Chubby Checker Sues Two Companies For $500 Million Over Wang-Measuring App Downloaded 84 Times

from the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up dept

Here's a question that has been keeping me awake for the past several years: what would I call a smart phone application designed to approximate the size of my naughty parts? The answer, of course, is to call it the Chubby Checker, which is exactly what a company did some time ago. Apparently 1960's rock and roll legend Chubby Checker is so pissed off about it that he wants approximately all of the money (by which he means a hell of a lot more money than) the app ever made. And, for some reason, he wants it from HP and Palm, who no longer offer the app at all due to the platform being completely dead, and who appear to have complied with his requests in every way. There's a joke about Palm being involved in a penis size app, but most of it is too vulgar for Techdirt's audience. Let's just say the punchline is "That's what I call two in the hand and one in the bush!" and get back to the story.

Checker's lawyers are seeking half a billion dollars for the "irreparable damage and harm" caused by the Chubby Checker, an app for Hewlett-Packard's Palm OS platform. "This lawsuit is about preserving the integrity and legacy of a man who has spent years working hard [editor's note: HA!] at his musical craft and has earned the position of one of the greatest musical entertainers of all time," explained lawyer Willie Gary.

Yes, according to Willie [editor's note: his name had to be Willie, didn't it?], an application from a company now extinct, released for a mobile platform also extinct, has caused irreparable harm to a rocker from the 60's. Okay, apologies for digging into this, but that's what the post requires. A chubby is a term for a man's wang. If you're going to check it out, chubby checker describes the app. Sorry, but that's the deal. And I want to know who, out of the grand total of 84 people who downloaded this app, in any way thought about The Twist, or in any possible way thought that this app was endorsed by the 71 year old man born Earnest Evans. Because here's the thing: if you associated a penis and a song about a dance in which you twist into knots, you're a masochist and an idiot. And, frankly, the tarnishment aspect of their complaint is the most reasonable part of it all.

That's because of their ridiculous request for $500 million for an app downloaded 84 times on a platform now defunct from a company also defunct. And their filing is against HP and Palm, not the actual app developer, who actually took the app down in September of last year, the same month when that same filing shows Checker's lawyers first sent HP/Palm their cease and desist (filing embedded below). So, they took a dead app for a dead platform that almost nobody downloaded and injected all of it back into the public news realm, and Checker's/Evans'/Whoever's lawyers claim the app is the one causing harm to the brand? It seems a hell of a lot more likely that filing this ridiculous lawsuit is going to cause harm to Checker's brand than anything HP or Palm did. Per their own hilarious press release:

The lawsuit alleges that the egregious and flagrant acts of Hewlett Packard and Palm, Inc., if not stopped immediately, will permit Defendants to enjoy profits to which they are not entitled.

Newsflash, guys, there is no current way for HP and Palm to profit from this app. This entire suit against them is ridiculous. If 3rd party sites are still offering it, go file spurious trademark lawsuits against them and then lose in court. HP did everything you asked and you're still suing them for an astounding $500 million, even though they didn't create the app or have anything to do with it. Meanwhile, you're making your client look like a chubby (get it?).             http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130214/10011321971/chubby-checker-sues-two-companies-500-million-over-wang-measuring-app-downloaded-84-times.shtml

Stranded Carnival 'Triumph' cruise ship transformed into floating prison as company refuses to evacuate passengers barely surviving in filth and raw sewage

naturalnews.com

Originally published February 14 2013

Stranded Carnival 'Triumph' cruise ship transformed into floating prison as company refuses to evacuate passengers barely surviving in filth and raw sewage

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) The stranded Carnival cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico has tragically proven to be quite an experiment in human behavior. The ship has been stranded for 96 hours following an engine fire. Ship engines also generate all the on-board electricity, so once the engine burned out, the ship's power grid went down, too. How's that for a carnival? Grid down!

Once the grid goes down, so do all the toilets, because on-board sewage pumps run on electricity. Carnival cruise passengers have been told to defecate in plastic bags and urinate in their showers. There are reportedly only five flushable toilets still operating on the entire ship. That's five toilets for 4,200 people.

Along with the sewage system going offline, the air conditioning is down as well, so passengers are sweltering in the Gulf of Mexico heat and forced to sleep on deck in order to inhale without puking. But there's vomit everywhere, passengers say, because the putrid conditions and raw sewage have caused nearly everyone to "lose it" on deck.

All the food refrigeration and preparation equipment is also offline. So there are no refrigerators, no ovens, no blenders, etc. Not surprisingly, food is in extremely short supply, and this has resulted in "reports of fights breaking out as savages fight over dwindling supplies," reports, The Independent.

The paper goes on to report:

Conditions on board a cruise ship stranded in the Gulf of Mexico have deteriorated dramatically, reportedly leaving passengers fighting over food and the vessel caked in urine and raw sewage.

And here's a text from a passenger:

Conditions are getting worse by the hour. Cabin carpets are wet with urine and water. Toilets are overflowing in the cabins, we are having to sleep in the hallways. Onion and cucumber sandwiches last night.

Cruise ship transformed into floating prison

Astonishingly, instead of sending helicopters to air-drop supplies or a rescue ship to offload passengers, the Carnival Cruise company sent tugboats to slowly pull the crippled ship back to port, a long, slow journey that requires the passengers to remain in putrid, savage conditions for at least another 24 hours.

Carnival Cruise Lines refuses to evacuate the passengers and move them to another ship. Cruise industry experts say trying to evacuate the 4,200 people would be dangerous because many of those people are angry and talking about lawsuits. Thus, the solution is to turn the Carnival cruise ship "Triumph" into a floating prison.

A Tweet from Carnival explains the company's decision to keep passengers imprisoned on the ship: We evaluated a wide range of options incldung using another ship to transport guests but the safest solution was towing the ship back to port.

Safest for who? The company? And what are the lifeboats for if not to rescue passengers from a ship that's out of power, covered in filth and raw sewage, and listing to one side?

A cruise ship is like a city: completely dependent on the outside world for survival

Here's why all this matters: A city is a lot like a cruise ship. It relies on outside inputs to keep its inhabitants alive. Without the power grid, every city in the world becomes much like this "sewage adventure" Carnival Cruise ship known as "Triumph." Without food, every society quickly devolves into savagery.

Every city in the USA and around the world is just 96 hours away from a complete breakdown.

Such a breakdown could occur almost instantly with something like a nationwide failure of the EBT "food stamps" system or a solar flare that takes out the power grid.

People who live in cities today are, in essence, living on "islands" of delusion, thinking that food is abundant and electricity is always present. But this all a mirage. In reality, cities have NO food production capacity, and electricity is delivered from remote locations over a complex system of electrical transformers and cables that's remarkably vulnerable to solar weather events.

If you live in a city right now, you are metaphorically riding on a cruise ship, placing yourself just 96 hours away from total chaos and a mass breakdown of civility.

It's just one more reason to get out of the cities and seek a more sustainable, self-reliant life in the countryside.

Photo credit: en.wikipedia.org/Scott L

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Who Tells Us What To Think? Does The Mainstream Media = The Matrix?

By Michael, on February 14th, 2013

 

Do you believe that you really think for yourself?  Did you come up with your attitudes, opinions and beliefs on your own, or are they continually being shaped and molded by someone else?  Could it be possible that you and everyone around you is actually hooked into a real life version of "the matrix" that is constantly defining your reality for you?  Sadly, the truth is that almost all of us have willingly hooked ourselves into a colossal media system that literally tells us what to think.  In the United States today, the average American watches 153 hours of television a month.  We also spend huge amounts of time watching movies, surfing the Internet, reading books and magazines, playing video games and listening to music.  Many Americans are so addicted to being "connected" that they will actually become physically uncomfortable if they are at home and there is total silence.  Unfortunately, as I pointed out in a previous article, somewhere around 90 percent of the "information" that we are allowing to be endlessly pumped into our heads is owned by just 6 gigantic media corporations.  So could it be possible that the thousands of hours of "news and entertainment" that you are allowing these gigantic corporations to fill your head with each year is having an effect on you?  Does the mainstream media have more control over you than you ever dreamed possible?  If you want to continue on in blissful ignorance, stop reading now,  but if you want to take "the red pill", keep on reading because the further down the rabbit hole you go, the stranger that things get.
When you go to work or to school in the morning, what is everyone talking about?
Usually, people are talking about something that they saw on television or that they heard about in the news.
In our society today, the limited interactions that we do have with other people are usually defined by our mutual connection to the media.
The mainstream media literally defines for us what is important and what is not.  If the mainstream media does not talk about something, then it simply does not matter.
I don't know how many times over the years I have heard someone tell me some version of the following statement: "If that was true we would have heard about it on the news."
Has anyone ever said something similar to you?
The funny thing is that most of the time I won't even mention something important that I may have heard in one of my articles unless I can back it up with a "mainstream source", and I don't even trust the mainstream media.
I know that the mainstream media often distorts the facts and often tells outright lies, but I regularly link to them because that gives my articles more "credibility" in the eyes of those that are still fully hooked into the matrix.
In a world where the big media corporations have so much power, is there any hope for us?
As long as the big corporations that control the media are dominating and controlling the conversation, is there any chance that there will ever be a mass awakening among the American people?
Our young people seem particularly addicted to being constantly "connected" to the media matrix that is being constructed all around us.  The following is a brief excerpt from a recent article by Daniel Taylor...

According to a 2010 LA Times report, young people spend on average 53 hours a week watching TV, playing video games, and sitting at the computer.
Facebook users spend about 15 hours a month on the social networking site.
People are walking – and driving – blindly while texting, sometimes walking into fountains and even falling off cliffs.

Wow - our young people spend more than 200 hours a month connected to the mainstream media?
But we only have about 480 waking hours a month to work with.
If they are being exposed to that amount of continuous propaganda, what hope do our young people have?
In the old days, kids actually played with each other in the streets and adults actually left their homes to interact with one another.
But these days we spend nearly all of our time sitting passively in our homes staring at flickering screens.
Is that a sign of a healthy society?
We were created to be social creatures.  We were designed to love and to be loved.  But these days people "love" their favorite sports teams or they "love" their favorite television shows but we have an increasingly difficult time having real relationships with each other.
Meanwhile, the global elite rely on the mainstream media to keep us distracted and to control the boundaries of public discourse.  Most of the time, the mainstream media focuses on the latest celebrity scandal or the latest dogfights between the Republicans and the Democrats and they systematically ignore many of the more important things that are taking place out there.
Let me just give you one example of how the mainstream media shapes the news.  For decades, there was almost a complete and total media blackout on the Bilderberg Group meetings that happen every year.  Top newspaper executives from the United States would actually attend these meetings, but then their newspapers would not say a single word about them.
If anyone out there did bring up "the Bilderberg Group", they were dismissed as wacky "conspiracy theorists" and were told that it simply does not exist.
Of course now we all know that it does exist, although the mainstream media in the U.S. still mostly ignores it.  In fact, this has been by design.  The following is what David Rockefeller is alleged to have said during a Bilderberg Group meeting back in 1991...

We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. … It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.

Even today, many prominent "journalists" in the U.S. mock people when they bring up the Bilderberg Group.  For example, Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC says that he is "way too lazy" to look into the Bilderberg Group and that he "doesn't know about it, so it must not exist".
For much more on the connection between the mainstream media and the global elite, please see this article: "Who Runs The World? Solid Proof That A Core Group Of Wealthy Elitists Is Pulling The Strings".
Instead of telling us what is really going on in the world, the mainstream media keeps us endlessly distracted.  The following are just a few of the headlines that can be found on the front pages of major mainstream news sites right now...
-College student creates condom delivery service
-Michael Douglas is feeling 'good'
-Golf tournament delayed by kangaroos
-Rock 'n' roll hamburger experience
-Lady Gaga cancels tour, set for surgery
Wow - those are some examples of some really hard-hitting journalism right there.
So why do most Americans continue to fall for this nonsense?
Sadly, part of the reason is because we have become so "dumbed down" as a society.
Recently, the Guardian conducted an evaluation of the reading level of every State of the Union address in U.S. history.  What they found is that Barack Obama's State of the Union addresses have had the second lowest reading level average in history, and that in general the reading levels of the speeches have been significantly declining over time.
But it is not just our presidents that appear to be getting stupider.  The truth is that our public education system is a total joke at this point.  Many of our high school students are as dumb as a rock, and if you can believe it, 23 percent of all Americans cannot even read beyond a fourth-grade level.
Of course the elite are quite pleased with this, because a stupid public is a public that is easier to dominate.
When a large segment of the population can barely read and is accustomed to letting others do their thinking for them, it becomes easier to lie.
For example, on Thursday Paul Krugman of the New York Times made the following statement...

"Growing dependence on government is mostly a myth"

Of course most of you that are reading this know that is a flat-out lie.  The charts in this article clearly show that the number of Americans on food stamps is at an all-time high and the percentage of the population that is on food stamps is at an all-time high.
Back in 1983, less than a third of all Americans lived in a household that got money from the federal government each month,  Now, an all-time high 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives money from the government each month.
For many more stats and charts that demonstrate the stunning growth of government dependence, please see this article and this article.
Sadly, the truth doesn't seem to matter too much to the media these days.  The mainstream media tends to be incredibly arrogant, and most of the time they don't even pretend to be "objective" or "neutral" anymore.
Fortunately, more Americans than ever are becoming dissatisfied with the mainstream media and are starting to seek out alternative sources of information.  According to a recent Gallup poll, the level of trust that the American public has in the mainstream media is now at an all-time low.
So perhaps there is hope after all.
What do you think?

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Software that tracks people on social media created by defence firm

Exclusive: Raytheon's Riot program mines social network data like a 'Google for spies', drawing ire from civil rights groups

• 
• • Ryan Gallagher
  • The Guardian, Sunday 10 February 2013 10.20 EST
  • http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/10/software-tracks-social-media-defence

Link to video: How Raytheon software tracks you online A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people's movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites.
A video obtained by the Guardian reveals how an "extreme-scale analytics" system created by Raytheon, the world's fifth largest defence contractor, can gather vast amounts of information about people from websites including Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.
Raytheon says it has not sold the software – named Riot, or Rapid Information Overlay Technology – to any clients.
But the Massachusetts-based company has acknowledged the technology was shared with US government and industry as part of a joint research and development effort, in 2010, to help build a national security system capable of analysing "trillions of entities" from cyberspace.
The power of Riot to harness popular websites for surveillance offers a rare insight into controversial techniques that have attracted interest from intelligence and national security agencies, at the same time prompting civil liberties and online privacy concerns.
The sophisticated technology demonstrates how the same social networks that helped propel the Arab Spring revolutions can be transformed into a "Google for spies" and tapped as a means of monitoring and control.
Using Riot it is possible to gain an entire snapshot of a person's life – their friends, the places they visit charted on a map – in little more than a few clicks of a button.
In the video obtained by the Guardian, it is explained by Raytheon's "principal investigator" Brian Urch that photographs users post on social networks sometimes contain latitude and longitude details – automatically embedded by smartphones within "exif header data."
Riot pulls out this information, showing not only the photographs posted onto social networks by individuals, but also the location at which the photographs were taken.
"We're going to track one of our own employees," Urch says in the video, before bringing up pictures of "Nick," a Raytheon staff member used as an example target. With information gathered from social networks, Riot quickly reveals Nick frequently visits Washington Nationals Park, where on one occasion he snapped a photograph of himself posing with a blonde haired woman.
"We know where Nick's going, we know what Nick looks like," Urch explains, "now we want to try to predict where he may be in the future."
Riot can display on a spider diagram the associations and relationships between individuals online by looking at who they have communicated with over Twitter. It can also mine data from Facebook and sift GPS location information from Foursquare, a mobile phone app used by more than 25 million people to alert friends of their whereabouts. The Foursquare data can be used to display, in graph form, the top 10 places visited by tracked individuals and the times at which they visited them.
The video shows that Nick, who posts his location regularly on Foursquare, visits a gym frequently at 6am early each week. Urch quips: "So if you ever did want to try to get hold of Nick, or maybe get hold of his laptop, you might want to visit the gym at 6am on a Monday."
Mining from public websites for law enforcement is considered legal in most countries. In February last year, for instance, the FBI requested help to develop a social-media mining application for monitoring "bad actors or groups".
However, Ginger McCall, an attorney at the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Centre, said the Raytheon technology raised concerns about how troves of user data could be covertly collected without oversight or regulation.
"Social networking sites are often not transparent about what information is shared and how it is shared," McCall said. "Users may be posting information that they believe will be viewed only by their friends, but instead, it is being viewed by government officials or pulled in by data collection services like the Riot search."
Raytheon, which made sales worth an estimated $25bn (£16bn) in 2012, did not want its Riot demonstration video to be revealed on the grounds that it says it shows a "proof of concept" product that has not been sold to any clients.
Jared Adams, a spokesman for Raytheon's intelligence and information systems department, said in an email: "Riot is a big data analytics system design we are working on with industry, national labs and commercial partners to help turn massive amounts of data into useable information to help meet our nation's rapidly changing security needs.
"Its innovative privacy features are the most robust that we're aware of, enabling the sharing and analysis of data without personally identifiable information [such as social security numbers, bank or other financial account information] being disclosed."
In December, Riot was featured in a newly published patent Raytheon is pursuing for a system designed to gather data on people from social networks, blogs and other sources to identify whether they should be judged a security risk.
In April, Riot was scheduled to be showcased at a US government and industry national security conference for secretive, classified innovations, where it was listed under the category "big data – analytics, algorithms."
According to records published by the US government's trade controls department, the technology has been designated an "EAR99" item under export regulations, which means it "can be shipped without a licence to most destinations under most circumstances".

By Spencer Ackerman

Inside the Battle of Hoth

How did the Galactic Empire ever cement its hold on the Star Wars Universe? The war machine built by Emperor Palpatine and run by Darth Vader is a spectacularly bad fighting force, as evidenced by all of the pieces of Death Star littering space. But of all the Empire’s failures, none is a more spectacular military fiasco than the Battle of Hoth at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back.
From a military perspective, Hoth should have been a total debacle for the Rebel Alliance. Overconfident that they can evade Imperial surveillance, they hole up on unforgiving frigid terrain at the far end of the cosmos. Huddled into the lone Echo Base are all their major players: politically crucial Princess Leia; ace pilot Han Solo; and their game-changer, Luke Skywalker, who isn’t even a Jedi yet.
The defenses the Alliance constructed on Hoth could not be more favorable to Vader if the villain constructed them himself. The single Rebel base (!) is defended by a few artillery pieces on its north slope, protecting its main power generator. An ion cannon is its main anti-aircraft/spacecraft defense. Its outermost perimeter defense is an energy shield that can deflect Imperial laser bombardment. But the shield has two huge flaws: It can’t stop an Imperial landing force from entering the atmosphere, and it can only open in a discrete place for a limited time so the Rebels’ Ion Cannon can protect an evacuation. In essence, the Rebels built a shield that can’t keep an invader out and complicates their own escape.
When Vader enters the Hoth System with the Imperial Fleet, he’s holding a winning hand. What follows next is a reminder of two military truths that apply in our own time and in our own galaxy: Don’t place unaccountable religious fanatics in wartime command, and never underestimate a hegemonic power’s ability to miscalculate against an insurgency.

Vader’s Incoherent Strategy in Outer Space

Vader realizes the opportunity at hand for an end to the Rebellion. Yet his bumbling fleet admiral leaves hyperspace too close to Hoth, losing the element of surprise and allowing the Rebels to activate the shield. Vader rolls with it (after killing Admiral Ozzel): He orders a ground assault on the Rebel base with the sound objective of destroying the generator that powers the shield. Once the shield is down, the Star Destroyers that make up the majority of the Imperial Fleet can launch the bombardment the shields prevent. Vader further orders that no Rebel ship be allowed to leave Hoth alive.
Sounds simple, right? Alas, Vader’s plans are at odds with each other. Vader jumps into the Hoth system with a handful of Star Destroyers; only six are shown on screen. That’s got to enforce a blockade of an entire planet. His major ally is the Rebel energy shield itself, which bottles up a Rebel escape to the Ion Cannon’s line of sight. But Vader doesn’t seem to realize the shield’s ironic value. Once Vader orders the shields destroyed, he lacks the force to prevent a pell-mell Rebel retreat.
A smarter plan would have been to launch TIE fighters against Echo Base — since aircraft and spacecraft can get past that Rebel enemy shield — to lure the Rebels into an evacuation from Hoth through their shield’s chokepoint. Concentrating the Imperial Star Destroyers there would lead the Rebellion into a massacre. At the very least, Vader has to sacrifice the ground-assault team entrusted with bringing down the generator powering the Rebel shield for a laser bombardment from the Star Destroyers.
Vader does none of this.

Probe to Hoth

Empire Arrives

The Ground Assault

The first phase of the battle is a ground assault launched against the generator. Vader devotes five (or maybe four, since Irvin Kershner’s directing isn’t consistent) Imperial AT-AT Walkers to the task. Vader sees no need to give them air cover, even though he’s tasted the quality of Rebel piloting during the destruction of the Death Star. Two of the Walkers are destroyed, one by Luke Skywalker’s Snowspeeder squadron, and another by Luke himself.
Yet the ground assault is pretty successful — by accident. The weaponry on the AT-AT Walkers doesn’t overwhelm or destroy the few laser-artillery pieces the Rebels have to protect the generator. Only when Rebel General Rieekan orders the full evacuation of Hoth do the Walkers destroy the generator. (That’s an unforced error: The Rebels need to protect that generator at the cost of their lives, lest their evacuation be totally exposed.)
Still, a win is a win. Vader is now clear to destroy the Rebel base, and the escaping Rebel ships, with a punishing Star Destroyer bombardment. Presumably, if the Rebels are abandoning their generator, they’re also abandoning the Ion Cannon that protects the evacuation.

Empire Lands

Ground Attack

Rebel Defeat

(In)Vader

Only Vader can’t bombard the base: He’s in it. For reasons that never get explained — and can’t be justified militarily — Vader joins the Stormtrooper assault on the base. So much for his major weapon against the Rebels, and the primary reason for ordering the Walkers to invade and destroy the generator. Once Vader opts to bring down the shield and lead the invasion, he’s lost the battle.
Worse, Vader is late to the fight. If he wanted to kill some Rebel scum himself, the only ones remaining at the base when Vader arrives are Han, Leia, Chewbacca and C-3PO, who run to the wheezing Millennium Falcon for their own escape. “This bucket of bolts is never gonna get us past that blockade,” Leia frets.

Rebel Evacuation

Empire Pursues Han Solo

What Blockade?

She shouldn’t have worried. Not only is there no laser bombardment from space once the shield is down, there’s no Imperial blockade worth speaking of. By sheer bad luck, Han flies into three of the Star Destroyers, which threaten to overwhelm the Falcon. But he’s just too good of a pilot, evading their pincer movement by taking advantage of the Falcon’s superior maneuverability. He flies into an asteroid belt — which somehow the Imperial Fleet had failed to account for when planning its hasty “blockade” — and the Falcon has defied the odds.
Nor does that “blockade” trap Luke, who flies to Dagobah without a single Imperial ship harassing him. That’s the worst possible news for the Empire: Luke is about to rekindle the Jedi order that poses the biggest danger to the preservation of everything Vader and Emperor Palpatine have built. While I’m not comparing the Rebel Alliance to al-Qaida or the Galactic Empire to the United States, in strategic terms, this is like Osama bin Laden’s escape from the December 2001 battle at Tora Bora, Afghanistan — a disaster masquerading as a tactical success. Indeed, once Vader returns to his Star Destroyer, he gets a message from Palpatine explicitly instructing him to prevent Luke from training as a Jedi. Oops.

Luke Escapes

Han Solo Escapes

So Much for Striking Back

What did the Empire gain at Hoth? It had the opportunity to deal the Rebel Alliance a defeat from which the Rebels might not have recovered: the loss of its secret base; the loss of its politically potent symbol in Leia; and most of all the loss of its promising proto-Jedi in Luke. Instead, Luke escapes to join Yoda; Leia escapes with Han to Cloud City (where Vader has to resort to Plan B); and the Rebel Alliance’s transport ships largely escape to join up at a pre-established rendezvous point, as we see at the end of the film.
At the very most, the Empire’s assault on Hoth killed a couple of low-ranking Rebels and destroyed a few transit ships — which we don’t even see on screen. Instead of crushing the Rebels, it scattered them, leaving them to survive for the additional successes they’ll achieve in Return of the Jedi. It’s a classic fiasco of overconfidence and theology masquerading as military judgment — and the exact opposite of the Empire striking back.                   http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/battle-of-hoth/

Our Environmental Catastrophe: Geoengineering and Weather Warfare

by grtv       

Our Coming Environmental Catastrophe: Geoengineering and Weather Warfare     

The environmental movement has developed a single-minded obsession with the supposed effects of carbon dioxide on the global climate. Rather than CO2 gas, however, the technologies that are now being proposed to mitigate this supposed problem might be the real cause of our coming environmental calamity. This is the GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV.

Transcript:

For decades now, we have been told to be afraid of the long-term effects of manmade carbon dioxide on our climate. Seemingly every day some new storm, drought, warm spell or cold snap is featured on the news, with government-funded scientists warning us that this is a sign of things to come unless the world reduces its CO2 production.

The problem, of course, is that this is a third-rate scientific hoax propagated on the strength of the public’s ignorance of the underlying science, or lack thereof. The models and predictions used to scare the public into believing that CO2 is driving climate and will continue to do so in an increasingly dangerous fashion share the distinction of being universally wrong in their predictions of trends over the past 15 years, yet we are still asked to believe in the long-term validity of these same falsified models.

As Robinson et. al. noted in their 2007 study, “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” published by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, “Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in hydrocarbon use and minor greenhouse gases like CO2 do not conform to current experimental knowledge.”

Also in 2007, J. Scott Armstrong, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of “Long-Range Forecasting,” a standard textbook on the principles of forecasting, co-authored an audit of the procedures that the IPCC used for its global warming projections, finding that those procedures violated 72 of the 89 relevant principles of scientific forecasting.

Last year the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres published a study showing that climate prediction models examining periods of less than 30 years on the geographical scale of continents are riddled with inaccuracies.

Earlier this year, the UK’s Met office was forced to revise downward their projections for temperature increase over the next four years after a 15 year standstill in global annual temperatures. Ironically, this divergence from the continuous temperature increases that had been predicted by the CO2 alarmists is now being blamed on “natural variability” including “the cycles of changes in solar activity,” which leaked drafts of the IPCC AR5 report due out next year indicate has been vastly underestimated.

Sadly, the fearmongering, hype and misleading predictions on this issue have become so internalized that there is a subsection of the population that is now willing to question whether every conceivable event in the galaxy is the result of carbon dioxide, even near-earth asteroids.

That so many are concentrating so much time and attention on the question of carbon dioxide, a trace gas in the atmosphere which itself is only partially manmade, is only to be expected. Scientists, pundits, writers and businessmen are only responding to the market incentives that are at play. Governments and universities around the world are now sinking billions of dollars a year into grants to fund research related to the supposed CO2 threat, and entire industries such as carbon trading and carbon sequestration, are developing in response to this interest. Quite simply, too much money and potential political power is at stake for the threat of global warming to be revealed as a false alarm.

One of the most worrying possibilities to arise from this trend, however, is the political legitimization of a concept that, ironically, has the potential to become a real threat to our environment: geoengineering.

The practice of geoengineering is now well over half a century old. As early as the late 1940s, American mathematician John von Neumann was researching weather modification and its potential uses in climatic warfare for the US Department of Defense. In the 1950s early cloudbursting experiments were performed by Wilhelm Reich and in 1956 Dr. Walter Russell was writing of the potential for complete weather control.

In the 1960s, Dr. Bernard Vonnegut, brother of the famous writer, vastly improved the techniques then in use by employing silver iodide crystals in the cloud seeding mixture. Silver iodide’s hygroscopic qualities insure water particles quickly bond with its crystalline structure. As the recent documentary Skywatcher points out, the process of cloud seeding is now so widely and routinely employed that it is having profound effects on our climate.

Given that CO2 is not the problem it is made out to be, coupled with the admitted advent of modern weather modification technologies in DoD research programs, it is impossible not to inquire into the possible links between the current push toward geoengineering and the military-industrial complex. Last year I had the chance to talk to Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the Centre for Research on Globalization about the past, present, and future of weather warfare technology.

The potential military benefits to the wartime deployment of weather modification technologies are self-evident. In fact, they are so self-evident that, as Professor Chossudovsky notes, the UN was compelled to introduce a convention in 1977 prohibiting the use of environmental modification technology in warfare. The US ratified that convention in 1980.

Other potential benefits to the deployment of this technology suggest themselves in the monetary sphere. So many events in the course of human activity are predicated on short-term weather and long-term climate phenomena that the ability to determine (or even influence) either could be extremely valuable. Insurance companies, for example, stand to lose billions (and reconstruction-related industries stand to make those same billions) every time a strong storm makes landfall in populated areas.

So it should not be surprising that a market has evolved for “weather derivatives,” effectively allowing large financial institutions to make money gambling on the weather. And it should also come as no surprise that this market was largely pioneered by that infamous globalist-connected insider corporation, Enron.

Last year I had the chance to talk to researcher Peter Kirby about Enron’s involvement in weather derivatives and the vast sums that stand to be made as geoengineering projects continue to be deployed under the threshold of public awareness.

Even if we were to assume that weather modification technologies are not currently being used for the purposes of weather warfare or market manipulation, the potential for such abuses alone should be more than enough to dissuade us from pursuing these technologies. Even more worrying, perhaps, are the true unknown environmental ramifications of the long-term effects of these technologies on our environment.

Ironically enough, those who are warning us of the potentially disastrous consequences of manmade climate change may be exactly right in their assessment after all. But in the end, it may not be the manmade CO2 they are worried about that is the real culprit of this coming catastrophe, but the geoengineering technologies that are being proposed as the “solution” to this problem.

Harvest of Hypocrisy: Farmers Being Blamed for GMO Crop Failures

By Glenn Davis Stone

Global Research, February 13, 2013

Fieldquestions.com 9 February 2013

Of all the GMO controversies around the world, the saga of Bt cotton in India continues to be one of the most interesting and important. In the latest chapter, reported by the Business Standard, cotton yields have dropped to a 5-year low, setting off a fascinating round of finger pointing.

India approved Bt cotton in 2002 and within a few years yields were up dramatically. There are different sets of data out there, but let’s use the India Ministry of Textiles data since it’s this weeks news story. This chart shows the national trends in cotton yield (kg per hectare).

If you follow GMO debates you will have heard several years of kennel barking about how these figures show a “remarkable success.” But as I have pointed out (in my blog and in EPW), most of the rise in productivity had nothing to do with Bt cotton; in fact it happened before Bt cotton became popular.

Check it out: the biggest rises were from 2002/3 to 2004/5, when yields rose 56% from 302 to 470 kg. But by 2004/5, only 5.6% of India’s cotton farmers had adopted Bt. Do the math: if those 5.6% of planters were really responsible for a 56% rise in yields, then they must have been harvesting 3,288 kg/ha.

Data from the India Ministry of Textiles.

So Bt didn’t explain the big rise in yields, and since Bt has taken over, yields have been steadily worsening. What are we to make of this? Well, two things, according to the Business Standard and the Monsanto spokesperson who was their main informant. One has to do with what has gone wrong, the other with what we need to get out of this mess.

1. What Went Wrong? (the farmers screwed up?)

It seems the bollworms — the voracious pests that that Bt cotton is designed to kill — are developing resistance. But resistance, according to Monsanto, is “natural and expected.”

Whoa — that’s not what the farmers were told to expect. I was there when Bt cotton was being rolled out and they were told repeatedly and confidently that they wouldn’t have to spray any more. In fact we were all being told that “genetic farming is the easiest way to cultivate crops. All that farmers have to do is to plant the seeds and water them regularly. The genetically modified seeds are insect resistant, so there is no need to use huge amounts of pesticides.”

All the farmer has to do is plant and water the seeds… and then wait around for resistance, which is natural and expected. But wait there’s more: when it does appear, it’s the Indian farmers’ fault. Monsanto’s spokesman explains:

Among the factors that may have contributed to pink bollworm resistance to the Cry1Ac protein in Gujarat are limited refuge planting and early use of unapproved Bt cotton seed, planted prior to GEAC approval of Cry1Ac cotton, which may have had lower Bt protein expression levels, he added.

A “refuge” is a strip of non-Bt seeds farmers are asked to plant around their Bt fields, basically to raise bollworms that aren’t resistant to Bt, so they can hopefully breed with any resistant bollworms.[1] Very few Indian farmers actually do this, because it’s a lot of extra work for no return. Here’s an insight from 30 years of research on farming: if you’re pushing a technology that is only sustainable if farmers follow practices that require extra work for no return, you are pushing an unsustainable technology.

The other Monsanto suggestion is that the farmers are to blame for planting unapproved seeds. Sorry, that dog don’t hunt. Those unapproved seeds were Navbharat-151 and they have been much written about; they were better than the approved seeds, and their Bt levels were apparently sky high. Gujarat, where they were planted, has had India’s biggest rises in yields.

But while we’re blaming Indian farmers, why stop there? Monsanto also explains that

farmers have been constantly educated to adopt measures such as need-based application of insecticide sprays during the crop season and adoption of cultural practices like keeping the field clean of cotton stubble and crop-leftovers, ploughing of land after harvest so that the resting stages of the insects in the soil could be destroyed.

I have yet to bump into the educators who are giving farmers constant remediation on spraying, plowing, and field clearing. But I do bump into a lot of biotechnology people who pontificate on the wisdom of the Indian farmer. The farmer has long been seen as backward, tradition-bound, and inept. “We need to teach proper tillage,” a Monsanto executive explained to me years ago. But farmers are obstinate, and in fact this was one of the arguments for GM seeds:

for years people have tried to change cultural practices of these farmers, and it just hasn’t worked. It has been a complete failure, because you have to modify infrastructure, you have to re-educate them as to how to modify their farming practices themselves. But with biotech, the technology is in a seed. All you have to do is give them the seed. (-biotechnologist Martina McGloughlin)

But as soon as Indian farmers adopted GM seeds, we were told that “we should leave the choice of selecting modern agricultural technologies to the wisdom of Indian farmers” and that “farmers are excellent businessmen who aren’t persuaded by anything or anybody that doesn’t make their job easier or more profitable.” [2]

So don’t question the wisdom of the farmer! He is a genius — at least when he is buying GM seeds. But otherwise, he has to be told how to plant, spray, plow, and clear fields!

2. Now What? (More innovation?)

So despite all the GM seeds, India’s cotton yields keep on dropping. (In some states, they are now lower than they were before Bt seeds became popular.) So what’s the way forward?

To me this is a very hard question, but not to the Business Standard, which simply reports the news that

continuous R&D and innovation to develop new value-added technologies is imperative to stay ahead of insect resistance. To support such innovation, Monsanto demanded government policies’ support to encourage investment in R&D which will result in Indian farmers having a wider choice of better and advanced technologies translating thereby, higher yield.

No kidding — innovation from Monsanto is going to keep us ahead of the insects and guarantee higher yields. But lets take a look at the facts, at least as reported by the industry-friendly ISAAA. Yields started dropping after 2007/8. But that was just after new genetic constructs started appearing: a new 2-gene technology in 2006/7, and by 2009, six different constructs were approved. And these rapidly proliferating technologies were appearing in dizzying numbers of seed products. After 2006/7, the number of Bt hybrid seeds being offered to farmers jumped from 62 to 131 to 274; by 2009/10 there were 522.

There you have it: Indian cotton farmers today are being pelted with a hailstorm of new gene technologies and seed products, their yields steadily dropping, and the way forward is clear to the Business Standard: invest in Monsanto innovation.

Glenn Davis Stone is Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.  Over the past 30 years he has studied and written about food, farming, and biotechnology.  He has conducted extensive research in West Africa, India, and the U.S., with additional fieldwork in So. Africa, Viet Nam, Thailand, and England, and laboratory work at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.  He is president of the Anthropology & Environment Society of the American Anthropological Assn.

Notes

[1] Further explanation: A field full of Bt plants puts selective pressure on bollworm populations favoring worms with natural resistance to Bt. The resistant bollworms would thrive and spread the resistance trait, while the Bt-vulnerable bollworms die off. The plants in the refuge are non-Bt, so Bt-sensitive worms are supposed to thrive there; they are supposed to mate with the Bt-resistant worms and water down the resistance trait.

[2] Pinstrup-Andersen, P., and E. Schioler 2000 Seeds of Contention: World Hunger and the Global Controversy over GM Crops. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press; Fumento, M. 2003 BioEvolution: How Biotechnology is Changing Our World. San Francisco: Encounter Books.

BIG BROTHER, ILLUSION, AND REVOLUTION IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION

truther February 14, 2013

Paul McGuire

On a global level there exists the Luciferian plan to create an-all prevailing Big Brother State that will attempt to enslave Man under the pyramid-control system of Lucifer, a plan which began after Eden and began to take shape with the building of the Tower of Babel. It is Lucifer’s attempt to enshrine himself as God, by counterfeiting the Kingdom of God through a new world order ruled by the Antichrist.

However, there are predetermined boundaries to the longevity of this Orwellian-Luciferian nightmare and then it will become increasingly chaotic and implode. The prison walls of this dimensional prison, shimmering like mirrors, will be shattered like glass by the vibratory resonance that was heard when Joshua marched around Jericho and the trumpets were blown. In the Book of Revelation we read about the Seven Trumpet Judgments which allow the king over the bottomless pit (Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek) to release demonic armies. At this time all the armies of the earth move towards Jerusalem in a final battle against the King of Kings.

Daily the news presents images of a Russian, Chinese, Indian, North Korean and Iranian build-up. Global economics, including competition for energy, especially oil, and other forces drive our world to the brink of World War III.

The present state of the world could be described as chaos or manufactured crisis. It is built on the illusionary Hegelian synthesis and it derives its energy from men choosing to love the illusion more than the truth. It is the operating procedure of the Illuminati, which calls for a new world order out of chaos. On a military level we have the rebuilding of armies by Russia, China, India, Iran and many other nations. On the level of prophetic prediction there is the upcoming Ezekiel 38 conflict and eventually Armageddon.

Lucifer, the most powerful of all of God’s angels, led a rebellion against God, in order that he could become God. That Illuminati revolution continues to this very day. Behind all geopolitical, economic, military, scientific and political changes of our time there is a raging revolution in the fourth dimension consisting of angels, demons, and other forces. The driving force behind all of it is Lucifer’s lust to be God and the men who have joined him. Therefore the dominant philosophies of our day are not the production some kind of randomness or intellectual evolution; they have been embedded into the human consciousness through direct spiritual communication from Lucifer and his agents.

Although in many circles today it would be considered humorous to suggest that a man could sell his soul to the devil, the reality is that countless people have. There are countless numbers of men and women today who somewhere in the privacy of their hearts have offered their lives over to Lucifer in exchange for the things they secretly desire. Many of these men have found themselves strangely raised up to rule nations and financial empires, and some are the performers, writers and producers of the mass media. Nowhere is the selling of souls more insidious than in the area of religion and theology, where Lucifer’s servants are found everywhere proclaiming the, “word of God.”

Among the ordinary classes of men and women, every day people are being called upon to deny their consciences and do in their hearts what they know is wrong. They can rationalize their actions any way they choose, but in the depth of their beings they must know that they have sold their souls. There is the naive belief that by doing so a person can receive power and protection or merely be left alone if they simply follow orders or go with the program. But deep inside they know that it is not true. For there is a code that has been written into all our hearts and into our neurological wiring telling us in no uncertain terms what we can and cannot do. No amount of drugs, alcohol, social engineering, mind control, and indoctrination can remove the code.

There is a source of information far beyond what we call the rational and logical mind. Our bodies, minds and spirits can receive communication and information from what has been termed the fourth dimension. The cosmic frequency of the fourth dimension is continually sending forth all kinds of information and if you are aware it is communicating to you about the near future.

The future is unfolding before our eyes and the future in part is created by the millions of choices people make which compose a larger reality. In the last century or so Mankind has been indoctrinated with the lie that there are no consequences for our individual actions. Everything is just composed of material energy and random chance. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, the German philosopher, promoted “the death of God” and the “Ubermensch,” or the concept of the superman. His ideas provided the foundation for the totalitarian mindset.

Nietzsche’s idea that man is God is the great delusion which has spread all over the earth. It started in Eden and in recent centuries has been “justified” by the mythology of Darwinian Evolution. Darwinian Evolution states that Man is here by impersonal and random chance and that over billions of years molecules evolved into human beings. In Darwin’s view there is no God and there is no right or wrong. Thus there is no accountability for Man and his actions, and Darwinists believe that the fittest survive and that might makes right. Zbignew Brezinski openly calls for a “Society dominated by an elite whose claim to political power would rest on allegedly superior scientific know-how.

Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control.” The elites are coming out in public and calling for a new world order.

Make no mistake about the society Brzezinski is talking about. He is talking about a scientific dictatorship and the use of pyschotronic weapons. H.G. Wells and the Fabian socialists called for a one world government ruled by a scientific dictatorship. Nimrod was building the Tower of Babel with ancient occult-based science and God destroyed Babylon. God knew that Nimrod wanted to be a god. The ancient Babylonian occult knowledge was an ancient science. It was passed to the Egyptian Pharaoh system, where Pharaoh is a god. Throughout the centuries the secrets of this occult dictatorship have been passed through secret societies like Rosicrucian’s and the Illuminati. It is not an accident that the occult pyramid on the back of the U.S. dollar reveals the scientific dictatorship which is ruling the world today. At the top of the pyramid, above the eye of Lucifer is the tiny pyramid which represents the secretive elite which rule the world. That symbol was placed there by the Illuminati and the words at the bottom of the pyramid read, “Novus Ordo Seclorum,” or new world order. This new world order would be ruled by what H.G. Well’s referred to as the “world brain.”

It was the Luciferian Illuminati which provided the money and power that created the international banking system and the “Plan,” for a world socialist government. Their foundational strategy in enslaving the human race was to convince people that they are here by random chance.

This view has been embedded into the consciousness of hundreds of millions of people through social engineering, education, and the media. It enables any human being to play a game with himself or herself and it gives a person or a nation the imagined right to commit any atrocity with no consequences and nothing to feel guilty about. But on a deeper level for many human beings this creates conflict, because imbedded into their consciousness is the knowledge of right or wrong. However, there are many people who in a theological sense are “objects of wrath,” for they have been designed to be destroyed because they are completely evil. For example, Lucifer is completely evil and so are his angels.

We are now in the time period the Bible calls the last days. Millions of men and women will be called upon to make choices and they will be held accountable for those choices. For example, under the one world economic system run by the False Prophet, you will be given the choice to accept or reject the mark of the beast, which will enable you to participate in the economic system. But if you choose to accept the mark of the beast, which requires that you worship the Antichrist as God, you will be sentenced forever into the Lake of Fire.

There is a lot of good discussion among physicists about the nature of the universe, for example, String Theory, which is predicting some kind of shift to the Fourth Dimension. What makes this interesting is that this interfaces with the science of scalar electromagnetic energy. For the last several hundred years mankind has emphasized our three dimensional world. This worked well with Darwinian evolution, communism, and the scientific materialism that has controlled our universities and seminaries. But it is a completely false system of analysis.

Researchers are now studying String Theory and scalar electromagnetics and the Fourth Dimension, which also been called the invisible realm or spiritual world. Information, energy, cures for diseases, and an endless spectrum of realities can be transferred out of the Fourth Dimension into our three dimensional world.

Dr Michio Kaku believes that String Theory suggests that the universe began as a series of expanding bubbles or dimensions all vibrating at different levels. These subatomic particles that make up atoms are believed to be made up of vibrating super strings, and the notes they emanate then translate into matter. ‘The universe is a Symphony,’ says Dr Kaku. ‘The mind of God is cosmic music resonating through eleven dimensional hyperspace.’

In String Theory two important factors emerge, and one is the idea that the universe is made of cosmic music, which might relate to the singing of the worshippers who surround the Throne Room of God. Among the numerous dimensions that scientists are exploring there is a dimension like the Fourth Dimension, outside of time and space, which would contain the spiritual dimension where God exists. But also there must another dimension where Lucifer and all those who have chosen to follow him are contained for all eternity. Modern man and much of the modern church which has rejected the reality of the Word of God resist the Biblical truth, that those who reject God will be judged at the Great White Throne Judgment and will be sentenced forever into the lake of fire, or the Abyss. The reason for the resistance is because it is true. The existence of an eternal dimensional prison for those who have rebelled from God does not require Man’s intellectual approval. It simply exists apart from what Man thinks one way or another.

_________________

Paul McGuire is the author of 22 books, such as the best-selling, “The Day the Dollar Died” and “Are You Ready for the Microchip? Paul is the host of the syndicated television show, The Paul McGuire Report. Paul McGuire hosted the nationally syndicated talk radio show

Man Stabbed As Ménage A Trois Goes Wrong

Knifeplay began when victim refused to swap positions

• oh man I could say so much Lmao !  ......1.)  who brings  a knife to  ?????????????? hehehehehe  2.) You should B "stabbing"    with the  other  "implement"  :o
  http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/stabbing-after-threesome-578341

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FEBRUARY 13--A ménage a trois went horribly wrong last Friday when a North Dakota man stabbed another male participant when he refused to switch positions during the tryst, according to court records.
Ashley Hunter, 33, was charged this week with felony aggravated assault for allegedly stabbing Orlando DeWitt, 37, in the arm during the bizarre February 8 encounter. Hunter is pictured in the adjacent mug shot.
Cops report that Hunter and DeWitt--who met in prison--had been partying with several female acquaintances Friday night at a Fargo bar when they returned to Hunter’s residence (after a 2:30 AM McDonald’s pit stop).
DeWitt told police that he “began kissing on the couch” with one of the women, named Leticia. Soon, they were “under the covers and they had their pants off,” which led, of course, to the new couple having sex. DeWitt added that he twice caught Hunter watching the living room action from his adjacent bedroom.
At one point, DeWitt reported, Hunter “came out of the bedroom and began kissing on Leticia’s breasts.” In short order, Leticia “began to perform oral sex on Hunter.” It appears that DeWitt was continuing to have sex with Leticia while she was performing double duty.
And that is when the trouble began.
“Hunter then asked to switch places with Orlando,” according to a Fargo Police Department report. “Orlando told him no and Hunter became upset.” During the ensuing argument, DeWitt called Hunter a “fucking retard,” which infuriated Hunter. He yelled at DeWitt and ordered him to leave the residence.
DeWitt, seen at left, recalled that Hunter--who threatened to “fuck him up” and “kill him”--reached into the couch and retrieved a 12-inch butcher knife. DeWitt and Leticia, both naked, fled to a bathroom. Hunter, knife in hand, subsequently forced his way into the bathroom and continued to threaten DeWitt.
“Orlando said he decided to run for the front door,” police reported. The nude DeWitt reached the home’s first door, but as he “went to open the exterior door he felt the knife cutting the back of his left arm.” While fleeing the home, DeWitt, who was not seriously injured, grabbed Leticia’s phone, which he used to call 911 from a nearby alley.
Charged Monday with DeWitt’s stabbing, Hunter was booked into the Cass County jail in lieu of $5000 bail. He remains locked up in advance of a March 13 court appearance. (3 pages)

Kill anyone you want; law has been abandoned in America (satire)

naturalnews.com printable article

Originally published February 14 2013

Kill anyone you want; law has been abandoned in America (satire)

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) Maybe it's because I don't watch cable television, but I must have missed some big announcement somewhere that says, "It's now legal in America to kill anyone you name as an enemy." That's what Obama does with his secret kill lists, and it's exactly what the LAPD recently demonstrated in carrying out its premeditated arson and murder against a homicide suspect.

Apparently, I was delusional in thinking that America was a country where murder was illegal and the accused get their day in court. It seems I'm the last to know that President Obama must have made some sort of announcement along the lines of, "My fellow Americans. There is no longer any rule of law in America. Feel free to murder anyone you think might be plotting against you. After all, that's what we do here in the White House."

Silly me. I've been respecting the rule of law all along. Never been arrested. Never had a speeding ticket. Never committed a felony. I've never even stolen anything, for God's sake, and I guess I've been the fool for walking around with a firearm and keeping it holstered instead of opening fire on random civilians like the LAPD does. (Satire)

So now I'm genuinely wondering whether the rules have changed and I'm just too far out of the loop to know any better. See, my philosophy has always been to avoid the use of violence -- even against those who seemingly deserve it -- and keep to myself for the most part. Of course, if somebody comes looking for trouble, I'm obviously going to defend myself, but I don't go out of my way to hunt people down and pump lead into their vehicles the way the LAPD does.

But now it seems the rules have changed. It seems that you and I will never get our day in court if we are believed to have done something wrong. We will never even have the luxury of being charged with a crime; we'll just be exterminated by some government department or agency, evidence be damned. If the media says you're a criminal, then by God you must be one, right? Who needs a trial when the LAPD already knows you're guilty?

And why not just kill the guilty outright and save all the court costs, right? The message from the White House, in its 16-page Dept. of Justice memo, is that Obama can simply kill anyone he wishes. And as Obama is supposed to set the example of national leadership, it only follows that the American people are supposed to reflect his actions at the local level. That's Obama's new mandate: Kill those you don't like, he implies. And don't worry... the DoJ has you covered. It's downright progressive, in fact, to start murdering those you suspect might be enemies. No wonder the LAPD has embraced Obama's homicidal tendencies.

Did those two women in the pickup truck have the right to shoot back at LAPD officers?

The LAPD, in reality, has become a taxpayer-funded murder squad. It begs the question: If the two women in the pickup truck that was shot up by the LAPD had been carrying concealed weapons, would they have been in the right to shoot back at the LAPD officers who were attempting to murder them? Did they have the moral right to use deadly force to stop those LAPD officers?

The answer, of course, is, "Absolutely." It is the only reasonable moral, ethical and lawful conclusion. Any American, if fired upon without provocation or justification -- even by a government official -- has every right to stop that official in self defense, using any means necessary, including deadly force. This conclusion is supported by legal precedent, it is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and it is further confirmed by Divine Right. There is no circumstance under which a citizen must lay down and die simply because the person doing the shooting is a government employee. Such an idea is absurd.

The LAPD would do well to keep this in mind, it seems. Sooner or later, their reckless "shoot at anything" attitude is going to backfire on them in a tragic way. Even today, right now, the citizens of Los Angeles have observed and learned something incredibly valuable (and shocking): The LAPD is not your friend, nor your protector. The LAPD is a government-funded gang with badges. Their officers have a hand in the drugs, the prostitution, the corruption and the violence in that city. They plot and carry out premeditated murders of those who oppose them. They need not obey any law whatsoever, and they now operate with absolute immunity from prosecution for murder.

Take a look at the timeline of just a few of the LAPD corruption scandals that have been brought to light over the last few years (and then realize that these wouldn't even be prosecuted today!):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lapd/scandal/cron.html

The rule of law is dead in LA

The truth in all this is simple: If the LA District Attorney refuses to charge LAPD officers with attempted murder for shooting up that pickup truck, then there is no longer anything resembling rule of law in Los Angeles. It's a free-for-all, folks. If you have a badge, you can apparently just open fire on anyone, at any time, for any reason, without even so much as a warrant.

Consider for a moment what kind of message that sends to the citizens of Los Angeles. Put two and two together, folks. The answer is obvious: Gang warfare is now the official policing policy in L.A.

It's no longer a question of being "against" gangs. It's only a question of which gang you belong to: Crips, Bloods, Brims, Pirus and LAPD. They are all gangs. Some gangs wear red, other gangs wear blue. And one gang wears official-looking badges. Importantly, none of these gangs is bound by law. Especially not the LAPD gang.

The coming LA war zone

I know where this is headed, folks. That's why I'm up at 1:00 am writing this, because this is all an urgent realization that I feel the need to share with you. Los Angeles stands on the verge of becoming a literal WAR ZONE, completely abandoned by any law-abiding police. The battle lines are already drawn. Click here to see a Google Map of the gang boundaries already in place across L.A. The only thing missing from this map is the LAPD territory.

Here's my prediction: In a real national crisis such as an economic collapse or power grid failure, the LAPD gang will be almost instantly overrun by the Crips. The Crips have significantly more firepower and sheer numbers of people on the streets. They are not one gang, but a multitude of micro-regional gangs who cannot be brought down by killing one leader. You've got the Athens Crips, the Compton Crips, the Long Beach Crips, and so on. These gangs respect no law (much like the LAPD all of a sudden) and can dish out just as much violence as the LAPD. In fact, they're better at it.

The point is that during a real crisis, if you live anywhere south of I-10 and west of the 710 interstate, you're as good as dead. And the gangs won't be satisfied with ransacking and looting all the homes and businesses East of the airport, either. You can fully expect them to widen their rampage into Gardena, Carson, Downey, Culver City, downtown LA and of course East LA.

The LAPD will not and cannot protect you. They have no interest in protecting you. They have no respect for the rule of law and have increasingly lost the trust of the public. The LAPD will be out to do only one thing: protect itself and murder its enemies. That's precisely the way the LAPD acted yesterday in the murder of Christopher Dorner.

Sooner or later, LA will burn. The only way to survive LA in a collapse scenario will be to flee the city or join a gang that can offer you sufficient protection against the other gangs, including the LAPD.

---

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