Health

Coconut oil could combat tooth decay

Coconut oil attacks the bacteria behind tooth decay and could be used in dental care products, according to research.

Scientists found that coconut oil which had been treated with enzymes stopped the growth of Streptococcus bacteria - a major cause of tooth decay.

Tooth decay affects 60% to 90% of children in industralised countries.

Speaking at the Society for General Microbiology's conference, the Irish researchers say that coconut oil also attacks the yeast which causes thrush.

The research team from the Athlone Institute of Technology in Ireland tested the impact of coconut oil, vegetable oil and olive oil in their natural states and when treated with enzymes, in a process similar to digestion.

The oils were then tested against Streptococcus bacteria which are common inhabitants of the mouth.

Only the enzyme-modified coconut oil showed an ability to inhibit the growth of most strains of the bacteria.

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“Start Quote

It is important that we turn our attention to new ways to combat microbial infection”

Dr Damien BradyAthlone Institute of Technology

It also attacked Streptococcus mutans, an acid-producing bacterium which is a major cause of tooth decay.

Active acids

It is thought that the breaking down of the fatty coconut oil by the enzymes turns it into acids which are active and effective against bacteria.

Previous research found that enzyme-modified milk could stop Streptococcus mutans from binding to tooth enamel.

Researchers now want to look at how coconut oil interacts with Streptococcus bacteria at the molecular level and which other strains of harmful bacteria it can inhibit.

Dr Damien Brady who led the research at the Athlone Institute of Technology with Patricia Hughes, a Masters student, said coconut oil could be an attractive alternative to chemical additives.

"It works at relatively low concentrations.

"Also, with increasing antibiotic resistance, it is important that we turn our attention to new ways to combat microbial infection."

Their studies are also looking into the workings of antibacterial activity in the human gut.

"Our data suggests that products of human digestion show antimicrobial activity. This could have implications for how bacteria colonise the cells lining the digestive tract and for overall gut health," said Dr Brady.

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U-Haul with equipment for Biden event stolen in Detroit

Washington (CNN) – A U-Haul truck loaded with equipment for a Monday event featuring Vice President Joe Biden was stolen in Detroit Sunday, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service said.

"A U-Haul that we were utilizing was stolen at the Westin Hotel overnight," Ed Donovan told CNN.

Donovan would not specify what equipment was in the U-Haul at the time it was stolen, and added that the theft shouldn't affect the vice president's plans on Monday.

Biden is scheduled to speak at a Labor Day rally in downtown Detroit Monday and march in a parade organized by the Michigan AFL-CIO. Last year President Barack Obama spoke at the Motor City's Labor Day celebration.

Could it have been the Obama campaign's attempt to shut him up?

Hypocrisy on display

Suppression! DNC Charlotte: Identification required, even just near convention site

Ponerology

Kelly O'Connell

Are mentally ill persons fated to ascend to power in socialist political movements? History proves this to be true. Yet, we must inquire further: Could a genuinely far left establishment be dominated by any type other than nut-cases, given the moral defects of Marxism?

The question, fortunately, answers itself. Granted, we see Lenin, Stalin and Mao as all quintessentially mad souls—quick to unleash violence on others. Yet today, many mental health practitioners and observant private persons see the only likely explanation of Barack’s hopelessly self-absorbed, superficial and harm-inducing personality as the result of a profound mental defect.

Ponerology is the study of institutionalized evil in high places. But is there such a thing as evil, or is what we call “evil” merely the lack of good in any particular situation? If evil exists, it seems to imply decision making which depends upon mankind’s freewill, misused. Whether any particular politician is evil, as opposed to merely clueless or lacking in the kind of training that fits one for the task, depends upon the details of each case. Here we examine the idea, and whether it applies to Barack Obama. The book is a study of what the editor calls:

Macro-social Evil: large scale evil that overtakes whole societies and nations, and has done so again and again since time immemorial. The history of mankind, when considered objectively, is a terrible thing.

I. What is Ponerology?

Ponerology, from the Greek rootponeros for “evil,” means the scientific study of evil as a disease, societal and political phenomenon. Andrzej M. Lobaczewski, a Polish psychiatrist, coined the term and wrote Political Ponerology (A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes)as a study of the topic. Writes Lobaczewski,

Experience has taught the author that evil is similar to disease in nature, although possibly more complex and elusive to our understanding. Its genesis reveals many factors, pathological, especially psychopathological, in character, whose essence medicine and psychology have already studied… A comprehension of the essence and genesis of evil generally makes use of data from [biology, medicine, and psychology]. Philosophical reflection alone is insufficient.

Continue...

Devolution

Murder suspect has to try twice to get arrested in Detroit

DETROIT — A man suspected of fatally shooting two men and seriously wounding two others had to turn himself in twice before Detroit police would arrest him, authorities said.

Detroit police said the 36-year-old man got into an argument at a party on Saturday, retrieved a gun and opened fire. Four people were shot, and two died. The man turned himself in at a fire station about two hours later, and fire officials called police, but no officers turned up.

Police said in a statement that "due to area patrol units being busy handling high priority runs, no units were dispatched to the location."

The man eventually went to a police station, where he was arrested.

Police Chief Ralph Godbee said he has ordered an investigation into why no patrol car was sent to the fire station.

Police should have made "every effort to ensure that this person was taken into custody," he said in the statement sent late Saturday by the department.

Police spokeswoman Sgt. Eren Stephens told The Associated Press on Sunday that the department would examine what police units were doing at the time the suspect tried to surrender, including whether they might have been involved in other aspects of the shooting investigation.

Police did not immediately release the name of the suspect or the victims or provide details on the shooting investigation. They said the men who were shot ranged in age from 19 to 37.

Detroit police have undergone serious personnel cuts under Mayor Dave Bing's state-supervised effort to close a large budget deficit and avoid a state financial takeover. The city recently imposed a 10 percent pay cut and 12-hour work day for officers.

Stephens said the police department wouldn't immediately comment on the adequacy of its staffing.

Bing spokeswoman Naomi Patton said Sunday that the mayor's office "had nothing else to say beyond what's in the police statement."

Decades of Democrat Party mismanagement.

Let me guess..

Obama Surrogate Richardson: 'International Community Wants to See this President Reelected'

Those in favor of Obama's reelection: Ahmadinejad, Putin, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hugo Chavez, There are more.

The opportunity for vote fraud.

Group says it found 30,000 dead North Carolinians registered to vote

By Kelly Poe

Published in: Politics

RALEIGH A Raleigh-based group devoted to reducing the potential for voter fraud presented the N.C. Board of Elections on Friday with a list of nearly 30,000 names of dead people statewide who are still registered to vote.

The Voter Integrity Project compiled the list after obtaining death records from the state Department of Public Health from 2002 to March 31 and comparing them to the voter rolls.

“Mainly, what we’re concerned about is the potential [for fraud],” said project director Jay DeLancy. “Since there is no voter ID law in North Carolina, anybody can walk in and claim to be anyone else.”

DeLancy said his group has found evidence to suggest voter fraud in these numbers, but will not quantify how much until he is able to do more analysis. Most cases of what look like a dead person voting are likely just administrative errors, such as a son named Junior voting in his father’s name instead of his own.

The rolls of registered voters are updated every month when the state Department of Health and Human Services gives a list of all death certificates received that month to the state Board of Elections.

Problems arise when the names on the death certificates do not match the names on the voting records, which often happens after women get married, Board of Elections General Counsel Don Wright said Friday. Addresses are also often listed with slight differences, Wright said. An address on West Millbrook Road and Millbrook Road might be the same house, but computers won’t always catch it. “Unless there is an exact match, we do not remove people from the voter rolls,” Wright said.

DeLancy said his volunteers work to fix the discrepancies, by examining cases of similar names and addresses and confirming other pieces of data, such as whether the voter has the same date of birth.

Wright said the elections board will investigate the names provided by the Voter Integrity Project and take appropriate action. The state board can remove voters from the rolls for inactivity if they haven’t voted in two consecutive elections, which cleans up most problems over time, Wright said.

In 2009, 261 cases of voter fraud were sent to local district attorney’s offices in the state, the majority of which concluded investigations from the 2008 election, according to a report by the state Board of Elections. Of those cases, 229 involved convicted felons voting. The board did not investigate anyone for fraud in the May primaries, Wright said.

DeLancy says his group’s list of dead registered voters would have been larger had it included records from Virginia and South Carolina, which together account for 55 percent of all North Carolinians’ out-of-state deaths, he said. Although most states allow the release of death certificates for voter registration accuracy, Virginia and South Carolina do not, DeLancy said.

“We said, ‘Are you kidding? This is 2012.’ ” DeLancy said. “We want Virginia and South Carolina to fix that loophole in the law.”

The Voter Integrity Project describes itself as a nonpartisan group aimed at clean, fair elections. It supports requiring photo ID to vote, which Republicans typically support and Democrats typically oppose.

Earlier this summer, the organization sued to have 528 Wake County residents it claimed were not U.S. citizens removed from the voter registration. The county elections board investigated the complaint and found that all of the voters were citizens and eligible to vote.

Islamists terrorism

Pakistan: Cleric arrested for planting evidence in blasphemy case

The cleric responsible for accusing a Christian girl for blasphemy has been arrested in Pakistan after witnesses claimed he planted evidence against her.

KARACHI, Pakistan — Police have arrested a muslim cleric who reportedly planted evidence to frame a mentally disabled Christian girl for blasphemy.

The girl, Rimsha Masih, was arrested outside Islamabad two weeks ago after an angry mob of 150 people claimed that she was burning pages with Quranic verse on them.

However, the cleric, Khalid Jadoon Chisti, didn't think that burning pages simply containing texts from Quran would be enough evidence to charge Rimsha, so he planted pages from the Holy Quran into the evidence, CNN reported.

Chisti was arrested by police after three witnesses came forward and told a judge about the cleric's actions.

The case has brought Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws into the spotlight once again.

According to Voice of America, anyone accused of blasphemy in Pakistan can be executed under the death penalty. The laws are often blatantly misused to settle local disputes, and human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, have called on the Pakistani government to reform the law.

In 2011, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was gunned down by his bodyguard for supporting reform and speaking out against a Pakistan Christian, Aasia Noreen, being given the death sentence for blasphemy. A few months later, Pakistan's minority minister, a Christian, was also killed. Taseer's son was kidnappedthat August.

Rimsha is currently in a maximum-security prison, though a report by an independent medical board found her to be a minor, and reported that her IQ was lower than her age. Unverified reports claim that the girl may have Down's Syndrome.

The BBC reported that Rimsha's family has been taken into protective custody, and many Christian families have fled the neighborhood, fearing religious persecution.

A court will decide whether Rimsha remains in jail this Monday.

http://www

The Left's first impulse is to lie and distort

HUFFINGTON POST MISQUOTES OHIO GOV TO IMPLY RACISM

The Huffington Post misquoted Ohio Governor John Kasich from a Wednesday Tampa event to make a comment of his seem racist.

According to author Jon Ward, the Ohio governor said that African-Americans need to be convinced that they can "come off the streets" and become small business owners.

The Columbus Dispatch's Joe Vardon later posted an article quoting Kasich accurately.

To illustrate his point, Kasich said he recently read an article about rap mogul, actor, and businessman Jay-Z, who is a minority owner of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets.

"He’s running the whole God-darn place now," Kasich said, referring to the Nets. "People like that, who have shown that they can come from the streets, and have a tough beginning and then be able to become incredible entrepreneurs, we’ve got to get that into our schools and the inner cities where we can show kids that hey, you can be what you want to be."

Jay-Z, born Shawn Carter, grew up in the Brooklyn projects and his early life struggles are well known. Kasich was clearly speaking about Carter in this context.

The editors at Huffington Post have since changed the article. Ward, however, alsotweeted the misquote, which was then retweeted by dozens of followers. He has not deleted the tweet or corrected the quote on his timeline.

Unlike in '08 he now has a record to see.

Iowa city councilman: Obama has fundraised over touring flood damage before

President Barack Obama ignored a request to tour flood damage in Sioux City, Iowa, last summer, City Councilman Keith Radig said in a radio appearance. Obama chose not to visit the area the Missouri River flooded last summer, Radig added, and is only going to speak at the city’s Morningside College at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday because he’s in desperate need of votes against Mitt Romney ahead of November’s election.

“You could kind of describe Obama as a fair weathered friend — he’s one that’s only there when he needs something from you,” Radig said. “But when we needed his leadership, he was nowhere to be found. In the Midwest we are hardworking and determined. We are tired of struggling due to the Obama policies.”

Radig added that when five congressmen wrote to Obama last summer asking him for help and to visit the damaged area, he declined, instead campaigning on other side of Iowa.

The charge that Obama views natural disasters victims and damage as nothing more than political props was compounded this past week when the president announced that he would tour Hurricane Isaac damage in Louisiana only after Romney did. Romney visited Louisiana on Friday to tour the Hurricane Isaac damage with Gov. Bobby Jindal.

It wasn’t until after Romney’s visit that Obama changed his schedule. Obama will be visiting Louisiana on Monday, and he canceled political rallies he had scheduled during that time in Ohio until Friday afternoon to go to Louisiana. “In light of the president’s travel to Louisiana to meet with local officials and view ongoing response and recovery efforts to Hurricane Isaac, President Obama will no longer travel to Cleveland, Ohio on Monday, September 3,” said a Friday afternoon White House statement.

And so the Democrat Convention begins.

One Calif. delegate hospitalized, another threatened with arrest

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A California Democratic Party official was hospitalized early Sunday morning, and another who allegedly falsely claimed to be a member of Congress was threatened with arrest in connection with a disturbance in the lobby of the delegation’s hotel.

The man who was hospitalized was seen being carried from a taxi into the Blake Hotel shortly before 2 a.m., when he either fell or was dropped in the lobby, leading hotel staff to grow concerned about a head injury. As he lay unconscious on the floor, hotel employees called 911, checked vital signs and stabilized his body until paramedics arrived, strapped him to a board and took him to a hospital by ambulance.

“Often times at conventions, people who have not seen each other for a long time gather and sometimes people have too much to drink,” said party spokesman Tenoch Flores. “That appears to have been the case here and we’re gathering more information.”

Information about the man’s condition was unavailable Sunday afternoon.

The other party official, also a delegate, tried to intervene when hotel staff called the paramedics, arguing that the unconscious man had merely had too much to drink and ought to be put to bed. When he tried to physically move the man’s body, hotel staff called the police.

When officers arrived, the man allegedly claimed to be a member of Congress at least twice, before stating repeatedly he that he was a state party official. Police threatened to arrest him when he refused to provide identification, and hotel staff threatened to kick him off the property. He later apologized and was allowed to remain for the remainder of the night, with staff planning to contact state party officials Sunday to discuss whether he would be allowed to complete the remainder of his stay.

Officers responding to the incident declined to comment. Flores said the party is investigating the man’s behavior.

Muslims killing Muslims for money

Somali pirates claim to kill hostage over ransom delay

Silly woman

ICE chief of staff resigns amid misconduct claims

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior Obama administration political appointee and longtime aide to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano resigned Saturday amid allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior lodged by at least three Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees.

Suzanne Barr, chief of staff to ICE Director John Morton, said in her resignation letter that the allegations against her are "unfounded." But she said she was stepping down anyway to end distractions within the agency. ICE, a division of the Homeland Security Department, confirmed Barr had resigned. The Associated Press obtained a copy of Barr's letter.

Barr is accused of sexually inappropriate behavior toward employees. The complaints are related to a sexual discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by a senior ICE agent in May.

In her letter to Morton, Barr said she has been the subject of "unfounded allegations designed to destroy my reputation" and is resigning "with great regret."

"Of greater concern however, is the threat these allegations represent to the reputation of this agency and the men and women who proudly serve their country by advancing ICE's mission," Barr wrote. "As such, I feel it is incumbent upon me to take every step necessary to prevent further harm to the agency and to prevent this from further distracting from our critical work."

Barr went on leave last month after the New York Post reported on the lawsuit filed by James T. Hayes Jr., ICE's special agent in charge in New York. Additional employees came forward with their allegations around the same time.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., said in a statement Saturday that Barr's resignation "raises the most serious questions about management practices and personnel policies at the Department of Homeland Security." He said his committee will continue to review the case and personnel practices at DHS.

In one complaint, Barr is accused of telling a male subordinate he was "sexy" and asking a personal question about his anatomy during an office party. In a separate complaint, she is accused of offering to perform a sex act with a male subordinate during a business trip in Bogota, Colombia. She's also accused of calling a male subordinate from her hotel room and offering to perform a sex act. The names of two of Barr's accusers were censored in affidavits reviewed by AP.

Homeland Security's office of professional responsibility and inspector general have been investigating the allegations.

Prior to the lawsuit, there were no complaints about Barr, according to a homeland security official who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

In the lawsuit, Hayes described a "frat house" atmosphere at ICE designed to humiliate male employees under Barr's leadership. Hayes, who was transferred to New York from ICE headquarters in Washington, is asking for more than $4 million that, among other things, would cover compensation he believes he is owed for relocation expenses and financial losses associated with his transfer.

Hayes' lawyer, Morris Fischer of Silver Spring, Md., has declined to comment.

The Justice Department is seeking to dismiss Hayes' lawsuit on the basis that he did not state a claim for retaliation.

Barr, a 1995 graduate of the University of Arizona, was among Napolitano's first appointments after she became secretary in 2009. Barr started working for Napolitano in 2004, while Napolitano was governor of Arizona. Prior to that, Barr worked for Arizona Republican Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain.

Socialism or crony capitalism?

The friends of Mike

What kind of a restaurant does the city Parks Department envision for the Tavern on the Green site in Central Park?

A pretty mediocre one, apparently, according to Post restaurant critic Steve Cuozzo.

Cuozzo went to Philadelphia to check out the only restaurant currently being run by the Emerald Green Group — which the city tapped to run a new Central Park eatery and whose co-owner includes the brother-in-law of one of Mayor Bloomberg’s closest advisers.

Turns out, the Philly restaurant is “minor league, even by Philadelphia standards,” Cuozzo wrote.

The folks who want to transform the historic site into a 500-seat dining destination are operating a 65-seat creperie with “a fast-food feel,” according to Cuozzo.

As for the food, the salad “tasted out of a supermarket bag” and the crepe fillings “had the formulaic, starch-bomb heft of thickened canned soup.”

All of which justifies the question raised by Cuozzo: “What exactly qualifies them for the task” of reinventing this iconic restaurant site and managing it for the next two decades?

And it should finally start raising some eyebrows around City Hall about how Emerald Green got the contract in the first place.

The Parks Department insists the group got a higher evaluation than either of its two local competitors, and provided The Post’s David Seifman with its internal scoring sheets.

But Cuozzo’s review — which, granted, is just one man’s opinion — suggests that the possible cronyism factor may not be as irrelevant as Mayor Bloomberg contends.

The crony in this case being former Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey — Mayor Mike’s political guru, key strategist of his flirtations with a presidential run and now a top exec at Bloomberg LP.

Sheekey’s wife’s brother, Jim Caiola, is one of Emerald Green’s co-owners.

Everyone concerned insists that Sheekey played no role whatsoever — and Bloomberg adds that Caiola did “exactly the right thing” in not notifying the Parks Department of his City Hall connection.

But it still stinks.

What the hell ever happened to the Caesar’s-wife standard, anyway?

New Yorkers have been waiting years for the Tavern site to be reborn — into something more inviting than the tourist trap it eventually became.

Frankly, it’s looking like City Hall is just baiting another trap.

North Korea

North Korea makes "significant" nuclear reactor progress: IAEA

Another Jimmy Carter success. Didn't he get a Nobel Prize for something called the "Framework"?

We have been fooled so many times in the "Food for Nothing in return" scheme you would think it wouldn't work anymore.

I'm sure Code Pink and the CPUSA are very happy

SUrprised? Socialism promised much but steals more

French pessimism nears all-time high -poll

(Reuters) - The French are bleaker about their country's future than at any time since 2005, a new poll showed on Saturday, with 68 percent saying they are "rather" or "very" pessimistic, the highest level ever in the initial months of a new presidency.

The poll's findings jibed with a survey released last weekend which found that Socialist President Francois Hollande's approval rating had slipped to 54 percent, continuing a steady decline since he took office in May.

The level of pessimism fell just short of an all-time high of 70 percent registered in August 2005, when the poll was created near the end of Jacques Chirac's government.

Hollande's government has been reeling from unemployment at a 13-year high and a rash of job cuts in recent weeks at top employers like carmaker Peugeot and retailer Carrefour . The government launched a plan this week to create 150,000 state-sponsored jobs for youth.

Only 34 percent of those surveyed were confident in the government's ability to battle unemployment, and just 20 percent expect the government to be able to improve their buying power.

"It's the first time that anxiety is so high at the beginning of a presidential mandate," said polling firm Ifop, which conducted the survey for Dimanche Ouest France newspaper, in a statement accompanying the findings.

Pessimism stood at just 34 percent at the equivalent point in Chirac's presidency in 2002 and 50 percent in Nicolas Sarkozy's in 2007, the firm said.

The government's efforts to spur consumption have been complicated by its EU deficit-cutting commitments, which mean hitting a 3 percent deficit target next year. That will force it to find some 30 billion euros ($37.8 billion) in deficit cuts next year, half of which it has said would come from spending.

The poll found that the pessimism extended even to 58 percent of Socialist party supporters.

Nearly 60 percent lacked confidence in the government's ability to strengthen law and order, which has emerged as a concern in the wake of riots last month in the city of Amiens.

Those surveyed were asked: "In thinking about the future, for you and your children, would you say that you are very optimistic, rather optimistic, rather pessimistic or very pessimistic," along with queries about their confidence in the government's ability to make progress on various issues.

The poll was based on the views of 1,004 people aged 18 and over, interviewed Aug. 30 and 31.

Sheriff Joe

Feds end probe of 'America's toughest sheriff' Joe Arpaio; no charges

A federal criminal inquiry into several of those matters was concluded last summer with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona declining to initiate criminal charges.

Maricopa County authorities were informed on Friday that federal prosecutors had likewise declined to bring charges in connection with allegations that the sheriff's office had misused county credit cards or misspent money from jail facilities excise taxes.

In addition, the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to prosecute two former officials of the county attorney's office who were accused of wrongfully prosecuting a local judge.

Follow link in headline to continue

The Paramilitarized Bureaucracies

Mark Steyn:

I flew in to Montreal from an overseas trip the other day and was met by a lady from my office, who had kindly agreed to drive me back home to New Hampshire. At the airport she seemed a little rattled, and it emerged that on her journey from the Granite State she had encountered a "security check" on the Vermont–Quebec border. U.S. officials had decided to impose temporary exit controls on I-91 and had backed up northbound traffic so that agents could ascertain from each driver whether he or she was carrying "monetary instruments" in excess of $10,000. My assistant was quizzed by an agent dressed in the full Robocop and carrying an automatic weapon, while another with a sniffer dog examined the vehicle. Which seems an unlikely method of finding travelers' checks for $12,000.

Being a legal immigrant, I am inured to the indignities imposed by the U.S. government. (You can't ask an illegal immigrant for ID, even at the voting booth or after commission of a crime, but a legal immigrant has to have his green card on him even when he's strolling in the woods behind his house.) And indeed, for anyone familiar with the curious priorities of officialdom, there is a certain logic in an agency that has failed to prevent millions of illegal aliens from entering the country evolving smoothly into an agency that obstructs law-abiding persons from exiting the country.

But my assistant felt differently. A couple of days later, I was zipping through a DVD of The Great Escape, trying to locate a moment from that terrific wartime caper that I wished to refer to in a movie essay. While zapping back and forth, I chanced on a scene after the eponymous escape in which Richard Attenborough and Gordon Jackson are trying to board a small-town bus while Gestapo agents demand "Your papers, mein herr." My assistant walked in in the middle, and we exchanged some mordant cracks about life under the Nazis. "It's almost as bad as driving from Lyndonville to Lac Brome for lunch." Etc. Her family have lived blameless and respectable lives in my North Country town for a quarter-millennium, and she didn't like the idea of having to clear an armed checkpoint on a U.S. highway in order to leave the country.

But, if you don't care for the Third Reich comparisons, consider more recent European ones: The capital flight from Greece, Spain, Italy, and elsewhere as the euro zone approaches breaking point. Greek bank deposits dropped 16 percent in the year to this April; according to a Credit Suisse analysis, capital outflows from Spain are currently running at about 50 percent of GDP. Most of these Mediterranean euros have found safe haven in German banks. You can do that on the Continent, not just because of the common currency but because of the free movement of people within the so-called Schengen area. That's to say, if a Greek figures that now's the time to load up the trunk with "monetary instruments" and drive them to a bank in Munich before the whole powder keg goes up, there's no gauntlet of machine guns and sniffer dogs to run. My friend's experience suggests that, come the collapse of the U.S. dollar, Washington is going to be far less sanguine about you tootling what's left of your 401(k) up to the Royal Bank of Canada.

In fact, it already is. On January 1, the FATCAT Act (technically, it's FATCA, but we all get the acronymic message) imposes a whole new bunch of burdensome regulations and punitive fines on Americans with non-U.S. bank accounts. Not just Mitt and his chums with the numbered accounts in Zurich, but ordinary Americans teaching abroad at, say, the International School in Accra, or doing regular business in Ireland, or with an old family hunting camp in Quebec for which they've always had a small checking account just to pay grocery and fuel bills when they're up there. Americans now enjoy less financial freedom than Canadians, Swedes, and Italians. When I mentioned this on NRO recently, I received a fair few e-mails from readers saying they have no plans to work abroad or buy a second home, so why should they care?

Here's why: Because Washington is telling you something important about how things are likely to go when things get even worse. Which is the way to bet. American government is not noted for its sense of proportion. This is a bureaucracy whose Fish and Wildlife agents fine an eleven-year-old Virginia schoolgirl $535 for the crime of rescuing a woodpecker from a cat and nursing him back to health; whose National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agents threaten a marine biologist with 20 years in jail over whistling at a whale; whose Food and Drug Administration agents want a hundred grand in fines from some onanistic weirdo in Fremont who gives away his sperm to infertile couples. If you're wondering which of the Food and Drug Administration's twin responsibilities semen counts as, don't waste your time: Whether your deposit belongs at a Swiss bank or a sperm bank, it's all federally regulated.

By the way, I use the word "agents" rather than "officials" because, in the developed world, the paramilitarized bureaucracy is uniquely American. This is the only G7 government whose education minister has his own SWAT team — for policing student-loan compliance. The other day, the Gibson guitar company settled with the feds over an arcane infraction of a law on rare-wood importation — after their factories were twice raided by "agents" bearing automatic weapons. Like the man said, don't bring a knife to a guitar fight. Do musical-instrument manufacturers have a particular reputation for violence? Akin to that of female marine biologists and sixth-grade schoolgirls?

As American insolvency grows and the dollar dies and the real value of household wealth shrivels, is it likely that Washington will share Athens, Madrid, and Rome's insouciant attitude to capital mobility? Or will exit controls on I-91 become as familiar a sight as TSA patdowns? The United States has the most powerful government, with the longest reach, of any nation in history. It is also the Brokest Nation in History. Resolving that contradiction is unlikely to be pretty.