary for European affairs warned that "referendums have often turned countries inwards".

"We welcome an outward-looking European Union with Britain in it. We benefit when the EU is unified, speaking with a single voice, and focused on our shared interests around the world and in Europe," Philip Gordon said during a visit to London, adding: "We want to see a strong British voice in that European Union. That is in the American interest."

From Robert Wenzel

Reason: War on Drugs: Mike Riggs: 'Meet New Congressman Beto O'Rourke, a Democrat With Some Libertarian Ideas About Drug Policy & Immigration'

Source:Reason Magazine- U.S. Representative Beto O'Rourke (Democrat, Texas)

"El Paso, Texas, is one of the safest cities in the United States. Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua, Mexico, is one of the most dangerous cities on the planet. The two cities "are so close," Andrew Rice recently wrote, "that you can sit on a park bench in El Paso and watch laundry wave behind a whitewashed house on a Juárez hillside." But the cities aren't just physically close. They share an economy and a culture, and what affects one–say, the drug war and immigration policy–strongly affects the other. 

"We in El Paso very much believe that we have sacrificied mobility, trade, our economy, and community at the altar of security," says newly elected Rep. Robert "Beto" O'Rourke, a Democrat from Texas' 16th District. "It reminds me of that great Benjamin Franklin quote, 'Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither.'"

O'Rourke isn't your average congresscritter. When the father of three and former indie rocker primaried Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes in 2012, largely, he says, because the latter had spent seven terms in Congress ignoring the issues most pressing to El Paso, O'Rourke found himself the subject of an anti-drug smear campaign. In a TV ad, Reyes tacitly suggested O'Rourke wanted to make drugs available to children, and a Reyes surrogate accussed O'Rourke of wanting to legalize crack-cocaine. While O'Rourke has since said that his win over Reyes "wasn't about drugs," his opponent was nevertheless right about one thing: O'Rourke isn't a drug warrior." 

From Reason Magazine

Reason Magazine: Matthew Feeney: 'Eurozone Unemployment at Record High After E.U. Leaders Say Worst is Over'

Source:Reason Magazine- writer Matthew Feeney.

"Recent news from Europe has not been encouraging. Unemployment in the Eurozone hit a record high of 11.8 percent in November and a new report is warning of the growing poverty gap.

All of this recent bad news coming out of Europe is being reported after many European politicians said the worst of the euro crisis was over.

French President François Hollande announced last month that the euro crisis was over, saying:

The euro crisis, I've said it before, is behind us. We've given Greece the funds it was waiting for. In Spain we've helped keep the banks afloat. In Italy, even if there's political uncertainty, I'm sure the Italians will address it,

It is bad enough having one prominent European politician thinking this way, but Hollande is not alone. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti was saying that the euro crisis was almost over back in March 2012. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said that he was convinced that the worst had passed in November 2012. Wolfgang Schauble, Germany's finance minister, has also said that he believes the worst is over. Most recently, President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso said, "I think we can say that the existential threat against the euro has essentially been overcome," at a diplomatic conference in Portugal yesterday." 

From Reason Magazine

Robert Wenzel: 'Has America Gone Euro-Socialist?'

Source:Economic Policy Journal- blogger Robert Wenzel.

"Here's a clue from the cover of Economist magazine: Actually, to be more accurate, Obama should have been dressed as one of these two, who promoted a government-crony corporate controlled economy. When Obama is linking gun control, Economic Policy Journal, you know things are way out of control." 

From Robert Wenzel