Note: The Coffee Coaster Beaniegram contains synopses of writings—columns and book/movie reviews—of the week. It normally is posted and emailed on Sunday mid day. Toward the end of each week, a more journalistic newsletter, "Percolations," is emailed commenting on news and issues of the week. Last week's issue of Percolations is located here. — bw

My Column-Article
Free State Liberty Forum 2012...
Glimpse the future of freedom in Nashua, 2/23-26
by Brian Wright

For those who will attend Liberty Forum 2012[3], whether as someone considering immigration or old hands seeking to be among their people, I urge mindfulness of the dire political context we face. The 900-lb. gorilla has definitely entered the building, what with all the newfound Intolerable Acts—NDAA indefinite detention without trial, presidential extrajudicial killings, Internet blacklist bills (and treaties, e.g. ACTA, enacted w/o Senate approval), TSA groping your junk everywhere, FDA assault on food supplies and nutritional choices, ad infinitum. Paul Craig Roberts points out in a recent column on Infowars that if Ron Paul does not win this year, the US—barring massive popular resistance—will be in a condition of complete and utter tyranny before the next presidential election... that won't happen. [Full Column]

Excerpt of Review

Win Win (2011):
Subtle morality play w/ HS jock backdrop _ 8/10

Then the Giamatti character: We are introduced to him in a humorous vein, and he has a sort of jolly fellow-well-met demeanor. Thus it takes a while to figure that his actions vis-a-vis the legal system may be shady, or that he is fully aware of what he's doing. The writer/director McCarthy[1] skillfully navigates these early scenes with Giamatti—a furtive glance here, a forced laugh there—so the viewer is only slowly drawn into the inevitable value judgment. A kind of movie where you ask yourself what would you do in similar circumstances... also keeps you hooked to find out what Flaherty actually does.

Great pacing, holds your interest with the action, and the relationship humor makes it a comfortable, friendly movie. For the whole family. [Full Review]

Book Review
January Double Header
Red or Blue by Bob Jackson
Enough is Enough by Brendan Kelly

Both of the books I'm reviewing today fall into the fair-to-middlin' editing category. Also, as a 'Jeffersonian liberal'—a passionate advocate of natural reason—I immediately downgrade works that carry a point of view embracing supernatural belief (whether it be lumped on Jesus, the Grand Collective, or the Great Pumpkin). So that's two strikes vs. both books, right away. The good news is each book does state something unique, at least enough to contribute to the intellectual ammunition of those of us already aboard the Freedom Train. [Sadly, neither book is likely to sway any souls who sit on the fence of liberty; IMHO the messages are simply, in the case of Red or Blue, unrealistic, or, in the case of Enough is Enough, not sufficiently original to be of general interest.] But let's mine whatever ore is present [Full Review]

Guest Column

Bang the Drums Notly
Nix all the toxic thumpings for war against Iran
by Ron Burcham

After the Cold war ended with the demise of the Soviet Union the Air Force admitted that it had fudged the facts to make the USSR more of a threat than it actually was to get more money to build a bigger Air Force. When it is about power, the power hungry do what is necessary to accomplish their goals.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED!! I have taken all of the rhetoric about Iran with a grain of salt. Experience has shown me that in the beginning of a crisis the media sides with the government and promotes the propaganda that the government dishes out and then later cries crocodile tears after their complicity has gotten our troops murdered in some off-shore military empire building scheme. Iraq and the WMD's of late, Vietnam and the USS Maddox/Tonkin Gulf Incident, from my time, are concrete examples of governmental duplicity and media cooperation so I'm not surprised about what this web site has to say about the goings on in the Muddled East and at home.” [Full Column]

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A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort … is not strictly speaking a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang violence.
– Ayn Rand

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