Demonoid Will Come Back Soon, Rebuild in Progress

• Ernesto
• November 6, 2013
• demonoid,
  demonoid down

After more than a year of downtime Demonoid’s website is again showing signs of life. A notice displayed on the website of the infamous BitTorrent tracker reveals that the people behind the site are planning a comeback. Talking to TorrentFreak Demonoid’s admin confirms the resurrection without revealing a time-frame or any other specifics. While many questions remain unanswered, former Demonoid users are getting excited.
As the single largest semi-private BitTorrent tracker that ever existed, Demonoid offered a home to millions of file-sharers.
This changed abruptly August last year when a series of troubled events took the site offline. When it was still down after a year, many had given up hope that it would ever return.
Today there’s a glimmer of hope to report to estranged Demonoid members, as the site is preparing for a glorious comeback. TorrentFreak contacted the Demonoid team via its demonoid.com email address where the Demonoid team confirmed the plans.
“I can’t give you any specifics at the moment, but yeah, we are planning to bring the site back,” we were told.
A follow-up request, for more details and whether the same people are behind the site, remains unanswered for now. However, a landing page on Demonoid.com and Demonoid.me brings more hope.
“We will rebuild! Coming back soon, please check back later. Thanks for your visit!,” it reads, with a Bitcoin donation option below.

Demonoid coming back?

It is currently unknown whether the site’s legal troubles are still ongoing.
When Demonoid had its servers taken down by Ukrainian hosting company Colocall last year local authorities explained that Interpol had requested the action as part of a criminal investigation into the site’s alleged owners in Mexico.
Months earlier Mexican authorities had carried out raids in Monterrey, the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León. Their prime target was a Demonoid operator, and one person connected to the BitTorrent tracker was subsequently imprisoned but later released.
At this point TorrentFreak is unable to confirm whether the Demonoid domains are still in the hands of the old crew. Neither do we know if the planned resurrection will be with the old user and torrent database.
Earlier this year the mysterious D2.vu site launched using a copy of the Demonoid user and torrent database. The operator of the spin-off claimed not to be related to the Demonoid owners and thus far the site hasn’t gotten much traction.
The people behind the planned resurrection of Demonoid have access to the site’s original .com and .me domains so there’s a good chance that the site may return fully, backed by part of the old crew.
Time will tell whether that’s the case.

NSA Funding Bill Passed By Senate Intelligence Community Gives Agency Extra Cash To Hunt 'Insider Threats'

from the because-you-can't-be-'protected'-unless-you're-discovered,-amiri dept

An earlier attempt to defund NSA programs via amendments to the Defense Dept. appropriations bill went nowhere (but by a much narrower margin than many expected), and now it's up to both the House and Senate to push bills through reauthorizing the NSA's budget.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has already given its thumbs up to NSA spending, advancing a bill that contains a little something extra for its favorite agency.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has advanced legislation to reauthorize funding for the National Security Agency and surveillance programs.

The bill includes new funding for technology to combat "insider threats" and leaks of classified information.

The committee approved the legislation in a 13-2 vote late Tuesday.

The NSA's budget is currently $10.2 billion (which we know thanks to leaked documents). This additional funding will be earmarked for barn door closing and witch hunting.

The bill would empower the director of national intelligence to make improvements to the government's process for investigating people with security clearances, such as Snowden.

The phrase, "throwing good money after bad" comes to mind. An intelligence agency of this size and reach should have been prepared for this eventuality and maybe, just maybe, shouldn't have been so willing to outsource everything from system administration to the background checks themselves. Giving the NSA more money in order to help it guard against an eventuality like Snowden's massive disclosures is basically rewarding it for running a leaky ship.

The bad news is that the government doesn't know how to approach the "insider threat" issue. Any nuance is obliterated by a horrible combination of bureaucracy and paranoia, which results in the government suggesting that an employee's "dissatisfaction with US policies" or financial problems indicate he or she is a possible "insider threat."

According to the press release issued by the committee, the bill will also include some sort of protection for whistleblowers provided, of course, they go through official channels.

[Institutes] new statutory protections that protect the ability of legitimate whistleblowers to bring concerns directly to the attention of lawmakers, inspectors general and intelligence community leaders

That's the press release wording, so we'll have to wait until the text of the bill is made public before we'll be able to judge the merits of this claim. The administration has talked a strong game about transparency but has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined. Requiring whistleblowers to go through official channels in order to be afforded any legal protections just makes it that much more difficult for any true whistleblowing to occur. Official channels are in place to discourage whistleblowing rather than accommodate it, no matter what assurances might be included in the legislation. Besides, any bill that aims at both rooting out "insider threats" (many of whom may just be whistleblowers) and protecting whistleblowers is at odds with itself.

The bill passed 13-2 out of committee. Even without a roll call of those votes, it's safe to assume the nays came from Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, which should be an indicator of the bill's indulgence of the NSA's desires and the presumably weak whistleblower protections that accompany it.

Office Depot Sends World's Worst DMCA Notice To Reddit

from the the-non-swastika-is-the-least-of-your-problems dept

I'm always amazed when lawyers send clearly bogus DMCA notices. It shouldn't be hard to figure out that doing so ends badly. I'm doubly surprised, however, when it comes from big companies that should know better. And, I'm quadruple surprised when one of these companies that should know better sends a completely bogus DMCA notice to a company that absolutely understands why the notice is bogus, and is also in a position to make the world know all about a company's bogus DMCA notice. That's what we have here. You see, this morning, Office Depot decided to send a DMCA to Reddit.

Yes, to Reddit.

Now, yes, it's possible that someone posted copyrighted material to Reddit, for which a DMCA could possibly be appropriate. But this isn't one of those cases. The complaint is about this r/circlejerk post by heisenberg69 from seven months ago. I imagine that post isn't going anywhere, but just in case it is, I've also embedded the screenshot that Office Depot helpfully included with the DMCA notice to Reddit. As you can see, heisenberg69 posted a link to this imgur image of not-quite a swastika over the Office Depot logo. We'll repost it here for you to see: Of course, as the first comment points out, this isn't even a swastika. It's a sauwastika, the Buddhist symbol for peace. Basically, it's a backwards swastika. Either way, let's count the many, many, many ways in which this DMCA notice is bogus.

1. This is not copyright infringement. At all. Office Depot's Corporate Counsel Jared Namm appears to admit this at the very beginning of his DMCA notice. While he first says it "violates the copyrights and trademarks of Office Depot," at no point does he explain what copyright is violated, because he can't. He later points only to "the Office Depot trademark." But, you cannot use a DMCA for trademark. It is only for copyright. Pretending to use a DMCA claim for a trademark claim is an abuse of the DMCA.
   
   
2. Even if you look at the trademark issue, this is not a trademark issue. Making use of a logo in this manner is, in no way, an infringement on Office Depot's trademark. There is no "use in commerce." There is no likelihood of confusion. And there are many, many, many cases where simply parodying or mocking a logo of a company has been found to be non-infringing. Nazi-izing someone's logo for the purpose of mocking the company is not infringement.
   
   
3. This is not copyright infringement, part two. After trying out the bogus trademark claim, Office Depot's Namm claims that the posting is in violation of Reddit's terms of service. Even if this were true, that's not a reason to send a DMCA notice.
   
   
4. This is not a violation of Reddit's terms of service. Again, even if you could send a DMCA based on a violation of the terms of service, this is not a violation of the terms of service. Office Depot argues that this is "defamatory, abusive, harassing, racist, hateful or violent." I guess you could try to make an argument for "hateful," but it's difficult to see how that reaches the level of a terms of service violation.
   
   
5. Merely mocking a company such as Office Depot for having Nazi-like attributes is not hate speech. It may not make much sense, but that's not how it works. It's even more ridiculous when you realize this isn't even a swastika. Amazingly, even Office Depot admits this in the DMCA letter, which Namm adds as if it's a helpful tidbit:

   A little history on the symbol as well: this particular design is not Nazi related but the original Sauwastika (facing left) vs. the Nazi Germany alteration (facing right). The left facing has been a symbol in Hindu/Buddhist art/texts that predate the Nazi usage by centuries. While this does not dismiss the use of the symbol in conjunction with our logo, in reviewing the posts it appears there is confusion on the symbol, but heisenberg69's posting of the symbol over the Office Depot logo associates Office Depot with Nazi Germany.

   So, Office Depot admits this isn't a Nazi symbol, and sends a screenshot in which the top comment, with the most votes on the thread is pointing out that this isn't a Nazi symbol... and then still says this posting associates Office Depot with Nazis.
   
   
6. Jared Namm swore "under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed." Yet, despite mentioning copyright, nowhere does he name an actual copyright that's been infringed, because there hasn't been one. While he may be able to skate out from under perjury by arguing that the second half of that penalty of perjury clause was "owner of an exclusive right," again no trademark law has been infringed and you can't use the DMCA for trademark anyway. It's not wise to swear under penalty of perjury something that is almost certainly not true.
   
   
7. The image is not hosted on Reddit. But on Imgur. Which is a different company.
   
   
8. Oh yeah, and this was a Reddit r/circlejerk post from 7 months ago that didn't get that much attention then and has all but disappeared from view entirely. And now, due entirely to the absolutely stupid decision by either Office Depot Corporate Counsel Jared Namm, or someone above him in management who told him to do this and who failed to heed any suggestion that this was (a) not infringement and (b) a monumentally stupid move, went ahead and sent this notice, practically guaranteeing that the post and the image suddenly get renewed life and attention.
   
   
9. And, finally, sending a totally bogus DMCA notice to Reddit? Reddit, who as a community was perhaps the most instrumental community in bringing down SOPA, has no love for bogus copyright claims. Remember, Reddit is the community who organized the massive GoDaddy boycott that got GoDaddy to back down from its support of SOPA (and to eventually turn over almost its entire management team). Poking Reddit with a bogus DMCA stick for what appears to be no reason at all just doesn't seem smart at all.

Incredibly, Jared Namm's LinkedIn profile claims that he advises Office Depot on a variety of intellectual properties and social media initiatives. I would imagine that picking a bogus fight with Reddit is not exactly the wisest of "social media" strategies.http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131106/11130125151/office-depot-sends-worlds-worst-dmca-notice-to-reddit.shtml

U.S. government may force doctors to accept Obamacare and Medicare patients, eventually at gunpoint

naturalnews.com

Originally published November 4 2013

U.S. government may force doctors to accept Obamacare and Medicare patients, eventually at gunpoint

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) The primary tool of socialism is force, and while that force usually begins with good intentions codified into law, it inevitably ends up with the kind of force used by Mao Zedong to murder millions of his own citizens. "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," he famously stated, and Obama-supporting democrats are following in his footsteps.

Word from the street is that Kathleen Murphy, a democrat running for the House, wants to make it a legal requirement that doctors accept Medicare and Obamacare patients.

Many doctors, of course, have already announced that will not accept such patients because they would go bankrupt if they did. The government's payout on medical services rendered to patients in these groups is a total joke, you see: doctors sometimes receive only 30% of what they actually billed. And they can't negotiate, either. The government simply tells you what you "get" to receive in terms of payment, regardless of how much you actually billed as a doctor.

So forcing doctors to accept Medicare / Obamacare patients is the same as forcing them to work for free. Most doctors won't work for free, as they have their own families to financially support, so they'll simply quit the industry altogether. That, in turn, will cause a radical worsening of the existing doctor shortage across the USA, resulting in yet more people going without health care.

Force doctors to practice medicine at gunpoint

The reaction by democrats to all this, of course, will be to make it illegal for doctors to quit. And that will sooner or later be enforced at gunpoint, because force is the only tool that socialists really understand since they operate in total ignorance of the mechanisms of the free market and informed consumer choice. With Obama and the democrats, it's always "Mandate! Mandate! Mandate!" even if it means assigning a government paramilitary worker to hold a pistol to the head of every doctor across America to make them see patients against their will.

And why not? Obamacare already forces hundreds of millions of American citizens to buy health insurance against their will. Now Kathleen Murphy wants to force doctors to accept all these patients against their will. Where does it ever end?

I'll tell you where it ends: Violent revolution. Every socialist entitlement dream -- whether it's in China, Venezuela, Argentina or even Fascist-style systems like Nazi Germany -- always end in violent collapse and mass slaughter.

Because, you see, a centrally-planned economy simply never works. And once the government has to resort to threats, penalties and force to make everyone comply, you end up with nothing more than an oppressive police state where everybody is angry, everybody lives in fear, and the costs of goods and service skyrocket because the free market is crippled.

Sooner or later the people revolt and overthrow the tyranny for the simple reason that liberty is part of the DNA of all humans. We are beings with free will and consciousness, and that means we don't want to be enslaved and forced to act against our will -- especially not by a criminal, incompetent government run like a mafia.

A health care voucher system would slash costs almost immediately

The way to really bring down health care costs in America while still fulfilling part of the Big Government dream of entitlements to the masses would be for Obama to announce a voucher system where every person gets (for example) $500 / month in a free health care voucher that they can spend as they like.

This would put consumers in the position of actually shopping around for affordable doctors, affordable medications and even preventive services such as holistic health care fitness memberships or dietary supplements that prevent chronic disease.

A voucher system is the opposite of the current monopoly system, and that's exactly why democrats hate voucher systems: They give people the freedom to choose. Government hates choice, and the Obama government in particular hates the entire private sector. Deep inside, all Obama supporters believe in a soviet-style centrally-planned economy, and they live in a matrix of wild delusions in which they believe government actually delivers services more efficiently and cheaply than the private sector.

Just look at Healthcare.gov if you want to refute that delusion. In truth, no institution is more inefficient, wasteful and crooked in delivering services than the government itself. That's why the real solution to health care in America is to allow consumers to shop for their own treatments, cures, insurance policies and doctor visits using free market principles of 1) informed consumers, 2) freedom to choose, 3) incentives for consumers to find the best price.

I proposed a solution to national health care in 2009

I'm actually the creator of a voucher system proposal that could have turned Obamacare into an amazing success instead of a disastrous failure. I proposed this system in 2009 and you can read it here:

http://healthrevolutionpetition.org

That petition was endorsed by the Life Extension Foundation, the Organic Consumers Association, the American Association for Health Freedom and Citizens for Health, among other groups.

Had America chosen that kind of system instead of the disastrous Obamacare, we wouldn't be hearing democrats today saying incredibly stupid things like, "We have to MAKE doctors accept Obamacare patients!"

Here's the full text of my Health Revolution Petition from 2009. It remains a viable system today:

We, the People of these United States of America, hereby call for revolutionary changes in our health care system that encourage health and prosperity instead of disease and corporate profit.

Specifically, we call for:

1. Federal government encouragement and reward for the People taking personal responsibility for their own health

- A full federal income tax deduction, with no minimum, for the purchase of any product, service, or device that is intended for use in the improvement of health. This includes, but is not limited to, dietary and herbal supplements, gym memberships, health coaching services, exercise equipment, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) therapies or any other health-enhancing products and services.

- The immediate creation of an investigatory panel, comprised of leaders from both conventional and naturopathic backgrounds, that would investigate the "Citizens In Charge" debit card health care system described at www.HealthRevolutionPetition.org/CitizensInC...

* The "Citizens In Charge" health care system is a "socialized-free-market" system of health care that eliminates all health insurance and puts health care decisions back into the hands of the People, allowing them to spend their government-provided health care funds on any health-related products or services they choose (conventional, alternative, licensed or unlicensed).

* The investigatory panel shall report on the economic viability (and potential savings) of the program, as well as the likely improvements in health care outcomes. This report shall be made publicly available on the internet for all citizens to read and discuss.

2. Restore Health Freedom to All Americans and Legalize Healing

- Allow all practitioners of the healing arts, licensed or otherwise, the freedom to practice healing arts with the consent of patients. End all government persecution of alternative and complementary care practitioners and clinics.

- End FDA oppression of free speech about health products and therapies.

- Protect access to dietary supplements, colloidal silver, medicinal herbs and anti-cancer products.

- End FTC and FDA assaults on the Free Speech rights of natural health companies who accurately describe the health benefits of their products.

- Affirm the rights of American moms and dads to choose to avoid mandatory vaccinations of their children.

- End federal assaults (DEA) on the possession or sale of medicinal plants that have been medically recognized and legalized by States such as California.

- Legalize Healing: End state monopoly medical licensing laws that grant conventional medical authorities absolute power to decide who can or cannot practice medicine.

3. End FDA Tyranny, Censorship and Corruption

- End the FDA's definition of a "drug" and strip it of authority to censor truthful health claims about dietary supplements.

- End revolving door employment between the FDA and Big Pharma; fire current FDA employees and advisors with past financial ties to Big Pharma.

- Require full disclosures of financial conflicts of interest of FDA managers, scientists and decision panel members.

- End the FDA's Big Pharma-initiated attack on compounding pharmacies and bioidentical hormone therapy.

- Investigate the FDA's collusion with pharmaceutical companies in hiding clinical trial data from the American public.

4. Protect the Food Supply

- Ban GMOs in the U.S. food supply.

- Ban harmful food additives: MSG, aspartame and sodium nitrite.

- Require honest labeling of irradiated foods.

- Require country-of-origin labeling for all foods sold in the U.S.

- Ban the importation of foods using pesticides outlawed in the U.S.

- Save California's almond growers and end the fumigation of raw almonds.

- Require honest investigation into mad cow disease and the questionable practices of factory animal farms.

- Only permit "harmonization" of our healthcare and food laws with other nations if all the freedoms and rights mentioned in this petition are respected and guaranteed both domestically and in the harmonizing nation.

5. Restore Honest Science to Medicine

- Require the open, timely publication of all medical studies.

- Require open disclosure of all ties between study authors, researchers and for-profit entities.

- Require clinical trial results to report ABSOLUTE numbers, not just relative numbers.

- Require long-term testing of drugs (at least 12 months) before approval in order to determine real-world side effects.

- Require safety testing of multiple drug combinations that are commonly prescribed to real patients.

- End disease mongering and the psychiatric medication of infants and toddlers. Outlaw the drugging of young children with mind-altering chemicals such as ADHD drugs.

6. End Era of Big Pharma Domination Over Health Care

- End all drug-company-funded "benefits" to doctors, including vacation-style CME events, speaking fees, consulting fees and author fees.

- Investigate and prosecute drug company executives for intentionally hiding negative drug trial data and misleading the public about the safety of their products.

- Get Big Pharma out of medical schools.

- Guarantee the right of consumers to sue drug companies and medical device manufacturers for damages caused by unsafe products.

- Restore power to the FTC to regulate commercial drug advertising practices.

- Modify the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to double product liability and personal injury awards involving any pharmaceuticals that are advertised in a Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) manner.

- Enact legislation that would impose substantial criminal penalties for executives of drug companies that advertise drugs for which serious adverse events were known by the company at the time the drug was submitted to the FDA for approval.

- Regulate direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription medications by removing its jurisdiction from the FDA and shifting it to the FTC, which is normally the agency that exercises jurisdiction over commercial advertising. Additionally:

* Require such ads to prominently and conspicuously display, for a period of no less than five seconds, a toll-free phone number that drug consumers may use to report drug side effects.

* Disallow the practice of using celebrity spokespersons for the promotion of any drug.

* Disallow ads that exaggerate claims of drug benefits or that do not accurately reflect the scientific findings of clinical trials.

* Require all statistical claims of drug benefits to be stated in absolute numbers, not relative numbers.

* Require drug side effects reports gathered through the toll-free phone number to be reported on a timely basis to the FDA.

* Require the FTC to disallow pharmaceutical "lifestyle advertising" that suggests taking a drug will dramatically transform the lifestyle of the patient. Lifestyle advertising sends a dangerous message that the "before" person (depressed, miserable, unhealthy-looking) will be magically changed into the "after" person (healthy, vibrant, happy, energetic and sexy) by taking the drug.

7. Protect Children From Products That Compromise Their Health

- Restrict commercial advertising of junk foods, sodas and caffeine energy drinks to programming hours not commonly viewed by children.

- Eliminate junk food and soda vending machines from all schools and public buildings.

- Get processed foods out of the school lunch program and encourage the use of fresh, unprocessed foods.

- End mandatory vaccination requirements (as per section 2, above), restoring this decision to parents.

8. Ban Man-Made, Non-Natural Cancer-Causing Chemicals in Cosmetics and Personal Care Products

- Ban man-made, non-natural chemicals in cosmetics that have not been proven safe.

- Require government-funded testing of commonly used man-made, non-natural chemicals to determine their safety.

- Require honest labeling of cosmetics and personal care products with appropriate cancer warnings.

- Recognize that the skin absorbs chemicals, and chemicals used on the skin can enter the bloodstream.

9. Invest in Disease Prevention

- Encourage and permit tax deductions for routine testing of vitamin D as part of routine patient exams.

- Encourage vitamin D supplementation and sensible sunlight exposure to correct deficiencies.

- Teach the population about nutrition, vitamin D, medicinal foods and disease prevention by using Public Service Announcements.

10. Protect the Environment from Drug and Chemical Companies

- Require the EPA to investigate the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals in the water supply.

- End the chemical fluoridation of public water supplies.

- Require hospitals, pharmacies and nursing homes to dispose of expired pharmaceuticals in an environmentally-conscious away that avoids more drugs being flushed down the drain and passing intact through waste water treatment facilities and then into our bodies when we consume tap water.

---

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14 Facts About The Absolutely Crazy Internet Stock Bubble That Could Crash And Burn In 2014

By Michael Snyder, on November 5th, 2013

Shouldn't Internet companies actually "make a profit" at some point before being considered worth billions of dollars?  A lot of investors laugh when they look back at the foolishness of the "Dotcom bubble" of the late 1990s, but the tech bubble that is inflating right in front of our eyes today is actually far worse.  For example, what would you say if I told you that a seven-year-old company that has a long history of not being profitable and that actually lost 64 million dollars last quarter is worth more than 13 billion dollars?  You would probably say that I was insane, but the company that I have just described is Twitter and Wall Street is going crazy for it right now.  Please don't get me wrong - I actually love Twitter.  On my Twitter account I have sent out thousands of "tweets".  Twitter is a lot of fun, and it has had a huge impact on the entire planet.  But is it worth 13 billion dollars?  Of course not.
When it comes to the Internet, what is hot today will probably not be hot tomorrow.
Do you remember MySpace?
At one time, MySpace was considered to be the undisputed king of social media.  But then something better came along (Facebook) and killed it.
It is important to keep in mind that Facebook did not even exist ten years ago.  Yes, almost everybody is using it today, but will everybody still be using it a decade from now?
Maybe.
But the way that the financial markets are valuing these firms can only be justified if they are going to make absolutely massive profits for many decades to come.
Will Twitter eventually make a little bit of money?
Probably, as long as they get their act together.
In fact, Twitter should be making significant amounts of money right now if it was being run correctly.
But will Twitter ever make 13 billion dollars?
No, that simply is not going to happen.  But that is what Wall Street says that Twitter is worth.
The utter foolishness that we are witnessing on Wall Street right now is so similar to what we saw back in the late 1990s.  It is almost as if we have learned nothing from our past mistakes.
These days I keep having flashbacks of the Pets.com sock puppet.  For those too young to remember, the following is a brief summary from Investopedia about what happened to Pets.com...

It's impossible to think of the first Internet era without thinking of the Pets.com sock puppet. He was everywhere and was nearly as well-known as the Geico gecko is today.
That familiarity, in part, persuaded many investors to lay down money in the company's February 2000 IPO (which was backed by Amazon.com). Pets.com raised $82.5 million – but nine months later it folded, due to major recurring losses. Part of the reason for that was aggressive advertising, but the company also lost money on virtually every item it sold. In the third quarter of 2000, Pets.com reported negative gross margins of $277,000. (The second quarter had seen a $1.7 million margin loss.) That same quarter (its last full quarter as an operating entity), the company lost $21.7 million on $9.4 million in revenue.
As for the puppet, he went on to shill for BarNone, which helps people with bad credit histories get car loans. He's still there today, front and center on that website.

Everyone loves to laugh at the poor little sock puppet, but the truth is that the tech bubble that is inflating right now is far worse than the Dotcom bubble of the late 1990s.  The following are 14 facts about the current tech bubble that will blow your mind...
#1 In just a few days, the Twitter IPO is expected to raise close to 2 billion dollars even though Twitter actually lost 64.6 million dollars last quarter and has a long history of not being profitable.
#2 It is being projected that after the IPO Twitter could have a market valuation of more than 13 billion dollars.
#3 Twitter is not expected to make a profit until 2015 at the earliest.
#4 According to CNBC, Pinterest is currently valued at 3.8 billion dollars even though it has never earned a profit.
#5 Yahoo paid more than a billion dollars for Tumblr even though Tumblr's revenues are so small that Yahoo is not even required to report them on financial statements.
#6 Snapchat, an Internet service that allows people to send out messages that "self-destruct", is supposedly worth 4 billion dollars.  But it actually has zero revenue coming in, and many believe that it is essentially worthless as a money making enterprise.  For one extensive analysis by a tech blogger, please see this article.
#7 The stock of Rocket Fuel, an online advertising company, is trading at about 60 dollars a share and it has a market valuation of about 2 billion dollars even though it has never made a profit.
#8 The stock of local business review website Yelp is up 241 percent this year even though it has never earned a quarterly profit.
#9 Fab.com just raised 165 million dollars from investors even though it recently laid off 44o employees.
#10 LinkedIn stock has risen in price by 136 percent since the 2011 IPO, and it is now supposedly worth more than 18 billion dollars.
#11 The head of engineering at Twitter, Chris Fry, got a 10.3 million dollar pay package when he joined Twitter last year.
#12 Facebook's VP of engineering, Mike Schroepfer, earned 24.4 million dollars in 2011.
#13 Office rents in San Francisco (where many of these tech companies are based) are now 23 percent higher than they were at the peak of the real estate market in 2008.
#14 Facebook stock is up close to 140 percent over the past 12 months and the company is now worth more than 120 billion dollars.
And I am certainly not the only one that is concerned that we are repeating the mistakes of the late 1990s...

“When you look at valuations and look at the lack of earnings and revenue, it seems to me much like the dot-com bubble,” said Matt McCormick, a money manager at Cincinnati-based Bahl & Gaynor Inc. who helps oversee $10.2 billion. “This market looks a little frothy and Twitter is the personification of a risky trade.”

In fact, as the Wall Street Journal recently noted, we have seen some of these tech stocks crash more than once during the Internet age...

"It's fascinating to me that today's mini-mania includes shares of Amazon, Netflix and Priceline that have previously peaked and crashed before—in some cases they've peaked and crashed twice before," says Darren Pollock, portfolio manager at Cheviot Value Management. "Stocks like these have again captured the imagination of speculators. We're skeptical that there is enough underlying intrinsic value to many of the highfliers to support today's prices."

So how long will it be until the current tech bubble implodes?

NJ Mall Shooting Proves Public Violence Is About Mental Health, Not Gun Control

 

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by Frances Martel 6 Nov 2013,

Another night, another breathless live account of a lone gunman loose in a highly-populated public area.

Unlike the many terrifying episodes of the past couple of years, however, Monday night's incident at Garden State Plaza doesn't lend itself to the agenda of anti-gun advocates, and it exposes how gun control does not address the source of the problem: America's failure to properly address mental health.
Shoppers and employees at Garden State Plaza—a large complex in Paramus, NJ—found themselves locked in the mall after a succession of shots rang through the outside of Nordstrom's, with many reporting up to six shots, aimed generally at the ceiling but potentially at security cameras. Bergen County sent in a SWAT team to check the mall store by store, ensuring that the gunman could not pretend to be a shopper and sneak out. The gunman, 20-year-old Richard Shoop, was found in the early morning hours in a part of the mall not typically frequented by shoppers, dead by his own hand. He was found with a rifle redesigned to look like an AK-47 and several rounds of ammunition.
The story stands out among the ever-increasing tragedies in which young men acting alone open fire on a public area for many reasons. For one, authorities note that it appears Shoop had no interest in harming others. While motives remain unclear, some reports indicate Shoop had a history of drug use. Those who knew him casually had an exceptionally positive impression of him. According to his brother, Kevin Shoop, he left his family a goodbye note. A friend notes he received a text from Shoop in which he asked to talk the night before.
The picture that surfaces of Shoop is a complex, unique one. Yet it does not particularly lend itself to the type of gun control advocacy preferred by the likes of Piers Morgan and Michael Bloomberg because it is so different, but because it is so similar, and the links between Shoop and the other modern villains of our time—Adam Lanza, Aaron Alexis, James Holmes—have little to do with how they acquired their weapons.
The aforementioned reports from friends and family indicate that Shoop was clearly disturbed, seeking an end to his life as he knew it. His brother, Kevin, who owned the rifle in question and had it stolen by his brother, noted in a press conference that the letter Richard Shoop left said goodbye in a way that could have meant anything from leaving town to going to jail to, yes, suicide. Keeping Shoop away from guns would not have saved him if his death wish remained unaddressed, but perhaps a quicker reaction time from those to which he was trying to reach out could have helped.
When approached from the angle of a gun control advocate, who is out only to keep guns out of as many hands as possible rather than keep people from wanting to commit mass shootings, one has to ask: if Shoop was not able to harm anyone else, and did not seem interested in harming anyone else, is his behavior acceptable? Does the lack of apparent desire to kill anyone else make it more important for us as a society to reach out to potential Adam Lanzas or James Holmeses than to potential Richard Shoops?
Of course, saving innocents is paramount in any operation regarding public safety, but the safest possible approach, for innocents and otherwise, is to address the problem at its source—not play whack-a-mole with shooting sprees as they happen.
The mental health issue arises routinely when mass shootings occur. The arguments made after the Washington Navy Yard shooting, for example, highlight both the need to keep track of mental health patients when they attempt to buy a gun and give them the care they often might not believe they need. After this most recent incident, Governor Chris Christie was quick to address the problem. Popular opinion also shows a desire to address the problem, and so far, every shooting incident has put us one step closer to a bipartisan consensus that mental health reform will go far in preventing these shootings.
And with this incident—the tragedy with the lowest body count of the lot by far—a unique opportunity arises to discrediting the trend of political thought that blames the problem on the inanimate gun and not the living, breathing human being, often desperate for help, pulling the trigger.

Most important case ever - DOJ is Arguing to the Supreme Court - UN Treaties Trumps U.S. Constitution. Arguing against U.S. Sovereignty would essentially hand the U.S. over to the UN

Most important case ever - DOJ is Arguing to the Supreme Court - UN Treaties Trumps U.S. Constitution. Arguing against U.S. Sovereignty would essentially hand the U.S. over to the UN

We have entered very dangerous grounds.  The case the DOJ (Department of Justice) is arguing to the Supreme Court would in effect take away the Sovereignty of the United States and our laws.

The U.S. government is trying to argue that UN Treaties trumps and over rules the Constitution of the United States.

I want everyone to think about this.  It is very serious.  If the DOJ wins this case, the United States would essentially be a nation  under the rulings and laws of the UN.

This is not a joke and this is a back door forming the New World Order under the United Nations.

We would no longer have the rights to our local and state laws including the rights to Bear Arms.

Remember John Kerry signed the UN small arms treaty, which the Congress was against.  But he did it anyway.

We have people in the government that are giving away the country and every single right and law, we the U.S. citizens believe we live under.

Portion from article:

Justice Department attorneys are advancing an argument at the Supreme Court that could allow the government to invoke international treaties as a legal basis for policies such as gun control that conflict with the U.S. Constitution, according to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Their argument is that a law implementing an international treaty signed by the U.S. allows the federal government to prosecute a criminal case that would normally be handled by state or local authorities.

If the UN at any time wanted to abolish our 3 levels of government that could happen too.  We could immediately go into a complete dictatorship without a Congress.

I would hope the Supreme Court realizes they too could lose their jobs.  The Supreme legals decisions could become the 'World Courts' compared to our Supreme court.

For those that don't know.  The U.S. handed over our national parks to the UN already, though people do not know this.  They are considered UN Biospheres and World Heritage Centers. 

Our Sovereignty as a nation literally is in the Supreme Courts hands right this moment, with this administration arguing against our Sovereignty as a Nation and against our Constitution! 


Besides that Here is Obama's "behind the scenes working on gun control" solution. He shut down the last lead smelter manufacturing business in the U.S. Now the Small Arms treaty makes even more sense... all ammo controlled shipped from one country to another. All ammo will have to be made outside the U.S. now.

http://www.libertyfederation.com/have_we_had_an_endrun_around_the_2nd_amendment


A case in front of the Supreme court in 1957 was  Reid v Covert where the Supreme Court first ruled against the Constitution in regards to a foreign treaty signed by the Senate.  But it was petitioned for a re-hearing and changed their ruling for the Constitution. 

I do not have full faith in the Supreme Court to rule for our Constitution at this time due to the direction this country has been headed for the past few decades.  If they always ruled for the Constitution, then we would have a dollar backed by Gold and the Federal Reserve would not exist.  

Posted by Sherrie Questioning All

New you in ten years: biotech leads the way

Dick Pelletier

Dick Pelletier
Ethical Technology

Posted: Oct 28, 2013

In just ten years, older citizens might look in the mirror and ask, “Who is that gorgeous creature?” Their reflection would reveal a revitalized body overflowing with energy and enthusiasm, sporting a dazzling smile, wrinkle-free skin, perfect vision, natural hair color, real teeth, and an enhanced mind and memory.
    Welcome to the future world of biotech innovations, which many future watchers believe will become widely available and affordable as we move through the 2020s.

    With clinical trials now launching almost daily, experts predict that by 2023, doctors will be able to use stem cells, bio-printing, and genetics to replace aging skin and strengthen frail bones and muscles. These medical wonders also promise to cure, or at least make manageable, nearly all age-related disorders, including the two major killers: heart disease and cancer. Singularity University's Daniel Kraft explains.
    Institute for Global Future's James Canton believes a trillion dollar enhancement market brought on by these new technologies is about to evolve. Dr. Canton expresses his futurist views in this 3-minute video.
    Some enhancements are already available. Fertility science, prosthetic limbs, wonder drugs like Prozac and Viagra; even steroid use, are all designed to improve human performance. Last year, 12 million opted for plastic surgery in their quest to look better, giving the cosmetics industry its largest success ever.
    However, over the next ten years, stem cells, gene therapies and bio-printing, initially developed to cure sicknesses, will dwarf what can be accomplished with the knife; see video. These procedures promise less intrusive means to achieve that 'younger' look. 'Boomers and seniors choose to go beyond today's limitations of age and health; they welcome technologies that enhance looks, stamina, and intelligence.
    We currently fight heart disease with drugs that reduce cholesterol buildup; but with new technologies predicted for the 2020s, we will simply grow new veins or hearts where necessary. In fact, nearly all of our organs, bones, muscles, hair, and skin can be replaced as these new procedures become available.
   In this fascinating 18-minute TEDx presentation focused on regenerative medicine, Wake Forest University's Anthony Atala explains how his team of 300 researchers use stem cells and bio-printers to rejuvenate aging and worn tissues and organs, with hopes of eliminating most of today's aging diseases.
    Ray Kurzweil, in his best-selling book Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, confirmed that we are in early stages of a medical revolution. "By 2026," Kurzweil says, "biotech upgrades will add more than one year of life expectancy to our lives each year." Experts predict that older people may soon enjoy a disease-free indefinite lifespan with only accidents and violence as the primary causes of death.
    However, the concept of enhancing bodies to reject aging causes some to ponder. On one end, human nature includes a natural instinct to improve oneself. On the other end though, it is through natural human form that we perceive ourselves. Conservatives believe that eliminating the 'older look' in our senior citizen populations could risk undermining our identity and dignity as human beings.
    But advocates counter, no one wants to suffer the pain and agony of growing old with failing health.
    Throughout history, improvements in healthcare, diet and environment have resulted in an increased average human lifespan. Today, healthy people can expect to live into their 80s and beyond, but advances predicted for the 2020s could extend both health and life to an indefinite time. During this next decade, positive futurists see an era of huge excitement for science and great hope for humanity.
    The smart, sexy, strong years, once thought long lost, might soon be recaptured as we move closer to this future time. We will soon have at our disposal, an awesome array of innovative medical technologies that promise to improve health and provide us with a lifespan that will one day approach immortality.
    Will abilities to extend life progress like this? Stem cell advances, genetic breakthroughs, bio-printing, and medical nanotech discoveries occur almost daily. Most positive futurists agree: "The dream of a younger-looking you by 2023; without intrusive surgery, can and will be realized."

---

Dick Pelletier is a weekly columnist who writes about future science and technologies for numerous publications. He's also appeared on various TV shows, and he blogs at Positive Futurist.

still think the Ancient  "stories"   are just a myth ???  yup.yep ..sher !    half this ..yup half that ..mixed that wit this  ah oh yea ..just "fairy" tales  ..impossible to mix ..dna's  wit ???     just legends  ???   & the "critters  OUT THERE  .."they" r here to help us ..why don't you go back & reread the "myth's " people ...neither "side"  had OUR best interests at heart ...hum ???

Germany offers third gender option, but advocates say not enough (Update)

by Carolyn Beeler

Germany on Friday became the first European country to allow babies born with characteristics of both sexes to be registered as neither male nor female, but advocates urged further reforms.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-11-boy-girl-germany-babies.html

Under the new legislation, the field for gender can be left blank on birth certificates, effectively creating a category for indeterminate sex in the public register.
Activists promoting the rights of so-called intersex people said they hoped the creation of a third gender option would open the door to broader changes that would limit genital surgery on newborns with both male and female characteristics.
"It's a first, important step in the right direction," Lucie Veith, an intersex person from the northern German city of Hamburg, told AFP.
But Veith said leaving the gender undefined on birth certificates was never the main lobbying point for the Association of Intersexed People in Germany, or others in the intersex community.
"That we forbid cosmetic genital surgeries for newborns, that is our first demand," said Veith, who leads the organisation.
The organisation calls for a ban on medically unnecessary surgeries until the child turns 16, so the intersex individual can decide for themselves whether to live as a man, woman, or neither.
The new German law is intended to remove pressure on parents to quickly make a decision about controversial sex assignment surgeries for newborns, but advocates it does not go far enough.
"The surgeries are likely to continue in Germany," said Silvan Agius, policy director at ILGA Europe, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex rights group.
Agius noted even prior to having the choice of not recording a baby's gender, already had the option of saying "'No, thank you very much, I don't want any surgery until my child can choose his or her gender.'"
Agius and other advocates fear that the new law would do nothing to change a society that operates largely on a gender binary with facilities such as separate male and female public toilets.
"There could be many other laws that could follow it and make it implementable and good," Agius said.
"My point is that if it remains as is...then it's greatly deficient."
Experts estimate one in 1,500 to 2,000 births result in a baby of indeterminate gender or both male and female gender features.
Surgeries such as clitoral reductions, removal of undescended testicles, and vaginoplasty, or the surgical creation of a vagina, can be performed to physically assign a gender.
According to a 2012 European Commission report on the topic, surgeries are performed on intersex babies and infants in many European countries without adequate informed consent by the patients.
The report also found that many intersex-born people are angry these surgeries were performed without their consent.
In 2009, a regional court in Cologne in western Germany awarded more than 100,000 euros ($135,130) in damages to an intersex person who was raised as a boy and whose uterus and womb were removed as a teenager.
The court found that the doctor had "violated (the person's) health and self-determination," according to the EU Commission report.
"Efforts to produce an unambiguous body impose circumstances upon the child that it may not want," Hertha Richter-Appelt of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf told the online edition of German news magazine Der Spiegel.
But not all people who undergo these procedures as children are unhappy as adults, she told the magazine.
The Council of Europe for the first time last month addressed the issue of genital surgery for intersex individuals.
Its parliamentary assembly adopted a resolution calling on member states to study the prevalence of "non-medically justified operations" that may harm children and take steps to "ensure that no-one is subjected to unnecessary medical or surgical treatment that is cosmetic rather than vital for health during infancy or childhood."

Explore further: Study on gender: Who counts as a man and who counts as a woman

ahhhhhhhhhhh America ! ..has there EVER in Our History ..been a lower class of ass pipes ..i fucking mean the shit that is UNDER the Trailer Park ..trash  ...oh fucking man ..gotta love you's dummycocks !!!!  

Obama Secret Service Agent Drops The Bombshell: Scandals Worse Than You Know

truther November 6, 2013

Mac Slavo

You may have your suspicions about what’s going on behind closed doors at the White House.

But according to one of President Obama’s former body guards it’s much worse than we can even imagine.

Dan Bongino has protected numerous Presidents over his career, including President Obama. He has been within ear-shot of many a discussion in the Oval Office, but up until this administration has stayed out of the lime light. Apparently, however, the activities of this administration are so abhorrent that he could no longer keep quiet.

Bongino is so upset with what he witnessed that he is now running for Congress because he feels it’s the only way to take America back from the sycophants who have made every effort to enrich themselves with money and power at the expense of the American people.

How bad is it?

We’re in a lot of trouble.
The President sees government – and I think it’s because of his lack of experience and maybe community organizing in the past – as this shiny new toy.
For all the disagreements I had with Clinton, Carter and Bush there were always limits… there was that line you just didn’t cross… We cross it seemingly every day. We’re lost in the scandals…
The Jamie Dimon shakedown at Chase… the HHS scandal.. Kathleen Sebelius shaking down the health care industry for money… the IRS… it’s to the point where these scandals in and of themselves would be huge back-breaking scandals [but] are just lost in the scandal fog of this administration…
It’s worse than people know… and I’m not trying to scare you either.

This is coming from someone who has stood next to Presidents for his entire career.

The implications are absolutely terrifying, especially considering how bad the publicly known scandals already are. Can you imagine what’s happening outside the view of Americans?

This is not about Republican or Democrat, it’s about liberty, pure and simple, and this administration has done more to damage our individual rights than any that has come before it.

Bongino expresses this succinctly when discussing the NSA scandal and the administration’s use of the information acquired by government snoops all over the country.

You give the government information and it will be abused. It is not a matter of if it’ll be abused, it’s only a matter of when…
When the line between the personal self and the public self… when that line is determined by the government that keeps your information in a trove for release any time they need it, how are you free?
..the bottom line is, having worked inside the government, it will be abused. It is only a matter of time.
…
We are all doing something wrong. The catch is not “if” we’re doing something wrong. It is “are your private wrongs impacting on my civil liberties?” If not, the government has no business in your life… it’s a red herring…
If you’re not doing something wrong? The question is only whether your private wrongs that have no effect on anyone else become exposed for the government’s benefit.
…It’s only a matter of time before someone slaps an email on your desk from fifteen years ago… and says ‘look what we got against you.’
Remember, when the key is held by someone else liberty means absolutely nothing. That personal and private self are being evaporated.

Make no mistake. They – and that especially includes this administration and/or agents acting under their directives and initiatives – will use everything they can against you when it suits them.

The prerogative has always been to destroy anything or anyone who threatens the establishment. We’ve seen it time and again with this, as well as past, White House administrations and Congressional membership.

Now, more than ever before, they will start targeting those who speak out against them and jeopardize their agenda.

This article first appeared at shtfplan.

who's got the gun to the USA "elites"  ..heads !       maybe ALL that NAZI loot at the "end" of WWII   hint hint  the REAL REASON of the "bildeeeburgers"    ....  is/has ....cum  due !!!       Oops  maybe ET's  lol or big toes ,bumble snow men's, nessie  , the "hidden" wise men's   ..... um um going wit D.)  NAZI'S

THE PALTRY MISSING $9,000,000,000,000, AND BEARER BONDS SCANDALS (AGAIN!): SPAIN, RUMSFELD AND PROBLEMS

November 6, 2013 By Joseph P. Farrell
Well, it’s to the point now I just have to laugh.
When former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced – the day before 9/11 in fact – that the Pentagon was missing a mere $2,000,000,000,000, the story was buried by subsequent events.  We now seem to have the Fed admitting that it cannot find $9,000,000,000,000:

$9,000,000,000,000 MISSING From The Federal Reserve SHOCKING FOOTAGE

Well, I’m not really surprised. These are banksters after all, that unique blend of fabulous incompetence, narcissism, and murderously cosmic ego that goes to make up the vast majority of that class.
But, as I contemplated this story, the oddity of the numbers once again struck me, for if one imagined all those dollars as electricity, then where in tarnation was the load end? Why weren’t all these dollars showing up, long ago, somewhere, in the form of inflation.  Then, more reflection on the numbers: the Japanese Bearer Bond scandal involved a mere $134,500,000,000 in spurious bearer bonds, but, oddly, that just happened to be the amount of money in the TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) fund. Then, in Spain, near Barcelona, we had the apprehension of allegedly counterfeit bearer bonds, and US gold certificate banknotes denominated in $100,000 bills, to a sum of $10,000,000, all neatly banded in bands with the stamp of Chase Manhattan Bank, and all in allegedly counterfeit strongboxes of a Federal Reserve Branch bank.  A scenario that, to this day, strikes me as odd in the extreme.
I mean, c’mon here: why go to the trouble of counterfeiting something so absurdly huge in denomination like $100,000 bills, and more absurdly, gold-backed bearer bonds denominated in units of $100,000,000 and $500,000,000, even if you’re intending to sell them to a “mark” at a substantial discount. That would be like announcing your presence on the international counterfeit money market with a fanfare and timpani beneath trapeze artists and flashing neon signs. “Here I am! I’m counterfeiting sovereign debt instruments and endangering your national security! Come and get me!” Add to this that we’re told the “counterfeiters” added to the fanfare and neon lights by counterfeiting Federal Reserve Branch bank strong boxes, which is like adding searchlights to the fanfare, timpani, trapeze artists, and flashing neon lights.
And of course, there’s that fundamental problem that I mentioned a long time ago; no counterfeiting operation ever counterfeits seven dollar bills, i.e., counterfeiters do not counterfeit what does not exist as a real and legitimate instrument, a little fact that government denials of the existence of such instruments has yet to contend with by any plausible explanation.
So: total amount involved in the Spanish Bearer Bond episode? Well…lookee here: $2,000,000,000,000, the same amount that secretary Donald Rumsfeld could not account for.
Then there was the Italian Bearer Bonds Scandal…. similar flashing neon lights, fanfares, timpani, trapeze artists, searchlights, all proclaiming “Here I am! I’m forging your national sovereign debt instruments and calling into question you whole financial structure…. I’m counterfeiting things that don’t exist. Come and get me!”
Total amount allegedly involved in the Italian Bearer Bonds episode? $6,000,000,000,000.
Add the three bearer bonds episodes amounts together, and we’re beginning to approach that missing $9,000,000,000,000…  actually, about $8,134,500,000,000 but what’s a few hundred million here and there?
So….Rumsfeld announced the Pentagon was missing two trillion dollars… a few years later, that exact amount turns up in bearer bonds seized near Barcelona, Spain. (And what was it doing there?)
Maybe we just have to wait for the next Bearer Bonds Episode… What do you want to bet that the German BKA will seize $9,000,000,000,000 in gold backed Bearer Bonds in Hamburg, in a sting operation involving relatives of Hjalmar Schacht?
Of course, the Fed’s missing nine trillion did not make the major lamestream media in the USA folks, so that means, this is one to watch.

Read more: THE PALTRY MISSING $9,000,000,000,000, AND BEARER BONDS SCANDALS (AGAIN!): SPAIN, RUMSFELD AND PROBLEMS

Cops Subject Man To Rectal Searches, Enemas And A Colonoscopy In Futile Effort To Find Drugs They Swear He Was Hiding

from the a-vulgar-display-of-power dept

This post is going to be very short on commentary because the hideous abuse of justice has basically rendered me near speechless.

David Eckert, a resident of Deming, NM, was pulled over by police officers after failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. For whatever reason, the officers decided Eckert was hiding something, or perhaps they were unsatisfied that a routine stop hadn't blown up into something bigger.

They asked him to step out of the car and then searched his vehicle (without his consent). Another officer brought in a drug dog which reacted (a relatively worthless indication of anything -- drug dogs can easily be "alerted" by their controlling officers) to the driver's seat. (Eckert's lawyer calls into question this dog's training, presenting documents that claim to show it hadn't received the proper field training and recertification. See exhibits listed under docket item 27.) Then the officer "observed" that Eckert was standing "erect with his legs together" and his "buttocks clenched." This was all the justification the Deming police needed to subject Eckert to the following horrific chain of events at a hospital in neighboring Silver City.

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.
2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
5. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
6. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.
8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.

At no time did Eckert give his consent to these searches. The police did obtain a warrant to rectally search Eckert but that warrant itself was problematic. For one, it was severely lacking in probable cause. For another, it was valid only for Luna County but the searches were executed in Grant County. Third, the warrant was only valid for four hours, up until 10 pm that night. Eckert was held for 14 hours and, according to medical records, prep for the colonoscopy didn't even commence until 1 am the following day.

Why the venue shift? Because the doctor at the Deming hospital told officers the proposed search was "unethical." Drs. Robert Wilcox and Okay Odocha of the Gila Regional Medical Center apparently had no qualms about forcibly "searching" Eckert eight times.

There's more in Eckert's complaint, including the fact that the second x-ray was of his chest, an area completely unrelated to the region where he was supposedly "concealing drugs." In addition to what can be proven from medical records and police reports obtained by Eckert's attorney, there are additional allegations that the officers Chavez and Hernandez mocked him and made derogatory comments about his "compromised position." They also allegedly moved the privacy screen repeatedly to expose him to others in the hospital hallway. This verbal abuse apparently continued during Eckert's ride back to the Deming police station. Understandably, Eckert now claims to be "terrified to leave the house" and does so "infrequently."

There are many lawsuits filed where most details are alleged. This isn't one of them. Most of what's "alleged" by Eckert is documented by the routine paperwork that accompanies medical procedures and search warrants. And, to add insult to injury, KOB4's news team states that the Gila Regional Medical Center is billing Eckert for the invasive, non-consensual medical procedures and has threatened to take him to collections for non-payment.

The only question that remains is why no one involved on the "law" side ever thought that anything past the first step on the list above might be excessive. These officers, along with two shamefully compliant doctors, went as far as they could to humiliate and violate someone simply because they could -- in a collective effort that looks far more like making Eckert pay for the "crime" of making the cops look stupid than any sort of legitimate law enforcement effort. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131105/05401425129/cops-subject-man-to-rectal-searches-enemas-colonoscopy-futile-effort-to-find-drugs-they-swear-he-was-hiding.shtml

CIA Has 'Acquired A Taste' For Killing People With Drones; Won't Give It Up

from the that-seems-problematic dept

The US's use of drones is nothing if not controversial, and the overall secrecy around the program -- including the belief that it can be used against Americans as well -- has worried an awful lot of people. Even those in the administration who support the program apparently are uncomfortable with it implicitly, as the Obama administration had drawn up a whole bunch of rules that would limit drone killing... which they wanted to put in place in case Romeny won the election. But, when Obama won, they abandoned the idea. In other words, the position of the administration is basically, "trust us with these drone killing programs... but no one else." Under significant pressure about all of this, the President finally announced in May that the drone killing program would be moved from the CIA to the Defense Department, where it would have more oversight (slightly) and limits.

Except, as Foreign Policy is now reporting, that isn't actually happening and may never happen. The main reason appears to be fairly simple: the CIA loves killing people with these drones, and people in the Defense Department are kind of uncomfortable with doing so. So, the CIA wants to keep control, and the Defense Department doesn't want it.

The U.S. official said that while the platforms and the capabilities are common to either the Agency or the Pentagon, there remain distinctly different approaches to "finding, fixing and finishing" terrorist targets. The two organizations also use different approaches to producing the "intelligence feeds" upon which drone operations rely. Perhaps more importantly, after years of conducting drone strikes, the CIA has developed an expertise and a taste for them. The DOD's appetite to take over that mission may not run very deep.

Yes, the CIA has developed a taste for killing people from the skies with drones controlled from far away. It's like a sport.

Remember when the US banned assassinations by the CIA? Yeah. Weren't those the days?

Movie Studios Drop Multi-Million Dollar Lawsuit Against LimeWire

• Ernesto
• November 6, 2013
• limewire

Six major movie and TV studios have dropped their lawsuit against the defunct file-sharing software LimeWire. The companies sued the software maker and its owner Mark Gorton last year, looking for more than $200 million in damages. Previously, the RIAA won $105 million in damages from the company and through the lawsuit the movie studios hoped to get their piece of the pie. The studios haven’t explained why they chose to dismiss the case.
Towards the end of the last decade LimeWire was one of the most-used pieces of software on earth, installed on nearly one in five computers.
By the end of 2010 the situation changed somewhat when LimeWire was forced to cease its operations after a U.S. federal judge granted an injunction in favor of the RIAA.
According to the ruling LimeWire “intentionally encouraged infringement,” its software was used “overwhelmingly for infringement” and the company was aware of the “substantial infringement being committed” by LimeWire users. The evidence further showed that LimeWire marketed its application to Napster users and that its business model depended on mass copyright infringements.
The record labels then went after the company for damages and settled for a record-breaking $150 million.
This big win prompted Twentieth Century Fox, Viacom, Comedy Partners, Disney, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. to launch a separate lawsuit last year. The movie outfits accused LimeWire of infringing the copyrights of approximately 2,000 of their videos and demanded several hundred million dollars in damages.
In addition, the studios requested a ruling in their favor because they feared that LimeWire could launch a similarly infringing platform in the future, through which their copyrights may be infringed.
Over the past few months the two parties have been battling in court but without much progress being made. Last week the movie studios dismissed the entire case with prejudice, meaning that the case is effectively over.

LimeWire dismissal

It’s unclear why the case was dropped, but one possibility is that the case required more resources than the studios were prepared to commit. The studios hoped that a new trial on several key issues wasn’t required as the RIAA already did much of the groundwork.
However, LimeWire objected to the motion for summary judgment and wanted to treat the case as distinct from the RIAA ruling. The software maker argued that they operated differently in the 2009 / 2010 period the studios claim the infringements were committed, and said that the RIAA case only applied to musical works, not video.
While the dismissal is good news for LimeWire, vulture’s keep circling over the company.
Early last month LimeWire was sued by the independent music publisher Microhits, who also demand millions in damages. Microhits appears to have a preference for defunct file-sharing services as it also sued Megaupload last year, a case that’s still pending.