SAN FRANCISCO, Kalifornia - March 16, 2011 - A former United States Geological Survey scientist says a major quake on the west coast is imminent.

Jim Berkland predicts earthquakes…accurately.

Never heard of him? Perhaps you should - especially if you live on or near the west coast of the United States, or know someone that does.

All tyrannies, regardless of their origins, use fear to maintain their power bases.

The worst tyrannical powers have used fear to maintain order and insure that the people comply with their demands: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and  Mao are just a few examples. Fear has also been used by “benevolent” groups such as religious organizations to maintain control, but I will save that discussion for another time.

Dear Peace Officer:

I don't want to kill you. I don't even want to wound you. I admire your courage and the commitment you've made to help others, often at the risk of your own life. I hope you won't come for me, because if you do, one of us will die. It may be you. I've done nothing wrong. I don't intend to.

But the government that you serve has passed too many laws. I am sure to accidentally break one, some day. That same government is systematically destroying the unalienable rights which our Constitution says may not be infringed - very specifically, my right to keep and bear arms.

BOSTON, Massachusetts - January 31, 2011 - Future technology may put the brakes on drunk drivers and save many lives as researchers in Massachusetts are developing a system that will prevent a car from starting if the driver's blood alcohol level is higher than the legal limit.

The new technology, known as the Driver Alcohol Detection Systems for Safety, would use sensors that would measure blood alcohol content of the driver in two possible ways, by analyzing a driver's breath or through the skin, using sophisticated touch-based sensors situated in places like steering wheels and door locks.

CAIRO, Egypt - January 30, 2011 - According to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, the United States government had been planning to topple the Egyptian president for the past three years.

The files show Washington had secretly been backing leading figures behind the uprising, which has seen more than one hundred people killed and over 2,000 injured since it began on Tuesday.

January 26, 2011 - Police departments around the country are warming up to unmanned spy planes. But don’t expect the Department of Homeland Security to catch drone fever anytime soon. It’s too controversial for an agency already getting hammered for naked scanners and junk touching.

NEW YORK - January 24, 2011 - A spate of shooting attacks on law enforcement officers has authorities concerned about a war on cops.

In just 24 hours, at least 11 officers were shot. The shootings included Sunday attacks at traffic stops in Indiana and Oregon, a Detroit police station shooting that wounded four officers, and a shootout at a Port Orchard, Washington Wal-Mart that injured two deputies. On Monday morning, two officers were shot dead and a U.S. Marshal was wounded by a gunman in St. Petersburg, Florida.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota - January 24, 2011 - Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura is suing the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, saying full-body scans and pat downs at airport checkpoints are violating his rights.

January 19, 2011 - While ears may be the new bionetric du jour, Advanced Optical Systems (AOS) is doing its best to keep fingerprints as the preferred method for identifying enemies of the state. The company has built a fingerprint scanner with the ability to accurately read a print up to two meters away, and our military views the system as a means to reduce the risk to soldiers at security checkpoints all over the world.

In his brilliant and well-circulated essay, Common Sense, Revolutionary Founding Father Thomas Paine wrote, “government at its best (i.e. when it is doing everything right and nothing wrong), is a necessary evil.”

In other words if like me, you view government from the Thomas Paine school of thought, then governments - all governments - are inherently evil.  This means that government is never your friend and only your ally when its own evil objectives benefit from the alliance.

Couple this characterization of government with the growing paranoia being displayed by numerous governments around the world, and what you get is a very chilling image of the future.  I for one find it to be very frightening, indeed!