analysis policy in all the world

Thứ Tư, 28 tháng 12, 2011

Larwyn's Linx: The Justice Department Condones Perjury … Again

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QOTD: "Herein lies a fundamental contradiction in our present system: The desire for constant inflation and constant credit expansion requires that the banks be shielded from the effects of their own business errors. Allowing capitalism’s most efficient regulators, profit and loss, to do the regulating, would mean that banks could face the risk of bankruptcy – this is, of course, the ultimate disciplinary force in capitalism. This could then lead to balance sheet correction and thus periods of deflation. Ergo, banks cannot be capitalist enterprises at full risk of bankruptcy as long as constant credit growth and inflation are the overriding policy goals. The constant growth of the banking sector must be guaranteed by the state through the unlimited provision of bank reserves from a lender-of-last resort central bank.

That banks get ever bigger, that they routinely hand out multi-million dollar bonuses, and that they frequently get bailed out, is not a result of the greed of the bankers – a stupid explanation anyway, only satisfactory to the intellectually challenged and perennially envious – but is integral to the fiat money system.

Banking under state protection ultimately means banking under state control. In the end it means state banking. And this is where we are going." --Detlev Schlichter

Thứ Ba, 27 tháng 12, 2011

Report: China's new GPS system more accurate than U.S. military's

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is engaged in a stealth form of warfare with the United States. It has launched numerous cyber-warfare campaigns against American interests. It is engaged in a massive buildup of its military capabilities including "cruise missiles, fighter jets and [a] growing, modernizing army."

And now, it has created a new GPS system that reportedly trumps America's capabilities.

China is now one step closer to becoming the top economic and military superpower in the world: its Beidou geo-positioning system is now fully armed and operational...

...Beidou cuts China’s dependency of the American GPS system completely. It means that they would be able to launch any attack and move their forces around the world without any US interference. Right now, the United States can deactivate their Global Positioning System so nobody can use it in certain areas. That includes enemy armies. After Beidou, however, this will be impossible.

...China will be able to move their civilian transport ships and airplanes all over the world without being dependent on any other country. Their military would also use this system to direct their ships, combat airplanes, drones and land forces in battle... They would also be able to use Beidou to target any kind of weapons with great accuracy, including cruise missiles.

Those questioning the PRC's goals would do well to read "Discerning China’s Intentions a Challenge for U.S.".

Hilarious: Hundreds of New York Times Staffers Rip Management Over Their Own Petty, Capitalist Concerns

As an aside, I read the Stuffington Roast so you don't have to.

New York Times staffers unhappy with management are letting publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. know it...

...In recent days, more than 270 current and former Times employees have signed an open letter expressing their "profound dismay" with recent company decisions...

...Bill O'Meara, president of the New York Newspaper Guild, said some staffers had considered even "more dramatic" actions.

"There were people who wanted to storm Arthur Sulzberger's office," O'Meara told The Huffington Post...

"There were people who wanted to stage a walkout."

And what are the staffers' major grievances? Curiously, for the world champions of wealth redistribution, the whining revolves around money.

The letter calls attention to several grievances. Last week, Times brass notified foreign citizens employed in the paper's overseas bureaus that their pensions would be frozen. In the letter, Times staffers dismayed by this decision point out to Sulzberger that some of these foreign employees, working alongside Times reporters in war zones, have "risked their lives so that we can do our jobs."

The open letter may have been prompted by this and other recent decisions, but it brought to the surface long-simmering tensions. In the past several years, staffers have faced temporary pay cuts, layoffs, and buyouts. They have worked since March without a new contract. Regarding ongoing negotiations, the letter notes that Sulzberger's "negotiators have demanded a freeze of our pension plan and an end to our independent health insurance." O'Meara said staffers did not receive a raise this year...

I find it uniquely hilarious that the world's foremost advocates for Statism -- people like Paul Krugman, who continuously lobby for endless confiscation and redistribution of money by a centralized, authoritarian government -- are concerned with petty concerns like money. With private property. With their own financial well-being.

Whatever happened to the collective?

Unhinged Statist jackasses hardest hit.

Hat tip: Memeorandum.

10 Fun Facts You May Not Have Known About Ron Paul

10. "Of the 620 measures that Paul has sponsored [since 1976], just four have made it to a vote on the House floor. Only one has been signed into law."

9. Ron Paul is 76 years old and would be 80 at the end of a hypothetical first term.

8. In 2007, Ron Paul criticized Abraham Lincoln for using military force to end slavery during the Civil War: "He shouldn’t have gone to war… Slavery was phased out in every other country in the world and the way I’m advising that it should have been done is do like the British Empire did; you buy the slaves and release them."

7. In 2009, Ron Paul said even the Nazi Holocaust was not sufficient cause for interventionism. He said, among other things, "No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t risk American lives to [end the Holocaust]."

6. The Washington Post's Charles Lane -- hardly a "neocon" -- says that "Paul actually comes closest to the foreign policy views of Obama’s longtime religious leader, Jeremiah Wright."

5. Just days after the horrific 9/11 attacks that killed 3,000 Americans, Ron Paul blamed America for the attacks: "It is clear that protecting certain oil interests and our presence in the Persian Gulf help drive the holy war. Muslims see this as an invasion and domination by a foreign enemy, which inspires radicalism."

4. In a television interview he gave in 1995, Ron Paul explicitly and personally endorsed the views of his newsletter: "I also do an investment letter. It’s called the Ron Paul Survival Report, and I put that out on a monthly basis ... which is a gold-oriented newsletter, but it’s also, uh, convening — expressing concern about surviving in this age of big government, where there’s a lot of taxes and regulations, and attacks on our personal liberties."

3. Ron Paul refuses to disavow support from "the racists, anti-Semites and neo-Nazis in his coalition (sorry, but whatever you think of Lew Rockwell, Stormfront and David Duke certainly deserve such labels)."

2. In an interview he gave just last month, Ron Paul also refuses to disclaim the despicable 9/11 Truther movement and, in fact, actively encourages it. When asked "why won’t you come out about the truth about 9/11?", he responded: "Because I can’t handle the controversy, I have the IMF the Federal Reserve to deal with, the IRS to deal with because no because I just have more-too many things on my plate. Because I just have too much to do."

1. Ron Paul believes in pretty much every discredited, crackpot conspiracy theory you've ever heard of. To wit:

He knows how crazy his conspiracy theories about The Illuminatis are, so he initially deflects the question ("What do you think the Bildersbergers are doing?") with an empty demurral. Then the questioner asks it a second and third time, and he can no longer counterfeit his beliefs; he offers up the Illuminatis conspiracy.

Remember, we're fighting a "phony war" against Al Qaeda, and it's all ginned-up neocon nonsense that Iran is cooking up a nuclear bomb, and Hamas was created by Israel.

But the thing we've got to really keep our eyes on is the Bildersbergers and Trilateral Commissioners.

Presidential!

Image credit: iOwnTheWorld.

Larwyn's Linx: 'Mischief' voters push Paul to front of GOP race

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Nation

'Mischief' voters push Paul to front of GOP race: York
Obama and the F-Word: Power Line
The Trouble with Ron Paul’s Defense: NRO

Did the VA GOP change primary rules last month?: RS
Sunlight needed from Virginia GOP: BauerBlog
VA A.G. Cuccinelli On GOP Primary Ballot: RSM

Ron Paul Campaigning In 1995: Hey, Read My Report!: Ace
The Virginia Primary Mess: Pundette
Paul Goldman helps Newt Gingrich with Virginia ballot: Politico

Economy

Obama gives back some of the Corzine cash: Hot Air
Crony Holidays: Schumer kin gets judgeship for Xmas: Malkin
Chart of the Day: Medicare Spending: Foundry

Certain prediction for 2012: Thomas
Pelosi Spends Holidays Sacrificing For Her Beloved 99%: Malkin
LTRO Bazooka an Epic Disaster: ZH

Gunrunner & Energygate

Folding Holder: PunditLeague
Obama’s Green Jobs Program “Infused with Politics at Every Level”: Foundry
List of Congressmen Calling for Holder’s Resignation Continues to Grow: Ammoland

Climate & Energy

Shutting down power plants: Imaginary benefits, extensive harm: Watts
The Volt is a jolt to taxpayers shelling out subsidies: Kelly
New Expansive EPA Power Grab: FPM

Media

Libertarians, Republicans would have benefited from giving Paul the attention he deserves: Betsy's Page
Ron Paul in 2009–‘I Wouldn’t Risk American Lives’ to End the Holocaust: BigGovt
What, If Anything, Could Convince a Ronulan Not to Vote for Ron Paul?: RS

Feds' War on Religion: Norris
Kathleen Sebelius Destroyed Evidence to Protect Planned Parenthood in a Child Rape Case: NewAm
Random Thoughts: Sowell

New Gingrich video: Victory or death: Hot Air
White Supremacist Founder of Stormfront Says His Followers Are Volunteering For Ron Paul’s Campaign: WZ
Just days after 9/11, Ron Paul blames America: Scoop

World

A Month of Christian Persecution: Power Line
Tennessee mom finds Islam in kid’s textbook, revised and sanitized: Creeping
Over 1,000 Christians Targeted & Murdered Worldwide by Islamists in 2011: GWP

Ron Paul is the Real Warmonger: RedState
Iranian Lawmaker: 'These War Games Are a Warning to the Western Countries': CNS
Twitter Continues To Evade Explaining Its Breaking of U.S. Law and Its Indirect Support For Online Jihad: MEMRI

Black Muslim Who Harrassed Many Shot Dead by Atlanta Police: GWP
Japan Seeks to Market Record 145 Trillion Yen Bonds in 2012: Mish
Italian Yields Spike To The Highest Level Since November: Insider

Sci-Tech

Highly critical zero day vulnerability in Windows discovered: Gladiator AV
Stratfor Hacking Victims Targeted After Comments: ABC
Who owns your Twitter account? Check out this lawsuit: CNet

Cornucopia

Kids say the darndest things: MOTUS
A perfect example of self-defense, and sound good sense: Bookworm
Obama Golfs for the 90th Time as President: Dossier

Image: Ron Paul and the racist newsletters (Fact Checker biography)
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Action Alert: Contact Virginia's GOP Regarding Ballot Access

QOTD: "Shortly after he gave General Motors a $53 billion bailout in 2009, President Barack Obama said the plug-in Chevrolet Volt would be salvation of the beleaguered automaker. Consumers will buy 120,000 Volts each year from 2012 onwards, the Energy Department predicted then. But through November, only 6,142 Volts have been sold. And that pitiful figure is inflated by purchases for government fleets.

Johan de Nysschen, president of Audi of America, isn’t surprised.

“No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a (Toyota) Corolla,” he told Lawrence Ulrich of MSN Autos in 2009. “So there are not enough idiots who will buy it.”" --Jack Kelly

Thứ Hai, 26 tháng 12, 2011

Breaking: Statement on the 2.7 million emails obtained from Stratfor

More than 48 hours after it was rooted, the website of intelligence firm Stratfor Research remains down. In fact, as of this moment, even its temporary server (showing an "Under Maintenance" page) is inaccessible, perhaps due to an ongoing denial-of-service attack.

Via Wikileaks, the following statement describes some of the motives for the compromise.

In the wake of the recent operation by which Stratfor's servers were compromised, much of the media has focused on the fact that some participants in the attack chose to use obtained customer credit card numbers to make donations to charitable causes. Although this aspect of the operation is indeed newsworthy, and, like all things, should be scrutinized and criticized as necessary, the original purpose and ultimate consequence of the operation has been largely ignored.

Stratfor was not breached in order to obtain customer credit card numbers, which the hackers in question could not have expected to be as easily obtainable as they were. Rather, the operation was pursued in order to obtain the 2.7 million e-mails that exist on the firm's servers. This wealth of data includes correspondence with untold thousands of contacts who have spoken to Stratfor's employees off the record over more than a decade. Many of those contacts work for major corporations within the intelligence and military contracting sectors, government agencies, and other institutions for which Anonymous and associated parties have developed an interest since February of 2011, when another hack against the intelligence contractor/security firm HBGary revealed, among many other things, a widespread conspiracy by the Justice Department, Bank of America, and other parties to attack and discredit Wikileaks and other activist groups. Since that time, many of us in the movement have dedicated our lives to investigating this state-corporate alliance against the free information movement. For this and other reasons, operations have been conducted against Booz Allen Hamilton, Unveillance, NATO, and other relevant institutions. The bulk of what we've uncovered thus far may be reviewed at a wiki maintained by my group Project PM, echelon2.org.

Although Stratfor is not necessarily among the parties at fault in the larger movement against transparency and individual liberty, it has long been a "subject of interest" in our necessary investigation. The e-mails obtained before Christmas Day will vastly improve our ability to continue that investigation and thereby bring to light other instances of corruption, crime, and deception on the part of certain powerful actors based in the U.S. and elsewhere. Unlike the various agents of the U.S. Government, the hacking team that obtained this information did not break down the doors of the target, point guns at children, and shoot down any dogs that might have been present; Anonymous does not resort to SWAT tactics, and this is simply one of many attributes that separate the movement from the governments that have sought to end our campaign and imprison our participants. Of course, such points as these will not prevent our movement from being subjected to harsher scrutiny than is given to those governments which are largely forgiven their more intrusive tactics by virtue of their status as de facto holders of power in a world that has long been governed in accordance with the dictate that might makes right.

Incidentally, many of us are more than happy to proceed according to that amoral dictate if we find it to be necessary. And, increasingly, we have found it to be so.

Barrett Brown
Project PM
irc.project-pm.org

Winner of our Prestigious Tweet o' the Day Award: @JamesTaranto

The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto wins our prestigious Tweet o' the Day Award.*

How very true.

* At last check, the award consists of a handsome email and a $5 off coupon to Applebee's (if I can find it and it hasn't expired).