Inexpensive Now, Invaluable Later

When Cash Is Out, Bartering Is King

"Reality tells us that we may soon be coming to a point in which cash is no longer king. The economy has been drying up for years. Over one million Americans filed their initial unemployment claim over the last month. The dollars we bring home are buying less on every trip to the grocery store.

Few of us are completely self-sufficient. There are always going to be a few things that we cannot make for ourselves. If your personal preps are in order, consider investing your prep dollars in a new way: purchase barter items!

A lot of things that are inexpensive now will be invaluable later. As the economy collapses even further, people will be focused on survival and the barter system will reignite. Barter items will be far better than cash – you can’t eat a dollar!

What kind of items will be worth their weight in gold? Check out this list for a few suggestions:

Matches and lighters
Seeds
Canning jars, lids and rings
First aid items
Tools
Water Filtration Supplies
Sewing supplies
Salt
Feminine Hygiene Supplies
Vitamins
Fishing Supplies
Fuel (gasoline, propane, kerosene, etc)
Sweeteners such as honey, sugar and syrup
Coffee/Tea
Carbonated beverages
Liquor
Cigarettes/tobacco
Small packages of food (baggies of beans/rice, etc)
Livestock
Cooking oil
Firewood
Farm supplies (pesticides, fertilizer, etc.)
Weapons, Ammo
Batteries
Warm clothing
Hats/Gloves (think about those little dollar store stretchy items)
Soap/shampoo
Hand sanitizer
Dental care items (toothbrushes/toothpaste/floss)"

I've thought about this quite a bit. It's absolutely apparent that the manipulators are crashing the economy. The dollar has less than zero value and only exists as a method of exchange because we've never been here before and nobody knows what else to do at this point. But when phony fiat money goes down it will go down hard and overnight and then what do we do?
It's imperative that people stock up with whatever cash they have while they can.
I've been doing it for years and a lot of what I have can be used for barter, for trade, when all of a sudden everything we used to know about money gets defenestrated and wealth is only about things, not useless paper.
What's going to be interesting is how we trade.
Initially it'll probably be based on what things were valued in dollars before the cataclysm. That is, the comparative store prices. But gradually values will switch to absolute values and scarcity of items, which is how barterers should start thinking now.

I kind of agree with the above list. I think for most people complete emphasis in a survival mode should be on the absolute basic essentials like water, food and housing, but for barter items at this time the smaller, more inexpensive stuff and the things that will disappear the fastest would be advantageous for people to bone up on.

Livestock? Hardly.
I'm going to be toilet paper King Of The World.

Poser Cop Gets Slapped

Speeding Miami Cop Clocked Going Over 100 MPH 114 Times Gets 100 Hours Community Service

"The Miami Police officer who was arrested for reckless driving by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper after he was spotted driving 120 mph on the Turnpike was in court Thursday where he pleaded no contest.

Officer Fausto Lopez will have to complete 100 hours of community service and pay $3,300 for the cost of prosecution, Broward Judge Melinda Brown ruled.

Lopez immediately handed over a check and if he completes the community service within six months, nothing will appear on his record.

During Thursday's hearing, prosecutors said Lopez breached the public's trust and was even seen speeding again after he was charged. Prosecutors also discussed an investigation by the Sun-Sentinel that revealed SunPass records which showed Lopez had been clocked at speeds above 100 mph 114 times in the year before the FHP stop."

Cop stopped by cop, that's pretty rich. Most of the time the fuckers are speeding where they never should be doing so, on congested streets and too many times they really screw the pooch.
However I have to say that I myself wanted to cut loose but never did it in a way that threatened anyone.
Several years ago I owned a Mini Cooper S.
Savvy car aficionados will know that little auto is capable of unreal capabilities. I proved that in back roads all over the NW, taking the car to the limit as far as it's handling was concerned.
But there was one time that I wanted to know it's top speed.
You must understand that that car had a 6 gear transmission and loved to be wound up. Really high RPM was where it shined, getting up to 90 MPH in third gear was just fine.
I was on highway 5 on a long straight stretch with no traffic for miles ahead of me and for miles behind me so I cut it loose.
You must know that the BMW manufactured Coopers are built like tanks and high speeds are like much lower speeds in any other car, but 140 MPH was when I freaked out.

"She'll do 140 in the top end floored"

Obomney

Tweedledee vs Tweedledum

Fascism Fashion

‘Chilling New Face of Police’ for London Olympics

"Recent press in the UK about the upcoming summer Olympics in London make clear that it will be used as an excuse for a police state presence. The Daily Mail remarked upon the “chilling new face of police” as photos show officers donned in black ski masks and ‘armed to the teeth.’"

then:


now: (click for larger. I especially like the "reinforced titanium watch")



I can't help but think future generations, if there are any, will look back on these images, shaking their heads in horror, bemusement.

Unmanned Police 'Speed Enforcement' Vehicle Meets Pissed Off Guy In A Nightgown

Empire Must Have Really Admired That Old Domino Theory

Giving lie to all that homegrown 'Arab Spring' bullshit.
The proxy death squads need their weapons.

Domino theory - The domino theory was a reason for war during the 1950s to 1980s, promoted at times by the government of the United States, that speculated that if one state in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect.

Lebanon seizes 150 tons of Libyan arms en route to Syrian rebels

"As the violence in Syria continues unabated, neighbouring Lebanon has seized a shipment of smuggled weapons, destined for Syrian rebels. The sea-bound cache apparently came from Libya, which is backing the opponents of President Assad.

Franklin Lamb, director of the NGO, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace talks to RT. He thinks the latest arms smuggling effort was an attempt at regime change."



Nah, there's no conspiracies.

Libya ex-Minister Shukri Ghanem dead in Danube river

The Real Enemy Of The State Has Always Been The American People

Their fake war on terror for the past decade was merely a cover to implement total police state control, because they know they would eventually confront an enraged citizenry over endless war abroad and social collapse.

U.S. Officials Continue to Shift Focus From al Qaeda to ‘Home-Grown Extremists’

"Last year I broke down a report from the Homeland Security Policy Institute which not only lent support for increasingly harsh and widespread police state measures, but also served to shift attention away from the supposed threat posed by foreign terrorist groups towards the alleged threat of domestic terrorists.

One of the prime targets for demonization by both the establishment media and law enforcement has been the so-called “sovereign citizen” movement, something which I have written about previously here at End the Lie.

This is all part of a concerted effort to turn almost everything into a sign of potential terrorist activity while breeding a culture of delusional paranoia, citizen spying and ubiquitous surveillance."

Puttin' On Your Anti Face

How to hide from face-detection technology

"If you take Adam Harvey's advice, here's what you might wanna wear to a party this weekend: A funny hat, asymmetrical glasses, a tuft of hair that dangles off your nose bridge and, most likely, a black-and-white triangle taped to your cheekbone. Optional: Cubic makeup patterns all around your eyes.

All of these otherworldly fashion accessories – which could leave a person looking kind of like an opulent villain from "The Hunger Games" - have a singular goal: to stop your face from being detected by cameras and computers. Called CV Dazzle (short for "computer vision dazzle;" more on the name later), Harvey's project is a provocative and largely theoretical response to the rise of surveillance cameras on street corners and face-detecting technology that's been incorporated into social networking sites like Facebook and Flickr.

If you employ these techniques, Harvey, 30, hopes computers won't even know you have a face:

I don’t want to be unrealistic about it. It’s a pretty conceptual project but it seems to touch on a subject that people are still trying to figure out, which is how to adapt to living in surveillance societies, where not only are you being watched by government surveillance but by citizen surveillance and social-media-type surveillance.

The face appendages aim to trick face detection software by obscuring computer-readable parts of your face. According to Harvey, the key part of the face that computers can read is the "nose bridge," or the area between the eyes. If you can obscure that, you have a good chance of tricking computers into thinking you don't have a face, he said. Another technique is to create an "anti-face," which is less terrifying than it sounds since it just means inverting your face's color scheme. So the black-and-white triangles on the cheeks aim to achieve this effect."

Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner

Nazis In The News

Again, I always worry for the Palestinians when Nazis are waved in our faces.

LIFE: Hitler's Bunker

"On Monday, April 30, on the anniversary of the day in 1945 when Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in a bunker beneath Berlin, LIFE.com presents a gallery of photos (many of which were not published in LIFE) from the bunker itself and from the ruined city beyond its walls, taken by LIFE's William Vandivert — the first Western photographer to descend into the bunker."

When US Troops Start Realizing They're On The Wrong Side Of History

I've Always Said, You Wanna Know What's In Store Domestically, Watch What Empire Does Abroad

U.S. Drones Killed 2,800 Civilians in Pakistan in 7 Years

"A Pakistani human rights lawyer says over 2,800 of the 3,000 people killed over the past seven years in non-UN-sanctioned US assassination drone strikes in Pakistan were civilians, Press TV reports.

Shahzad Akbar, the director of the Foundation for Fundamental Rights, told Press TV on Saturday that only 170 of the people killed in the aerial attacks on the northwestern tribal belt of Pakistan have been identified as militants.

That means that “over 2,800 people were civilians, whose identities are not known, and they have just been killed on suspicion of being militants,” he added."

30,000 drones in American skies, civil liberties in jeopardy

"Washington - A bill passed last week allocating more than $63 billion to the Federal Aviation Administration would increase the existence of drones in civilian airspace across America and is expected to be signed into law by President Barack Obama."

Obama signed it

Sweetheart Dog And An Elk Fawn

I fought fires with the the forest service 1979 and 1980 and oh the tales I could tell.
But one experience stays with me and that's coming across a newborn deer baby while we were trekking to a new spotfire. This little squidget was nestled in some grass and couldn't have been more than hours old. Our crew gathered around and marveled but the tiny guy didn't move a muscle, although he had to breathe. When they're very young they know not to move no matter what because predators can sense and outrun them.
The fire by the way had passed this area by. I'm sure mom was close and we never touched the fawn. It was astounding.

added - I was asked to expand on this by a friend so I will.
I was employed by the Bridger Teton national forest office out of Kemmerer, Wyoming as a summer temp worker who was on call for fire management. Crews were called up at a moment's notice when conflagrations got out of hand in the Rockies.
Our crews were always mixed male and female, to our supervisors' credit, and the ladies were tough as nails. When we were on assignment we were all too blasted to do touch monkey business and I'll tell you why.
I think the fire I mentioned was in the Wasatch range and we were summoned late at night. Our necessaries - yellow fire retardant clothing, canteens, sleeping bags and such were waiting down in Kemmerer. We got a couple of hours sleep on the office floor before a bus came to take us to the staging area up in Utah. When we got there we we given our shovels and pulaskis and helicoptered in near the blazes.
Now I've got to add that these mountain fires are very much extremely up and down. We were dropped off as close as possible but had to hike miles to start fire lines and do our thing after walking a long ways . All we had initially were K rations and had to find a way to sleep at night on the ground under the night sky. After a few days the forest service established a base camp that had amenities like toilets, showers and by jeebus, tremendous meals like steak and potatoes with great lunches for the following day. We breathed a sigh of relief because we knew that at least we weren't forgotten sucking in all that goddam smoke.
As far as fraternizing, we were just so tired all we could do was eat and sleep.

Not Even Pretending To Bother To Pretend Anymore

So much for security: airport employees allowed to work without TSA background checks

"If the continued Transportation Security Administration (TSA) abuses, which just seem to get worse as time goes by; the ludicrously costly, potentially dangerous and ineffective “naked body scanners;” and the completely bloated Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were not enough reason to be infuriated by the ever-expanding agency which looks ever more like Hitler’s SA, here is yet another one to add to that list.

Recently the TSA confirmed that they have been allowing new employees to be hired without completed background checks.

It is unclear if this includes TSA agents themselves or just airport employees, as the statements from TSA officials and the relevant documents are far from clear on the matter.

These background checks have been piling up and now there is a backlog so massive that they have simply decided to continue hiring people without even finding out if they have a criminal history.

Once again I want to highlight the fact that it is not clear if they are hiring agents without background checks or if this only affects other employers of airport personnel, despite somewhat misleading articles which make it seem as though they are definitely hiring agents without security clearances.

The TSA claims that they are processing the background checks as quickly as possible and that they will complete the checks on applicants who are already accepted at a later date, which essentially defeats the entire purpose of the checks.

Even if they are not hiring agents without conducting the proper security checks, they are still allowing questionable individuals into a supposedly “secure” environment, thus making the entire TSA theater utterly pointless."

This Friday!

Still Think That Dems Are Anti Gun And Rethugs Are All About Gun Rights?

Tampa Bay Bureaucrats Look to Ban Concealed Carry at RNC

"Tampa’s City Council wants Governor Rick Scott to pass an executive order banning concealed carry rights to coincide with protests at the Republican National Convention later this year.

“The thousands of protesters expected at the Democratic and Republican national conventions can come armed with a lot more than signs and slogans: State law in Florida and North Carolina allows concealed weapons, including guns,” reports the Sacramento Bee.

“The Tampa City Council wants Scott to issue an executive order, preventing people with concealed weapons permits from carrying guns.”

The executive order is required because according to Florida law, local officials are prohibited from pre-empting state gun statutes.

This move represents yet another effort to turn a right into a privilege and creates the pretext that fundamental liberties can be revoked by local bureaucrats when the mood takes them."

Are You Ready?

Fukushima: Hanging by a Thread

"After writing my essay “Radioactive Hell on Earth”—actually I wanted to change that title to “Fukushima on Steroids”—I see Christina Consolo’s essay “Fukushima is Falling Apart”:

Are you ready—it is becoming clear that we, our children and our entire civilization is hanging by a thread. It is a very sorry thing to report that we have literally shot ourselves in the foot with a big nuclear shotgun full of radioactive particles of the worst conceivable kind.

It has taken a year but finally “a U.S. Senator finally got off his ass and went to Japan to see what is going on over there. What he saw was horrific. Reactor No. 4 building is on the verge of collapsing.

Seismicity standards rate the building at a zero, meaning even a small earthquake could send it into a heap of rubble. And sitting at the top of the building, in a pool that is cracked, leaking, and precarious even without an earthquake, are 1,565 fuel rods.”

If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire that could wipe out most of the northern hemisphere; certainly it would be a massive civilization-breaking event."

This is the raw, ugly problem we face these days. Massive crap like the Fukushima disaster, the gulf extinction event, ongoing economic collapse, endless war for corporate profit, on and on, it's all papered over with smiley faces and nothing is addressed head on. The scumbags learned a long time ago that unpleasantness, even massive death and disruption, can be glossed over and shoved into the future for somebody else to worry about.
We're facing the most disastrous ecological catastrophe in the history of humankind.
Think Yahoo is on it?

"The Psychological Dimensions Of The Conflict Are Not Widely Understood"

I Will Not Allow Anything But MY Reality To Be YOUR Reality

Cops Confiscate Cameras at Ohio Congressman’s Town Hall

"Congressman from Ohio had cops grab the cameras of constituents during a town hall meeting. Steve Chabot, a Republican, had cell phones and cameras confiscated in order to “prevent an embarrassing Youtube video from making the rounds,” according to Carlos Miller, who runs a blog documenting efforts by the state to stifle the First Amendment rights of photographers.

See video of the incident below.

Police said the cameras were taken “to protect the constituents.” A local television station, however, was allowed to videotape the meeting and the brazen move by Chabot and the cops."

I Don't Know What The Hell Blogger's Doing

But It's Really Fucking Ugly

I've tried "going back to the old interface", har de har.
It may close this thing down with almost 10,000 posts because they won't allow content unless it's about Justin Bieber, or similar garbage.

The Obama administration has spent the last three years building the infrastructure of a totalitarian police state, that "has surpassed the Bush administration’s attempts to expand executive power by crushing the civil liberties of US citizens." At the center of the repressive edifice is preventive detention without trial, buttressed by various measures that, effectively, criminalize dissent. Clearly, and methodically, "the US government is preparing for domestic insurrection."

"The NDAA’S dangerous detention provisions would authorize the president – and all future presidents – to order the military to pick up and indefinitely imprison people captured anywhere in the world, far from any battlefield."

George W. Bush would blush. Joseph McCarthy would be proud. And COINTELPRO now seems like child’s play. In only three years, the Obama administration and its enablers have established, legitimized, and normalized a national security state apparatus that removes any doubt that domestic policing is a prelude to a totalitarian police state. This apparatus has surpassed the Bush administration’s attempts to expand executive power by crushing the civil liberties of US citizens. And it has done so boldly, with only a few prominent critics, and without so much as a whimper from so-called leftists.

What we urgently need is a compilation of the various acts, presidential signing statements, domestic surveillance programs, secret military and police operations, censorships, and other administrative measures that affect not only our civil liberties, but also our human rights and human dignity. For now, I will focus on two of the more recent congressionally approved draconian laws passed by the Obama administration.

On New Year’s Eve, 2011, away from the glitter and swoon of the media, Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (or NDAA). The law states that based on suspicion alone, the military can indefinitely detain anyone who is considered a "terrorist" or deemed an accessory to terrorism. This includes US citizens. According to the ACLU, this law codifies "indefinite military detention without charge or trial into law for the first time in American history." "The NDAA’S dangerous detention provisions," the ACLU continues, "would authorize the president – and all future presidents – to order the military to pick up and indefinitely imprison people captured anywhere in the world, far from any battlefield."

"The Obama administration and its enablers have established, legitimized, and normalized a national security state apparatus that removes any doubt that domestic policing is a prelude to a totalitarian police state."

What is most dangerous about this law, according to its many critics, is its broad language about who can be considered a target. In his column describing why he is suing the Obama administration over NDAA, journalist Chris Hedges points particularly to Section 1031 defining a potential target as a person who is either a member of, or substantially supported, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or "associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners." This also includes "any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces." The law doesn’t define what "associated forces" are, or what "engaging in hostilities" against the US means. And because the definition of a "terrorist" shifts according to political necessity, all of us – all over the world – are potential targets and eventual victims. Historically, we have seen how the US government has labeled "domestic terrorist" any persons or groups, particularly those on the left, who have dared challenge inequality and state oppression (clear examples are the American Indian Movement and the Black Power Movement). Most recently, we have seen the brutal suppression of domestic dissent through the militarized dismantling of Occupy Wall Street encampments – which brings us to the next worrisome law, HR 347.

The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 or the "Trespass Bill" (HR 347 and its companion Senate bill, S. 1794) was signed into law by Obama on March 9, 2012. This law, according to a Business Insider article, "potentially makes peaceable protest anywhere in the U.S. a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison." What it says, specifically, is that anyone can be charged with a federal felony for "trespassing" on property or grounds that is under Secret Service protection, even if the supposed "trespasser" is not aware that the area is under such protection. One can also be charged if he or she "impede[s] or disrupt[s] the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions." This law effectively criminalizes any form of protest. This means that any place or event can, at any time and under any circumstance, be designated a "trespass" area and, anyone protesting any event can potentially be arrested. Knowing also that under NDAA, once arrested, a person can be detained indefinitely and extradited if he or she is deemed a threat, should give us all pause.

"Any place or event can, at any time and under any circumstance, be designated a "trespass" area and, anyone protesting any event can potentially be arrested."

Along with these new laws, there is the recent Executive Order signed by Obama on March 16, 2012: National Defense Resource Preparedness (EO 8248). This order allows the executive branch – through various federal authorities such as the Secretaries of Energy, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Defense, and Commerce – to take control of all food, all energy, all health resources and all transportation resources in the service of "national defense," even in times of declared peace. It is true that this latest executive order is an update to the one signed by Bill Clinton in 1994. But in the context of the growing number of laws that expand executive and military power to stifle dissent along with the rapidly expanding national security enterprise, we should be wary."

"The political order is being shaken, the Western financial infrastructure is collapsing, and empire is imploding. They know it and they are ready."

"Voting" In The US Has Been A Cruel Hoax For Decades

With corrupt touch screen machines, massive primary fraud with the rethugs this year, it's a wonder how any thinking person believes in the electoral process. That old aphorism, that if elections would ever change anything they'd be outlawed, is so extremely and glaringly true.

A Spanish Company Known As Scytl Will Be Reporting Election Results For Hundreds Of U.S. Jurisdictions On Election Day

"Do you know who is going to be counting the votes on Election Day 2012? Most Americans never even think about this. Most Americans just assume that their votes will count and that the government will ensure that the counting process is done honestly and fairly. But is this really the case? Sadly, the vast majority of people never take the time to "look behind the curtain" to see how things really work. If they did, they might find themselves extremely upset about what they would find. The integrity of our voting process is of the utmost importance. If we do not have the ballot box, then what avenues for changing our government do we have left? Unfortunately, the integrity of our elections has been called into question quite a few times in recent years, and now a Spanish company known as Scytl will be involved in reporting election results for hundreds of jurisdictions across the United States this upcoming election day. Will those election results be accurate?

It is absolutely amazing that a foreign company has been able to gain such control over the reporting of election results in the United States without it ever making a significant splash in the mainstream media.

You would think that there would be a law against this sort of thing, but apparently there is not.

So how did this all come about?"

The Israeli Defense Firm That Tallies The Iowa Caucus

Put In A Victory Garden,This Spring, Now

The Family Farm Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America

"An entire way of life is rapidly dying right in front of our eyes. The family farm is being systematically wiped out of existence in America, and big agribusiness and the federal government both have blood all over their hands.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farms in the United States has fallen from about 6.8 million in 1935 to only about 2 million today.

That doesn’t mean that there is less farming going on. U.S. farms are producing more than ever. But what it does mean is that farming is increasingly becoming dominated by the big boys. The rules of the game have been tilted in favor of big agribusiness so dramatically that most small farmers find that they simply cannot compete anymore.

Back in 1900, about 39 percent of the U.S. population worked on farms. At this point, only about 2 percent of all Americans now live on farms.

Big agribusiness, the food processing conglomerates, and big seed companies such as Monsanto completely dominate the industry.

Unless something dramatic is done, the family farm is going to continue to be wiped out of existence. Unfortunately, it does not look like things are going to turn around any time soon.

The way that the farming industry is structured today, it is simply not economically feasible to operate a small family farm. According to Farm Aid, every week approximately 330 farmers leave their land for good.

Many old timers are trying to hang on for as long as they can. A very large percentage of family farmers are in their fifties, sixties or seventies at this point. Today, only about 6 percent of all farmers are under the age of 35.

Most young people these days are not too eager to choose farming as a career. A lot of young adults that grew up on family farms have decided that investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a business that requires you to work 12 hours or more per day most of the year for very meager wages is simply not worth it.

In recent years, many family farmers have been forced to find second jobs in order to support their families. Many farm families are constantly on the verge of financial ruin. It is a really tough life for many of them."

Slave Traders

"The nation’s largest private prison company, the Corrections Corporation of America, is on a buying spree. With a war chest of $250 million, the corporation, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, this month sent letters to 48 states, offering to buy their prisons outright. To ensure their profitability, the corporation insists that it be guaranteed that the prisons be kept at least 90 percent full. Plus, the corporate jailers demand a 20-year management contract, on top of the profits they expect to extract by spending less money per prisoner."

Yes the Horrid Terror Conspiracy

TSA screeners allegedly let drug-filled luggage through LAX for cash

"Four current and former Transportation Security Administration screeners have been arrested and face charges of taking bribes and looking the other way while suitcases filled with cocaine, methamphetamine or marijuana passed through X-ray machines at Los Angeles International Airport, federal authorities announced Wednesday.

The TSA screeners, who were arrested Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, allegedly received up to $2,400 in cash bribes in exchange for allowing large drug shipments to pass through checkpoints in what the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles called a “significant breakdown” of security.

In addition to the two current and two former screeners, prosecutors also indicted two alleged drug couriers and a third who allegedly tried to smuggle 11 pounds of cocaine but was nabbed when he went through the wrong security checkpoint.

The TSA employees “placed greed above the nation’s security needs,” Andre Birotte Jr., U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement."

Stock Trading Is A Bunch Of Crap

84% of All Stock Trades Are By High-Frequency Computers … Only 16% Are Done By Human Traders

"As of 2010, 50-70% of all stock trades were done by high frequency trading computer algorithms.

And many other asset classes are dominated by high frequency trading as well.

High-frequency trading distorts the markets. And see this, this and this. And it lets the big banks peek at what the real traders are buying and selling, and then trade on the insider information. See this, this, this, and this.

Morgan Stanley has just shown (via the Financial Times) that the percentage of high frequency trading in the stock market has skyrocketed to 84%:

Trading by “real” investors is taking up the smallest share of US stock market volumes [since Morgan Stanley started keeping track 10 years ago.]

The findings highlight how US trading activity is increasingly being fuelled by fast turnover of shares by independent firms and the market-making desks of brokerages, many using high-frequency trading engines. [actually all of the market-making desks are using it.]

***

The proportion of US trading activity represented by buy and sell orders from mutual funds, hedge funds, pensions and brokerages, referred to as “real money” or institutional investors, accounted for just 16 per cent of total market volume in the form of buying, and 13 per cent via selling in the final quarter of last year, according to analysis by Morgan Stanley’s Quantitative and Derivative Strategies group.

It’s not just the U.S. High frequency trading dominates in the U.K. as well."

A Nation Of Morons

Jefferson called an educated citizenry "a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."

Madison warned that "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or, perhaps both."

Jack Kennedy said "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all."

In 1748, Montesquieu said "The tyranny of a principal in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy."

In a June 1950 commencement speech, Boston University President Daniel Marsh said, "If the (television) craze continues....we are destined to have a nation of morons."

Well before television arrived, journalist Walter Lippmann called the public "the bewildered herd." In policy matters, their function is to be "spectators," not "participants."

"The common interests elude public opinion entirely," he said, and that's the way it should be.

America's privileged class alone should manage them. Only they need proper education and training. Treat others like mushrooms - well-watered and in the dark. In other words, distracted by bread and circuses. More on that below.

In his book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death," Neil Postman said "Americans are the most entertained and least informed people in the world." Most know little or nothing about what matters most.

Public ignorance isn't universal, but a significant majority's affected. Henry Ford once said:

"It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

It's also true for out-of-control imperialism, war and peace overall, political corruption, corporate power, illusory democracy, elections little more than theater, police state lawlessness, an unprecedented wealth disparity, shocking poverty, unemployment, hunger and homelessness levels, and numerous other issues in the world's richest country.

Widespread public ignorance keeps these and other abuses out of public consciousness and concern enough to demand political Washington address them responsibly.

Instead, officials serve wealth and power alone. As a result, popular needs go begging, especially under mandated austerity to pay bankers and wage imperial wars.

A nation of morons literally lets America get away with murder, erode human and civil rights, and leave millions uninformed, on their own, out of luck."

"Syrian Opposition"

Mossad, Blackwater, CIA Led Operations in Homs. Weapons from Israel

"“The crisis is at its end” is no longer a relieving statement made by some political analysts, as the crisis is really close to its end. Baba Amro is now under the control of the Syrian army… and so are the armed groups of which a big number escaped to the Lebanese borders dubbing their retreat “tactical”.

Around 700 Arab and Western gunmen surrendered in Baba Amro, well-informed sources told Al-Manar website, adding that “huge and critical surprises will be uncovered in the coming few days… such as the kinds of arms seized, as well as the military tactics the armed groups followed, and the sides that supervised the operations.”

The sources further assured to the news website that the security operation in Homs will be over in a maximum of five to eight days.

Weapons from Israel used for First Time in Baba Amro

For his part, Syrian expert in strategic affairs Salim Harba pointed out that Baba Amro neighborhood and the areas surrounding it were emptied from the armed groups’ organizational as well as command structures with minimum army and civilian casualties, as the area was mainly concentrated by gunmen"

Speaking to Al-Manar website, Harba said that “the captured gunmen held Arab nationalities, including Gulf, Iraqi, and Lebanese… among them were also Qatari intelligence agents and non-Arab fighters from Afghanistan, Turkey, and some European countries like France.

“The Syrian army also uncovered tunnels and equipments there,” he added, pointing out that “advanced Israeli, European, and American arms that have not yet been tested in the countries of manufacture, in addition to Israeli grenades, night binoculars, and communication systems were confiscated by the security forces.”

Harba went on saying that “communication stations where established on the Lebanese borders to oversee the military operations in Baba Amro, and to ensure contact between field commanders and a coordination office led by members of information in the Qatari capital Doha.”

He clarified that “the escape of British journalists from Homs through the Lebanese-Syrian borders was the result of this coordination.”

International Military Operation Looms For Syria

War Under The Table: US Backed Mercenaries Training Syria Terrorists

Look Upon This Man And Recognize The Face Of Idiotic Denseness

President Obama’s Top Official (In Charge of Drug Control Policy) Conflates Hemp with Marijuana

"Once again, Gil Kerlikowske makes it a point to fulfill his job description as head propagandist of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Reports Stephen C. Webster on the RAW Story:

In a recent response to a White House petition, President Barack Obama’s drug czar warned of danger in the domestic production of industrial hemp, drawing a stunned reaction from the petition’s author, who told Raw Story on Wednesday that it was “like getting hit in the head with a hammer.”

The claim by former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, his second response to a marijuana-related White House petition, is not surprising as it reflects current U.S. policy toward marijuana. It is, however, simply not true that THC in hemp poses any sort of potential for abuse, as it is impossible to become “high” from ingesting the plant.

“America’s farmers deserve our Nation’s help and support to ensure rural America’s prosperity and vitality,” he wrote. “Federal law prohibits human consumption, distribution, and possession of Schedule I controlled substances. Hemp and marijuana are part of the same species of cannabis plant. While most of the THC in cannabis plants is concentrated in the marijuana, all parts of the plant, including hemp, can contain THC, a Schedule I controlled substance. The Administration will continue looking for innovative ways to support farmers across the country while balancing the need to protect public health and safety.”

Life In A Pitiless Third World Corporatocracy

Hospitals Begin Planting Debt Collectors In Emergency Rooms

"Hospital patients waiting in an emergency room or convalescing after surgery are being confronted by an unexpected visitor: a debt collector at bedside.

This and other aggressive tactics by one of the nation’s largest collectors of medical debts, Accretive Health, were revealed on Tuesday by the Minnesota attorney general, raising concerns that such practices have become common at hospitals across the country.

The tactics, like embedding debt collectors as employees in emergency rooms and demanding that patients pay before receiving treatment, were outlined in hundreds of company documents released by the attorney general. And they cast a spotlight on the increasingly desperate strategies among hospitals to recoup payments as their unpaid debts mount.

To patients, the debt collectors may look indistinguishable from hospital employees, may demand they pay outstanding bills and may discourage them from seeking emergency care at all, even using scripts like those in collection boiler rooms, according to the documents and employees interviewed by The New York Times.

In some cases, the company’s workers had access to health information while persuading patients to pay overdue bills, possibly in violation of federal privacy laws, the documents indicate.

The attorney general, Lori Swanson, also said that Accretive employees may have broken the law by not clearly identifying themselves as debt collectors."

Did You Know It's Now Illegal To Protest The Obama Mob?

HR 347 'Trespass Bill' Criminalizes Protest

"As I write this op-ed, I primp for the mirror -- looking for the most flattering pose -- for my mug shot. Now, don't get the wrong impression; I haven't been arrested and charged with a federal felony -- yet. Nor is the preparation done in anticipation of a guest stint on "America's Next Top Model" -- but as a common sense reaction to Obama's predictable signing of the latest assault on the Bill of Rights -- namely -- H.R. 347 (and it's companion senate bill S. 1794); aka the "Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011." Sounding more like an appropriations bill authorizing monies for federal grounds landscaping -- this bill, better known to those in the DC beltway as the 'Trespass Bill' -- potentially makes peaceable protest anywhere in the U.S. a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The legislators responsible for bringing this legislative excrement to life are Representative Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) in the House of Representatives and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT.) leading the Senate version.

H. R. 347 makes protest of any type potentially a federal offense with anywhere from a year to 10 years in federal prison, providing it occurs in the presence of elites brandishing Secret Service protection, or during an officially defined 'National Special Security Event' (NSSE). NSSEs , ( an invention of Bill Clinton) are events which have been deemed worthy of Secret Service protection, which previously received no such treatment. Justified through part of 'Presidential Decision Directive 62 in 1998; Bill Clinton created an additional class of special events explicitly under the authority of the U.S. Secret Service.

Past NSSE events included the funerals of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, and the national security concern that was Superbowl XXXVI. Other NSSE protected events include the Academy Awards and the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. I suppose presidential candidates, no matter how insane they may be are deserving as much security protection as Brad and Angelina's sex life. The dangerous part of this 'executive order' lies not in the triviality of a SuperBowl receiving taxpayer funded Secret Service protection -- but in the convenience manufactured for any President desperate to hide deliberations of groups like the G-8, the G-20 and the World Trade Organization. The classification of such events as NSSE -- insures the rich and powerful against any pesky accountability or transparency to the unwashed minions -- namely the US public. HR 347 & S. 1794 insulates such events as the G-8, WTO and presidential conventions against tough questions and politically justified protests.

The House vote tally which took place 02/28/12, was 338 for and 3 against."

Best Track From The Beatles Remix Love Album

The achingly beautiful acoustic and instrumental version of Harrison's 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps'
I'm a 300 pound gun toting whisky swilling sum of a bitch but tears roll down my cheeks whenever I listen to this magic.
Sweet jeebus.

64 Year Old Man Tasered In His Home

"A thug Tazering an old man sitting on his couch, whose “crime” was his refusal to Submit and Obey to a thug cop’s barking orders in his own home. The old guy wasn’t even “resisting” – unless sitting on the couch constitutes “resisting.” He had previously fallen down some stairs and scraped himself up a little. He didn’t want to go to the hospital. And he wanted the cops out of his home. This proved sufficient “cause” for the cop to point his little laser-dotted weapon at the old guy and Tazer him. The thug-in-uniform yells “stop resisting” repeatedly as his clearly not resisting 64-year-old victim writhes on the floor. Check it out:

And the fallout from the Green case continues to spread.

More and more, ordinary people are beginning to see the truth behind the facade of “Serve and Protect.” That the only reason they haven’t been the victim of a thug scrum is simply luck – or that the circle hasn’t yet widened enough to encompass them. But the circle is widening. Any of us could be the victim of a thug scrum. Old or young, man or woman."

Obama Mob Treats It's Bitches Cruelly

 Ugly americans strike again.

Brazilian prostitute had collar bone broken when three U.S. marines threw her out of a moving Embassy car in fresh embarrassment for Obama

"American marines injured a Brazilian prostitute after throwing her out of an official Embassy car, it was reported today. Romilda Ferreira was left with a broken collar bone, two broken ribs and a punctured lung after the incident in Brazil's capital Brasilia. The three marines on a U.S. Embassy security team, and an Embassy staff member, were pulled out of the country before police were able to press charges, according to Brazil's Jornal Nacional programme. cording to a Brazilian police investigation, the four U.S. Embassy officials had visited a nightclub in the centre of Brasilia where they had hired a group of prostitutes. The three marines on a U.S. Embassy security team, and an Embassy staff member, were pulled out of the country before police were able to press charges, it was claimed

The three marines on a U.S. Embassy security team, and an Embassy staff member, were pulled out of the country before police were able to press charges, it was claimed One of the Americans and at least one woman left the club by taxi, but Ms Ferreira and another women got into an official U.S. Embassy van with the other three men. As they pulled away there was a discussion about how much the women were to be paid, and one of the marines pushed Ms Ferreira out of the car, where she ended up being run over by the vehicle. Speaking to the Jornal Nacional news programme, Romilda said she tried to hold on to the door but was dragged under the wheels. She said: 'I tried to get up and grabbed the doorknob. That was when they told the driver to go. Then I felt my leg burning. I let go and fell underneath the van. I hit my head and passed out.' The Americans then allegedly drove away without offering assistance. Police investigating the incident requested the arrest of the driver of the van and one of the marines for bodily injury and failure to rescue. But U.S. authorities removed the four men from the country before they could be charged with the crimes."

McJeebus

Ft. Lauderdale Church Offers Drive Thru Prayer Service

"FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami/AP) – For our busy lives on the go, drive thru service comes in handy. From coffee and donuts to burgers and fries, drive thru service makes getting what we need a lot more convenient. Now the Christian Life Center of Ft. Lauderdale wants to pray for you.
The Pentecostal congregation has been offering drive-thru prayer services every Friday for the last month, according to the Sun-Sentinel. Outreach Pastor Sol Levy says many who pass through have never been inside a church and are often at the end of their rope. The volunteers offer to pray with them on any issue, big or small, from a rough day at work to divorce and foreclosure. Church leaders say the initiative is starting to gain popularity and has served about 150 people so far."

Do People Not Yet Grasp What "Homeland Security" Is All About?

Corporate protection, fear mongering and total control. It has zero connection to it's stated 'terrorism' purpose.

 Federal agents raid Patapsco Flea Market

 "Vendors at the Patapsco Flea Market have a history of allegedly selling counterfeit and pirated merchandise, according to an affidavit, which outlined the latest accusation that resulted in a raid Sunday by federal Homeland Security Investigations special agents. Capping a 2 1/2-year-long investigation into counterfeit apparel and accessories as well as pirated DVDs and musical recordings, federal investigators confiscated numerous items being sold there." "It is a practice that deprives companies of revenue as well as debases the quality of brand names, said Ned T. Himmelrich, who heads the intellectual property and technology practice group at Baltimore law firm Gordon Feinblatt LLC. Companies have been working with federal authorities to crack down on the illegal activity, he said. "It's more than just the one sale or a thousand sales," he said. "It's the ripple effect on the quality of the brand." In a statement Sunday, Under Armour said: "Individuals who produce and sell counterfeit goods harm the American economy. The reality of counterfeiting is that it's much greater than just buying a knock off item at a discounted price, it's a multibillion dollar a year problem that undermines corporations."

The Military Boo Hoos Over Ray Gun Bad Press

One word - eyeballs.

Iran Is Storing It's Oil In The Open Ocean

Exclusive - Half Iran tanker fleet storing oil at sea

"(Reuters) - Iran has been forced to deploy more than half its fleet of supertankers to store oil at anchorage in the Gulf as buyers of its crude cut back because of sanctions, two Iran-based shipping sources said.

The sources, who are familiar with operations at Iran's main export terminal Kharg Island in the north of the Gulf, said 14 of National Iranian Tanker Company's (NITC) fleet of 25 very large crude carriers, each loaded with about 2 million barrels of oil, are now at anchor acting as floating storage.

A further five of Iran's nine Suezmax tankers, with capacity of one million barrels, are also parked offshore with oil aboard.

That means that of Iran's 59-million-barrel fleet of VLCCs and Suezmax sized tankers, 33 million barrels of capacity are being used to store crude at sea in the Gulf, or 56 percent of the fleet."

Official Fairy Tales Shall Be Written In Granite

Justice Dept. won't reopen Kent St. shootings case - caution, it's FAUX

"CLEVELAND – The U.S. Justice Department won't reopen its investigation into the deadly 1970 shootings by Ohio National Guardsmen during a Vietnam War protest at Kent State University.

A letter from an assistant attorney general says there are multiple legal hurdles to further prosecuting the case.

The letter was addressed to Alan Canfora, who requested that the investigation be reopened. He was among the wounded students and now directs the Kent May 4 Center.

The letter says a government review was inconclusive in determining whether a newly enhanced audio recording of the shooting provided evidence of extra gunfire and someone ordering people to fire on students.

Four Kent State students died, and nine were hurt.

Canfora tells The Plain Dealer in Cleveland the government's decision is disappointing but not surprising."

Your Wife/ Mother/Girlfriend/Sister/Daughter

What would you do?

Kali Yuga Free Fall

The Normalization of Dystopia

"Lily Tomlin used to say “I try to be cynical, but I can’t keep up.” Writers of dystopian sci-fi have the same trouble keeping ahead of actual reality.

Forty years ago, Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, in the Illuminatus! trilogy, portrayed a near future in which the ruling elite used a wave of assassinations a la JFK, RFK and MLK to terrorize the American public into accepting a full-scale police state. “The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind.” A few years of such orchestrated terror, and the state would have Americans “under tighter surveillance than Hitler had the Germans.”

As it happens the real-world impetus to such creeping totalitarianism was not assassinations. It was the Drug War and 9/11. But the overall effect has been very much the same.

Wilson’s and Shea’s elite spokesman enumerated a long list of police state measures — most of them utterly fantastic to American readers in the early ’70s — that Americans would be driven to accept. Today, in the non-fictional America of 2012, most of them are considered entirely normal procedures “the authorities” use to “keep us safe.”

Let’s take a look at that fictional list:

“Universal electronic surveillance.” NSA? Warrantless wiretaps? National security letters?

“No-knock laws.” We didn’t even need a law to make no-knock warrants standard paramilitarized police procedure.

“Stop-and-frisk laws.” Again, who needed a law? Ever hear of Rudy Giuliani?

“Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime.” Standard procedure in most jurisdictions.

“A law making it illegal to resist even unlawful arrest.” Google that one and you’ll find the principle stated in so many words in actual case law. The old common law principle that the constabulary’s authorty derived entirely from judicial warrants is as dead as Sir Edward Coke.

“Gun control laws.” No comment.

Some haven’t yet materialized.

“Government inspection of first-class mail.” Although there’s recurring talk of “smart stamps” that make anonymity impossible, and the government keeps tightening the screws on anonymous remailers and upping the identification requirements to rent a P.O. box.

“Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives.” I’m not aware that camps have been specifically allocated for detention of subversives in a national emergency. But power to detain “terror suspects” — right now — without criminal charges is established in law under NDAA, and was already claimed by the executive. Whether or not there’s dedicated housing already in place for such detainees, the government’s quite capable (as shown by the use of Ft. Chaffee to house Katrina refugees) of improvising.

Others have been implemented on steroids. The obvious example is “restrictions on travel.” The TSA’s passenger processing regime is for all intents and purposes an internal passport system for air travel. And the internal passport system is rapidly spreading to other transportation sectors. TSA VIPR (Visual Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams have appeared in bus and train stations all over the country. Even driving isn’t safe. A VIPR team recently set up a checkpoint in the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel on Hwy 64.

So we’ve got an internal passport system fully in place for civil aviation, rapidly getting there for trains and buses, and maybe coming for highways. Remember when internal passports, checkpoints, and uniformed goons saying “papers, please” was one of those exotic things that happened in faraway totalitarian states like Soviet Russia?

Just like torture. That’s another one of those things that only the bad guys used to do. Now that America’s Finest do it too, it’s been renamed “harsh interrogation techniques.”

Star Appeal For Modern Barbarism

Hollywood Celebrities Provide "Mood Music" and "Star Appeal" for US "Humanitarian Wars"

"It’s a sign of the times: Hollywood heart-throbs, pop divas and TV chat show celebrities are turning on the mood music for America’s never-ending global war.

In a world of lawlessness, state terrorism, rank mendacity and war criminals masquerading as government leaders, what better than to engage the glamor of reassuring celebrities to add a certain “star appeal” to otherwise barbaric endeavours?

George Clooney, Rihanna, Oprah Winfrey are just some of the big names lending their faces and voices to a script worthy of Hollywood – only the script is coming out of the Pentagon.

Perhaps unwitting agents, these consumer-culture icons are ironically lending cover and justification to crimes and human suffering that they claim to be opposed to.

Take actor George Clooney. Last month, he caused a media stir when he was arrested for his part in a demonstration outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington protesting against Khartoum’s alleged violations in neighboring South Sudan. The day before his arrest, Clooney had a private meeting with President Barack Obama in the White House to discuss the Sudanese conflict.

Two weeks later, Obama hosts Salva Kiir, the president of South Sudan, the newly formed North African state which broke away from Sudan last July after decades of civil war. Media reports claimed that Obama urged South Sudan to not engage in conflict over border disputes with its northern neighbour.

Another two weeks later, South Sudan’s army dramatically escalates conflict by invading northern Sudan and seizing its vital oil installations in the district of Heglig. The attack triggered much sabre-rattling by Khartoum with President Omar Bashar all but declaring war on South Sudan. Fears of all-out war have subsided in the past few days after South Sudan’s forces withdrew across the border. This may be just the first of many renewed skirmishes to come.

There is no way, as Glen Ford, editor of Black Agenda Report, points out, that South Sudan would have embarked on such reckless aggression without prior tacit approval from Washington.

On that score, the likes of Clooney provide a crucial propaganda function. The genial screen star lends credibility to the long-running Washington narrative that the villain in the Sudanese conflict is the northern state of Omar Bashar. After all, Bashar is wanted as an alleged war criminal by the Western-controlled International Criminal Court. Clooney’s campaigning, no doubt motivated by well-meaning human concern, nevertheless adds a Hollywood dimension to the fraudulent “responsibility to protect” principle that Washington and other Western powers have been deploying as a cover for neo-imperialist intervention.

Meanwhile, pop diva Rihanna and chat show queen Oprah Winfrey have joined other celebrities in giving emotive public support to Washington’s posse of Special Forces sent to hunt down African renegade Joseph Kony. The elusive rebel commander shot to notoriety after the release of a documentary film, Kony 2012, which accuses his Lord’s Resistance Army of kidnapping, raping and murdering thousands of children in the jungles of Africa. The outpouring of public anger engendered by the film, made by a little-known charity group Invisible Children, coincided conveniently with President Obama announcing the dispatch of American Special Forces to go after Kony across four African countries: Uganda, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan.

Sceptics have pointed out that the modern-day bounty hunter saga of Kony and the LRA is long out of date. The height of his alleged depredations was 6-10 years ago during the LRA’s guerrilla war against Uganda state forces. In recent years, the LRA has faded into relative obscurity. To suggest that Kony and his rabble of a few hundred fighters present a threat to African state security or American vital interests is risible."

Mask Of Zion

I Deny The Claim I Haven't Paid My Cable Bill In Four Months

Egypt terminates gas deal with Israel

"The head of the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company has said it has terminated its contract to ship gas to Israel because of violations of contractual obligations, a decision Israel said overshadowed the peace agreement between the two countries.

Mohamed Shoeb, the gas company's top official, said Sunday's decision was not political. "This has nothing to do with anything outside of the commercial relations,'' Shoeb said.

He said Israel had not paid for its gas in four months. Yigal Palmor, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, denied the claim of not paying."

Jeebus the stinking little terrorist state just repeatedly sucks.

Your National Parks To Be Fascist Security Zones

Vat are you doink mit that camera? Halt! Shnell!

Republicans Push For Department of Homeland Security Takeover of National Parks

"Republicans in the House are pushing to give control of at least 50 national parks within 100 miles of the US border to the Department of Homeland Security.

The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act would allow DHS to suspend any federal law on lands run by the departments of Agriculture and Interior.

A recent article published in the LA Times documents the way most Rhino conservatives will be thinking heading into the November elections.

House Republicans are backing legislation in Congress to give the Department of Homeland Security control of more than 50 national parks and forests within 100 miles of the U.S. borders, including in Washington state.

The legislation involves a sweep of land along the frontier with Canada and Mexico, but exempts state land, private property and federal holdings used for mining, livestock grazing and timber harvesting. The new authority would carve through 54 national parks.

Among the parks that would be affected are North Cascades National Park and Olympic National Park in Washington; Glacier National Park in Montana; Saguaro National Park in Arizona; and Acadia National Park in Maine. National forests along the border, and areas protected as wilderness, also could be affected.

Perhaps the most startling aspect of this plan by House Republicans is the fact that it would let DHS conduct any activity or construct any facility that they claim is required to secure the border.

The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act, sponsored by conservative Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, would give Border Patrol and Customs agents and other federal officials the right to suspend any federal law, including environmental laws, on land managed by the departments of Interior and Agriculture.

It would give Homeland Security the right to conduct any activity or construct any facility required to secure the border.

Sadly, the fact remains that DHS is NOT about securing our border and giving them new powers to construct facilities in the name of border security may be a cover for a more sinister plan involving a martial law takeover and DHS/FEMA camps.

For their part, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees has issued a stark warning that calls this DHS takeover plan unprecedented with the potential to devastate 54 of America’s national parks, forests, and historical sites as well as negatively effect the economy."

Not completely unexpected, really. Aside from being free to have our own bodies, meaning having the freedom to do whatever we want, ingesting whatever we want, fucking whoever we want, terminating our existence when we feel the need to whenever we want, public places was the single most threatening concept in this new era of total dominance by fascist fuckwads. Commonwealth is systematically destroyed as we frogs are slowly boiled.
There was always a sinister aspect to the southern border problems. Aside from a shitload of money in the correct pockets, what's the drug war been all about?
Well, my guess is the ability to implement fascism with all the necessary justifications to make it palatable for the FAUXified rubes.
The Obama Mob was caught with Operation Fast And Furious.
Lets' grab the guns!
The problem is that the money junkies need lettuce pickers while the government has to maintain the posture that illegal border crossing is a no no.
They want the best of all worlds.
And they need threats to enhance their stranglehold on our throats. So of course our communal National Parks and Monuments will be eliminated because some made up or manufactured garbage is balleyhooed as "national security issues" They don't want us to collectively own anything anymore, they want to collectively own and control us.

Movies

Back in 2007 there was a flick called Zodiac, which was about the killings in California in the late sixties and early seventies. I had heard about it all but never had a proximity connection to the incidents so never had much interest in it to be honest.

Just watched this morning because I heard about it on Coast overnight because the guest was a webmaster of zodiackiller.com. A stellar cast with Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr, Chloë Sevigny, Mark Ruffalo and Brian Cox, the effort attempts to dramatize the ugly San Francisco events back then. The movie was all right. It died in my estimation at the end just as most american movies just suck at the finale. It doesn't deserve the high movie database rating it has, but that's just me, the stellar cast absolutely did a fine job.

My main point is that last night the website commander was on Coast to Coast AM and talked about the incidents from over forty years ago. One might think that such arcane information would be fairly boring and not very interesting to listen to, since it happened such a while ago.

One would have been oh so wrong if one tuned into a Coast station, because George Knapp was the host. His preparation, acumen and ability to laser in on the subject matter at hand is positively brilliant, unlike George Noory who is just phoning it in at this point. I call Noory Mr Billboard for pimpmg any number of products and services. He sold out a long, long time ag. The only reason he's still the usual host of Cast to Coast AM is that he has good time management for the program and is willing to pimp the advertisers' widgets. He positively stinks at interviewing guests because his most pressing interest is to do his C2C job and draw his paycheck, and not to elicit information from whoever is on his show.

But thank you George Knapp for a fascinating show and a good movie title recommendation.
I can't be the only one recognizing your superior hosting capabilities.
If the PTB grasp the obvious you'd be the regular C2C host.
But the most important task is to sell widgets.

Fuck The Cops

Connecticut bill would allow citizens to sue police who arrest them for filming in public

"The trend of individuals being arrested for legally filming police in public is an issue which gets me especially frustrated and a favorite topic of mine to bring up here at End the Lie.

Thankfully, individuals have been striking back recently through lawsuits and in some cases charges have been dropped. Furthermore, an Illinois judge declared their state wiretapping law unconstitutional in a case which surrounded recording police in public.

That being said, police are still engaging in deplorable activities like confiscating cell phones and destroying evidence and flipping out for no reason when being filmed.

Connecticut’s state Senate is now taking a stand by recently approving a bill, Senate Bill 245, which would allow citizens to sue police officers if they arrest them for legally recording in public.

Carlos Miller points out that this legislation is apparently the first of its kind in the United States, something which I personally find to be quite troubling. Why aren’t more state legislatures making an effort to protect their citizens’ ability to hold police accountable?"

I'd like to ask, why should the cops have the right to monitor and record everything we do while we can't record what they do, especially when we pay for it all?

Guess What?

Work Commute Gets More Interesting For Ice Farmers

Three minutes of gay porn interrupts Canadian morning newscast

"Breakfast in Hamilton, Ontario was interrupted by three minutes of hardcore gay pornography as local CHCH Television's morning newscast went off-air.

The indecent sex scene was shown around 9.30 a.m on Friday morning as viewers presumably sipped their coffee and led to huge embarrassment at the station said The Hollywood Reporter.

Blaming a botched repair job by a local cable company, CHCH frantically tried to readjust their broadcast but were unsuccessful as roughly three minutes of gay porn was broadcast to the Hamilton area."

No Guns For Negroes

Benefits Of Cinnamon

Cinnamon is more than just another household that can add more flavor to your dishes and pastries. While the irresistible delicious spice can add a certain zest to your meals, it also packs powerful health benefits. The next time that you have the urge to indulge in a cinnamon-based treat, you should give in — your body will thank you. Afterall, cinnamon has a plethora of serious wellness benefits that should not be overlooked.
Amazingly, cinnamon is considered as one of the oldest spice that is still in use across the globe. Originally, it was grown only within Sri Lanka and other parts of the South East Asia. In early 2000 BC, this was transported to Egypt. Today, almost all countries around the world rely on the wonderful flavor that rouses from cinnamon. In addition, many cultures were — and still are — fully aware of cinnamon’s healing characteristics.

Good grief, what is this blogspot crap?

the unfortunate IHOP cinnamon bun ↑