Sometimes I think that Moscow is too nice in her responses to the Western bullbutter. Moscow is disappointed with the latest IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear issue on the basis that it can generate tensions over the Islamic Republic based on circumstantial and outdated evidence. Most of the report [...]
via Moscow, disappointed by the IAEA report on Iran : Windows to Russia.
According to a statistical snapshot, released by Google Inc on Tuesday the Internet search leader is dealing with increasing government demands to provide information about its users. Google has decided to start disclosing summaries of government requests after last year’s confrontation with China’s government over online censorship. However, the latest report reveals that the highest number of government requests is coming from the US.
The fact that Google is experiencing growing pressure from governments can’t surprise anyone. The most popular search engine, Google processes about two of every three online searches in the US while in Europe this share is even larger. Another point is that Google owns and operates some of the most popular services on the Internet, including the increasingly popular communication service Gmail and the video service YouTube, which. Undoubtedly, is one of the most popular websites in the whole of Internet. And the new social networking service called Plus, which has already attracted more than 40 million users since its launch in June and has become a serious competitor of Facebook, also shouldn’t be ignored. All of the listed services allow Google to gather large amounts of personal data about its users, including information about people’s political and social ideals. This ability turns Google into an extremely valuable source of information for law enforcement institutions fighting crime and terrorism.
At the same time, the information obtained by Google is a true treasure trove for any government eager to know what its citizens think. And such services as YouTube, which allow users to upload their own video content, naturally turn out to be potential targets of government censorship.
Despite the Chinese censorship scandal, Beijing is not the only government widely practicing censorship. Following its recent summary, in the previous six months there were a number of European countries demanding some unprecedented censorship measures from Google. For instance, the British government asked Google to remove 220 videos from YouTube because of the “national security” reasons during the first six months of this year. This number compared to 40 videos asked to be blocked during the previous six months demonstrates a sharp spike.
The fact that the highest number of government demands for user data is coming from the US is hardly a surprise. As history reveals, the American authorities have always been extremely interested in the beliefs of their citizens and now, with the outstanding possibilities granted by Internet, the US government is not going to miss this chance. According to the latest summary, US authorities made 5,950 requests during the last six months which is a 29 percent increase from the previous number. And now when the mass protests across America are reaching the critical point this number is only going to rapidly escalate. As the examples of the “Arab Spring” and the London riots demonstrate, social network websites and video hosting platforms are becoming a universal instrument allowing to manipulate people. And considering that the development of the situation in America will definitely lead to the raise of public discontent, the authorities are extremely interesting in maintaining control over the said resources.
The decision of the company to disclose the summary of government requests looks like a serious step towards transparency. However, Google itself has often found itself in the crossfire of criticism. While acting according to its stated mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” Google has been accused by numerous critics of unlawful or unethical means to accomplish this mission.
What’s Gonna Get Us by Eric Peters.
A visitor asked the Red Tsar how he maintained control of his subjects. Why didn’t they rise up in revolt?
Stalin snatched a chicken off the floor and proceeded to pluck its feathers, one by one, until the bird was a cringing, shivering, naked wretch. He then released the chicken. But rather than flee from its abuser, the chicken clung to Stalin’s pants leg, pecking at the crumbs of corn he tossed to the ground.
That chicken is us – or at least, too damn many of us.
What sort of bird are you? How will you respond when it’s your time to be plucked?
It’s a question we’ll soon have to answer.
If Ron Paul had won the Ames Iowa poll, the mainstream media would have dismissed the entire exercise as unimportant. If he had come in at, oh, 6th place, they would have used this as evidence that he is incompetent, not in the first rank of Republican candidates, can’t get out the vote, the American people had rejected his candidacy, etc. So, when Congressman Paul took a magnificent second place, only 1% behind the winner, I said to myself, Hot diggity dog; the MSM can’t ignore him now. They cannot dismiss this entire result since if they did so, they would have to also deprecate Michele Bachmann’s win, and that they will not do. They now MUST give Dr. Paul his due credit, since he finished in close second place to her. They will be forced to discuss his ideas: bring the troops home, get rid of the Fed, drastically reduce taxes, eliminate a slew of illicit Federal departments, legalize drugs and other victimless crimes, stop foreign “aid,” save the American dollar via 100% gold backing, etc.
Silly me. That shows how much I know. Instead, the talking heads are now tooting this line: “The three front runners are Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann.” In their view, these are the major candidates, and all the others are also-rans. Why Mitt Romney? Well, he looks presidential, and he has a good chance with the tea partiers despite his Romney-car health policy in Massachusetts, oh so similar to Obama-care. Why Rick Perry? Well, he’s the governor of Texas, the second biggest state, isn’t he? And this despite the fact that he has not yet won anything in the presidential sweepstakes. Why Michele Bachmann? This is because, of course, she just won the Ames Iowa poll. Notice any name missing from all of this? I’ll give you a hint: this is the guy who came in SECOND, 1% behind “major candidate” Bachmann in this recent election. There used to be among the beltway “Austro-libertarians” a campaign to promote and study Austrian economics without “You Know Who” (Ludwig von Mises, of course). There is now a campaign amongst the major media to analyze the Republican presidential process without uttering the name of “You Know Who” (Ron Paul, of course).
Washington accused S&P management of a calculating error worth $2tn. Associated press, meanwhile, branded the decision of S&P to downgrade the US rating as a hasty decision based on erroneous forecasts. On Friday, Standard & Poor’s downgraded its rating of America’s national debt from the maximum AAA level to AA+. The forecast is negative. This means that the next 12 – 18 months may see a further downgrade with the US struggling to stay solvent.
It should have been downgraded years ago…
Quit crying America if you were an individual you would be put in jail for what you have done and cheated to get credit…
Jeesh what a bunch of cry babies our government is…
2 trillion error when you are as deep in debt as America is 2 trillion does not matter. We are broke. Flat busted and broke…
Coffee Talk!
I remember once arguing with an honest young atheist, who was very much shocked at my disputing some of the assumptions which were absolute sanctities to him (such as the quite unproved proposition of the independence of matter and the quite improbable proposition of its power to originate mind), and he at length fell back upon this question, which he delivered with an honourable heat of defiance and indignation: “Well, can you tell me any man of intellect, great in science or philosophy, who accepted the miraculous?” I said, “With pleasure. Descartes, Dr. Johnson, Newton, Faraday, Newman, Gladstone, Pasteur, Browning, Brunetiere – as many more as you please.” To which that quite admirable and idealistic young man made this astonishing reply – “Oh, but of course they had to say that; they were Christians.” First he challenged me to find a black swan, and then he ruled out all my swans because they were black. The fact that all these great intellects had come to the Christian view was somehow or other a proof either that they were not great intellects or that they had not really come to that view. The argument thus stood in a charmingly convenient form: “All men that count have come to my conclusion; for if they come to your conclusion they do not count.”
~ G. K. Chesterton
A recent article entitled “Ron Paul’s dilemma” makes the case that “Ron Paul may be in the ultimate damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation as next month’s Ames Straw Poll draws closer.”
If Paul polls fourth or fifth at Ames, it will feed the existing narrative that he is a second-tier candidate with a devoted but small legion of fans. Ames will be, at best, a wash. If, on the other hand, Paul finishes first or second, it will feed the narrative that he’s a straw-poll paper tiger with a small but devoted legion of fans that swamped Ames from around the country. The media will give itself permission to ignore the result and instead focus on the “serious” candidates.
Rasmussen makes the unfortunate factual error of stating that Ron’s “legion of fans” could “swamp Ames from around the country.” The Ames Straw Poll is only open to Iowa residents. A simple Google search could have prevented that mistake and allowed him to reword it differently, though at the expense of weakening his argument. A victory in Ames would not mean that Ron Paul is backed by a small group of fanatics that crawled out of the woodwork, but that he has strong core of support within the key state of Iowa. Let us ignore that fact for now.
Instead, lets focus on the substance of Rasmussen’s opinion: The Ames Straw Poll is very important, but only if Ron Paul doesn’t win. It doesn’t matter whether or not Ron wins, or even how many percentage points he wins by. The Iowa Straw Poll can help every other candidate, but it can only hurt Ron Paul. The voters at Ames can have no bearing whatsoever on Ron Paul’s viability as a candidate. A vote for Ron Paul ipso facto makes it irrelevant.
You see, Ron Paul supporters don’t count, even though they are the paragon of what the ideal political activist would be. They are arguably the only true grassroots activists in existence right now. They don’t wait for direction or leadership from Ron Paul himself. Rather, inspired by Paul’s ideals, they act on their own. Nothing else in history comes close to what they’ve accomplished.
It was Ron Paul supporters, not the Ron Paul campaign itself, that invented the “money bomb.” Money bombs are online fund-raising events, often held on dates with great historical and political significance, which seek to generate a large amount of donations within a short period of time. Such events are marketed through “viral advertising” where individuals take the initiative and spread the news of the event through online vehicles such as social networks, YouTube, and online forums. People who might think that their small contribution to the campaign might not make a difference, or who otherwise might not “get around to it,” find themselves encouraged by a large number of their peers to take an active part in these events and donate larger amounts more often than they otherwise would have. By seeking to set ever higher records in hourly, daily, and weekly fund-raising, money bombs can generate millions of dollars in free advertising in the media as well.
Remember the Ron Paul Blimp? Once again, Ron Paul supporters acted on their own initiative to make something happen. At 200 feet long, it beat out the Goodyear Blimp as the largest blimp in North America. It also cost $600,000 to fly for the six weeks it was in the air, and might not even get off the ground this year. Flying over the eastern seaboard, it generated over $2 million in publicity. The blimp needs to be flying over Iowa now, but there seems to be little interest in it! A single money bomb could do it, easy.
Let us imagine for a minute a Mitt Romney blimp or a Mike Huckabee blimp, constructed and financed by grassroots supporters independent of their respective campaigns. They would be praised from the rooftops for their creativity and initiative. They would be asked, “What is it about Mitt Romney that gives you so much hope?” With such a spontaneous surge of enthusiasm and devotion for this man, some may begin to wonder, could he be The One? We’d never hear the end of it, but because it was part of the Ron Paul Campaign, nay, the Ron Paul Movement, it is referred to as a desperate publicity stunt of questionable legality.
In every campaign in the history of campaigning, a lost run for office means that interest in the candidate mostly dies out, but not for Ron Paul. Supporters of Ron Paul are qualitatively different from those who support other candidates. Jack Hunter summed it up perfectly.
Ask the average Paul fanatic what they like about him and all you will hear nothing but specific policies: “Follow the Constitution!” “End the Fed!” “End the War!” Paul is the purest example of what I like to call “philosophical conservatism” in that what he believes – strict adherence to limited government and Constitutional principles – is more important to him and his followers than how his party perceives him.
Even after Ron Paul lost the 2008 Republican nomination, the Ron Paul movement remained a force to be reckoned with. It was Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty that forever changed America’s political landscape. It was the tireless efforts of the Campaign for Liberty that made the Federal Reserve a national issue. Through countless emails, letters, and phone calls made by people who were educated about the Federal Reserve and Austrian Business Cycle Theory, HR 1207, The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, gained some 319 cosponsors in the House of Representatives. The Senate version, S. 604, had 32 cosponsors. So great was the movement to “End the Fed,” the majority of Americans are not only conscious of the Fed’s existence and activities, but are radically opposed to it. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke now feels the need to have futile press conferences to try and win over the people.
A common soundbite you’ll hear in the news nowadays (if you still watch it) is that “many are coming around to Ron Paul’s points of view.” The truly astonishing thing is that any politician can posses a sound, logical form of thought in the first place, much less convince people of anything. Scott Conroy’s Doomsday Scenario may prove to be true, as the “famously devoted supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul wipe the sweat off their brows without batting an eye and descend on the campus of Iowa State University to propel the libertarian-leaning icon to yet another straw-poll victory”. This, for Conroy, would be a tragedy. If Ron Paul were to win in Ames, the sanctity of the event and the godly wisdom of all who attend would have to be called into question.
Yes, it is very true that it is not how high a candidate can get in the national polls, but how many of his supporters he can actually get out to vote that wins elections. If you show up to vote for Ron Paul, however, well then, you’re just some crazy fanatic who’s part of the ever growing cult of Ron Paul worshipers. You are like a pestilence that swarms GOP events to drown out the voices of more reasoned minds, a sacrilegious abuse of the Holy Democratic System. Your votes are not to be regarded with the same reverence as those offered up to the other lying, thieving, murderous scumbags that always get elected president. You are at best an outlier, at worst, a very real threat to our political way of life. The Ron Paul Movement, the greatest grassroots campaign in political history, could destroy Iowa’s position as an early primary state, and ruin the chances of any grassroots campaign for a small-name politician of ever being competitive in presidential politics ever again.
The establishment media would like to completely ignore Ron Paul by not even including him in the polls. When they can’t ignore him, they use a very simple formula. On the eve of an important straw poll, say he can’t win. When he does, downplay the results as meaningless. Now, on the eve of the Ames Straw Poll, they are hedging their bets with doublespeak; The Ames Straw Poll is very important, but only if Ron Paul doesn’t win. It’s a strategy that will likely stretch well into the primary season, but this can only work for so long.
When it become too obvious that the Ron Paul movement is taking over the country, they will resort to blatant lies and deception. This is precisely what Fox News did earlier this year when they tried claim that Ron Paul was booed at the 2011 CPAC by playing the clip from 2010. When Bill Hemmer asks Ron Paul how he felt being about booed, he laughs in a very odd, juvenile way. The way his tong moves around in his mouth, almost as if he is savoring the opportunity to humiliate Ron Paul, I imagine him once being a large, fat bully in the fifth grade. Ron Paul in fact got a standing ovation when he was announced the winner of the 2011 CPAC Straw Poll. Such an amateurish attempt at deception was quickly found out, and Fox News via Hemmer was forced to publicly apologize for their “honest mistake.”
How far will the mainstream go in order to stem the tide of the Ron Paul Revolution? They already say it threatens to destroy the presidential primary system. Will they go as far as Glen Beck did, and group Ron Paul supporters in with terrorists? Perhaps a bombing or a mass shooting will be blamed on the anti-government Libertarian movement. A so-called “Libertarian Bomber” would be just the excuse needed to send federal troops to arrest people at Ron Paul rallies.
It all makes one wonder how accurate those polls are that place Ron at around 10%. It’s clear that the media sees his supporters as a mere factor that skew the polls away from results that are more “representative of America.” The fact is that Ron Paul does represent America. He opposes the wars, he opposes the income tax, he opposes further burdening the country with more debt, and he wants to restore sound money and end the Federal Reserve. What the media doesn’t want is for Americans to figure this out.
They want people who like Ron Paul to think he can’t win; his victories don’t matter; he’s a “fringe candidate;” only kooks support him; best to support someone else who actually stands a chance. The establishment wants to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that a Ron Paul presidency is a hopeless cause. Their plan won’t work. Once the false paradigm is shattered and the people see the truth, Ron Paul will become President of the United States, and it will be all thanks to those “Ron Paul fanatics,” the Black Swans of Politics.
July 30, 2011
Justin T.P. Quinn [send him mail], who lives in New Jersey, has done project management for both private firms and nonprofits.
Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
The debt ceiling debate is providing plenty of opportunity for political theater in Washington. Proponents of raising the debt ceiling are throwing around the usual scare tactics and misinformation in order to intimidate opponents into accepting more debt and taxes. It is important to distinguish the truth from the propaganda.
First of all, politicians need to understand that without real change default is inevitable. In fact, default happens every day through monetary policy tricks. Every time the Federal Reserve engages in more quantitative easing and devalues the dollar, it is defaulting on the American people by eroding their purchasing power and inflating their savings away. The dollar has lost nearly 50% of its value against gold since 2008. The Fed claims inflation is 2% or less over the past few years; however economists who compile alternate data show a 9% inflation rate if calculated more traditionally. Alarmingly, the administration is talking about changing the methodology of the CPI calculation yet again to hide the damage of the government’s policies. Changing the CPI will also enable the government to avoid giving seniors a COLA (cost of living adjustment) on their social security checks, and raise taxes via the hidden means of “bracket creep.” This is a default. Just because it is a default on the people and not the banks and foreign holders of our debt does not mean it doesn’t count.
Politicians also need to acknowledge that our debt is unsustainable. For decades our government has been spending and promising far more than it collects in taxes. But the problem is not that the people are not taxed enough. The government has managed to run up $61.6 trillion in unfunded liabilities, which works out to $528,000 per household. A tax policy that would aim to extract even half that amount of money from American families would be unimaginably draconian, and not unlike attempting to squeeze blood from a turnip. This is, unequivocally, a spending problem brought about by a dramatically inflated view of the proper role of government in a free society.
Perhaps the most abhorrent bit of chicanery has been the threat that if a deal is not reached to increase the debt by August 2nd, social security checks may not go out. In reality, the Chief Actuary of Social Security confirmed last week that current Social Security tax receipts are more than enough to cover current outlays. The only reason those checks would not go out would be if the administration decided to spend those designated funds elsewhere. It is very telling that the administration would rather frighten seniors dependent on social security checks than alarm their big banking friends, who have already received $5.3 trillion in bailouts, stimulus and quantitative easing. This instance of trying to blackmail Congress into tax increases by threatening social security demonstrates how scary it is to be completely dependent on government promises and why many young people today would jump at the chance to opt out of Social Security altogether.
We are headed for rough economic times either way, but the longer we put it off, the greater the pain will be when the system implodes. We need to stop adding more programs and entitlements to the problem. We need to stop expensive bombing campaigns against people on the other side of the globe and bring our troops home. We need to stop allowing secretive banking cartels to endlessly enslave us through monetary policy trickery. And we need to drastically rethink government’s role in our lives so we can get it out of the way and get back to work.
July 20, 2011
LewRockwell - Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
Ron Paul is Correct…
The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is proceeding on her 11-day foreign tour. The geography of the tour is amazing and meant to demonstrate the firm US grip on international politics. From Turkey and Greece to Bali and Hong Kong with stops in-between.
But, in fact, if the tour demonstrates anything ше is only the fact that the US is LOSING its grip instead of RETAINING it. As “The Guardian” columnist Simon Tisdall has put it, “Clinton’s round-the-world tour is likely only to highlight how impotent the United States has become.”
Let’s start from the beginning. Turkey was the first stop of Ms. Clinton’s tour. There she took part in a conference of 40 countries’ representatives supporting the NATO-led campaign in Libya. Did that end up in any breakthrough in Libya? Of course, not. Instead, against the background of the stalemate that NATO has found itself in, Ms. Clinton again had to listen to complaints from its allies that the US is not doing enough.
The visit to Greece seems even more ridiculous. The country is struggling to get out of its serious economic problems and to reduce the national debt. Could it expect any assistance from Washington? Under the ordinary course of events, of course it could. But now it is the turn of the US to make a desperate cry to the international community for help in order to save not only its national economy but the whole global financial system resting on the dollar anchor as well. Of course, there was nothing but empty statements heard from Athens during Ms. Clinton’s visit.
Probably, the most important part of Ms. Clinton’s visit was connected with her current visit to Delhi. But there, again, as most observers have noticed, the devil does not lie so much in what he says, but rather in what is omits. Ms. Clinton came to India only a week after the Mumbai terrorist attack. And that gave her a comfortable opportunity to say a lot of good words without really saying anything. The global threat of terrorism is universally acknowledged, and therefore, by reiterating the need of coordinated struggle against the threat, you cannot stumble into anything wrong, but, at the same time, such declarations do not lead to anything. So, what the Indians did not hear, is the future of the US policy in the region where India did play an important role at the time of George W. Bush tenure, but has been by and large neglected during the tenure of Barack Obama as President and Ms. Clinton as the Secretary of State.
Next stop is going to be Bali, Indonesia, where Hillary Clinton will attend a security conference. As in the case of South Asia, the greatest concern of US foreign policy there is the growing Chinese influence. During the last several months the tension in the South-East Asian region has grown due to a number of bilateral issues between China and its neighbors concerning the area of the South China Sea. The US and personally Ms. Clinton did warn China on the issue as far back as last year, before the escalation of tension, but apparently to no effect.
And the culmination of the 11-day tour is going to be Hong Kong, where Ms Clinton is going to talk on protectionism. Again, the message is clearly meant for China, but as an old saying goes, “before looking for culprits, first look at yourself in the mirror.” The level of protectionism in the US is really unrivaled by any foreign competitor.
Two and a half years ago, when the newly elected President Obama, well aware of his inexperience in foreign policy matters, was trying to form his team, he chose Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State. But the flops of US foreign policy since she took charge of it have proved that Ms. Hillary is much more successful when it comes to meddling with her infidel husband’s affairs than when it comes to solving any crucial matter of really global importance.
Teachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets.
Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.
Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.
For years — as long as a decade — this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests. The scores soared so dramatically they brought national acclaim to Hall and the district, according to an investigative report released Tuesday by Gov. Nathan Deal.
In the report, the governor’s special investigators describe an enterprise where unethical — and potentially illegal — behavior pierced every level of the bureaucracy, allowing district staff to reap praise and sometimes bonuses by misleading the children, parents and community they served.
http://www.ajc.com/news/investigation-into-aps-cheating-1001375.html
A lot of people that write articles like this have a deep hatred for America. But that is not the case with me. I love the United States. I love the American people. America is like an aging, bloated rock star that has become addicted to a dozen different drugs. America is a shadow of its former self and it desperately needs to wake up before it plunges into oblivion.
If you do not believe that America is in bad shape, just read the list below. The following are 20 not so good categories that the United States leads the world in….
#1 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on the entire globe.
#2 According to NationMaster.com, the United States has the highest percentage of obese people in the world.
#3 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.
#4 The United States is tied with the U.K. for the most hours of television watched per person each week.
#5 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.
#6 There are more car thefts in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world by far.
#7 There are more reported rapes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#8 There are more reported murders in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#9 There are more total crimes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#10 The United States also has more police officers than anywhere else in the world.
#11 The United States spends much more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation on the face of the earth.
#12 The United States has more people on pharmaceutical drugs than any other country on the planet.
#13 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.
#14 Americans have more student loan debt than anyone else in the world.
#15 More pornography is created in the United States than anywhere else on the entire globe. 89 percent is made in the U.S.A. and only 11 percent is made in the rest of the world.
#16 The United States has the largest trade deficit in the world every single year. Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the U.S. has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.
#17 The United States spends 7 times more on the military than any other nation on the planet does. In fact, U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.
#18 The United States has far more foreign military bases than any other country does.
#19 The United States has the most complicated tax system in the entire world.
#20 The U.S. has accumulated the biggest national debt that the world has ever seen and it is rapidly getting worse. Right now, U.S. government debt is expanding at a rate of $40,000 per second.
© 2012 Fresh Coffee with a Cup of News... - Entries (RSS) - Comments (RSS) - Log in
Theme design by Christian Gnoth - 