Fabrication power to the People! Why no government can stop the 3D printing revolution

Friday, May 10, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of  NaturalNews.com

(NaturalNews) The 3D printing revolution has arrived, and it's freaking out governments around the world because distributed, non-centralized fabrication technology threatens their monopolistic controls over physical objects. For a few thousand dollars, anyone can purchase a 3D printer (an "additive" desktop fabrication device) and print out physical objects using ABS plastic. (See list of manufacturers, below.) 3D plans are freely available to download online, and the printers are on the verge of flooding into the marketplace with a wide range of affordable, easy to use models from a large number of manufacturers.

Being able to print your own objects sounds amazing to the average citizen. Need a hose mender for your garden hose? Don't drive to Home Depot to get it -- just print it! Need a replacement part for your child's toy? Just design it in 3D software and print it! Any object you can imagine can be printed in ABS plastic, including complex gears and objects with intricate details. Many printers can print in multiple colors, too. Read More

It's the character, stupid

May 11, 2013
americanthinker.com
Thomas Lifson

Mark Steyn has a magnificent column today on the Benghazi Lie. He directs our focus to an issue more important than policy" character. The Benghazi episode reveals what he later characterizes as "depravity." With his trademark incisiveness and wit, he eviscerates the behavior of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The entire column demands to be read, but here is one of many excellent examples: Read More

The Enemy from Within and the Enemy from Without

May 11, 2013
americanthinker.com
By William J. Meisler

"For Westerners to think that what the West does will matter with regard to the necessary internal reformation of Islam represents intense narcissism and arrogance."

In 1453, with the Turks literally on the verge of storming the once-impregnable walls of Constantinople, the Byzantine Greeks persistently devoted their energies to their longstanding passion for arguing over matters of religious minutiae among themselves rather than attending sufficiently to the catastrophe at hand. Even if by that date the final fate of the Byzantine Empire had already been sealed, it is nevertheless marvelous to behold how the Byzantines could not stop themselves from indulging in their customary habits of bitter religious disputation even as the Turk was poised to engulf them forever.

In a similar vein, the political histories of both Ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy are full of examples of factions in a given city regularly allying themselves with the traditional enemies of that city in order to achieve or maintain their own power in their own city.

The dynamic of the whole process of such internal disintegration resulting from intense domestic political rivalry can be said to revolve around a fatal combination of the principles of "divide and conquer" from without and "a house divided against itself cannot stand" from within, with that inevitably present taskmaster the ego blinding the judgment and driving the actions of the ill-fated players involved. Read More