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"I heartily accept the motto, -- 'That government is best which governs least;' and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, -- 'That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have....I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government....There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen."
- Henry David Thoreau,
Civil Disobedience, 1848

We believe that those who live aloof from the state, who drop off the tree as it were, who don't meddle with it and are not embraced by it are sovereign individuals. The more perfect and glorious state which Thoreau envisions, we believe, would be a condition of universal individual sovereignty, and in a way the absence of any formal standing government.

Does that mean there would be no "State"? To a large extent, yes, that's what it would mean. There would be a more perfect and glorious condition, which Thoreau might have been meaning when he used the term "State" there at the end. A condition or status is a sort of pun on the word "state."

So, it is coming up on election day in the United States. We hear from a friend in Ukraine that there would be elections there, soon, as well. In Russia, Vladimir Putin has consolidated power and appears ready to re-establish much of the dictatorial authority of the former communist government, if not the actual brutality found under Stalin or his successors.

For whom should you vote? Of course, in our view, you should not vote at all. Or, more pointedly, you should not consent to be governed by others. You should, moreover, vote for yourself by not going to the polls to vote for anyone else.

If you are truly sovereign, then you should live aloof from the State, neither meddling with it nor embraced by it. Voting is a way of meddling with the state, and a fast way to become embraced by it. So leave it alone.

How is it meddling? Well, voters choose the government, at least in theory. If you have sincerely made a choice for self-government, then choose to rule yourself. Don't choose a ruler for someone else, and don't choose to be ruled by the winner of that election.

How is it being embraced by government? Registering to vote means registering to be a part of the state. Many states now use voter registration to select jurors. Many states use "motor-voter" as a way of combining the malicious functions of driver licensing and voter registration. If you aren't driving passengers or cargo for hire, you are likely not a driver under the laws of your state, and therefore not subject to licensing. In any event, you can see how registering to vote begins you on the long dark road to being embraced by the state. Stay away.

George Carlin once said that he doesn't vote because he doesn't consent to be governed. We think he's right. Lysander Spooner asserts that voting is not consenting to be governed, but can be done purely out of defensive purposes - voting to avoid the worst of the tyrants. We disagree with Spooner. Carlin points out that voting means you consent to the outcome of the election, you agree that the majority wins. So, again per Carlin, "if you vote, you don't get to [complain]." (Mr. Carlin used a slang term for complaining referring to a female dog.) Having once agreed to the terms of registration, the voter then shows up at the polls and agrees to the outcome of the election.

It is only presumptive that the outcome of the election is the majority of votes cast. In fact, so far as we know, there is endless vote fraud and abuse. The use of polling machines and computerized polling systems seem to be expanding the potential for abuse and often reducing the paper trail. Certainly the 2000 elections show the difficulties with reproducibility, which makes the election process highly non-scientific. We are aware of numerous instances of vote fraud and abuse, some reported by such conspiracy-theory-empty groups as the Texas Republican Party. If the votes aren't properly counted, what business do you have as an ethical person voting or even registering to vote?

Another class of arguments against voting is the philosophical issue of voting as a method for taking choices. Does it have any merit? We don't see much merit within it. Rather than voting, scientists tend to choose based on the available evidence. Even one piece of evidence, if persistently reproducible, may tend to make a scientific theory invalid. Scientists are endlessly polled about issues of the day, but their opinions about these issues are of no consequence. Their expertise is in science, and no scientist votes to select which scientific theory best fits the available data.

Finally, there is the aggression of voting. Voting is a sort of mock combat. It presupposes that the side with the most noses would win in a real combat situation. Jonathan Swift's character Gulliver is mystified by the counting of noses in one of the countries he visits because it is not, on the whole, the noses which have anything to do with the matter being decided.

So, too, with combat. The side with the biggest army doesn't always win, nor even very often. From Thermopylae (480 BC) to Agincourt to Bryce's Crossroads to Somalia (1993), the side with the biggest battalions or the most sophisticated technology doesn't necessarily win the battle nor the war. Leonidas and his men held the pass at Thermopylae until the Greeks could be rallied. Henry and 400 knights and 4,000 yeomen archers won at Agincourt against a reported 35,000 French knights and some 60,000 peasants. Nathan Bedford Forrest defeated endless superior Yankee forces in numerous engagements, not the least of which were those at Bryce's Crossroads. The Somalis in Mogadishu defeated a superior force, at times using $40 rocket propelled grenades to bring down $20 million helicopters. So the assumption that the most noses wins is a foolish assumption.

If you are already committed to voting, then by all means vote against the status quo. Vote for change whenever possible. Vote for Libertarian or Constitution or other third party candidates. After all, the Libertarian for president, Michael Badnarik, went to jail to defend free elections. He was attempting to serve court papers on members of the Federal Debates commission on 9 October 2004 when he was arrested for crossing a police line in St. Louis. Obviously, if the various candidates for president are not welcome at the debates, if federal election money is to be spent only for Democrats or Republicans, then the process is rigged and you shouldn't vote for either Democrat or Republican, if you vote at all.

The Private Venture Capital Stock Exchange (PVCSE) is a private club. Members are allowed to participate on the club's discussion forum and take positions in the listed stocks. The exchange currently lists four stocks and several companies are considering listings in the near future.

It is a members only club. You would be welcome to apply for membership. You pay for membership in the club. The club functions as a stockbroker of sorts, and exacts additional fees on the purchase and sale of shares. There are also fees paid by companies who wish to be listed.

There is a membership application on the site. Be sure to review it carefully. If you want to join the club, you may wish to have good legal counsel review the application and inform you about your rights or obligations, especially as they apply to whatever jurisdiction you happen to be in. Your country may assert ownership over you or otherwise limit your involvement in private clubs, so it may be prudent to visit another country, set up an address there, and join from that location. (Yes, we still call that approach "jurisdictional arbitrage.")

There is a good bit of jurisdictional arbitrage involved already. The company is organized in Panama, the domain registered to "Sir Siddley" in Panama, and the hosting appears to run off IP addresses from a Pacific island. The site now runs an automated trading platform. Its first listing was established in 2001.

The listed companies are A10, GBH, MCG, and PVH. We review here each stock and suggest two of them for further consideration. Note that all four companies are priced (or to be priced) in grams of gold. Thus, there is no use of regulated currencies for the private transactions involved in these trades. We use the term trade advisedly, since the use of gold in exchange for shares functions as a type of barter exchange rather than an ordinary purchase.

A10 is the newest company listed. It appears to offer certain trust services and to be working with a related company. The web site for the main company is at-unit.com and the related company is terrafermagroup.com. In addition to PVCSE, this company's site suggests it may be listed at LESE, another private exchange site. When we went to press, we had been unable to get any response to our inquiry. The site requests that all applicants sign a non-disclosure agreement, which we opted not to do since our plan was to make a disclosure in this newsletter. Thus far there seems to be no trading activity and the company shows a zero price

GBH is Gold Barter Holdings. Gold Barter was founded in July 2000 by Jim Davidson and Tristan Petersen. Accordingly, the author won't make a recommendation regarding this company. The company has four major web sites which provide various services. Cambist.net is the company's main source of operating income. Cambist provides exchange services between national currencies and various online gold currencies including e-gold, e-Bullion, Pecunix, GoldMoney, and 1MDC, as well as several silver currencies including e-gold silver. The company recently re-introduced their automated exchange system which had been put out of action in March 2002 due to security difficulties.

MerchantGold.com is a bridge between traditional business financial systems and the online gold systems. Companies or merchants are able to have funds sent to the MerchantGold office by their customers. The merchant is then paid in gold, while GBH extracts a fee.

GoldBarter.com is the company's flagship auction service. It provides auction services to a wide array of products and services, some of which are banned on other sites. All auctions are conducted in gold, hence the name Gold Barter. The site provides currency conversions so users can see, e.g., auction prices in dollars. Like many alternative auction systems, GoldBarter offers enhanced privacy and some unique auction deals, but has thus far not made much of an inroad into eBay's market dominance.

WontonGold.com is the company's newest service. GBH recently bought the domain registrar service of Rick van Rein for an undisclosed amount. Rick continues to work on his OpenFortress systems and services, and was eager to turn over the domain service business. WontonGold accepts e-gold and GoldMoney for domain name registrations.

We hear a lot of rumors. One rumor is that in early November, GBH will be paying a dividend. We have not heard of any qualifications for ex-dividend status, so you may wish to contact company principals. Their corporate site is GoldBarterHoldings.com and their officers would be able to inform you more completely about any events of that nature. Yes, we found PGP keys for their principals so you should be able to communicate privately.

The GBH listing on PVCSE.com is presently a private placement memo of sorts, perhaps more private than most. Accordingly, the list price is one gram per share. This value has not changed since the listing went active in April 2004, presumably meaning that the listing is not fully subscribed.

Three things would tend to enhance value of shares in GBH. First, the share price is denominated in grams of gold. Since the price of gold has increased from $12.21 per gram in April (about $380/ounce) to $13.63 this week (about $424/oz) the value of the shares in dollars has appreciated by 11.6% on the period or over 23% on an annualized basis. We anticipate further increases in the price of gold this year, to as much as $484/oz or $15.56 per gram. Gold is poised to go much higher in the next several years, presumably meeting the price of the Dow at a figure of $6000 or so (about $193/gram). The flip side of that equation is that appreciation of gold is devaluation of the dollar, so the glorious wealth of higher gold prices indicates much less purchasing power for dollars.

Second, if GBH issues dividends, owners would be able to realize a return on their investment. A history of paying dividends is good for any company's value. Other investors would likely seek to buy shares in order to benefit from future dividends. Of course, there is uncertainty whether GBH is preparing to come forward with a dividend soon, and there is no guarantee that future dividends would be forthcoming.

Third, GBH may complete its private offering and then the shares would trade on the PVCSE. Buyers and sellers who are members of the private exchange would then set a market price. Buyers seeking more shares would tend to elevate prices; sellers seeking to liquidate their positions would tend to reduce prices.

These same issues apply in general to MCG, Micro Casino Gold and PVH, Pecunix Venture Holdings as well. Until A10 has any trade activity, there is no way to evaluate it with respect to these matters.

MCG is a shareholder in the Gold Casino. The Gold Casino is an active online gambling site which offers a variety of games. Recently, thanks in part to investors like MCG, the Gold Casino began offering multi-player games which simulate the experience of being in a room with other gamblers playing cards. This multi-player technology is based on a real-time software application called RingMaster which was developed by a good friend.

In addition to innovating in the gaming area, the Gold Casino offers casino chips which are grams or centigrams of gold. (A centigram is a hundredth of a gram.) In other words, the value you gamble for is real gold. The Gold Casino uses jurisdictional arbitrage to good effect. Their domain is registered to a company based in Sealand and their IP addresses trace to the Havenco server there.

You may wish to become a shareholder of the Gold Casino directly. If so, you visit their site dBourse.com which is a sort of digital bourse or stock exchange. The dBourse exchange lists only one stock, and it is priced (last sale) at 102.38 grams of gold per share. At a recent price of gold, that makes each share worth $1,395.64. Why?

Well, the Gold Casino pays dividends. On the first of October they paid 0.74 grams per share. For July, August, and September they paid 0.72 grams per share per month. For April, May, and June 0.69 grams per share per month; for January, February, and March 2004 they paid 0.65 grams per month; for the last three months of 2003, 0.62 grams per share per month; for July through September 2003, 0.6 grams per share per month. In other words, based on the last 12 months of dividends paid and the current price of 102.38 grams per share, the stock is yielding 7.97%. (In dollars, the dividends for the last 12 months amount to $111.53.)

Put another way, the stock is priced about 12.55 times its dividends per share. If we assume that earnings per share are twice the dividends per share, then the stock is trading at about 6.28 times earnings. Very low for a high-tech venture, and also low for a casino stock. (The Dow Casino index has been running as high as 26 and as low as 9 times earnings, e.g.) [Editor's Note: Underlined portions represent correction as of 22 Nov 2004.]

Finally we come, alphabetically, to PVH, Pecunix Venture Holdings. PVH is the parent company of Pecunix.com.

Pecunix is an online gold currency. It has excellent governance features. The gold is stored in Zurich, Switzerland, which has long been a good jurisdiction for gold ownership. The data is kept on a Pacific island. The company works with Anglo Far East for all its bullion needs.

Pecunix is one of the online gold currencies accepted at the Gold Casino. It is also the currency for any PVCSE activities - paying membership fees or funding your account there. It is also the currency of choice for GoldCart.com and Garzoo.com which are related ventures.

The security features for Pecunix are excellent. Logging in involves selecting parts of a user identifier code from drop down lists, as well as a password and, for advanced users, PGP passphrase verification. We feel strongly that Pecunix has superior features that make it "the thinking man's online currency" in the words of Mr. Davis.

We also suggest you buy PVH. The stock is currently trading at 0.05 grams of gold, which is about 68 cents per share. Although the stock was trading at 0.06 grams in May 2003, gold was much lower then and the stock was about 65 cents per share in US$ terms. Although the share appreciation works out to only about 3.3% per annum, the company is well financed to carry it through the next two years. We expect the company will prove successful and begin to pay out dividends in the next few quarters.

Space Frontier

"This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius."
- Hair

We thought this week we'd spend a few minutes on the sky. There seems to be a lot of confusion about the precession of the equinoxes and other matters.

If you get up early in the morning, or stay up quite late, you should be able to see Venus move into the constellation Virgo on the 23^rd of October. We advocate staying up late the night of 22 October since you'll get to see the Orionid meteor shower, with as many as 30 meteors an hour. In the following days Venus approaches very close to Jupiter. You should see both bright planets make a close approach in the pre-dawn hours (about 5 a.m.) during the first week of November. Both Venus and Jupiter are quite enjoyable as naked eye objects, brighter than everything else in the sky except Sun and Moon, but a pair of good binoculars or a nice telescope would give you an even more enjoyable view. Some features on Jupiter, such as the red spot are visible with a good telescope, and binoculars should reveal the Galilean satellites.

Mercury went into superior conjunction on 5 October, about the time friend Rutan was winning the X-prize. You won't see it peek out from behind the Sun for many weeks. Saturn rises around midnight and abides in the constellation of Gemini for October. In other planetary news, the Moon ventures into Earth's shadow for a total eclipse on Thursday 28 October at about 03:00 Greenwich Mean Time. Yes, that's a full Moon, else it wouldn't be eclipsed, and also known as "Hunter's Moon" because it provides light for a great opportunity to shoot Bambi's Dad. Blam!

Yes, full Moons are the kind where the Sun is behind the Earth, so the Moon is opposite and its near face fully lit. Thus, the Moon is full when the Earth passes between it and the Sun, for a lunar eclipse. Variations in the orbits of Earth and Moon mean that there isn't a lunar eclipse for every full Moon, but there is necessarily a full Moon for every lunar eclipse. The new Moon must be in the sky for an eclipse of the Sun. That is, the Moon is on the same side of the Earth as the Sun, so it can sometimes get between Earth and Sun. Though the Copernican Principle asserts that there are no special times or places in the universe, we happen to live at a time when the Sun and Moon make up roughly identical apparent angles in the sky, so a new Moon just covers the Sun. Since the Moon was likely formed several billion years ago when a Mars-sized body crashed into Earth, the Moon gets further away every year. By the time the equinoxes precess a few more times the Moon won't cover the Sun completely, and we'll speak of transits of the Sun rather than eclipses. Of course, as the Moon gets further away and its apparent angle is less, it would continue to be totally eclipsed by Earth's shadow every few full Moons.

According to Dan Brown in The daVinci Code the age of Pisces was characterized by mankind without knowledge being led by rulers, whereas the age of Aquarius would be characterized by enlightened man ruling himself. "'In terms of prophecy,' Teabing said, 'we are currently in an epoch of enormous change. The millennium has recently passed, and with it has ended the two-thousand-year-long astrological Age of Pisces - the fish, which is also the sign of Jesus. As any astrological symbologist will tell you, the Piscean ideal believes that man must be told what to do by higher powers because man is incapable of thinking for himself. Hence it has been a time of fervent religion. Now, however, we are entering the Age of Aquarius - the water bearer - whose ideals claim that man will learn the truth and be able to think for himself. The ideological shift is enormous and it is occurring right now.'"

But, that is mistaken. Knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes probably dates back to the Age of Gemini which ended around 6,140 BC or about 8,140 years ago. That was near the end of the last ice age. So, what did we know and when did we know it?

You are aware that the Earth rotates on an axis which is tilted to the plane of the ecliptic. This axial tilt provokes seasonal variation in temperature. The northern hemisphere experiences winter when the north pole is tilted away from the Sun; shorter days and longer nights prevail from the autumnal equinox which arrived on 22 September 2004 until the Winter Solstice which is the shortest day of the year, 21 December. Then the days get longer and the nights get shorter until the vernal equinox when the day is just as long as the night. Shorter nights and longer days prevail until the longest day of the year at Summer Solstice, and then the process reverses again. Days shorten and nights lengthen until the autumnal equinox comes around again and night and day are equal.

So, you are adrift in the universe aboard a planet which is a spinning top, moving around its primary, the Sun, every year. But, because that spinning body precesses or "cones," it points the north pole at slightly different parts of the sky every year. The precession causes a slow shift to the West of the equinoctial points along the plane of the ecliptic by 50.27 seconds of arc per year. After about 13,000 years, the pole star won't be Polaris but Vega.

The exact cycle is 25,920 years. Ancient astronomers who were called astrologers identified 12 constellations along the plane of the ecliptic which were called the zodiac. These constellations, by tradition, are Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio. The zodiac constellations give us 12 "ages" of 2,160 years each. (The tradition is a bit suspect, since there is in fact a thirteenth constellation, Ophiuchus, through which the Sun passes.)

By tradition, those with birthdays in late March (after the equinox) through early April are considered to be born under the zodiac sign "Aries" when, in fact, that time period is more closely associated with the ascendance of the constellation Pisces. Of course, that is consistent with our knowledge that the vernal equinox is currently running through Pisces, no longer Aries, and not yet Aquarius. Obviously, then, astrology got its peak interest in the age of Aries - including the time when Ptolemy ruled Egypt. (Now is probably not the time to discuss Emperor Constantine's worship of Sol Invictus before his death-bed baptism nor the relationship between Roman sun worship and the Temple of the Pyramid and its astrology cult. Suffice it to say that a great deal of confusion has been propagated by the Catholic Church to keep things in line with Ptolemaic astronomy long after Copernicus and Galileo proved otherwise.)

One of the earliest zodiac calculations is associated with the Egyptian Temple of Hathor and is known as the zodiac of Dendera. According to one archaeological reckoning, this temple marked the precession of the equinoxes as far back as the Age of Taurus beginning 4380 BC. (Google for Schwaller de Lubicz.) If so, then the Age of Pisces would have begun at 60 BC and the Age of Aquarius would begin at AD 2100.

Using modern astronomy software, another team of experts asserts that the Age of Aquarius would begin around Anno Domini 2070. Yet another calculation suggests that the first star in Pisces to cross the vernal equinox did so in 111 BC. By that calculation, the Age of Aquarius begins around AD 2049.

So, "this" meaning now is not the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. The Age of Pisces didn't end at the millennium and it is foolishness to suggest it has. The earliest year when the Age of Aquarius would begin seems to be AD 2049. There is yet a bit of time for mankind to be led around by their collective and several noses.

Though, if we let the other shoe drop on that thirteenth constellation, and we assume that there are thirteen even divisions of the precession of the equinoxes (unlikely, given the uneven distribution of the constellations) we find ages of about 1994 years each and if we accept the 111 BC beginning for the age of Pisces, then the age of Aquarius began in AD 1883. A detailed analysis of the passage of the first star of Aquarius across the equinoctial line is certainly called for, but all told we can be pretty sure that the 1979 film "Hair" got it wrong.

"We are thrilled to be involved in NASA's Project Constellation. This is the most important national space endeavor since the Apollo Program."
- Jason Andrews, 20 Sep 2004

Bad news from NASA. They've awarded a $6 million contract to Andrews Space, Inc., a privately held "small disadvantaged" business to develop "preliminary concepts for NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle" and to define visions and architectures for human missions to the Moon and Mars. Why is that bad news?

It's NASA, people. They are going to sole source the launch services arrangements, to the extent that they aren't able to convince themselves to dust off the remaining shuttle orbiters until another batch of seven astronauts blazes a trail across the sky to their own deaths. This "Crew Exploration Vehicle" is to be "capable of transporting humans to low Earth orbit by 2014 and to the lunar surface by 2020." Boy howdy, folx.

We're really looking forward to it. Nothing quite so delightful as another NASA boondoggle. With their grasping nature we anticipate NASA killing off yet another set of space transportation entrepreneurs, by hook or by crook. If you doubt our cynicism, just ask Gary Hudson whatever happened to Rotary Rocket.

NASA will continue to massacre astronauts and attack the free market for space transportation so long as NASA exists. NASA delenda est.

This week we thought we should brief you about New Utopia. You can find out more about them at their web site though their news page hasn't a lot new since November 2003.

As near as we can tell, they still haven't found a spot in the Caribbean Sea where they would like to build their sea-based platforms which isn't someone else's territorial waters or claimed territory. Admittedly, the point seems to be a bit further West of the Caymans than the last time we looked.

New Utopia is the brainchild of a Tulsa, Oklahoma millionaire who calls himself "Lazarus Long." In addition to recognizing the need for new countries, Lazarus seems to think highly of longevity research. So, he is probably not a bad guy and we wish him and his efforts well.

We've seen no significant progress on their development for several years. It may be that progress is being made quietly, which we fully support. Meanwhile, several entrepreneurs have been developing new sea platform technologies, and we look forward to profiling some of them in the near future.

"The elderly (age 70-79) residents of rural India who eat large amounts of curry appear to have the lowest incidence of Alzheimer's disease in the world.
- Will Block, LE, Nov 2004

Does curry prevent Alzheimer's? It might. It contains turmeric or "Curcuma longa" which is a bright yellow spice also found in yellow mustard. Among their other properties, the polyphenolic compounds in this yellow ginger-like spice are very potent anti-oxidants. Curcumin is also a "nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug" or NSAID. Curcumin's dual properties as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory are believed to account for its ability to prevent the neuro-degenerative changes seen in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients.

Curcumin seems to induce a useful heat-shock protein called heme oxygenase-1 which seems to promote certain anti-oxidant functions and helps the body resist trauma associated with heat and shock. In the central nervous system, this activity seems to reduce the effects of Alzheimer's or helps to forestall its development. Curcumin also works as an effective metal chelating agent, scavenging various harmful metal ions so they may be safely excreted.

You probably don't think of calcium as a metal, unless you are a chemist. Nevertheless, calcium is a metal and its ions can become involved in atherosclerotic plaque through a process of calcification. Other metal ions, notably copper, iron, and zinc seem to induce the aggregation of amyloid-beta molecules into senile plaques. And it turns out that curcumin is an effective chelator of copper and iron (but not zinc).

If eating a bunch of curry every day is not your preference, there are several supplements which offer turmeric or curcumin. Check your favorite supplement store or web site.