George Carlin - People Who Ought To Be Killed

Comparing Car and Gun Fatalities is Misleading and Irrelevant

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Bruce W. Krafft

Is it that time of year again already? Time for the antis to trot out some ginned up stats about which to hyperventilate and ‘view with alarm’? Our pal Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center has provided the “study”, one he hopes people will gloss over without really looking too closely. Unfortunately for Josh, debunking the panty-soiling hysteria of antis is pretty much what we do . . .
Here’s Josh’s set-up:

Each day, how many motor vehicles do you see or actually use?
You probably couldn’t keep track.
Now, how about guns. How many do you see or actually use during the same period?
For most people, not that many. If any at all.
And yet, in 10 states gun deaths actually outpace motor vehicle deaths.

Mr. Sugarmann then provides the list, breaking it down by gun deaths [sic] and car deaths [sic] (note: no cars or guns were killed in the performance of this study). So laying it out in a table we see . . . not much.

State	Gun Deaths	MV Deaths
Alaska	104	84
Arizona	856	809
Colorado	583	565
Indiana	735	715
Michigan	1095	977
Nevada	406	255
Oregon	417	394
Utah	260	256
Virginia	836	827
Washington	623	580

The data seem kind of sparse; what were the causes of death? Were they suicides, homicides, accidents? We know that suicide rates are independent of method (that is, restricting access to firearms may reduce the suicide rate with firearms, but it does not affect the overall suicide rate) so let’s and remove suicides from the totals.

State	Gun Accident and Homicide	MV Accident and Homicide
Alaska	17	84
Arizona	228	807
Colorado	108	557
Indiana	267	714
Michigan	507	962
Nevada	97	254
Oregon	55	391
Utah	30	256
Virginia	285	826
Washington	118	574

Now, I know that there are some out there who would argue that I should remove homicides from the total, but as you can see, just pulling the suicides completely debunks Josh’s numbers. But let’s see what else he has to say:

While motor vehicle-related deaths are on a steady decline as the result of a successful decades-long public health-based injury prevention strategy, gun deaths continue unabated.

Wow, gun deaths continue unabated, eh Josh? Not so much. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting statistics, you are a big fat liar! You can easily go here and do your own table; I used violent crime rates for the entire U.S. from 1960 to 2010 and extracted the Murder and non-negligent manslaughter rate to make this graph (free graphing available here).

Josh seems to have difficulty with words and numbers, so let’s draw it out with pretty pictures and colors, shall we? From Gun-Nuttery.com, here’s what right-to-carry looked like in 1990 (right up there at the third highest peak above):


And here is what it looked like in 2010 (at the very tail end of the graph, one of the lowest points):

Josh is like any good good gun grabber. If you wait long enough, they always reveal their true agenda:

And while the health and safety regulation of motor vehicles stands as a public health success story, firearms remain literally the last consumer product manufactured in the United States not subject to federal health and safety regulation.
The [ATF] is charged with enforcing our nation’s limited gun laws, yet it has none of the health and safety regulatory powers afforded other federal agencies such as NHTSA (or the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency).

That was done deliberately, Josh, to keep antis like you from using consumer safety as an excuse to regulate guns out of existence. And if you think I’m being paranoid, look at California, which used state “safety regulations” to implement their microstamping requirements, loaded chamber indicator and magazine disconnect regulations.
Oops! Josh really lets the cat out of the bag when he quotes Dr. David Hemenway:

“[T]he time Americans spend using their cars is orders of magnitudes greater than the time spent using their guns. It is probable that per hour of exposure, guns are far more dangerous. Moreover, we have lots of safety regulations concerning the manufacture of motor vehicles; there are virtually no safety regulations for domestic firearms manufacture.”
Such an approach to injury prevention has been applied to every product Americans come into contact with every day — except for guns. And as is the case with motor vehicles, health and safety regulation could reduce deaths and injuries associated with firearms.

Aha! So what Josh really has in mind is to use safety regulations to “reduce the carnage.” But “safety regulations” would have no effect on suicide or homicide rates. So Josh must want to “reduce the carnage” from firearm accidents. A noble and worthy goal, I’m sure. What exactly are the accidental death and injury rates for firearms, as compared to cars?

As Josh so helpfully points out at the beginning, there are a lot more licensed drivers than there are permit-holders (although I think there may be more people “packing heat on your street” than he realizes), so we obviously need to do some number-crunching to be able to properly compare these rates.
I’m going to assume that permit-holders are responsible for all accidental shootings (which is ludicrous on its face, but as my faithful readers know, I like to be conservative in my calculations).
According to figures from the Census, in 2009 there were 211 million licensed drivers in the United States, and according to MSNBC, there are about 6 million gun permit holders in the U.S. That gives us 1 permit-holder for every 35.2 licensed drivers. So correcting the above table for the relative numbers of carriers and drivers gives us this:

Let’s sum up, shall we? Setting aside the fact that the freedom to own and carry a firearm is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility, ignoring the fact that defensive gun uses save twice as many lives as criminal gun uses take, guns are still safer than cars and gun owners are still safer than car owners.
Thus endeth the lesson.         http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/05/bruce-krafft/comparing-car-and-gun-fatalities-is-misleading-and-irrelevant/

50 churches within 2 miles of “Texas Gosnell’s” late-term abortion clinic (Osteen’s – 3 miles)

kinda looks like a baby ?  But you lib/choicers kooks say it's a 'fetus' ! 

50 churches within 2 miles of “Texas Gosnell’s” late-term abortion clinic (Osteen’s – 3 miles)

Click to enlarge…

The worst part of this poster, in my opinion, is the fine print at the bottom: “This child was murdered in Texas by abortionist Douglas Karpen within 2 miles of 50 visible churches.”
Furthermore, Lakewood Church, which boasts a weekly attendance of 43,500, and where Joel Osteen is pastor, is located only three miles from this Houston clinic.
This is just one example. Were snapshots taken inside very abortion clinic in America we would see photos as bloody and graphic as these, although many of the babies would be so small and ground to a pulp they wouldn’t be recognizable. As if that makes a difference.
I’m willing to bet every abortion clinic in America has churches right around the corner, totally ignoring the plight of babies hacked to death – within singing distance. It’s maddening.

The Unfolding Monsanto Saga: Europe Rejects GMO Crops; America Seeks Labeling

By Jon Rappoport

Global Research, June 05, 2013

nomorefakenews.com

Region: Europe, USA

Theme: Biotechnology and GMO

It’s a scandal.
Monsanto has just announced it’s giving up on most of Europe: people there don’t want GMO food. In America, the struggle is for labeling GMOs.
This is some kind of “fairness doctrine.” Let the US consumer decide what kind of food to buy. Choice. It’s the American way, right?
No, actually it isn’t. The evidence gathered over the last 10 years is staggering. GMO food and the herbicides sprayed on them constitute a major health hazard, to say the least.
And this doesn’t begin to cover the lying business practices of Monsanto, who promised farmers that Roundup would kill weeds in the fields. Instead, the weeds have proliferated to the point where the farmers have to kill everything growing with stronger, more dangerous herbicides, like Paraquat.
In the US, laws exist to prosecute crimes involving endangerment of health and crimes related to false marketing practices. These laws are on the books. When it comes to Monsanto, they’re gathering dust on the shelves.
Choice and fairness apply to competitive products that are safe. The consumer picks one type of tomato over another. The consumer buys walnuts rather than pecans. The consumer chooses black olives over green olives.
Choosing non-GMO corn instead of GMO corn still leaves dangerous GMO corn in produce bins.
Should a bottle of cyanide sit on a store shelf next to a bottle of salt, just to be fair to the consumer? To give him a choice?
Three or four federal law-enforcement agencies would arrest and prosecute the store owners who sell cyanide, as well as the distributors, and the packagers.
But in the case of GMO food, the FDA and USDA, the relevant agencies, do nothing. Neither does the Dept. of Justice.
Aside from several counties in America that have banned the growing of GMO crops, the big push is for labeling of GMO food in stores. That’s it.
The theory is, when consumers have a choice, they’ll overwhelmingly reject GMOs and put a serious crimp in Monsanto’s business. That may or may not happen (if labeling is widespread), but the theory doesn’t directly address Monsanto’s crimes.
The “kinder, gentler” approach is based on two assumptions. One, American consumers need soft activism. They won’t demand legal rejection of GMO food. They will, however, choose the right food.
And two, Monsanto has made such a powerful inroad on food-crop farming, it’s too late to take it back. It’s too late to declare all the GMO crops illegal.
“You see, so many people are taking Vioxx, we can’t go to court over it. It’s a done deal, even though patients are dropping like flies.”
It wasn’t a done deal.
Neither are GMOs.
In a previous article, “Meet Monsanto’s number-one lobbyist: Barack Obama,” I detailed Obama’s horrendous record when it comes to allowing new GMO crops to enter the food chain, and his outrageous appointments of ex-Monsanto stalwarts to important and key positions in his administration.
But Obama is “a good man.” He must be doing the right thing. He’s popular, so it wouldn’t be wise to attack him on the issue. Better to lay back, paste a smile on our faces, and try to secure labeling for GMOs.
Of course, that’s exactly the wrong strategy. But as in all campaigns, the longer people wait and do nothing and remain timid, the less likely it is they can succeed, if and when they decide to move.
That’s why Monsanto now has so many acres of GMO food growing in the United States. That’s why Monsanto has been able to push its unconscionable propaganda down the throat of the American consumer.
That’s why Whole Foods and other major health-food companies decided to surrender the real battles and opt for co-existence with Monsanto.
When there is continuing crime in a community, the people, the citizens have to go after and expose the public officials who are doing nothing about it, who are indeed profiting from it. In the case of Monsanto, the officials are, among others, President Barack Obama, Tom Vilsack, head of the USDA, and Michael Taylor, food czar at the FDA.
But health-food companies, who should be leading the battle, are either friendly or neutral toward these bad actors. They’re hedging their bets. They’re saying, “We’ll inform consumers so they can make good choices, we’ll do labeling, but don’t expect us to be more aggressive than that. Don’t expect us to get mad.”
Neutrality is apparently the American way. First and foremost, the business of America is business. And the idea of consumers staging a full-bore boycott against Whole Foods? Out of the question. No, consumers are too busy loading up bags with groceries.
Monsanto relies on that. Monsanto knows Americans are tuned up to buy, buy, and consume, and then buy more. Americans consider it their right not to be distracted from that obsession.
Obama, like Bush and Clinton before him, are silent on the GMO issue. They all pretend it doesn’t exist. They sell out the people at the drop of a hat, and they don’t lose any sleep over it. Conscience? Never heard of it.
Ditto for major mainstream news outlets. “We don’t cover the Monsanto story in depth because it’s a he-said he-said thing. The scientific issues are complex. People on both sides make interesting points. But there’s no traction…”
That’s a bunch of crap. Make me the managing editor of the Washington Post for a year and I’ll send sales of the paper through the roof. I’ll let the hounds loose on Monsanto 24/7 and pound on the story day after day. The bottom line of the Post will look healthier than it has since Watergate, a minor topic compared to GMOs.
But the Post doesn’t really care about their bottom line. They would go bankrupt before they’d venture into these waters. They’re sold out from the top down. They’re part of the cover-up.
I’ve written about this before, but here it is again. In the early 1990s, when the US health freedom movement was at a fever pitch, when people were going after the FDA for raiding natural practitioners’ offices and trying to limit access to nutritional supplements in stores, I sat in on several significant meetings of activists.
People who controlled those meetings, who were connected to supplement companies, wanted a bill in Congress to protect the consumer. To give the consumer choice and access to supplements. That’s all they wanted.
I told them, in no uncertain terms, that this wouldn’t work over the long term. We had to go after the FDA. We had to attack.
I had a dossier on the FDA. I, like others, knew a lot about their crimes going back a long way.
I was told this was the wrong strategy. “First,” they said, “let’s get a good bill passed in Congress. Then we can attack the FDA.”
They had no such intention, and I told them so. They were never going to support going after the FDA and exposing it down to the ground as a criminal agency.
They had no stomach for it, and they were sold out themselves. They had a confined agenda, which had to do with helping to guard supplement companies’ profits.
They were slick operators. They knew how to present themselves as neutral and rational. They could spout New Age garble at appropriate moments. “Anger can be self-defeating.” “You achieve your aims when you come from a place of doing service.”
The same thing is happening now. “Give people the right to know, the right to choose what’s in their food.” It plays well, because it caters to the wholly absorbed self-interest of the health-food consumer with discretionary income.
It doesn’t work in the long run. It papers over the fact that corporate criminals, in partnership with the highest government officials, are committing RICO crimes against the health of the American people.
The appropriate emotion is outrage.
In case you hadn’t noticed, for the past 40 years there has been a major psyop in progress against righteous outrage and on behalf of Nice. Be nice. Be friendly. Be happy. Be self-contained. Don’t make waves. Anger is a sign of a mental disorder. Outrage isn’t Spiritual. You’ll injure your Karma.
Karma was invented to prop up a caste system. It was used to promote passivity.
Silence is not golden. Profits are.
Labeling food that isn’t poisonous, while permitting the sale of poison, is let’s-pretend virtual reality.
I’ve met so-called health entrepreneurs who’ve adopted squeaky clean New Age cover-personalities to obscure their sleazebag cynical motives. They’re very slippery characters. They do their real work in conference rooms where they look at spread sheets.
The chance of them going after GMO criminals is zero.
Once in a while, if you wait for it, or if you push them a little, you’ll see something come into their eyes. A dead cold nothing. It’s a sign of the personal Arctic region where they really live.
They don’t till, they don’t plant, they don’t harvest. They sell. They’re very much like the Sunday television preachers who are there to hustle dollars.
Only they take a kinder, gentler approach. They’re all about “consciousness” and saving the planet.
If the planet were alive in the way they claim it is, the planet would have long ago consigned them to a desert island under a blazing sun.
Jon Rappoport
The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com

Breaking: Official Bilderberg Attendee List Released

Here is the official list of attendees for the upcoming Bilderberg meeting at The Grove in Watford, England, as well as the agenda.

In Memory of James P. Tucker

Bilderberg Meetings
June 3, 2013
Hertfordshire, England 6-9 June 2013
Bilderberg Agenda
The 61st Bilderberg meeting is set to take place from 6 until 9 June 2013 in Hertfordshire, UK. A total of around 140 participants from 21 European and North American countries have confirmed their attendance. As ever, a diverse group of political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia and the media have been invited. The list of participants is available on www.bilderbergmeetings.org
The key topics for discussion this year include:
• Can the US and Europe grow faster and create jobs?
• Jobs, entitlement and debt
• How big data is changing almost everything
• Nationalism and populism
• US foreign policy
• Africa’s challenges
• Cyber warfare and the proliferation of asymmetric threats
• Major trends in medical research
• Online education: promise and impacts
• Politics of the European Union
• Developments in the Middle East
• Current affairs
Founded in 1954, Bilderberg is an annual conference designed to foster dialogue between Europe and North America.
Current list of Participants
Status 3 June 2013
Chairman

FRA	Castries, Henri de	Chairman and CEO, AXA Group
DEU	Achleitner, Paul M.	Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG
DEU	Ackermann, Josef	Chairman of the Board, Zurich Insurance Group Ltd
GBR	Agius, Marcus	Former Chairman, Barclays plc
GBR	Alexander, Helen	Chairman, UBM plc
USA	Altman, Roger C.	Executive Chairman, Evercore Partners
FIN	Apunen, Matti	Director, Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA
USA	Athey, Susan	Professor of Economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business
TUR	Aydıntaşbaş, Aslı	Columnist, Milliyet Newspaper
TUR	Babacan, Ali	Deputy Prime Minister for Economic and Financial Affairs
GBR	Balls, Edward M.	Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
PRT	Balsemão, Francisco Pinto	Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA
FRA	Barré, Nicolas	Managing Editor, Les Echos
INT	Barroso, José M. Durão	President, European Commission
FRA	Baverez, Nicolas	Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
FRA	Bavinchove, Olivier de	Commander, Eurocorps
GBR	Bell, John	Regius Professor of Medicine, University of Oxford
ITA	Bernabè, Franco	Chairman and CEO, Telecom Italia S.p.A.
USA	Bezos, Jeff	Founder and CEO, Amazon.com
SWE	Bildt, Carl	Minister for Foreign Affairs
SWE	Borg, Anders	Minister for Finance
NLD	Boxmeer, Jean François van	Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO, Heineken N.V.
NOR	Brandtzæg, Svein Richard	President and CEO, Norsk Hydro ASA
AUT	Bronner, Oscar	Publisher, Der Standard Medienwelt
GBR	Carrington, Peter	Former Honorary Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings
ESP	Cebrián, Juan Luis	Executive Chairman, Grupo PRISA
CAN	Clark, W. Edmund	President and CEO, TD Bank Group
GBR	Clarke, Kenneth	Member of Parliament
DNK	Corydon, Bjarne	Minister of Finance
GBR	Cowper-Coles, Sherard	Business Development Director, International, BAE Systems plc
ITA	Cucchiani, Enrico Tommaso	CEO, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA
BEL	Davignon, Etienne	Minister of State; Former Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings
GBR	Davis, Ian	Senior Partner Emeritus, McKinsey & Company
NLD	Dijkgraaf, Robbert H.	Director and Leon Levy Professor, Institute for Advanced Study
TUR	Dinçer, Haluk	President, Retail and Insurance Group, Sabancı Holding A.S.
GBR	Dudley, Robert	Group Chief Executive, BP plc
USA	Eberstadt, Nicholas N.	Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute
NOR	Eide, Espen Barth	Minister of Foreign Affairs
SWE	Ekholm, Börje	President and CEO, Investor AB
DEU	Enders, Thomas	CEO, EADS
USA	Evans, J. Michael	Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs & Co.
DNK	Federspiel, Ulrik	Executive Vice President, Haldor Topsøe A/S
USA	Feldstein, Martin S.	Professor of Economics, Harvard University; President Emeritus, NBER
FRA	Fillon, François	Former Prime Minister
USA	Fishman, Mark C.	President, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research
GBR	Flint, Douglas J.	Group Chairman, HSBC Holdings plc
IRL	Gallagher, Paul	Senior Counsel
USA	Geithner, Timothy F.	Former Secretary of the Treasury
USA	Gfoeller, Michael	Political Consultant
USA	Graham, Donald E.	Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company
DEU	Grillo, Ulrich	CEO, Grillo-Werke AG
ITA	Gruber, Lilli	Journalist – Anchorwoman, La 7 TV
ESP	Guindos, Luis de	Minister of Economy and Competitiveness
GBR	Gulliver, Stuart	Group Chief Executive, HSBC Holdings plc
CHE	Gutzwiller, Felix	Member of the Swiss Council of States
NLD	Halberstadt, Victor	Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary  General of Bilderberg Meetings
FIN	Heinonen, Olli	Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
GBR	Henry, Simon	CFO, Royal Dutch Shell plc
FRA	Hermelin, Paul	Chairman and CEO, Capgemini Group
ESP	Isla, Pablo	Chairman and CEO, Inditex Group
USA	Jacobs, Kenneth M.	Chairman and CEO, Lazard
USA	Johnson, James A.	Chairman, Johnson Capital Partners
CHE	Jordan, Thomas J.	Chairman of the Governing Board, Swiss National Bank
USA	Jordan, Jr., Vernon E.	Managing Director, Lazard Freres & Co. LLC
USA	Kaplan, Robert D.	Chief Geopolitical Analyst, Stratfor
USA	Karp, Alex	Founder and CEO, Palantir Technologies
GBR	Kerr, John	Independent Member, House of Lords
USA	Kissinger, Henry A.	Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
USA	Kleinfeld, Klaus	Chairman and CEO, Alcoa
NLD	Knot, Klaas H.W.	President, De Nederlandsche Bank
TUR	Koç, Mustafa V.	Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.
DEU	Koch, Roland	CEO, Bilfinger SE
USA	Kravis, Henry R.	Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
USA	Kravis, Marie-Josée	Senior Fellow and Vice Chair, Hudson Institute
CHE	Kudelski, André	Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group
GRC	Kyriacopoulos, Ulysses	Chairman, S&B Industrial Minerals S.A.
INT	Lagarde, Christine	Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
DEU	Lauk, Kurt J.	Chairman of the Economic Council to the CDU, Berlin
USA	Lessig, Lawrence	Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard Law School; Director, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University
BEL	Leysen, Thomas	Chairman of the Board of Directors, KBC Group
DEU	Lindner, Christian	Party Leader, Free Democratic Party (FDP NRW)
SWE	Löfven, Stefan	Party Leader, Social Democratic Party (SAP)
DEU	Löscher, Peter	President and CEO, Siemens AG
GBR	Mandelson, Peter	Chairman, Global Counsel; Chairman, Lazard International
USA	Mathews, Jessica T.	President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
CAN	McKenna, Frank	Chair, Brookfield Asset Management
GBR	Micklethwait, John	Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
FRA	Montbrial, Thierry de	President, French Institute for International Relations
ITA	Monti, Mario	Former Prime Minister
USA	Mundie, Craig J.	Senior Advisor to the CEO, Microsoft Corporation
ITA	Nagel, Alberto	CEO, Mediobanca
NLD	Netherlands, H.R.H. Princess Beatrix of The
USA	Ng, Andrew Y.	Co-Founder, Coursera
FIN	Ollila, Jorma	Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell, plc
GBR	Omand, David	Visiting Professor, King’s College London
GBR	Osborne, George	Chancellor of the Exchequer
USA	Ottolenghi, Emanuele	Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
TUR	Özel, Soli	Senior Lecturer, Kadir Has University; Columnist, Habertürk Newspaper
GRC	Papahelas, Alexis	Executive Editor, Kathimerini Newspaper
TUR	Pavey, Şafak	Member of Parliament (CHP)
FRA	Pécresse, Valérie	Member of Parliament (UMP)
USA	Perle, Richard N.	Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
USA	Petraeus, David H.	General, U.S. Army (Retired)
PRT	Portas, Paulo	Minister of State and Foreign Affairs
CAN	Prichard, J. Robert S.	Chair, Torys LLP
INT	Reding, Viviane	Vice President and Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, European Commission
CAN	Reisman, Heather M.	CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc.
FRA	Rey, Hélène	Professor of Economics, London Business School
GBR	Robertson, Simon	Partner, Robertson Robey Associates LLP; Deputy Chairman, HSBC Holdings
ITA	Rocca, Gianfelice	Chairman,Techint Group
POL	Rostowski, Jacek	Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister
USA	Rubin, Robert E.	Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Secretary of the Treasury
NLD	Rutte, Mark	Prime Minister
AUT	Schieder, Andreas	State Secretary of Finance
USA	Schmidt, Eric E.	Executive Chairman, Google Inc.
AUT	Scholten, Rudolf	Member of the Board of Executive Directors, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG
PRT	Seguro, António José	Secretary General, Socialist Party
FRA	Senard, Jean-Dominique	CEO, Michelin Group
NOR	Skogen Lund, Kristin	Director General, Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise
USA	Slaughter, Anne-Marie	Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University
IRL	Sutherland, Peter D.	Chairman, Goldman Sachs International
GBR	Taylor, Martin	Former Chairman, Syngenta AG
INT	Thiam, Tidjane	Group CEO, Prudential plc
USA	Thiel, Peter A.	President, Thiel Capital
USA	Thompson, Craig B.	President and CEO, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
DNK	Topsøe, Jakob Haldor	Partner, AMBROX Capital A/S
FIN	Urpilainen, Jutta	Minister of Finance
CHE	Vasella, Daniel L.	Honorary Chairman, Novartis AG
GBR	Voser, Peter R.	CEO, Royal Dutch Shell plc
CAN	Wall, Brad	Premier of Saskatchewan
SWE	Wallenberg, Jacob	Chairman, Investor AB
USA	Warsh, Kevin	Distinguished Visiting Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University
CAN	Weston, Galen G.	Executive Chairman, Loblaw Companies Limited
GBR	Williams of Crosby, Shirley	Member, House of Lords
GBR	Wolf, Martin H.	Chief Economics Commentator, The Financial Times
USA	Wolfensohn, James D.	Chairman and CEO, Wolfensohn and Company
GBR	Wright, David	Vice Chairman, Barclays plc
INT	Zoellick, Robert B.	Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics
AUT	Austria	INT      International
BEL	Belgium	IRL      Ireland
CAN	Canada	ITA      Italy
CHE	Switzerland	NLD    Netherlands
DEU	Germany	NOR   Norway
DNK	Denmark	POL    Poland
ESP	Spain	PRT    Portugal
FIN	Finland	SWE   Sweden
FRA	France	TUR    Turkey
GBR	Great Britain	USA    United States of America
GRC	Greece

Every year, between 120-150 political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia and the media are invited to take part in the conference. About two thirds of the participants come from Europe and the rest from North America; one third from politics and government and the rest from other fields.
The conference has always been a forum for informal, off-the-record discussions about megatrends and the major issues facing the world. Thanks to the private nature of the conference, the participants are not bound by the conventions of office or by pre-agreed positions. As such, they can take time to listen, reflect and gather insights.
There is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.

Colorado Recall Election of Senate President John Morse for Gun Control

http://intellihub.com/2013/06/04/colorado-recall-election-of-senate-president-john-morse-for-gun-control/

Colorado Citizens turned in petitions to set up the first recall in state history of Democratic Senate President John Morse

WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 25: National Governors Association (NGA) Chair Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (3rd L) speaks as (L-R) Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, NGA Vice Chair Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin listen as they speak to members of the press as NGA Vice Chair Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin looks on after a State Dining Room meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House February 25, 2013 in Washington, DC. Governors from across the nation were in Washington for the 2013 National Governors Association Winter Meeting. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

By Avalon
Intellihub.com
June 4, 2013
BREAKING:
According to The Washington Post, June 3, 2013 article Recall election looms for Colo. senator who backed gun control the Senate President John Morse is now facing a Recall Election over his support of severe Gun Control laws in Colorado. Quoting from thewashingtonpost.com article (Source AP)

DENVER — Gun-rights activists in Colorado turned in petition signatures Monday to set up the first recall in state history of a state lawmaker after he backed some of the strictest gun control measures to become law in the U.S. this year.
The opponents of Democratic Senate President John Morse said they turned in twice as many signatures as needed Monday to put Morse back on the ballot. Carting white paper boxes of petitions, the gun-rights advocates said Morse will pay for backing a series of gun control measures that were signed into law earlier this year.
[...]
“This shot will be heard around the world,” said Bill Adaska, a retired engineer from Denver who volunteered to gather recall signatures in Morse’s Colorado Springs district. “This is the race, right here, that’s going to show Washington and Chicago that when you come after our guns, we’re going to take you out.”
Adaska is referring to a gun-control package that made Colorado the first state outside the East Coast to significantly ratchet back gun rights after last year’s mass shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Mass. The Colorado package included expanded background checks to include private and online gun sales, plus a 15-round limit on most types of ammunition magazines.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. Colorado has Recall Laws that enable the recall of any Elected Official. It remains to be seen if the citizens of Colorado will attempt to Recall Governor John Hickenlooper
The news is now in the progress of going viral in what represents a clear signal that The People are fighting back and taking action. The news of this Recall Election is reported in only a few publications, so it is questionable how many people in the U.S. will learn of this news. Other news sources include:
BREAKING: Anti Gun Colorado State Senator to be Recalled After 16k Signatures Received
BREAKING: Anti Gun Colorado State Senator to be Recalled After 16k Signatures Received
Gun-rights activists submit petitions to recall Colorado lawmaker

Disclaimer:

The views expressed in Intellihub.com articles are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Intellihub.com. Intellihub.com will not be held responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in Intellihub.com articles. Intellihub.com reserves the right to remove articles from the website. (Posted 06–04–2013 @ 11:10 a.m.)
*****
Avalon is an Investigative Journalist and Strategist working for Intellihub.com 

Hundreds of Gunowners Show up in Temple, TX with Loaded Guns At the “Come and Take it” March ..... hehe fucking NAZI'S

Hundreds of Gunowners Show up in Temple, TX with Loaded Guns At the “Come and Take it” March

This past weekend Hundreds of Gunowners staged a successful armed march in Temple, TX with Loaded Weapons At the “Come and Take it March”.

Photo: Temple Daily Telegram

Intellihub.com
June 4, 2013
A week ago this notice was posted by concerned gun owners in the state of Texas:

We will be gathering for a legal armed open carry march to raise public awareness of gun laws in Texas. It is partially in response to the Temple Police Department violating the Second and Fourth Amendment rights of Active Duty MSGT Christopher J. Grisham HERE. Please join us all. We will be exercising our rights as free men and women. Be part of the solution. All permits and armed march route has been approved and coordinated with the city and local authorities. Come out for music, great speakers, food and a march around the police station and town square.
When: June 1st
Where: Temple, TX
Venue: Community Market 212 S. Main St.
Time: 10:00am-4:00pm

“While out hiking with my son through backcountry roads to help him earn his Eagle Scout rank, I was illegally arrested and disarmed without cause. I was thrown in jail and my lawfully owned weapons were confiscated without receipt or notice,” -Grisham

That’s right! Get your guns and get to Temple, TX. They forgot we have rights and we must remind them. If we don’t stand up for fellow Texans today then we will stand alone when it happens to us in our hometown. Just a reminder on legal open carry in Texas: It must be a long gun and can be strapped or hung on your person. Holding it could be considered “calculated to alarm” and this will be a peaceful march. We will be taking up donations for the 2nd Amendment Legal Defense Fund for Christopher J. Grisham.

The march ended up being successful and peaceful, as a local news channel reported:

Army Master Sergeant Christopher J. Grisham was stopped and arrested March 16th while hiking with his son in Temple for carrying his semi- automatic gun.
He says, “I had my son record the arrest because it just became so egregious to me. It was wrong to begin with and I wanted people to see what was going on.”
Since the video has been up, it has gotten thousands of views and comments from supporters.
Co-Owner of dontcomply.com and event organizer Murdoch Pizgatti says, “I’ve seen the stop and frisk videos in New York and heard about things like that but this was stop and frisk, it was disarm, handcuffed, it was the arrest and it was right down the road here in Texas. You know that shouldn’t happen here, that is way to close to home. That was my line in the sand and I knew it had been crossed at that moment so I got up and did something.”
Protestor Josh Toles says, “There’s a lot of stuff that’s going on and people think it’s out of our control but it’s not. We’re the people, that’s why the constitution was written for us.”  
Grisham says the march sent a message to both Temple Police and the public.
“Not only is one man with a riffle or a weapon not any cause for alarm but hundreds of people with weapons are no cause for alarm. The reality is and the message that I think got through quite well to the Temple Police Department is that an armed society is a polite society and that a person with a gun isn’t someone that you need to fear,” said Grisham.       

Pizgatti says because the day was a success dontcomply.com is now working to organize armed Second Amendment marches in cities across the country.                   

Steve Jobs Was Willing To 'Rip Off' Everyone Else... But Was Pissed About Android Copying iPhone?

from the doesn't-computer dept

There's plenty of talk making the rounds about Steve Jobs' comments about Android in the authorized biography that's coming out next week. In it, Jobs apparently makes it clear that he was absolutely furious about Android "ripping off" the iPhone. According to the summary in the Huffington Post:

Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs offers an unprecedented look at the Apple co-founder's battle-cry against Google, a company he thought was guilty of a "grand theft" when it launched its Android operating system, which competes directly with the iPhone and has surpassed it in popularity.

"I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this," he told Isaacson of the patent lawsuit Apple filed against cell phone manufacturer HTC.

In Isaacson's "Steve Jobs," a copy of which was obtained by The Huffington Post, the author recalls that Jobs, who was known for his fierce temper, "became angrier than I had ever seen him" during a conversation about Apple's patent lawsuit, which by extension also accused Android of patent infringement.

"Our lawsuit is saying, 'Google you f***ing ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off,'" Jobs said, according to Isaacson. "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product."

This is coming from Steve Jobs, who was inspired by the graphical user interface he saw at Xerox PARC and turned that into the Macintosh. Now, as we've noted before, what Jobs was always great at doing wasn't just taking an idea and copying it, but making it better. But, many would argue that's the same thing that Google has done with Android. Yes, they clearly took inspiration from the iPhone, but there are some key differences, which many people enjoy. In fact, Steve Jobs pretty much admitted this very fact earlier this year when some of the iPhone's upgrades appeared to be copied directly from Android.

And that's kind of the point: part of the way innovation works is that you build on the works of others. That doesn't just mean wholesale copying, but trying to take what works and improve on it -- or take what doesn't work well and figure out a way to make it work better. Steve Jobs did this many, many times, but so have Google and many other companies. It seems rather hypocritical to get all bent out of shape because others are doing the same thing.

Along those lines, Daring Fireball links to a wonderful discussion on this topic by designer Brian Ford, who discusses the idea of "artists copying or stealing" from one another.

Apple didn’t invent the iPod, they stole the idea and made the music industry their own. The way we buy and listen to music is now shaped almost entirely by Apple’s vision.

Apple didn’t invent the smartphone, they stole the idea and reshaped the industry in their own vision. Yes, Apple has “copied” bits and pieces of iOS from other sources —notifications is the obvious example — but overall, the future of the mobile industry has been shaped by Apple.

Apple didn’t invent the tablet computer, they stole the idea and now iOS is the template for the tablet market.

I completely agree with those points. It's quite similar to an earlier post we did about the importance of getting it right rather than being first, which pointed to a wonderful comic from Scott Meyer's Basic Instructions that included this panel: So I'm at a loss as to Jobs' complaint against Android. At best, the only logical way to view his complaint is that he was upset that Google didn't do enough on top of the idea of the iPhone to make Android completely its own. But I think that's more of a difference in philosophy. Steve Jobs came from a very top down world view, in which the brilliant designers (him, Jonathan Ive, etc.) designed everything perfectly. Google's world view seems to be more about setting up the system, and then letting others design the improvements. That's messier, clunkier, and a hell of a lot uglier at first. But in the long run, I think it tends to lead to much greater innovation. Just not the kind of innovation you unveil as "and one more thing..."

In the end, the best way to sum all this up comes from the T.S. Eliot quote that Ford puts at the end of his blog post. Many people have heard the paraphrased version (often copied and attributed to others) that "good artists copy, great artists steal." But the full T.S. Eliot quote is much more interesting and nuanced:

One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.

Leaked Memo: Confiscate All Guns!

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 9:13

(Before It's News)

The National Rifle Association has obtained a Department of Justice memo calling for national gun registration and confiscation. The nine page “cursory summary” on current gun control initiatives was not officially released by the Obama administration.
The DOJ memo (downloadable here as a PDF) states the administration “believes that a gun ban will not work without mandatory gun confiscation,” according to the NRA, and thinks universal background checks “won’t work without requiring national gun registration.” Obama has yet to publicly support national registration or firearms confiscation, although the memo reveals his administration is moving in that direction.

FULL STORY HERE

Don’t forget the HOT MIC of these Senators below
Personal Thought here.. ALEX.. Please BE CALM when repoting?
We do not like Rants and Sensationalism.
Your point is made with Intelligent commentary.
I (we?) like you(?) Despite the Stratfor Connection?
I’d love to hear more about that myslef, but..
You.. “IF” connected are leaking info “FROM THEM” THAT  they want leaked,
You are a SLIME!
I am on the fence with you ALEX.. Re-Assure us?!?!?
Are you here to LEAK INFO and instigate a Civil War for the Zionist or what!?!?!?!
Just FYI  Hugs Leda
PS: And why the FU*K do you IGNORE Israel?
They are MONSTERS of Genocide!!!     

ANOTHER HOT TOPIC HERE

More Posts by.. LedaOhio9

Prenda seeded its own porn files via BitTorrent, new affidavit argues

Extensive research charges that John Steele is Pirate Bay user sharkmp4.

by Cyrus Farivar - June 3 2013, 9:15pm EST

• Copyright
• Lawsuits

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/prenda-seeded-its-own-porn-files-via-bittorrent-new-affidavit-shows/

Aurich Lawson

Who's behind Prenda Law?

• Prenda buys a $100,000 bond, while former lawyer Gibbs pleads for leniency
• Prenda shell ordered to pay $9,425 in attorney’s fees
• Identity theft lawsuit against Prenda Law abruptly ends
• Prenda blows sanctions deadline, ordered to pay an extra $1,000 per day
• Prenda lawyer Paul Hansmeier asks appeals court to delay sanctions

View all…

Graham Syfert is a local Florida lawyer who has been defending people caught up in Prenda purported copyright suits. Last we heard from the defense attorney, he appeared to have settled some cases with the porn trolling outfit. Nearly two weeks ago, Syfert told Ars that he was still involved in two more Florida Prenda-related cases: Sunlust Pictures v. Nguyen, and First Time Videos v. Oppold.

The latter case was initially filed back in July 2012 against a Florida man named Paul Oppold. Oppold was accused of downloading an unauthorized copy of a First Time Videos (FTV) pornographic film which was being represented by Prenda.

On Monday, Syfert continued his defense of Oppold, filing a damning motion. The motion includes a 31-page affidavit and related exhibits (compressed .ZIP archive) that offer a detailed analysis and a startling conclusion about one of the primary Prenda lawyers, John Steele. According to the filing, Steele

is the most probable candidate for the identity of Pirate Bay user sharkmp4. Sharkmp4 was the originator of the only found public releases of Ingenuity 13 works prior to the creation of naughty­hotties.com. Some works were shared by sharkmp4 prior to the registered copyright date with indications of access to a higher resolution copy (more related to the direct source). Therefore further inquiry would need to be made upon John Steele, and all those within his control, to identify if he is infringing the copyrights of Ingenuity 13, AF Holdings, and others through the Pirate Bay user “sharkmp4”.

The affidavit was written by Delvan Neville, an unlikely character in this entire saga. A self-described “gamer, nerd, RHP doctoral student at Oregon State University, focus on radioecology,” Neville was hired by Syfert (to the tune of $4,000) to conduct a substantial investigation into the online practices of "6881 Forensics," the company Prenda Law uses to identify infringers. (6881 Forensics is apparently headed by Peter Hansmeier, brother of another key Prenda-linked lawyer, Paul Hansmeier.)

Ars attempted to contact Steele via one of his published e-mail addresses, but he did not immediately reply.

UPDATE Tuesday 9:10am CT: We heard back from Steele, who wrote: "I have never uploaded a torrent in my life, I have never instructed anyone to do so, and I am not aware of anyone I have worked with in any capacity whatsoever (other than pirates of course). I am not sure how much more unequivocal about it I can be. I have no involvement with any case in Florida, including Mr. Oppold's case. I have not read a single document in that case. I don't intend to. As far as Mr. Syfert, you will have to ask him why he is hiring experts to try to connect me to a case I have no involvement with."

The investigator from Oregon

In the document, Neville says that his one-man company, Amaragh Associates, provides BitTorrent monitoring services by using a program that he developed called “EUPSC2k.” The program “gathers data regarding the participants of included BitTorrent swarms.”

Neville is sort of a good-guy-gun-for-hire—after all, he’s a full-time graduate student—but he offers his services on a limited basis, a digital forensics guy.

In a Skype call with Ars on Monday afternoon, Neville told Ars that as he’s followed Prenda’s shenanigans over the last several months, he became increasingly frustrated with Prenda’s practices. Neville suggested that Prenda's practices verge on extortion.

“The behavior of the copyright trolls got me fired up,” he told Ars. “The way that they talk about infringement, it doesn't matter, all the evidence that they ever provide is an IP address and a ‘hit date’ and some bull about what city and state it is—when it's honestly not difficult to get an actual record of what kind of information has been exchanged.”

He added that he normally was "in favor" of open-source software, but in this case, he said he didn't want to help further Prenda-style lawsuits.

"If you want to get a list of people that are infringing on a file—the last thing I want to do is handing the plans of the bomb to people that want to use the bomb," he quipped.

Neville was initially introduced to Syfert through the woman behind the Fight Copyright Trolls website, someone known only by the moniker Sophisticated Jane Doe.

Soak, rinse, repeat

So what did Neville do? By his own description in the affidavit:

During a "Passive Soak" as employed in this case (hereafter “soak”), EUPSC2k does not download nor upload any pieces of potentially copyrighted material,­ it merely gathers data regarding the participants of included BitTorrent swarms. In this mode, EUPSC2k notifies other peers that it has no pieces for that torrent, and that it is not interested in downloading any pieces, but otherwise communicates in the same manner as a normal peer.

I was not given any information as to the nature of 6881 Forensics monitoring software, or what IP address or Internet Service Provider (ISP) that might be used in their data gathering efforts and thus my inquiry into identification of the 6881 forensics peer was blind. I examined previously gathered logs of EUPSC2k, and began several soaks of the recently collected hash values. In my examination of the data, I was looking for common peers among the many swarms, as denoted by their IP, software, peer ID and any anomalous behavior.

I was able to identify a common peer among many in the various swarms based on these techniques and several anomalous behaviors a normal peer does not exhibit. Based on the intended target of these multiple swarms, this unique common peer among the many swarms is the peer controlled by 6881 Forensics.

More specifically, Neville wrote that “Unlike those works of AF Holdings, Defendant’s counsel contacted me with the proposition that sharkmp4’s uploads of certain works copyrighted by Ingenuity 13 appear to be works that were not commercially available at the time that they were shared by sharkmp4.”

Specifically, Neville looked at the hash for the film A Peek Behind the Scenes at the Show, which was published in another Prenda court case in Virginia that was originally filed in November 2012.

References to the infohash for A Peek Behind the Scenes at the Show in complaints filed by Prenda et. al. cite their initial detection of infringement by the Doe on the same day the torrent was created by sharkmp4. Composite Exhibit “K­15” In at least two instances the infringement was reported as “detected” an hour before the infohash appeared on Pirate Bay (2012­08­21 00:54:51 GMT upload to pirate bay versus 2012­08­21 00:09:42 & 00:42:12 UTC time of alleged infringement). How 6881 Forensics was able to detect an infringement on a swarm before it apparently existed could be explained, to some degree, if 6881 did not account for daylight savings when converting their system clock (local time) to UTC. Another alternative would be clock skew, which in networking refers to differences in the time reported by different nodes in the network, which can be considerable (on the order of tens of minutes) when transit times or distances are high. In such a case, they would still be connected to a swarm they’ve already identified as infringing on one of Ingenuity13 LLCs copyrights within minutes of its creation. Regardless, it suggests, at minimum, “insider information” between sharkmp4 and 6881 Forensics.

With this evidence now in his arsenal, Syfert, the Florida defense attorney, concluded:

Prenda Law's business structure is such that it is copyright-violating pirate, forensic pirate hunter, and attorney. It also appears that Prenda Law also wants to/has formed/is forming a corporate structure where it is: pornography producer, copyright holder, pornography pirate, forensic investigator, attorney firm, and debt collector. Other than the omission of appearing in the pornography themselves, this would represent an entire in-house copyright trolling monopoly—not designed to promote their own works for distribution and sale, but to induce infringement of their works and reap profits seen from mass anti-piracy litigation.

The judge has yet to rule on this new filing. But now that it’s part of the legal public record, it will likely will also become part of the investigation currently underway by the United States Attorney into Prenda Law.

The Pirate Bay Helps to Expose Copyright Troll Honeypot

• Ernesto
• June 4, 2013
• copyright trolls,
  prenda

It’s no secret that copyright trolls will go to extremes in their efforts to nail accused BitTorrent pirates. Prenda Law provides the latest shining example and in a new filing the firm stands accused of running a honeypot to lure in potential porn pirates. Following this revelation The Pirate Bay has handed logs to TorrentFreak which reveal that a user called “Sharkmp4″ is indeed directly linked to the infamous anti-piracy law firm.
Last month copyright troll law firm Prenda suffered losses on several fronts, including a $81,319.72 court sanction. However, Prenda’s troubles are far from over.
A new filing submitted by defense lawyer Graham Syfert opens up a new can of worms, accusing the copyright trolls of seeding the very files they claim to protect.
In the filing Prenda and its boss John Steele are accused of running a “honeypot” based on an expert report authored by Delvan Neville, whose company specializes in monitoring BitTorrent users.
Neville gave Prenda a taste of their own medicine by conducting a thorough analysis of the IP-addresses sharing the files the copyright trolls are suing for.
Many of the torrents detailed in Prenda lawsuits originate from a user on The Pirate Bay called ‘Sharkmp4′. Could it be that this user is somehow linked to Prenda and distributing the files to increase their list of potential targets?
The expert report found that some interesting patterns emerge from the list of IP-addresses observed sharing these files. Several IP-addresses were present in the majority of the swarms, all using a rather rare version of the BitTorrent client Vuze which is often used for BitTorrent tracking.
The IP-addresses in question resolve to the VPN provider Mullvad, and Neville suggests in his report that these IPs were used by Prenda’s BitTorrent tracking company 6881 Forensics. The same addresses were also found commenting on Prenda topics published on the anti-copyright troll blogs FightCopyrightTrolls and DieTrollDie.
The report goes on to describe many connections between Sharkmp4, the tracking company, and Prenda. Among other things it ties the Comcast IP-address 75.72.88.156 to John Steele’s GoDaddy account. The same IP-address is also associated with porn studio Ingenuity 13 whose work was shared by Sharkmp4 before it was commercially available.

Steele’s GoDaddy account

“It appears from all the evidence that John Steele (or someone under his control or with access to his GoDaddy account records with authorization to make changes to domain names) is the most probable candidate for the identity of Pirate Bay user sharkmp4. Sharkmp4 was the originator of the only found public releases of Ingenuity 13 works prior to the creation of naughty­hotties.com,” Neville writes.
“Some works were shared by sharkmp4 prior to the registered copyright date with indications of access to a higher resolution copy more related to the direct source,” he adds.
While the above makes it likely that Prenda were indeed sharing the files they were supposed to protect, there is one final piece of evidence to conclusively link “Sharkmp4″ to the copyright trolls.
It’s no secret that The Pirate Bay stores users’ IP-addresses, so after hearing about the new filing they handed TorrentFreak the log files for Sharkmp4. They link the user to John Steele and Prenda Law.
Below is an overview of some of the uploaded files which are all still online.

Sharkmp4 IP-addresses

The Pirate Bay logs not only link Prenda to the sharing of their own files on BitTorrent, but also tie them directly to the Sharkmp4 user and the uploads of the actual torrent files.
The IP-address 75.72.88.156 was previously used by someone with access to John Steele’s GoDaddy account and was also used by Sharkmp4 to upload various torrents. Several of the other IP-addresses in the log resolve to the Mullvad VPN and are associated with Prenda-related comments on the previously mentioned anti-copyright troll blogs.
The logs provided by The Pirate Bay can be seen as the missing link in the evidence chain, undoubtedly linking Sharkmp4 to Prenda and John Steele. Needless to say, considering the stack of evidence above it’s not outrageous to conclude that the honeypot theory is viable.
While this is certainly not the first time that a copyright troll has been accused of operating a honeypot, the evidence compiled against Prenda and Steel is some of the most damning we’ve seen thus far.
It’s now up to the judge to decide what to do with it.
Update: The logs caused some confusion among TPB users but Pirate Bay’s Winston ensures TorrentFreak that IPs in the database are wiped after 48-hours.
“the IPs I dug up are from the daily database backups. I had to decrypt the backups one by one after checking the upload times and fetching the correct backup file for that day,” Winston tells us.
“The backups are stored on a separate cloud provider, pgp encrypted so the decryption key is not the same as the encryption key, and the decryption key is safely stored offline and is itself encrypted with a passphrase. So there’s no risk of users IPs getting compromised in a raid!”
“As for us sharing the IPs, we would obvious only do this to out the bad guys, after we linked them to the addresses.”

Lying Politicians And Words

Bradley Manning Court-Martial: Secrecy and Injustice on Trial

By Stephen Lendman

Global Research, June 04, 2013

Region: USA

Theme: Law and Justice, Police State & Civil Rights

America honors its worst. It persecutes its best. Manning is heroic. He risked great personal harm. He did so to reveal vital truths. Washington has no right to conceal them. People have a right to know.Secrecy, lawlessness, and contempt for humanity define US policy. Evidence vital to Manning’s defense is prohibited. Information refuting charges of “aiding the enemy” is barred from trial proceedings. Claiming it’s not relevant or harmful to national security doesn’t wash. Excluding it reflects police state justice.
On June 3, United States v. Bradley Manning court-martial proceedings began. Pre-trial, Obama pronounced him guilty by accusation. Doing so denies any possibility of judicial fairness. His word is final.
“We are a nation of laws,” he claimed. “We don’t let individuals make decisions about how the law operates. (Manning) broke the law.”
No nation spurns inviolable laws more egregiously than America. Obama reflects the worst of US governance. He rules by diktat authority. He does so secretly. He’s waging war on humanity. He does so at home and abroad.
With a stroke of his pen he could free Manning. Pronouncing guilt by accusation assures his conviction. Doing so publicly leaves no doubt.
So do secret trial proceedings. They violate constitutional law. The Sixth Amendment states:
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
The Constitution mandates ALL criminal prosecutions. Pentagon ones aren’t exempt. Especially high-profile cases like Manning. If convicted, he faces possible life in prison. At issue is convicting him for doing the right thing.
Manning’s trial proceedings will be secret, not public. Doing so violates constitutional law.
It mandates the right to a speedy trial by an impartial jury. He’s denied both. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) calls for trial within 120 days of restraint and arraignment.
The Rule for Court Martial (RCM) 707 mandates the same thing. It’s to assure speedy trial proceedings. Manning’s been held over three years without trial.
He’s been isolated throughout much of it. Doing so violates Eight Amendment protection against “cruel and unusual punishments.” US statute laws were violated.
So was UCMJ’s Article 13. It prohibits pre-trial confinement conditions “any more rigorous” than what’s minimally needed to ensure the accused appears for court hearings.
America should be on trial, not Manning! He revealed war crimes too egregious to be kept secret. He should be honored for doing so. Top culpable civilian and military officials should be held fully accountable. Justice demands no less.
Manning faces 22 charges. He pleaded guilty to 10 lesser ones. He denied 12 greater ones. He called war logs given WikiLeaks “some of the most important documents of our time.” He chose ones he believed “wouldn’t cause harm to the United States.”
He hoped a national debate would follow his revelations. It’s sorely needed more than ever.
America’s “obsessed with capturing and killing people,” he said. “Collateral murder” is policy. US helicopter pilots gunned down innocent civilians.
They murdered anyone trying to help them. Shooting wounded victims was like “a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass,” he said.
He wanted everyone to know. It’s their right. At issue are high crimes of war and against humanity. They’re too grave to ignore.
Manning’s charges include 1917 Espionage Act violations. Doing so contradicts the law’s intent. It doesn’t deter Justice Department or Pentagon officials from using it. It passed shortly after America’s entry into WW I. Over time, it’s been amended numerous times.
Originally it prohibited interfering with US military operations, supporting the nation’s enemies, promoting insubordination in the ranks, or obstructing military recruitment.
In 1921, its most controversial provisions were repealed. In 2010, Manning was wrongfully charged under the Act. Technically its under Articles 104 and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). It includes parts of the US Code.
Colonel Denise Lind is both judge and jury. Official transcripts of proceedings will be kept secret. Weeks earlier, Freedom of the Press Foundation “launched a campaign to crowd-fund a court stenographer.”
Manning’s trial “will have an enormous impact on press freedom and the rights of future whistleblowers,” it said. “The government refuses to make its transcripts available to the public.”
Floyd Abrams is a constitutional law expert. Yochai Benkler is Harvard Law School’s Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies.
In March 2013, their New York Times op-ed headlined “Death to Whistle-Blowers?”
At issue is Manning’s trial. If found guilty on serious charges, “the prosecution will establish a chilling precedent: national security leaks may subject the leakers to a capital prosecution or at least life imprisonment.”
“Anyone who holds freedom of the press dear should shudder at the threat that the prosecution’s theory presents to journalists, their sources and the public that relies on them.”
Former Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black one said:
“The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic.”
What’s more destructive than imposing capital penalties or imprisoning heroic whistleblowers for life for doing the right thing.
According to Abrams and Benkler, Manning’s “leaks included important disclosures (and) their publication is protected by the First Amendment no less than the publication of the Pentagon Papers was.”
“We cannot allow our concerns about terrorism to turn us into a country where communicating with the press can be prosecuted as a capital offense.”
Both contributors agreed. WikiLeaks is part of the Fourth Estate. It’s right to publish is no less than any other media organization or contributor.
Over 350 media sources submitted applications to witness Manning’s trial. Only 70 got permission. In other words, those considered safe may do so. Others are prohibited.
Claiming space limitations denies others doesn’t wash. Proceedings can be held anywhere. According to the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF):
“In previous hearings, the Army has opened a public overflow theater with live audio and video streaming of the hearing.”
“Additionally, the Army has sole discretion over which room(s) to designate as media rooms – including how many rooms to make available.”
FPF enlisted a reputable court stenographer firm. With permission, its stenographers will work in shifts.
Doing so will provide a public record. All media sources will have access. Independent alternative ones are most important. People will learn what otherwise they won’t know.
On June 1, FPF headlined “Crowd-funded Stenographers Denied Press Passes to the Bradley Manning Court Martial.”
It said three of its media partners were denied them. It remains to be seen if FPF’s request discussed above will or won’t fare better.
Manning’s trial will be held at Fort Meade, MD. On June 2, Bradley Manning.org headlined “Nearly two thousand rally for Bradley Manning at Ft. Meade.”
They did so on June 1. Washington charged Manning with indirectly “aiding the enemy.” Saying so defies reason. It mocks fundamental constitutional rule of law principles.
Manning’s a political prisoner. Amnesty International (AI) claims otherwise. It refuses to name him a prisoner of conscience. From January 2012 – January 2013, former Hillary Clinton aide Suzanne Nossel headed AI USA. She’s an imperial insider.
Interim co-executive directors Bob Goodfellow and Frank Jannuzi replaced her. They’ve acted no less irresponsibly than she did.
According to Francis Boyle:
“Amnesty International is primarily motivated not by human rights but by publicity. Second comes money.” It relies on corporate foundations and other dubious sources to provide it. Services rendered in return are expected. Conflicts of interest are rife.
The Bradley Manning Support Fund is “100%” responsible for his legal expenses. Around 20,000 supporters contributed over $1.25 million.
David Coombs represents Manning. On June 2, he said:
“On behalf of both myself and PFC Manning, I would like to thank everyone for their continued support over the last three years.”
“I especially appreciate the the tireless fundraising and awareness efforts of Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network.”
“Finally, a special thank you to those journalists who have been reporting on PFC Manning since the beginning and who have brought worldwide attention to this important case.”
“I AM BRADLEY MANNING.”
We’re all Bradley Manning! His fate is ours!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
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http://www.dailycensored.com/bradley-manning-court-martial-secrecy-and-injustice-on-trial/