It’s not just girls asking “Am I pretty or ugly?” on the Internet

You only need to do a bit of reddit digging to find all of the insecure guys.

by Casey Johnston - Nov 7 2013, http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/11/its-not-just-girls-asking-am-i-pretty-or-ugly-on-the-internet/

• Web Culture

22

A sampling of posts from the Am I Ugly? subreddit.

r/amiugly

The Internet has disseminated its fair share of concerns about insecure teen girls who are asking “am I pretty or ugly?” to possibly the last audience they should be consulting (the ever-hostile ranks of YouTube commenters). But a new examination of reddit by PsychGuide shows that teen boys aren’t immune to appearance-related anxiety. They’ve just found a different place to express them: in subreddits.
According to PsychGuide, four out of five submissions to the r/amiugly subreddit are by a male redditor, and the average age is between 18 and 19. In this subreddit, users post photos of themselves for open critique of the 35,000 subreddit subscribers and any passers-by who have thoughts.
But while men constitute most of the submissions, women make up most of the responders: 62 percent of the responses to submissions were made by female redditors 18 and under. Female submissions also get the most responses at an average of 54 replies per submission compared to male submitters’ average of 14 replies.
There is another reddit, r/amisexy, where men dominate the scene slightly less, at 62 percent of submissions to women’s 38 percent. The crowd that wants to know if it is sexy also skews a couple of years older, sexiness being a slightly more adult concern than ugliness. Either way, if you’re an insecure teen so in need of validation that you’ll risk the drive-by cruelty of Internet commenters, you always have reddit as a YouTube alternative.

Mega Exits Beta With 5 Million Users and Big Plans

• Ernesto
• November 7, 2013
• kim dotcom,
  Mega

Nine months after its successful launch, Kim Dotcom’s Mega exited beta today. Adding to its versatility the cloud storage platform plans to become a full Dropbox competitor later this month when sync tools and an iSO app are released. Thus far copyright holders have had little to complain about since Mega has received takedown notices for just 0.05% of 435 million user uploaded files, a very low number according to CEO Vikram Kumar.
On January 20, a year after Megaupload was raided in 2012, Kim Dotcom launched his new file-storage service Mega.
In a matter of days the site’s membership shot from zero to more than a million and in the months that followed the site continued to develop and expand its userbase.
Today the company announced that Mega had exited beta and CEO Vikram Kumar informs TorrentFreak that the service now has about five million users who together have uploaded 435 million files.
While Mega is sometimes described as a file-hosting site, its future plans are to be much more than that. “The immediate focus right now is to give Mega the equivalent function of Dropbox,” Kumar says.
Later this month the company plans to release its long-awaited sync client, which will allow users to keep files backed up across multiple devices. Around the same time the iOS app will also be ready for a public release.

Mega’s iOS app

< Once Mega can rival Dropbox it will finalize the development of several encrypted communication tools. These are expected to be launched in a few months and include text, voice and video communication, all straight from the browser.
“The second focus is going to be on encrypted communications, which will build on cloud storage and collaboration,” Kumar tells TorrentFreak.
“There will be chat, voice and video, all in the browser without having to download a separate application or install plugins, it should just work,” he adds.

Mega’s encrypted chat/h5>

The third focus of the company is to combine the first two and create a solid encrypted storage platform that app developers can use to develop their own privacy-focused tools.
After all, Mega has branded itself the Privacy Company.
“For us privacy means that the user controls their data and files, and that it can’t be snooped on. Mega can only see encrypted bits of information. We never look at the file or the message, and if we can’t look at it we can never give it to anyone else to have a look at it either,” Kumar says.
When Mega launched in January there was some skepticism from copyright holders who feared that it would cause as much trouble as Megaupload, but according to the company’s CEO these worries have mostly waned away.
“435 million files have been uploaded to Mega in the first nine months and the amount of alleged copyright infringement notices is 0.05 percent. A very low number compared to other services,” Kumar says.
Mega is currently pushing 160 gigabits in bandwidth per second, which at the current growth rate is expected to rise to 500 gigabits per second in the first quarter of next year.
Finally, Mega’s CEO responded to our previous commentary that while Mega may be very secure, it is certainly not anonymous. The company stores users’ email addresses permanently and IP-address logs are retained for months, depending on the location of the server.
“We store IP-addresses with a time-stamp. The retention period tends to vary based on the legal requirements. For example, Germany requires six months of data storage, so the retention periods have to be in line with the countries we operate in,” Kumar says.
However, Mega’s CEO stresses that users can be as anonymous as they wish by using Tor or another anonymizing service, in combination with a throwaway email address.
“Mega is compatible with anonymizing techniques such as Tor. We don’t take any steps whatsoever to try to determine is a person is using Mega anonymously or not, that’s their choice,” he says.
It will be interesting to see how Mega’s new services are received in the coming months. With all the talk about intercepted communication and other forms of spying, the timing is certainly right. And with Kim Dotcom as expert witness, the company has an excellent poster child.

Apple Wants To Sell Fewer Products; Kills Off Website That Made Finding iPads And iPhones Easier

from the your-periodic-friendly-reminder-that-Apple-will-tell-YOU-what-you-like dept

Apple is still one of the most desirable brands in the world, no doubt largely due to the company's fierce protection of that brand. In addition to periodic bouts of trademark bullying, it has also displayed an alarming antipathy towards developers who stray over the boundaries of what it considers to be acceptable.

Its tight control over the content of apps offered on its platform is notorious. Some see this as nothing more than excessively good quality control. Others see it as something far more arbitrary -- apps removed simply because someone at Apple didn't like them.

This attitude extends far beyond the boundaries of the iTunes app store, as one developer found out.

A website that helped users locate Apple stores with iPhones and iPads available for sale has shut down its service after being hit with a notice alleging that it violated Apple.com's terms of service.

Apple-Tracker.com and iphone-check.herokuapp.com examined publicly available inventory information from Apple.com and tried to make it easier for people to navigate. The service gained some attention, with articles in the Los Angeles Times and other news sites.

The site now shows a message from developer Mordy Tikotzky saying, "I've decided to turn off the site. I'm not doing this because I want to, but rather because I received a DMCA takedown notice from Apple. I'm not really interested in picking a fight with apple so..... I guess it time to just say good bye." On Twitter, Tikotzky wrote, "It might be legal but I don't have the resources to fight with Apple."

First, just for clarification, what Tikotzky received was not a DMCA notice. It's simply a "takedown notice" issued by Apple's legal team asking him to take down his site.

But why would Apple take his site down? Its sole purpose was to help potential customers find the exact phone or tablet they were looking for by aggregating item availability from all the stores in a certain zip code. Yes, Apple's own site contains a search function but it doesn't do what Tikotzky's site did. Apple will allow you to search for one item (16Gb iPad Air) and list stores where it's available. Tikotzky's apple-tracker did this better. It provided a table of all available models and lit up with an easy-to-see green if it was available at a certain store.


To achieve this using Apple's site, a person would have to run multiple searches and keep track of which one had what models. Titkotzky's automated this -- which is likely what Apple determined to be a violation of its TOS. Here's the relevant part of the TOS as quoted in the takedown letter.

Your Use of the Site. You may not use any “deep-link”, “page-scrape”, “robot”, “spider” or other automatic device, program, algorithm or methodology, or any similar or equivalent manual process, to access, acquire, copy or monitor any portion of the Site or any Content, or in any way reproduce or circumvent the navigational structure or presentation of the Site or any Content, to obtain or attempt to obtain any materials, documents or information through any means not purposely made available through the Site. Apple reserves the right to bar any such activity.

Apple doesn't want you to do much with its site. And this very restrictive wording is what turns handy tools into "violations" and "circumventing the navigational structure" into an unacceptable situation, according to Apple. (Not only that, but if so inclined, someone could probably push for charges under the CFAA, which views this sort of "circumvention" as a crime.)

All this does is maintain the status quo. Do not screw with Apple's stuff. If it wanted a handy aggregation tool, it presumably would have built it itself and covered it in tastefully rounded corners and pleasing color gradients. Tikotzky's tracker may have increased sales, but it ultimately doesn't matter, not when there's turf to protect.

People are constantly searching for ways to improve the services they use, but they're running head on into companies like Apple and Craigslist who take the stance that the customer will get what's provided by the company, instead of what they actually want. It's unfortunate, but for some, protecting the brand is more important than serving those purchasing their products.

Obama now blatantly delusional: Denies ever promising you can keep your health insurance

naturalnews.com

Originally published November 7 2013
  me:0 the shit just spews outta these ass pipes mouths  FUCKING HELLO AMERICA !!!

Obama now blatantly delusional: Denies ever promising you can keep your health insurance

by Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) The trail of lies from the Obama-occupied White House never seems to cease, and a recent speech by the Usurper-in-Chief himself concerning the ongoing Obamacare insurance debacle is no exception. Responding to widespread public outrage over his breaking of earlier promises that people could keep their existing health insurance coverage under the new system, Usurper Obama now claims that he never actually made such promises, despite the fact that there are at least 29 recorded instances of him making them.

In front of a mindless crowd of about 200 enthusiastic supporters from the Obama apologist group "Organizing for Action," which was gathered at the St. Regis hotel in Washington D.C., the Usurper blatantly denied ever making statements like "If you like your plan, you can keep it," which documented evidence proves he made dozens of times while on the campaign trail. What he really meant, he now claims, is that people can keep their plans only if these plans haven't changed at all since Obamacare was forcibly rammed through the political system and declared to be law.

"What we said was you could keep it if it hasn't changed since the law was passed," alleged a mendacious Obama with full applause from his audience of drones. "If we had allowed these old plans [to continue] ... then we would have broken an even more important promise -- making sure that Americans gain access to health care that doesn't leave them one illness away from financial ruin."

As you will probably notice, embedded in this precarious political rhetoric is an open admission by Obama that he did, indeed, lie about people being able to keep their existing healthcare coverage. In his own words, the Usurper admits that he repeatedly lied about the true implications of Obamacare in order to get his precious bill passed, while at the same time attempting to justify this lie by claiming that it would ultimately protect Americans from "financial ruin."

Obamacare lies could lead to financial ruin for many Americans

The irony here is that Obamacare itself will directly lead to financial ruin for thousands, and perhaps even millions, of Americans who will no longer have access to the affordable, self-chosen healthcare coverage they had before. Instead, many of these folks will be forced into more expensive Obamacare plans with fewer options, or else face ever escalating financial penalties -- what the corrupt judicial branch has fallaciously designated a "tax" -- that will make them poorer than ever.

"Obama's higher promise is now causing the cancellation of insurance policies chosen by at least 3.5 million Americans," writes Neil Munro for The Daily Caller about the reality of the situation. "The cancellations are [also] spreading from the individual market to the small-group market."

Besides leading to the forced termination of millions of people's existing healthcare coverage, Obamacare will also cost more. Obama now admits this, having told his crowd of worshipers that millions of Americans with "higher incomes" will be forced to "pay more on the front end," another broken promise concerning the so-called "affordability" of the scheme.

So perhaps there was some sinister significance after all to statements made by Obama on none other than April Fool's Day 2010, just after Obamacare was signed into law. On this particular day, as well as on many others, Obama proclaimed boldly and publicly that people would be able to keep their current healthcare plans, "period," and that this was his "promise to the American people," a promise that he has most certainly and defiantly broken.

You can watch a New York Magazine video compilation of the Usurper repeatedly lying about the terms of Obamacare here:
http://nymag.com.

Sources for this article include:

http://dailycaller.com

http://www.mediaite.com

http://nymag.com

---

All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml

NO CHILD ALLOWED AHEAD – IT MIGHT DAMAGE THE SELF-ESTEEM OF THE DUMBASSES

Posted on 6th November 2013 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

feminocracy, Fred Reed, Schools

Fred nails it again. The majority of teachers in the United States rank below average in comparison to graduates in other fields of endeavor. Therefore, our children are being taught by intellectually inferior people. The majority of teachers are female. Therefore, policies and procedures governing education are created by females. Combine this with parents who don’t care, or who don’t exist in the equation, and you have a recipe for producing mindless, non-thinking morons who are programmed how to feel, but are incapable of writing a sentence, understanding basic mathematical concepts, or capable of critical thinking. This is a crucial issue, since this Fourth Turning is dependent upon the youth of the country to do the heavy lifting during the Crisis. I’m not optimistic as long as the Feminocracy remains in control of our schools.

More on Schools

Opinions from the Cretaceous

November 6, 2013
By Fred Reed
http://www.fredoneverything.net/fred-columns.shtml
Last week I fulminated about the calamitous effects of the  feminization of the schools, of turning the school into an emotional infantile crèche  aimed at the fundamentally female goals of psychological conditioning,  conformity, and totalitarian niceness. A lot of mail arrived, pro and con. Since  schooling is of importance to the US, perhaps it is worth looking at.
Predictably, I was accused of hating women. Actually it  is not women that I find objectionable, but American women, who are a small  part of the world’s  women.
My saying “American  women” is of course a wild generalization subject to degrees, exceptions, and  qualifications. A more sober statement would be something like this: There are  enough American women overtly hostile to men, enough snarling feminists teaching  semiliterate misandry in academic departs of sexism (Women’s Studies), enough  little boys being drugged at female recommendation, enough repression of normal  behavior of small boys by female teachers, enough bias against men in divorce  courts, enough depiction of men as fools and knaves by females in the media, that  it seems to me wise to avoid the species. I mean none of this to apply to women  to whom it does not apply.
Now, if I were  the only one who thought the foregoing, I would dismiss myself as a crank expat  living in Mexico. Among American men however there is a great deal of agreement  if my personal experience, countless websites, and a lot of email are any indication.  It matters, methinks, that so much very real ill will exists between so many  men and women.
Further, my  objection was not to female teachers per se, but to the current crop of  feminists who don´t like boys, or understand them, or want to, and are ruining  them. All of my teachers in grade school, and perhaps half in high school, were  women. They were fine. The reason was that they accepted the masculine view  that schools existed to teach content. They did: first arithmetic and then math,  and history, English grammar and composition, literature, Latin, and so on. Bless  them.
What I dislike  is the feminized, therapeutic view of schools as places not to teach anything but  to engage in Pavlovian conditioning of kids to female norms of syrupy goodness,  non-violence (tag, dodge ball, and wrestling) docility, conformity, and warm  interpersonal glop. Learning anything gets short shrift.
An  examination of the intellectual qualifications of teachers, such as rankings  against those in other fields on the Graduate Record Exams, will show them to  be at the bottom. These are averages, of course, and there are exceptions.  Still, people of low voltage do not naturally have much interest in academics.  They easily become prey to a pedagogy focusing on “interpersonal relations.”
The effects  show. Maybe fifteen years ago I went into a middle school in mostly white,  moderately upscale Arlington, Virginia, and found on the wall a student´s  project celebrating the contributions of Italians to science—specifically those  of of Enrico Fermi to, so help me, “nucler physicts.” On the wall. Without correction.  I have seen other examples.
These malfeasances  spring from favoring self-esteem (when I am dictator I will have anyone who  uses that word hanged) over knowledge. It is not a masculine approach. Nor will  it produce the thoughtful, intellectually competent citizenry the country  desperately needs.
In a Marine  Corps day rooms I once saw a coffee mug inscribed, “To err is human, to forgive  divine. Neither of which is Marine Corps policy.” (Why did that come to mind, I  wonder?)
Something  strange is happening in the United States. A Canadian friend recently said, “I  can remember when Americans weren’t afraid of everything.” Just so. Don´t run  on the playground because you might fall. Don´t roughhouse because you might  get a bruise. Don’t go outside at high noon because you might get skin cancer. Don’t  swim after eating, because you might get a cramp. If a child draws a soldier,  call a SWAT team because he is a murderous psychopath. Don’t ride a bicycle  without a helmet. Fill in the deep end of the pool because someone might drown.  Supervise everything. Control everything. Fear everything.
If these are  not the neurotic fears of women and capons, please tell me what they are. Such  run the schools. They make policy.
Is  everything so dangerous? In my first eighteen years, three kids I knew died—one  in kindergarten of appendicitis and two in high school, one of cancer and the  other a suicide, probably because of hideous sebaceous acne over most of his  body. Deaths by dodge ball: 0. By falling down while running: 0. By murderous seven-year-old  psychopaths: 0.
Yes, I  realize that the schools face many other problems, chief among them that much  of the country no longer takes schooling seriously. Pious slogans like No Child  Left Behind of course mean No Child Allowed Ahead. Discipline a child and his  parents sue. Suspend serious troublemakers and you face charges of racial  profiling. Disguising the gap in performance between ethnicities takes precedence  of teaching. The stupidest fad is grading teachers on how well their students  test, it being impossible to get a class of unintelligent, misbehaving,  culturally uninterested students to perform well.
I wonder  whether I and some of my correspondents are not talking past each other. Being  in my late sixties, I remember a world that any but the most antediluvian of  current teachers cannot. It may be that therapy, drugging, and fear of  everything have been around so long now that they are thought normal. Maybe even  the idea of schooling as I knew it no longer exists except among ancients. “Nucler  physicts”?  No teacher in my sixth-grade  school (Athens, Alabama) would have tolerated that for a moment. I suppose,  though, that if I objected to illiterate spelling today, I would be told of the  danger to the child´s self-esteem.
When my  daughters were in high-school some fifteen years ago, a history teacher (I  think it was) was warned to stop correcting her students´ grammar: That was for  the English teacher to do. When I noticed that their science handouts had  common chemical terms badly misspelled, I contemplated going to the school and  asking why the hell they had teachers of such surpassing incompetence. Sand  against the tide. It would have been racist, and my daughter would have paid  the price.
And when my  eldest graduated, all of the academic awards went to girls. Since girls have  always been diligent and made good grades, it follows that either boys have become  less intelligent, or that they have been pushed under by a hostile feminocracy.  I am not imagining this. It is documentable. There will be a price for this.

The 13 Family Bloodlines of the Illuminati

truther November 7, 2013 

The first and most important question for most of us doing our homework on this whole Illuminati thing is – is the Illuminati real? Are they really the bad guys, the ones trying to take over the world and mold it to their devious devices?

Many theories that the Illuminati is planning a wiping of the slate (the slate being the world) and forming a New World Order have emerged within the past few years. While it is evident that the United States and most likely the entire world is run by Corporations, it is not completely evident to the public that these Corporations are all working together and will eventually rule the world outright. This is the theory of those who push the Illuminati Conspiracy Theory. Read:  What Is The Illuminati?

Who are the 13 Illuminati Families?

The Astor Family:

One of the most notable of the 13 family bloodlines of the Illuminati is the Astor family bloodline. John Jacob Astor was the first of his family to come to the United States from Germany in the 1700s. Some sources say he was a butcher in Germany and poor, while others say he already had wealth when he came to the United States. Either way, after being in the United States for a few years, he gained even more wealth by means of trade and banking. Conspiracy theorists believe that John Jacob Astor was an extremely evil man and into Satanism because it was evident that he worked with other Illuminati members including the President and he had also moved up the ranks in Freemasonry within a matter of a couple of years. Many places in New York and elsewhere are named after the Astor family, including the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and the neighborhood of Astoria in Queens. Brooke Astor is a “famed philanthropist” who has been in the news lately, but there have been many Astors from this bloodline involved with politics, banking, and all things where power is concerned.

The Kennedy Family:

This name should sound rather familiar to everyone. The Kennedy Family is a family that has been shrouded in mystery for many years, due to their involvement in politics and tragedies such as the assassination of President JFK. The Kennedy Family is thought by conspiracy theorists to be a part of the Illuminati because of their wealth and because of their ties to the Church of Satan. Namely in the idea that JFK was involved with women who were lovers or friends of Anton LaVey (the man who founded the Satanic Church in the 60s). Jayne Mansfield was one of JFK’s supposed girlfriends, as well as Marilyn Monroe. So apparently these ties with these women automatically put the Kennedy’s in alignment with Satanists. Another theory as to how the Kennedy family was involved in the Illuminati is that JFK’s father was a friend of the mafia and joined a Pilgrim Society who was thought to be a branch of the Illuminati. Was JFK’s death due to the fact that he was pushing against the Illuminati’s power of him and this country? It has been thought that JFK was speaking out against the power of the Big Banks in the US, and shortly after…he was shot. But, the Kennedy family is still around.

The Rothschild Family:

Even if you have no idea who the Rothschild family really is, nine times out of ten you’ve at least heard the name spoken at least once. The Rothschild family has their hands in many different industries including various charities, wine, banking, and more. They are a family that has roots in England and Austria, and they are believed to be one of the 13 family bloodlines of the Illuminati for various reasons. But the main reason is because of their many ties in Banking and because of their massive amounts of wealth. One particular person of the Rothschild family, Meyer Rothschild, was said to have come into alignment with a Catholic Priest in order to gain more control of Europe’s wealth. They supposedly started a secret Satanic cult in order to gain more power.

The Rockefeller Family:

Ever heard of Rockefeller Center? Yep, the famous place in New York was named after the Rockefeller family, another of the presumed 13 family bloodlines of the Illuminati. And once again, a family who has had their hands in banking since at least the 1800s. But they are mostly known for being one of the first families to get wealthy off of the oil trade. This family has been known as one of the most powerful families in the United States. But to cover up their Illuminati ties, they hide behind massive amounts of charity to the sum of millions of dollars over the years. They’ve also had their hands in the reconstruction of any historical buildings including those in Colonial Williamsburg and Lincoln Center.

The Bundy Family:
The Bundy family is considered one of the thirteen family bloodlines of the Illuminati for their close ties with the Kennedy and Onassis families. Particularly a man by the name of McGeorge Bundy is theorized to have kept particular information away from JFK’s ears, and did the same after JFK was assassinated with President Johnson. He became Sec. Adviser of the United States, so he was able to filter out what the President did and did not hear. He was also said to have taken part in the theft of another politician’s wealth, mainly for the gain of power. More than one of the Bundy family members is accused of being Masons and avid Satanists.
The DuPont Family:
The DuPont family is originally from France and gained their wealth and power through a beginning in the gunpowder industry in the 1800s. This family has kept their wealth in the family, so much so that they purposely inbred with one another even in the nineteenth century. They now have their hands in dozens of industries including manufacturing, agriculture, chemicals, electronics, food, government, and medical care.
The Li Family:
The Li family bloodline of the Illuminati is one of the most powerful of Chinese trade. They have been linked with many of the other Illuminati family bloodlines, including the Rockefeller family. Apparently the Prime Minister visits the United States and routinely stays with the Rockefeller family. The Li Family is obviously communist, but they are also said to be a forerunner in China for the New World Order. Think about all of the things we get from China – I would say about 75% of things in my house were probably made in China. And think about all of the debt the US owes to China, couple that kind of power together and the Li family must be a powerful Illuminati family indeed.
The Russell Family:
One of the presumed thirteen family bloodlines of the Illuminati who is also a forerunner of “peace in the world” and aiding in the clean up of the environment. They’ve established The Russell Family Foundation as their means of looking saintly to the public, but what are they doing behind closed doors? William Huntington Russell is supposedly the man who established the Skull and Bones Order, a branch of the Illuminati. Dozens of others from the Russell family have had connections or have even established Masonic organizations. They have had ties in the government, mainly. Part of the beliefs in the Illuminati incorporate the idea that many of these families practically own the Ivy League colleges and use these colleges in recruiting intelligent others
The Onassis Family:
This family has obvious ties to the Kennedy family and also to the Bundy family during the 1960s and 1970s. Jackie Onassis was already blood to a very powerful family, but then married into the Onassis family after JFK’s death. The Onassis family still has a ton of wealth and are still presumed to be a part of the Illuminati as some of their members are quite active in politics and occult behavior.
So the last three of the thirteen family bloodlines of the Illuminati include the Freeman Family, the Van Duyn Family, and the Reynolds Family. Of course they all have power and money and are thought to be into Satanic cults. They are all thought to be a part of the Illuminati with the sole purpose of establishing the New World Order.
There are other families that are thought to be the actual 13 Illuminati bloodlines, but these are the main families cited.
Source

We Are Close to The End: “The Con Job Is Up”

Mac Slavo November 4th, 2013 SHTFplan.com

We’ve seen decades of manipulation in the monetary, financial and economic systems of this country. And while most people have fallen hook, line and sinker for the recovery narrative touted by the establishment, the reality is a stark contrast to what they’re being told.
As Jay Taylor notes, we must first admit we’ve been conned. Then we absolutely must take steps to protect ourselves from the geo-political disaster to come.

Of course the masses of people don’t get it… they don’t believe it. They’re content to take at face value what they’re told by the mainstream media…
What people really have to understand is that the manipulation is systemic… Just by being in the system and holding dollars you are being taken advantage of.
You need to get as much as possible outside of the system.
And one way to reduce the systemic risk is to trade those fiat dollars… which are really worthless… they have nothing of intrinsic value… they are really just a con game… They need to exchange those dollars for gold and silver, real estate, diamonds… I would say other things that have tangible value, that no matter what the currency does, you still have possession and ownership of those assets.
…
We are close to the end…
The point is, the con job is up… the dollar could collapse very, very quickly…
Once people lose confidence, it’s going to be too late. People need to be opting out of the system now, before everybody else figures out that the system is sick and is going down.

Jay Taylor provides some key insights into how the markets are being manipulated, what to expect in coming months and years, and how to diversify yourself before the masses realize what has happened and go into panic mode.
Watch the full interview from Future Money Trends:

We are close to the end...Jay Taylor Interview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-FHfWWvr_Y

(Watch at Future Money Trends)

Jay offers up some non-traditional ideas, including developing the one asset that may be your saving grace in a post-collapse world: life sustaining skills that can be bartered for goods and services when confidence in our current dollar-denominated mechanism of exchange is finally lost. Taylor understand the fundamental problems plaguing the global economy and monetary systems. He’s a strong proponent of tangible goods and he’s been investing in wealth preservation assets like physical gold and silver, real estate with productive capacity, and the people who actually produce something of value for human beings, such as farmers, inventors, and gold mining firms like Brazil Resources.
Moreover, he understands where all of this leads, and it’s a situation where traditional methods of income may well dry up:

What people need to do is to get outside of the system.
People with more average means need to develop a set of life sustaining skills, so that when the system breaks down…. and unfortunately I am absolutely sure the system will break down eventually and I’m afraid sooner rather than later… People are going to want to have skills that they can trade to barter, essentially, their services for other things that are necessary.
…
The economy is as sick as ever… The con artists are back in town… They’ve restored confidence to the system… It seems like, to people who want to drink the establishment’s Cool-Aid, that things are looking pretty good.
…You can’t trust them…

The fact of the matter is that when this goes down – and it will – tens of millions of Americans are going to be hit with a financial sledgehammer unlike they have ever felt before. There is no hope for the majority of these people. They don’t believe it can happen, you won’t convince them, and they are doing nothing to prepare and insulate themselves for when it does.
Those paying attention will, at the very least, have a basic level of protection that includes tangible assets – food, supplies, precious metals, and a skill-set that will help us thrive when others are left with no other option but to panic.
It will happen quickly; very quickly.
Be ready for when it does.

D MARKS, NSA SPYING, MERKEL, AND SNOWDEN

November 7, 2013 By Joseph P. Farrell 

While this story is now over a year old, it’s worth recalling in the wider context of world events these days, specifically, with respect to the Ed Snowden/NSA spying/Angela Merkel affair, and the recent calls by various countries, including Germany, to repatriate their gold from the western banks in Paris, London, and New York. Some Germans, it seems, are still conducting their day-to-day business in Deutsch Marks:
Who Needs the Euro When You Can Pay With Deutsche Marks?
Regular readers here will recall that, as the breakdown of the Eurozone proceeded last year, there were quietly increasing calls on the part of some in Germany to pull out of the eurozone and return to the D-mark.  Regulars here will also recall that I’ve been arguing for quite some time that the real significance of the NSA-Snowden electronic spying affair isn’t about the “war on terror” at all (though that is certainly a subset of it), but about financial market tracking, strategic modeling and prediction, and market manipulation, particularly on the macro-scale of international trade and finance. It is, I have suggested, both a mechanism of sustaining the US dollars status as the world reserve currency, and also of manipulating markets for that end. In short, it’s a method of making sure the playing field is NOT level.
The idea that the Europeans, much less the Germans, are outraged about being spied upon is theater: they spy on the USA as well, and everyone knows it. Frau Merkel’s outrage is real, but the reasons for it have nothing to do with “friends not spying on friends.” So what’s the real reason?
As if on cue, you’ll recall, stories began to appear in Germany and Russia that the real goal and motivation of the electronic spying was financial in nature. RT, for example, recently ran a story about the financial motivations behind NSA spying on Mexico’s President.
Now there are rumors that Mr. Snowden, in his Russian exile, has agreed to meet with top German lawmakers and law enforcement, to assist them in their inquiries about NSA spying:
Snowden ready to testify in Merkel tapping case – German lawmaker
There are even allegations that Mr. Snowden may travel to Germany to do so.
Now this raises all sorts of red flags in my mind, not the least of which is that if I were Mr. Snowden’s security advisor, I’d advise against the trip. After all, Russia and Germany are certainly capable of providing secure links for a long distance briefing session. If Mr. Snowden or the Germans or both insist on face-to-face meetings, then I’d make awfully sure that he had some heavy duty security on the trip and in Germany, lest covert ops teams attempt to spirit him out of the country and back to the USA. As the RT article makes clear, this in fact is not in the cards, and a more long distance arrangement is being discussed. But as the article also makes clear, if Snowden does come to Germany, the German government is considering not honoring any US requests to extradite him.
And that, folks, is a very serious widening of the fissures and cracks that have begun to appear in the Atlantic alliance in the past few years.
So…why the risky contact in the first place?
As the RT article hints, Snowden appears to have more explicit information, and my guess is that this information is of a financial nature, and revelatory of the full extent to which Germany’s financial structure may have been compromised.
It may even involve a hidden explanation for why the US Federal Reserve has hemmed, hawed, and otherwise delayed the audit and repatriation of Germany’s gold reserves to that country. It wouldn’t surprise me…
…and it does not surprise me that once again all of this is being disclosed by RT…
The bottom line is, Frau Merkel is still very unhappy, and she’s not going to get any happier any time soon. And whatever may come of Mr. Snowden’s private and secret revelations to the German government, it’s not likely that she’s going to get any happier.

Read more: D MARKS, NSA SPYING, MERKEL, AND SNOWDEN

Prenda Loses Big Again; Court Orders It To Pay Back Settlement Money, Refers To Law Enforcement

from the and-another-one dept

And here we go again. In yet another Prenda court case, Team Prenda has lost big. These are the cases in Minnesota that were reopened earlier this year, after the court became aware of Judge Wright's ruling in California, showing how Paul Hansmeier, John Steele, Paul Duffy and Mark Lutz appeared to be engaged in fraud on the court. In August, the magistrate judge assigned to review the cases, Franklin Noel, started demanding real answers to questions -- answers which never came.

Instead, we got a hearing in Minnesota that revealed some explosive new info, while Mark Lutz disappeared never to be heard from again. While Hansmseier and Duffy were never able to produce Lutz or answers to Judge Noel's questions, they did try to get Judge Noel kicked off the case.

None of the above strategies worked. At all. Judge Noel today not only rejected the request to pull him off the case, but also slammed Team Prenda, yet again, ordered them to pay back all the settlement money they got from the specific cases involved and then referred the case to law enforcement to look into the activities of Hansmeier, Steele, Duffy and Lutz. While he notes there are other issues being dealt with elsewhere, the main focus of Noel's inquiry was the legitimacy of Alan Cooper's signature -- and Judge Noel concludes, as have multiple other courts, that Cooper did not sign the document. And he's pretty thorough about it. He notes that AF Holdings, the shell company in question here, "failed to meet its burden of proving the authenticity of the copyright-assignment agreements."

Even more specifically, Judge Noel says that he thinks Steele lied on the stand:

Based upon Cooper’s side of these two conversations, Steele testified that it was his “understanding that he [Cooper] had given authority to Mark and his people if he wasn’t available, that he could sign the various documents as long as he understood what the document related to . . . .” Finding Steele’s testimony regarding his “understanding” of an agreement between Cooper and Lutz to be vague, the Court asked directly, “Did you hear Mr. Cooper give Mr. Lutz authority or permission to sign his name to documents?” Steele replied “yes.” The Court expressly disbelieves Steele’s testimony in this regard.

Noel goes on to point out that AF Holdings failed to produce an officer of the company who was "capable of testifying to the authenticity of each copyright-assignment agreement." He doesn't make much of Lutz's not appearance (and subsequent disappearance) other than mentioning that Lutz did not appear.

In the end, the court finds that fraud was committed on the court and orders the return of all the settlement money and the payment of attorneys' fees, which should add some more to the top of what Duffy, Hansmeier and Steele have on their ever-growing tab. The court also notes that it would be a waste of its time to "untangle the relationship between Hansmeier, Steele, Duffy, Dugas, Lutz and Prenda Law, on the one hand--and the Plaintiff AF Holdings, LLC., on the other." Instead, "such investigation can more effectively be conducted by federal law enforcement...." While it's likely federal law enforcement was already looking into all of this after Judge Wright alerted them to the case, having another judge make a similar recommendation can't hurt (well, unless you're Team Prenda. Then it hurts).http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131106/16465425155/prenda-loses-big-again-court-orders-it-to-pay-back-settlement-money-refers-to-law-enforcement.shtml

MPA Will Begin Norway File-Sharing Crackdown This Month

• Andy
• November 7, 2013
• Norway

After a hiatus of more than two years, anti-piracy companies and rightsholders will begin monitoring Norwegian file-sharers this month. The last time spying on P2P networks was allowed was back in 2011 but in less than 30 days content organizations, including the powerful MPA, will resume their work. BitTorrent users will be the number one target.
For years file-sharers in Norway have had somewhat of an easy rise after it was determined in 2011 that the only entity allowed to monitor and collect data on P2P networks would not longer be permitted to do so.
By May that same year it became clear that the government wouldn’t stand idly by, with a Ministry of Culture announcing amendments to the country’s Copyright Act. The promise was that movie and record companies would be given “the tools they need” to tackle infringement.
On July 1 the new law was passed and along with it a framework that would allow any rightsholder or trade group to spy on file-sharers providing they inform the data inspectorate in advance. After a somewhat slow start, copyright holders are now getting themselves organized and are almost ready to start.
The MPA, the international branch of the MPAA, and its associates including the Norwegian Videograms Association, Norwegian Association of Film Distributors, and the Norwegian Society of Composers and Lyricists, are among the organizations that have recently advised the inspectorate that their monitoring will soon begin.
Of course, all the data gathered will need to be subsequently handled and processed. That task will be carried out by the infamous pirate-hunting lawfirm, Simonsen.
According to Rune Ljøstad, a partner at Simonsen, the project will begin in just over three weeks.
“From 29 November we will be able to process personal data for [the purpose of tracking file-sharers],” Ljøstad explains.
As can be seen from the excerpt from Simonsen’s notification below, the aim of the exercise is to protect the MPA and its members.
Ljøstad, meanwhile, has been explaining that uploaders will be the MPA’s key target.
“Our goal is that most of the uploads and downloads stop and people instead go over to legal alternatives,” Ljøstad told Tu.no.
“To achieve this goal you have to prioritize what is most important. Typically licensees are affected more by uploads than downloads. An upload can provide the basis for 1,000 downloads, while one download is just one download,” he said.
But despite the assurances that this will be an effort aimed at the ‘worst’ offenders, there is a key problem. It is virtually guaranteed that BitTorrent users will be the first targets of the new crackdown and by the protocol’s very nature, every downloader is also an uploader. This effectively puts most of Norway’s file-sharers under the microscope.
The MPA’s next move remains unclear, but several scenarios come to mind. Although it will already be in possession of the data having harvested it from abroad, initially the MPA will suck up as much Norwegian file-sharing data as possible so it can be used officially in local procedures.
That data will be used in several ways. It’s possible that a few hand-picked unlucky individuals will be singled out for punishment, but it seems more likely having come this far that the data will be used for more broad action. There are two likely candidates.
First, the data could be used to justify a letter-writing or “three strikes” style regime, something all rightsholders have expressed an interest in.
Second, the data could be used to show how bad the piracy situation is in order to obtain court orders to have sites like The Pirate Bay blocked at the ISP level. There are already provisions in the new law to block sites and rightholders have signaled they’re ready for it, so expect this outcome sooner rather than later.

Russia lays down world’s largest nuclear icebreaker

Source: Barents
See also:  Arctic ship route may be safer with Anglo-Russian radio waves

Russia is launching the construction of new-generation nuclear-powered icebreakers. The icebreaker of the LK-60Ya model, named Arktika as a tribute to the prominent Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker of the same name, is due to begin sea trials in 2017. The ship will prove effective for the deep-water areas of the Northern Sea Route and the shallow waters of Russia’s Arctic shelf. Russia is due to build three such icebreakers in the next decade.

Russia has been actively using the Northern Sea Route for almost 80 years now, with ice-breakers ensuring naval and civilian ship traffic across thick ice along the route. When the world’s first nuclear-powered ice-breaker Lenin started active operation in 1960, she turned over a new leaf in rescue ice operations on the Northern Sea Route. Bigger and more powerful icebreakers of the Arktika class, such as the 50 Years of Victory and the Yamal, have been playing the first fiddle, as it were, since the 1970s. These icebreakers can reach any point in the Arctic Ocean any time of the year. Smaller vessels, such as the Taimyrand the Vaygach, are capable of performing out at sea and in rivers’ offing.

Construction got under way at the Baltic shipyard in St. Petersburg on November 5th of a new-generation LK-60Ya nuclear-powered icebreaker of the 22220 project. The lead ship has been named as a tribute to her prominent Soviet predecessor, the Arktika, or Arctic, which was also the first ship of her project, as well as the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.

The lead icebreaker of the project is due to start active operation in 2018. She is 33 metres wider than the Arktika-class ice-breakers, enabling her to pave the way through the ice for bigger ships and at higher speeds. But a wider and proportionately longer hull unexpectedly resulted in the reduction of the ship’s draft to 8.5 metres. This prompted the idea of building a two-shallow draft icebreaker.

 The new-project icebreaker can vary her draft by using water ballast tanks and operating both offshore and in shallow waters, such as the Dudinka seaport, the Ob Bay etc. By increasing her draft by two or three metres, she is effective out at sea in breaking heavy ice up to three metres thick.

The new icebreaker will thus effectively replace both the Arktikatype vessels and the shallow-draft craft of the Taimyr type. It is held that three LK-60Ya icebreakers will be able to replace the four currently operational vessels. But a still more powerful LK-110Ya icebreaker is being designed (110 signifies the ship’s power plant output in MW) to negotiate at least 3.5 metres thick ice and ensure convoy navigation even in winter.

But Russia is also building a group of LK-25 diesel-powered icebreakers that will provide support for nuclear-powered icebreakers in ensuring navigation of major convoys and will prove helpful in the river mouths that are shallow even for the two-shallow draft LK-60Ya icebreakers. The LK-25s could likewise be used in the White Sea and the Baltic Sea, which are ice-covered in winter.

Finally, minor LK-18 and LK-16 diesel-powered icebreakers will prove effective at ice-covered ports from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Contracts worth a total of 20.4 billion roubles have been signed for the construction of four icebreakers with power plant output of 25 MW, 18 MW, and two ships with a power plant of 16 MW. The icebreakers are due to be built at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg.

The new icebreakers are seen as increasingly important, given that navigation of naval and civilian ships on the Northern Sea Route is due to grow significantly in the next 10 years. Russia will build over the period at least eight new icebreakers, but even that may prove insufficient, for Russia has failed to build new icebreakers for too many years.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_11_07/Russia-to-build-icebreakers-to-secure-its-Arctic-power-position-8762/?bottom=news

Robotics and Unmanned Systems: New ‘Automated’ Technologies for America’s Imperial Wars

By Global Research News

Global Research, November 07, 2013

21st Century Wire

Theme: Militarization and WMD, US NATO War Agenda

in a previous article, we discussed the ethical, and the legal dilemma, of the roll-out of artificial intelligence through the next generations of drones in the US and Israeli unmanned fleets. 

The world is changing, and rapidly. The ‘experts’ are having difficulty adjusting to both technological advances, as well as social advances where societies are beginning to discard the concept, albeit rejecting altogether – the entire premise modern imperial warfare. Still, the out-dated institutions plough ahead with budgeted programs on anything and everything, traditional as well as newly advanced killing machines…
While the US is weighed down spending fortunes on military industrial pork and other old technologies, it is also burning through its checkbook in R & D and acquisitions of newer applications – all in order to keep ahead of the Chinese Jones’s. According to the Brookings Institute, key emerging technologies in the US military field include:
“new energy systems, such as lasers; new hardware, such as robots and unmanned systems; new manufacturing techniques, including 3-D printing; and new software dealing with cyberwarfare and cybersecurity.”
But Washington militarist ‘think tanks’ like Brookings are also pushing US military brass towards unmanned, but more “autonomous” technologies:
“while present U.S. acquisition focuses on large, often expensive systems designed to directly reproduce how a human would do a task, a more robot-centric or autonomous approach may lead to a different set of design criteria.”

One WP reader issued the stark warning which needs to be discussed now, before AI and robotics dominate our militarised societies. The reality of Cylon and Terminator technologies are here already:
“Robotics might be the future of war but it could also lead to major losses on the battlefield when the enemy invents the counter to it and turns the robots on it’s masters. if you are developing robots you had better be prepared for the hackers who can and will hack the links to those robotic platforms and either disable them nulling your force multiplier. or turning them against you in essence giving them a force multiplier.”
No kidding. And we can hardly afford any of it…

.

Is the U.S. military ready to embrace new technologies that will define future wars?

Copyright 21st Century Wire 2013

The Assassination of Yasser Arafat was Ordered by The Israeli Cabinet: “We will Choose the Right Way and the Right Time to Kill Arafat.”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, November 07, 2013

Region: Middle East & North Africa

In-depth Report: PALESTINE

The forensic tests on samples taken from Yasser Arafat’s corpse by a team of Swiss scientists exhibit high levels of radioactive polonium-210.  The exhumation of his body was implemented in November 2012. The samples revealed “levels of polonium at least 18 times higher than usual in Arafat’s ribs, pelvis and in soil that absorbed his bodily fluids.”
These developments raise the broader issue which the media has failed to address: Who was behind the assassination of Yasser Arafat? The Answer to that question was provided by the Israeli government in 2003, a year prior to his death. 
“We will choose the right way and the right time to kill Arafat.”
In September 2003, Israel’s government passed a law to get rid of Arafat. Israel’s cabinet for political security affairs declared it “a decision to remove Arafat as an obstacle to peace.”

The 2004 assassination of  Yasser Arafat was part of a broader military and intelligence agenda to destroy the Palestinian Authority.
What recent news reports fail to mention is that the extra-judicial assassination had been ordered by the Israeli cabinet in 2003. It was subsequently approved by the US which vetoed a United Nations Security Resolution condemning the 2003 Israeli Cabinet decision to “get rid of Arafat”.
The assassination of Yasser Arafat had been on the drawing board since 1996 under “Operation Fields of Thorns”.
According to an October 2000 document “prepared by the [Israeli] security services, at the request of then Prime Minister Ehud Barak, stated that ‘Arafat, the person, is a severe threat to the security of the state [of Israel] and the damage which will result from his disappearance is less than the damage caused by his existence’”. (quoted in Tanya Reinhart, Evil Unleashed, Israel’s move to destroy the Palestinian Authority is a calculated plan, long in the making, Global Research, December 2001. Details of the document were published in Ma’ariv, July 6, 2001.).
In August 2003, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz declared “all out war” on the militants whom he vowed “marked for death.”

“In mid September, Israel’s government passed a law to get rid of Arafat. Israel’s cabinet for political security affairs declared it “a decision to remove Arafat as an obstacle to peace.” Mofaz threatened; “we will choose the right way and the right time to kill Arafat.” Palestinian Minister Saeb Erekat told CNN he thought Arafat was the next target. CNN asked Sharon spokesman Ra’anan Gissan if the vote meant expulsion of Arafat. Gissan clarified; “It doesn’t mean that. The Cabinet has today resolved to remove this obstacle. The time, the method, the ways by which this will take place will be decided separately, and the security services will monitor the situation and make the recommendation about proper action.” (See Trish Shuh, Road Map for a Decease Plan,  www.mehrnews.com November 9 2005)

The assassination of Arafat was part of the 2001 Dagan Plan.
In all likelihood, it was carried out by Israeli Intelligence.
It was intended to destroy the Palestinian Authority, foment divisions within Fatah as well as between Fatah and Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas is a Palestinian quisling. He was installed as leader of Fatah, with the approval of Israel and the US, which finance the Palestinian Authority’s paramilitary and security forces.
The above text was written in January 2009 as part of the following article:

The Invasion of Gaza: “Operation Cast Lead”, Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda
– by Michel Chossudovsky – 2009-01-04

Monsanto, Pioneer, Cargill, Tiger Brands: GM Maize Cartels Gorge Profits on South Africa’s Poor

By Global Research News

Global Research, November 07, 2013

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB)

Region: sub-Saharan Africa

Theme: Biotechnology and GMO

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has today released its new research report titled ‘GM Maize: Lessons For Africa-Cartels, Collusion And Control Of South Africa’s Staple Food’ showing how a select group of companies, including Tiger Brands, Pioneer and Premier Foods who have previously fixed the price of bread and maize meal, commandeer the entire maize value chain and continue to squeeze the poorest South Africans.
The ACB has recently shown that the entire maize meal market is saturated with GM maize.ⁱ

Download the publication.
The report shows that the South African government, through the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) is the largest investor in Tiger Brands, and that over 50% of the company’s shares are held outside South Africa. Pioneer Foods’ largest shareholder is Zeder, the agribusiness investment arm of PSG Konsult Group, a private financial services company. Premier Foods is 80% owned by private equity firm Braite, listed on the Euro MTF market in Luxemburg but domiciled in Malta, both jurisdictions being notorious tax havens. ‘These ownership patterns have increased the distance between food producers and consumers, and are lucrative avenues for capital accumulation by actors far removed from these firms’ locales.’ Said Mariam Mayet, Director of the ACB.
According to Gareth Jones, researcher at the ACB, ‘It appears as if South Africa’s major millers and retailers are making healthy profits from our staple food and certainly not passing falling maize prices onto consumers.’ The report shows that from April 2007 to April 2013, the average cost of a 5 kg bag of maize meal increased by 43.7% in rural areas, and 51.8% in urban areas. ‘These sharp price increases aggravate the already appalling conditions that millions of South Africans live under. This is particularly significant for the poor, who spend 41% of their income on an average “food basket” ‘ said Jones.
Further findings of the report include:

• Two companies Monsanto and Pioneer Hi-Bred control the maize seed market;
• Maize handling and storage is dominated by three companies Senwes, NWK and Afgri, all former co-ops;
• Louis Dreyfus and Cargill, international grain traders, dominate the maize trade on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange;
• A highly concentrated value chain feeds into an equally concentrated food retail sector, with four major retailers: Shoprite/Checkers, Pick n Pay, Spar and Woolworths dominating the market.

Rest of Continent at risk
According to the report, Premier and Pioneer have all expanded their operations on the continent. Tiger Brands already operates in 22 countries on the continent and is a key player in establishing maize value chains in Southern Africa. ‘Having already gorged their profit margins on the poorest of the poor in South Africa, these corporate giants are now glancing covetously to the vast African market north of the Limpopo. Experiences from South Africa should serve as stark warnings’ said Mayet.
Urgent Change Needed
The ACB report calls for an urgent reversal of this economic concentration and for mechanisms to be put in place to develop small players throughout the maize value chain, from farmers to millers and retailers. This should include the promotion of agro-ecological production methods, decentralised value chains and public maize breeding programmes that provide access to seed that can be freely shared and exchanged.
i ACB (2013). Food Fascism in South Africa: Tiger Brands, Pioneer and Premier Force Feeding the Nation Risky GM Maize
Gareth Jones 081 493 4323
Mariam Mayet 083 269 4309
Copyright The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) 2013

How America Was Lost: Without Accountable Government There is No Civil Liberty and No Democracy

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Global Research, November 07, 2013

paulcraigroberts.org

Region: USA

Theme: Police State & Civil Rights

“No legal issue arises when the United States responds to a challenge to its power, position,  and prestige.” Dean Acheson , 1962, speaking to the American Society of International Law.

Dean Acheson declared 51 years ago that power, position, and prestige are the ingredients of national security and that national security trumps law.  In the United States democracy takes a back seat to “national security,”  a prerogative of the executive branch of government.

National security is where the executive branch hides its crimes against law, both domestic and international, its crimes against the Constitution, its crimes against innocent citizens both at home and abroad, and its secret agendas that it knows that the American public would never support.

“National security” is the cloak that the executive branch uses to make certain that the US government is unaccountable.

Without accountable government there is no civil liberty and no democracy except for the sham voting that existed in the Soviet Union and now exists in the US.

There have been periods in US history, such as President Lincoln’s war to prevent secession, World War I, and World War II, when accountable government was impaired. These were short episodes of the Constitution’s violation, and the Constitution was reinstated in the aftermath of the wars.  However, since the Clinton regime, the accountability of government has been declining for more than two decades, longer than the three wars combined.

In law there is the concept of adverse possession, popularly known as “squatters’ rights.”  A non-owner who succeeds in occupying a piece of property or some one else’s  right for a certain time without being evicted enjoys the ownership title conveyed to him. The reasoning is that by not defending his rights, the owner showed his disinterest and in effect gave his rights away.  

Americans have not defended their rights conveyed by the US Constitution for the duration of the terms of three presidents. The Clinton regime was not held accountable for its illegal attack on Serbia.  The Bush regime was not held accountable for its illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Obama regime was not held accountable for its renewed attack on Afghanistan and its illegal attacks on Libya, Pakistan, and Yemen, and by its proxies on Syria.

We also have other strictly illegal and unconstitutional acts of government for which the government has not been held accountable. The Bush regimes’ acts of torture, indefinite detention, and warrantless spying, and the Obama regime’s acts of indefinite detention, warrantless spying, and murder of US citizens without due process. As the Obama regime lies through its teeth, we have no way of knowing whether torture is still practiced. 

If these numerous criminal acts of the US government spread over the terms of three presidents pass into history as unchallenged events, the US government will have acquired squatters’ rights in lawlessness.  The US Constitution will be, as President George W. Bush is reported to have declared, “a scrap of paper.”

Lawlessness is the hallmark of tyranny enforced by the police state.  In a police state law is not a protector of rights but a weapon in the hands of government. [see Roberts & Stratton, The Tyranny of Good Intentions]  The accused has no recourse to the accusation, which does not require evidence presented to a court. The accused is guilty by accusation alone and can be shot in the back of the head, as under Stalin, or blown up by a drone missile, as under Obama.

As a person aware of the long struggle against the tyrannical state, I have been amazed and disheartened by the acceptance not only by the insouciant American public, but also by law schools, bar associations, media, Congress and the Supreme Court of the executive branch’s claim to be above both law and the US Constitution.

As Lawrence Stratton and I show in our book about how the law was lost, liberals and conservatives chasing after their favorite devils, such as child abusers and drug pushers, and prosecutors, judges, and police devoted to conviction and not to justice, have gradually eroded over time the concept of law as a protection of the innocent,  With the atmosphere of threat created by 9/11, the final destruction of the protective features of law was quickly achieved in the name of making us safe from terrorists.

The fact that we are no longer safe from our own government did not register.
This is how liberty was lost, and America with it.
Can liberty be regained?  Probably not, but there is a chance if Americans have the necessary strength of character.  The chance comes from the now known fact that the neoconservative Bush/Cheney regime took America and its puppet states to war in Afghanistan and Iraq entirely on the basis of lies.  As all evidence proves, these wars were not the results of mistaken intelligence.  They were the products of intentional lies.

The weapons inspectors told the Bush regime that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Despite this known fact, the Bush regime sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN with fabricated evidence to convince the world that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction” and was a threat to the world. Even if such weapons had existed in Iraq, many countries have them, including the US and Israel, and the presence of weapons does not under the Nuremberg Laws justify unprovoked aggression against the possessor. Under the Nuremberg Laws, unprovoked military aggression is a war crime, not the possession of weapons that many countries have. The war crime was committed by the US and its “coalition of the willing,” not by Saddam Hussein.

As for the invasion of Afghanistan, we know from the last video of Osama bin Laden in October 2001, attested by experts to be the last appearance of a man dying of renal failure and other diseases, that he declared that he had no responsibility for 9/11 and that Americans should look to their own government.  We know as a reported fact that the Afghan Taliban offered to turn over Osama bin Laden to Washington if the Bush regime would provide the evidence that indicated bin Laden was responsible. The Bush regime refused to hand over the (non-existent) evidence and, with support of the corrupt and cowardly Congress and the presstitute media, attacked Afghanistan without any legal justification. Remember, the FBI has stated publicly that it has no evidence that Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9/11 and that that is why the crimes for which the FBI wanted bin Laden did not include responsibility for the 9/11 attack.

The war propaganda campaign was well prepared. Yellow ribbon decals were handed out for cars proclaiming “support the troops.”  In other words, anyone who raises the obvious questions is not supporting the troops.  Still today insouciant Americans sport these decals on their cars unaware that what they are supporting are the murder of foreign women, children and village elders, the death and physical and mental maiming of American soldiers, and the worldwide destruction of the reputation of the United States, with America’s main rival, China, now calling for a “de-Americanized world.”

A country with a population as insouciant as Americans is a country in which the government can do as it pleases. 

Now that we have complete proof that the criminal Bush regime took our country to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq solely on the basis of intentional lies, how can the legal institutions, the courts, the American people possibly tolerate the Obama regime’s ignoring of the obvious crimes?  How can America simply accept Obama’s statement that we mustn’t look back, only move ahead? If the US government, which has committed the worst crimes of our generation, cannot be held accountable and punished, how can federal, state, and local courts fill up American prisons with people who smoked pot and with people who did not sufficiently grovel before the police state.

Doubtless, the Obama regime, should it obey the law and prosecute the Bush regime’s crimes, would have to worry about being prosecuted for its own crimes, which are just as terrible. Nevertheless, I believe that the Obama regime could survive if it put all the blame on the Bush regime, prosecuted the Bush criminals, and desisted from the illegal actions that it currently supports.  This would save the Constitution and US civil liberty, but it would require the White House to take the risk that by enforcing US law, US law might be enforced against its own illegal and unconstitutional acts by a succeeding regime.

The Bush/Cheney/John Yoo neoconservative regime having got rid of US law, no doubt the Obama regime thinks it is best to leave the situation as it is, rid of law. 

Without accountability, America is finished.  Not only will Americans live in a police state with no civil liberties, but the rest of the world is already looking at America with a jaundiced eye. The US is being reconstituted as an authoritarian state. All it takes is one failure of accountability for the police state to become entrenched, and we have had numerous failures of accountability.  Does anyone really believe that some future government is going to make restitution to persecuted truth-tellers, such as Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowdon, as was done for Japanese Americans?

Now that we know for a certain fact that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were based on propaganda and lies, Congress and the world media should demand to know what was the real secret agenda. What are the real reasons for which Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded?

No truthful explanation for these wars exists.

Paul O’Neill, the Bush regime’s first Treasury Secretary, is on public record stating that at the very first cabinet meeting, long prior to 9/11, the agenda was a US attack on Iraq.

In other words, the Bush regime’s attack on Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.

What was the Bush regime’s secret agenda, kept secret by the Obama regime, that required an illegal, war criminal, attack on a sovereign country, an action for which officials of Hitler’s government were executed?  What is the real purpose of Washington’s wars?

It is totally and completely obvious that the wars have nothing to do with protecting Americans from terrorism.  If anything, the wars stir up and create terrorists. The wars create hatred of America that never previously existed.  Despite this, America is free of terrorists attacks except for the ones orchestrated by the FBI. What the fabricated “terror threat” has done is to create a thorough-going domestic police state that is unaccountable.

Americans need to understand that they have lost their country.  The rest of the world needs to recognize that Washington is not merely the most complete police state since Stalinism, but also a threat to the entire world. The hubris and arrogance of Washington, combined with Washington’s huge supply of weapons of mass destruction, make Washington the greatest threat that has ever existed to all life on the planet. Washington is the enemy of all humanity.