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2007 Meetings

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When	Supperclub meets fourth Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. each month except December.
Where	Denny's in Glendora at the southeast corner of Grand Avenue and Baseline Road just north of 210 Freeway, Thomas Guide: LA569 D7
Directions	Click for MAP from Mapquest. Then get map and driving directions.

Tuesday 27 November 2007 Supperclub Meeting Agenda:Open discussion. Suggested Topic: Data-Mining - should we mind?
The meeting was attended by Robin & Bruce Graf, Bill Slaninko, David Hollist, Dan Fernandes, and Robert H. Biggadike. Chair Dan Fernandes reporting on the Los Angeles County (LPLAC) meeting of Monday, 26 November 2007 said that Dave Ruprecht was running for City Council. Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate, David Hollist, of Alta Loma, was asked to state his view on the issue of illegal immigration. This led to a lively discussion. His response indicated that he thought that if these immigrants were not violating other peoples rights, they should be allowed to stay here. Robin Graf attributed loss of jobs by Americans to illegal immigrants. David Hollist pointed out that this was the stress of capitalism since people are not given lifetime guarantees to jobs under capitalism. He asked what system could be used to replace capitalism so that we don't have this problem. Chair Dan Fernandes pointed out that systems in which employers had to get the approval of government before terminating an employee are poorly functioning economies. Bruce Graf emphasized that illegal immigrants had violated the law.

Tuesday 23 October 2007 Supperclub Meeting Agenda: Open discussion. Suggested topic: healthcare socialism Chair Dan Fernandes says it is surprising how many people would be insulted if you branded them a socialist, and yet they think the government should take over healthcare. I call these people healthcare socialists. They disguise their socialist schemes with innocuous labels like single payer plan or universal healthcare insurance. And they have all these good sounding arguments for implementing their plans. Here are four of my most unfavorite ones, followed by my responses. "The market works best for most things, but healthcare is different." Since federal and state governments pay about half the healthcare bills now, our present system is about half market and half socialist. That still makes it more market-based than most other developed countries, which is why it is the most innovative system, and why it ranks tops in customer satisfaction. "For-profit insurance companies serve no function in healthcare and can be done away with completely." If that were true, why would it be necessary for you to replace them with one giant government agency to do the same function? The only difference is that insurance companies receive their funding voluntarily from the insured, while the single-payer government agency forces it's funding out of taxpayers. "What we need is a system that puts compassion before profits." Actually, profit is quite compatible with compassion, but government is not. Name your most compassionate government agency. Would that be the IRS, the DMV, the DEA, or perhaps a VA hospital. Besides, profit acts to reduce costs, while competition acts to pass the savings on to consumers. Without profit and competition, inefficiencies proliferate. "All my Canadian friends love their universal healthcare system." Yes, those are your healthy Canadian friends. Canadians with serious health problems, like heart or kidney failure for example, are put on a waiting list in hopes that they die before costing the system any money. Thank goodness they can escape to the U.S where they have access to the best healthcare system in the world.

Tuesday 25 September 2007 Supperclub Meeting Agenda: Open discussion. Suggested topic: How would you describe the libertarian philosophy? Talking Points for the Month: Outlaw Incandescent Light Bulbs? The meeting was attended by Bill Slaninko, Dan Fernandes, and Robert H. Biggadike. It was pointed out that flourescent lighting produces more light per watt than incandescent and is also cooler than incandescent. However, flourescent lights tends to wear out more rapidly if turned on and off often. Therefore flourescent lighting is usually a poor choice for bathrooms and closets. It is much better to allow people to choose where to use flourescent and incandescent lighting than to allow government to dictate the choice. LED lighting holds hope for the future.

Chair Dan Fernandes reported on the Los Angeles County (LPLAC) meeting of Monday, 24 September 2007. He reported that Mark Selzer expressed the need for $50 per month to support his Libertarian Television show. Murray Levy was absent and acting chair, Bruce Dovner, did not call for a vote.

LPLAC received an inquiry, from a student at Occidental College. This inquiry also requested that a Libertarian speak at the college. Dan Fernandes volunteered to speak at Occidental. Zander Collier and Dan will both go to the college.

Tuesday 28 August 2007 Supperclub Meeting Agenda: Open discussion. Suggested topic: What to say to a healthcare socialist. The meeting was attended by Robin & Bruce Graf, Bill Slaninko, Robert H. Biggadike, and Dan Fernandes. Robin & Bruce discussed their recent vacation to Oregon and Utah and their participation in the LaVerne 4th of July parade. Chair Dan Fernandes reported that Angela Keaton had resigned from her Libertarian Party position.

Dan reported what he also reported by e-mail that he attended the "California Speaks" town meeting on healthcare, Saturday August 11, 2007, held simultaneously in eight major cities around the state, all linked by closed circuit television. A town meeting is a method of lending democratic fairness to the process of taking your property. Dan described it as a pep rally for socialism. Governor Schwarzenegger gave the opening speech, and about thirty seven hundred people were there, mostly to cheer for the governor's healthcare reform plan. His plan is explained at CaliforniaSpeaks It was a high-tech event costing several million dollars, all funded by the special interests who wrote the governor's plan and hope to gain from it. Each person was given a hand-held electronic voting device, and voting results were displayed graphically on giant screens in real time. Voter choices were most often phrased as - "I would support the governor's plan if it is made ...", followed by words like affordable, or accessible, or compassionate. I kept pressing the voter choice for - "Will not support under any conditions." Less than 20% of the attendees were voting my way. We had round-table discussions in groups of about eight people. The true socialist at my table kept telling us that the governor's plan wasn't socialist enough, that what we really needed was a single payer plan. That's the plan where they replace all the for-profit insurance companies with a "for-loss" state insurance agency. (Socialists hate profits but love taxes.) The state insurance agency decides all the prices for healthcare, and as the system unravels, it eventually decides if you get treatment. Those who can't get treatment can run (as the Canadians do) to a neighboring state for care - until we end up with a national single-payer plan, in which case there will be no place to run.

Tuesday 24 July 2007 Supperclub Meeting Agenda: Critical review of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth video. Healthcare Insurance Mandates: The meeting was attended by Bill Slaninko, Mars Ramage, Dan Fernandes, and Robert H. Biggadike. Dan Fernandes announced that he had been invited to attend a California health policy forum. The Schwarzenegger health care proposal includes a 4% payroll tax paid by employers. Mars Ramage expressed opposition to government provided health care pointing out that it interferes with separation of charch and state because of church affiliated hospitals. Dan Fernandes pointed out that graphs showing plots of temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide versus time over the past 600,00 years were misleading since they are used to convey the message that carbon dioxide causes a temperature increase when in fact a temperature increase causes an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. A temperature increase causes an in increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since carbon dioxide solubility decreases as temperature increases. Carbon dioxide in the oceans is thus released to the atmosphere as temperature increases and the lag is said to be about eight years. This 8 year lag cannot be seen on plots over a 600,000 year time span.

Tuesday 26 June 2007 Supperclub Meeting Agenda: Open discussion; suggested topic: your favorite energy source. Bill Slaninko, Bruce and Robin Graf, Dan Fernandes, Mars Ramage, Al Lax, Robert H. Biggadike and Murray Levy, Chair of Pasadena (Region 63), attended the meeting. Murray announced a meeting for the election of Los Angeles County (LPLAC) Officers from 1 PM till 4 PM on Saturday, 30 June 2007 at Shakers Restaurant, (818) 246-4994, 801 N Central Ave, Glendale, CA 91203 just North of the 134 Freeway. Dan Fernandes mentioned that Jacob Hornberger does not support school vouchers and efforts to save social security because they are not strictly libertarian. Mars Ramage said that he is against the Faith Based Initiative. Robert H. Biggadike pointed out that the inflow of immigrants (legal or illegal) is good for America since they drive down the high cost of labor and help to increase the profits of employers who hire them. Despite what you hear from protectionists and commies, profits are a good thing.

Tuesday 22 May 2007 Supperclub Meeting Agenda: Open discussion with Plastic Bags and Ethanol as Talking Points, plus planning for our outreach at the Fairplex in Pomona May 30 (see article in the May-June issue of the Los Angeles Libertarian newsletter, volunteers welcome)
Plastic Bags: Paper bags cost five times as much to produce, and require four times as much energy, which makes paper more, not less, harmful than plastic. This anti-plastic campaign is an example of how environmentalists sometimes do more harm than good to the environment, in their eagerness to bash the marketplace.
Ethanol: The government has dictated that 7.5 billion gallons of corn ethanol shall be produced by 2012. Ethanol refiners are ecstatic as are corn farmers. The friendly taxpayers will happily subsidize ethanol production at the rate of $0.51/gallon. A tariff of $0.54/gallon will be used to keep out cheap imports from Brazil. The entire U.S. corn crop will be consumed to reach George Bush's goal for ethanol use. See Why Ethanol Backfires for more information.

Bill Slaninko, Dan Fernandes, and Robert H. Biggadike attended the meeting. There seemed to be agreement on the problems with ethanol. Dan reported that he had received the literature for the naturalization ceremonies. It was planned that Robert H. Biggadike and Dan Fernandes would pass out the literature after the ceremonies on 30 May 2007 at the
L.A. County Fairgrounds - Fairplex, 1101 W. Mckinley Ave., Pomona, CA 91768.

Tuesday 24 April 2007 Supperclub Meeting Agenda: Gun control and your right to self defense.
The meeting was attended by Mars Ramage, Robert H. Biggadike, Dan Fernandes, Robin and Bruce Graf, and Bill Slaninko. Robert H. Biggadike passed out copies of an article called "Free Markets Need Free People" by Gordon H. Hanson published in the Wall Street Journal of 10 April 2007. Some of the points in the article were mentioned. "Illegal immigration is better than a poorly designed guest-worker program. ... Illegal immigration responds to economic signals in ways that legal immigration does not. ... Employers would have to be able to hire the types of workers they desire when they desire." It was pointed out that it was a brilliantly written article. There was a discussion of what has been called global warming. Dan Fernandes discussed this issue and what he had learned from reading the book, "Meltdown" by Patrick J. Michaels.
Dan Fernandes reported on the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County (LPLAC) meeting of Monday, 23 April 2007. He said there would be no LPLAC meeting in May and elections would be in June. Mike Binkley resigned as chair of LPLAC because he has moved to Orange County. Murray Levy will serve as interim chair. LPLAC authorized funds for the purchase of literature to be distributed to new citizens at the naturalization ceremonies at the L.A. County Fairgrounds - Fairplex, 1101 W. Mckinley Ave., Pomona, Ca 91768 on 30 May 2007. Since the Fairplex is in our region, Region 67 is expected to provide most of the work with regard to this literature distribution.

Tuesday 27 March 2007 Supperclub Meeting Agenda: Discussion of Global Warming. The Debate Heats Up. Groucho Marx said that politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies. The current global warming scare is proof that nothing has changed since Groucho's day. Last week Al Gore appeared before a sympathetic congressional committee, telling them how they must save the world from fossil fuels. The inconvenient truth that Mr. Gore left out is that most (or maybe all) of his case against fossil fuels is based on fabrication and distortion. Fortunately, a new BBC video has arrived to debunk much of this hysteria. It's called The Great Global Warming Swindle Please send this link to all your friends to help combat the relentless propaganda campaign going on in the major media to convince people that government must take over the energy sector of our economy.

Convention Reminder: The Libertarian Party of California's 2007 Convention is this April 21-22 at the San Ramon Valley Conference Center, located just east of the San Francisco Bay. If you plan to attend and be a voting delegate for your county, please take care to make sure your state party membership dues are paid up. You must be a dues paying member to be a delegate. To join or renew your membership, go to Membership Renewal and click on "application form" at the bottom of the page. Mail it in with your dues check.

The meeting was attended by Bill Slaninko, Bruce & Robin Graf, Dan Fernandes, and Robert H. Biggadike. Bill Slaninko said he was reading about Abraham Lincoln. It was recommended that he read "The Real Lincoln" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo and Walter Williams review of this book. Dan Fernandes mentioned that Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County (LPLAC) had agreed to provide $100 for distribution of 1000 pieces of libertarian literature to new citizens at Naturalization Ceremonies. It is expected that Region 67 will be handing out literature at Naturalization Ceremonies held at L.A. County Fairgrounds - Fairplex, 1101 W. Mckinley Ave., Pomona, CA 91768. It was mentioned that Hillary Clinton might be a safe president because of deadlock between the executive and legislative branches caused by disagreements and unwillingness to cooperate. Of course this should not be taken as in any way an endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

With regard to the global warming debate, it was mentioned that 95% of climatic effects are due to the sun and cloud cover. Thus there is little correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature. It was pointed out that climatologist, Patrick J. Michaels, has explained the bias of global warming scientist by saying "In fact, there are several reasons for this bias within science itself, largely based in Public Choice theory and the fact that climate change competes with other important issues for public attention. Note that by far the largest source of research funds for global warming are from governments. But the amount of funding available for various scientific issues (say, global warming, AIDS, cancer, etc…) is finite, and issues compete with each other. The only successful way to win this competition is to present an individual issue as one of paramount importance; i.e. one which is a grave threat to society unless it is given substantial fiscal attention" at 2. Inherent Bias in Global Warming Science of COMMENTS ON STERN REVIEW ON THE ECONOMICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE.

Tuesday 27 February 2007 Supperclub Meeting Agenda: Discussion of current topics, which may include - (1) Prison overcrowding: Why are U.S. incarceration rates the highest in the world and what to do about it? (2) Credit cards to illegal aliens: what's wrong with that?
The meeting was attended by Mars Ramage, Bill Slaninko, and Robert H. Biggadike. The question, Is our country a Christian Nation, was discussed. There was also some discussion of two Thomas J. DiLorenzo's books, "The Real Lincoln" and "How Capitalism Saved America". Reviews of these books are tabulated below.

"How Capitalism Saved America" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
Book Reviews by George C. Leef and Laurence M. Vance

Walter William's Review of
"The Real Lincoln" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Tuesday 23 January 2007 Supperclub Meeting Agenda: Open Discussion may include minimum wage laws and illegal immigration. The following links may be of interest in providing talking points for the meeting.

Minimum Wage by Tom McClintock

The Independent Institute	Open Letter on Immigration An Excellent Article on the Benefits of Legal and Illegal Immigration	Rebutting Dimitri: The Economic Truths About Immigration
Republicans Have Spent Decades Erecting Barriers Against Legal Immigration Americans Against the American Dream: To Be Anti-Immigration Is to Be Anti-American
Robert Tracinski on Benefits of Illegal Immigration and America's Real "Assimilation" Dilemma
Illegal Immigrants are Paying a Lot More Taxes Than You Think by Shikha Dalmia of Reason Foundation

The meeting was attended by Al Lax, Robert H. Biggadike, Dan Fernandes, Bruce Graf, and Robin Graf. Chair Dan Fernandes reported on the LPLAC (Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County) meeting of Monday, 22 January 2007. He displayed a chart showing that the Net Worth of LPLAC varied between +$1500 and -$1300 in 2006. He reported that Bylaws for the state party were being proposed which would take the state party out of the campaigns of Libertarians running for U. S. Senator or U. S. Representative. The reason for this is primarily because of the risks of fines or imprisonment of people associated with the campaign. The U. S. election laws are very complex and require a great deal of legal expertise to understand. There was also discussion of the war in Iraq.