Oh dear. It gets better by the hour. Now there’s a Nobel nomination. Edward Snowden will join Henry Kissinger (mass-murderer or great diplomat, depending on your political position) and, of course, Barack”Drone-Killer” Obama, that noted proponent of world peace.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Mom Gets Cavity Search For Dissing WashCorp Property
“Here we see a woman in Mission, Kansas first assailed, then threatened with having her children kidnapped, before being degraded even further with a public “cavity” search. What was her offense? Putting pebbles in a government mail slot. This act, which was likely carried out by one of her small children, set what is probably your average indolent “civil” “servant” into immediate action. Cue the armed enforcers.”
Roll On, Great Potomac, Roll!
Another great Mencius Moldbug passage, which reminds us why we should quit saying America or US Government and call it WashGov…or, better yet, WashCorp.:
“But wait – as Americans, why should we mind if Washington conquers the world? Isn’t it awesome, always and everywhere, to rule?
Not at all. The doctrine of ultra vires exists for a reason. Every institution, private or public, is chartered to serve the interests and purposes of its beneficiaries. If it decides it has the right to trade off the interests of those beneficiaries, purportedly for the purpose of serving other beneficiaries to whom it is not contractually responsible, but has decided to love simply out of the goodness of its gigantic and perpetually hemorrhaging heart –
When USG decided it had the right not to serve the people of America, to whom it was exclusively responsible, it set the precedent that it could abuse American interests for any purpose it desired. And what other precedent could tyranny demand?
USG certainly was never responsible to any other party. Operating ultra vires as a world government, like any regime it worked assiduously to curry the favor of its foreign subjects. But how could it possibly be responsible to the mango farmers of Pakistan?
No – in its capacity as planetary benefactor, USG could only be utterly irresponsible and autocratic. In time it probably would have followed the example of Rome and extended the citizenship of the metropolis to the entire empire. Not that this would have given foreigners any more real authority over “their” government than Americans already enjoyed. But at least it would have fixed the optics.
And why? Why this amazing planetary empire? Ostensibly, we were told, the motive was the benefit of humanity. What a purpose! What benefit! The progressive global leadership that at home produced Clockwork Orange Detroit also gave us Clockwork Orange France, Clockwork Orange South Africa, Clockwork Orange Haiti, Clockwork Orange Syria, etc, etc, etc. Nor may we forget its earlier patronage of Clockwork Orange Russia and Clockwork Orange China. All told, the murders on USG’s tab run well into 9 figures. Hitler was an amateur and Mao was a cheap local punk.
No, there is a simpler reason. Washington loved it. It was not America that got to rule the world, but Washington. This amazing global empire was responsible neither to Americans, nor to foreigners; neither did it serve the interests of either. The interests it served were its own. How fortunate we are that this monster is at the bottom of a river! Happy the crabs that feast on its corse! May never drought undrown its bones! Roll on, great Potomack, roll.”
Slate’s Bazelon Rightly Faults Florida Law For Botched Verdict
Emily Bazelon at Slate has written an excellent piece on the Zimmerman verdict that finds the real villain in Florida’s ambiguous, easily exploited stand your ground law:
In Florida, a person “who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked” has no duty to retreat. He or she has the right to “meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself.” The jury could have faulted Zimmerman for starting the altercation with Martin and still believed him not guilty of murder, or even of manslaughter, which in Florida is a killing that has no legal justification. If the jury believed that once the physical fight began, Zimmerman reasonably feared he would suffer a grave bodily injury, then he gets off for self-defense.
Maybe that is the wrong rule. Maybe people like George Zimmerman should be held responsible for provoking the fight that they then fear they’ll lose. And maybe cuts to the back of the head and a bloody nose aren’t enough to show reasonable fear of grave bodily harm. After all, as Adam Weinstein points out, the lesson right now for Floridians is this: “in any altercation, however minor, the easiest way to avoid criminal liability is to kill the counterparty.” But you can see the box the jurors might have felt they were in. Even if they didn’t like George Zimmerman—even if they believed only part of what he told the police—they didn’t have a charge under Florida law that was a clear fit for what he did that night.
This is what Slate’s Justin Peters meant when he reminded us earlier this week that the state has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. “That hasn’t happened,” he wrote. “And if the prosecution can’t prove its case, then Zimmerman should walk.” This is our legal system. It doesn’t always deliver justice, and this case surely points to several ways in which Florida’s version of law and police work should change. It may demonstrate that Zimmerman should face federal civil rights charges.
But what matters most is that Zimmerman was charged with Martin’s killing, even if he wasn’t convicted. The state was late to indict him, yes, and acted only after a sorry spell of botched police work that may have affected the evidence presented at trial. But Florida did try to hold George Zimmerman liable for Trayvon Martin’s death. Martin’s family and all his supporters get most of the credit. His father, Tracy Martin, wrote on Twitter tonight, “God blessed Me & Sybrina with Tray and even in his death I know my baby proud of the FIGHT we along with all of you put up for him GOD BLESS.” Yes, they did fight, and their battle meant something—meant a great deal—to so many parents of black boys in hoodies, and to the rest of the country, too. Tracy Martin is right to stress that fight for justice at this sorrowful, painful moment. No ill-conceived law, and no verdict, can take that away.”
More scepticism about the Snowden story
More grown-up analysis of Edward Snowdon from the adult world, by Richard Cottrell at The Daily Sheeple:
“Points of detail are important.
Edward Snowden is not an NSA sub contractor. He worked for the ‘consultancy’ Booz Allen Hamilton which is a shop front for the CIA, not the NSA. First warning.
Second. None of the ‘secrets’ he revealed are even vaguely secret, since the information concerning NSA snooping on foreign powers was already in the public realm, many times over. The problem is that newspapers and journalists intoxicate themselves with spy stories and rarely bother to sift through all the parallel information. Takes too long.
Third. His hop, skip and jump activities were clearly well planned in advance. Who, exactly, set up the fake exit to Cuba story, which put a truckload of journalists on the wrong (teetotal) flight? Snowden? Pull the other one. He had that sort of power over Aeroflot? Who put the story around anyway? Snowden again? Hey this guy was wasted working for the CIA, he should have been in PR.
Fourth. He got on a plane to Russia without a visa. I have been to Russia many, many times and I can tell you that is an impossible feat without real inside connections.
Fifth. He slipped through the dragnet in Hong Kong because the US consulate gave him the wrong middle name on the charge sheet. Yes, that really is the tooth fairy at the foot of the bed. Pretty isn’t she, with that halo and her little purse.
Sixth. Is this star wars, CIA versus NSA? Very likely. The security services in the US are like pit bull terriers looking for other pit bull terriers’ throats. Again, ‘journalists’ (actually a non-existent race) covering this whodunit remind me of Enid Blyton and those who never saw through the real nature of the set up with Noddy and Big Ears under the toadstool.
Seventh. Snowden is a classic example of the Gladio-style (copyright: Yves Guerin Serac) implant, just like the cops at Scotland Yard and all the dirty washing concerning their undercover activities which is now being – selectively – exposed.
I suspect he is not quite right in the head, will be revealed as living a fantasy life in Hawaii, got profiled and selected for the mission of his life. There are countless examples of believing in the role, the multi-dimensional imposition of one set of unrealities on another. Happens all the time. That’s how the system works. The Manchurian Candidate rings a bell.
Eighth: Is he really in Moscow? Is he actually holed up in the airport lodge? Or is he somewhere else altogether? Is he already an ex-melted down Snowden, so to speak? No habeas corpus necessary. We don’t have the corpse, honestly. It must be somewhere else. Of course. Does it matter anyway? The actor is off the stage, his speaking role is finished and he leaves behind a gloriously unfinished story. You can see how clever it all is.
Ninth. The guy blows the kitchen sink and then gallops around the world like a headless chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tenth, why does Obama suddenly go live and say, hey this is no big deal, I’m not going to the bottom of the White House rose garden for this one. That’s not strange, it’s a dead (oops) giveaway. Especially with the genuine article, Corporal Bradley Manning, on trial for his life.
Eleventh. Who wants Snowden to be taken alive? Sorry, no blank space available for your suggestions. I think the Boston Bomber syndrome applies here. Or, alternatively, grateful thanks, nice thick wad of the green, and then disappear, like the lost explorer Colonel Fawcett up the Orinoco in the thirties.
We shall see, but this story does not carry a 100% money back guarantee. We must doubt that we are living in an age of any sort of reason when people run after bum steers like this one.”
Hear, hear, for some more intelligent and original analysis on this – following Scott Creighton, Jon Rappaport, and yours truly.
Fake “Miami Riot” video set in Vancouver
At least one of the reports/video clips about rioting, allegedly in Miami, which in my last post I suggested was phony, have been confirmed to be fake.
From The Daily Sheeple:
“According to Canada.com, however, the video clip is actually not in Miami, but Vancouver, Canada and was shot in 2011.
The video, first uploaded to YouTube and later reposted at World Star Hip Hop, was shared tens of thousands of times on Saturday night. However, the video actually depicted part of the 2011 Vancouver riots, which shook that city following the Vancouver Canucks’ loss to the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup finals.
Most Canadians would have recognized the video’s location immediately since whoever shot the original footage mentions Vancouver’s Granville Street, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and suggests the police should go “all Dzieka?ski” on the rioters — a reference to the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dzieka?ski, whose death at the Vancouver airport in 2007 made national headlines.
At the time of this writing, no riots, civil disobedience or protests have been reported.
The Zimmerman verdict was announced late Saturday evening at 10:02 PM Eastern Time.
Rioting Around The Country Or Twittering?
Who is sending out this stuff on Twitter about crowds and rioting everywhere? Are there riots in Miami? Really? I’m hearing from other people that it’s all phony. What’s going on?
Part-Time Cop Wannabe, Full-Time Wuss, Zimmerman Walks
UPDATE:
I fully support the right to carry a gun and to fire in self-defense, as anyone who has read my pieces on V Tech knows. That is not the point. Nor do I suggest that the streets are safe. Or, that “mental toughness” always carries the day. My point is the better part of valour, or self-defense, is prudence. Don’t follow people on the street at night. Mind your own business. It’s common sense.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
So you can walk drive around armed like a cop, following people around in the night, get down and stalk them, and when they get frightened and throw a punch at you, and you start quaking because you’re scared, you can blow them away and there’s no culpable negligence involved?
Hmm..mm.
Lila: Was Zimmerman really being beaten to death by Martin?
“An expert witness testified Wednesday that none of George Zimmerman’s DNA was found under the fingernails of Trayvon Martin, despite defense attempts to portray Zimmerman as only firing his gun in self-defense.
Crime lab analyst Anthony Gorgone testified no DNA samples taken from Martin’s fingernails matched that of Zimmerman, a Florida neighborhood watch volunteer charged with killing the teenager during a scuffle.”
Lila: Did Martin really grab Zimmerman’s gun, as Zimmerman testified?
“Gorgone also testified that two different DNA profiles were found on the pistol grip. One was Zimmerman’s but the other could not be identified. However, Gorgone said he was able to determine that it did not match Martin’s DNA sequence.”
Lila: Was Zimmerman a cop wannabe?
During questioning, Pleasants confirmed that Zimmerman had taken an online course he taught in the summer of 2011 called Criminal Investigation, and that Zimmerman had voluntarily attended optional in-person lectures. Pleasants also confirmed that Zimmerman posted on the class online discussion board that he wanted to pursue a career in law.
“He said his goal was to become an attorney and eventually a prosecutor,” Pleasants said.
Lila: Was Zimmerman exposed to militarized police tactics?
“Prosecutors called a military prosecutor who taught a criminal procedure class at Seminole State College in which Zimmerman earned an A.
“He was probably one of the better students in the class,”said Alexis Francisco Carter, an officer in the U.S. military JAG corps.
Lila: Was Zimmerman a wuss?
“Firearms expert Any Siewert testified that Zimmerman’s weapon had a full magazine plus an additional bullet in the chamber”
Trayvon Martin, we all know, was unarmed.
Lila: Zimmerman was armed and had a car. He initiated the encounter by stalking someone. Trayvon was unarmed, walking and just minding his own business.
Comment:
I am about five seven and range between 125 and 140 pounds. I’ve walked through bad neighborhoods in Baltimore, late at night sometimes, carrying school material, even radios, and have never been attacked. I’ve had twelve year old boys carry my things for me. An old man pushed my suitcase two streets one rainy night. People have given me directions and friendly warnings a lot of times.
I ‘ve been intimidated once or twice. A couple of people yelled racial insults (telling me to go home to my s***** country and asking if my dad had a corner store..that sort of thing).
I mostly ignored that kind of stuff, except once, when I returned the favor and the whole thing blew up. The guy, a homeless black guy, grabbed an iron rod from some construction material lying around (this was on North Charles Street, downtown), so I grabbed one too. We faced off for about three minutes. Then I realized I was being foolish and ducked into a restaurant.
A couple of “r**-n****” have slammed doors in my face and given me dirty looks. They were carrying skinny shot-guns and had those mean slit-eyes.
I don’t know which was more dangerous. The guns or the fists and rods. I’ve never carried a gun ( there are several in the house), but I always carry mace, and except in the last few years, when there’s been the cyber-stalking stuff, I honestly don’t remember being all that scared.
Zimmerman is a wuss.
Once, I was stuck at the Greyhound at 2 AM in the morning and I heard some awful shrieking and carrying on and then two young black teens (guys) rushed out, followed by a big black girl who was throwing a fit and waving something. I was sitting on the bench watching, and one of the guys comes up to me and tells me quickly to get out, the girl’s got a razor, and she’s acting crazy. Then they ran away with the girl behind them.
I moved quickly but it didn’t scare me. Not really. I think if you’re centered in your body and your energy is positive, you mostly repel things like that. It’s like an invisible sheath. But when you feel broken inside or unhappy, then the sheath breaks and bad stuff gets through. Or, maybe you’re projecting something (not necessarily aggression) that’s attracting that energy in some way. It sounds a little far out. It’s not. It’s traditional yogic teaching.
What you are inside, your mental and emotional and spiritual world, that is what you create outside – given your circumstances. We often take that in a materialistic “prosperity gospel” way. But it’s not a materialistic teaching in origin (Hindu) or in its later instantiations (Christianity).
I taught some level-five kids once. Kids. They were half a foot taller and at least fifty pounds heavier and they would act up, every so often. They had to have a bouncer standing ready, just in case. We had to put on gloves to handle one of the kids, a girl. She was the daughter of a crack-addict and if she cut herself, her blood would be infectious. She’d go batty every so often, spinning around wildly, banging her head against the walls and glass, so getting hurt was a real possibility. Never did, though.
I carried mace everywhere when I had to walk. I was lucky. No one attacked me. No one raped me. No one molested me. Baltimore streets are bad, but frankly I’ve had more real trouble on college campus. And the worst “assaults” and “looting” I ever experienced were perpetrated by people in button-down shirts and wing-tips.
Ron Paul Teams Up With William Black
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/ron-paul-vs-the-establishment-2/
It ‘s high time that Dr. Paul entered the fray against financial corruption. And no one understands the issue better than Black.
I can’t post videos because my blog is loading very very slowly and I keep having problems, but check it out at the LRC blog.
I noticed LRC has also been running a bunch of pieces against big data and pointing out the problems with blackmail involved. So maybe my blogging here hasn’t been in vain…..
NOTE: I am making my William Buiter post public again. I make the point in it that Austrians should take regulatory capture and control fraud seriously and not make it secondary to interest rate manipulation.
And now, we have Black teaming up with Paul. This makes a lot of sense. Every influential person in finance, from every political/ideological persuasion, should be working on redesigning the financial system.
Stewart Rhodes On Adam Kokesh’s Bad Strategy
Stewart Rhodes of “Oath-Keepers” explains what was wrong about Kokesh’s strategy and why peaceful, organized civil disobedience trumps dangerous stunts:
“Oath Keepers didn’t support Kokesh’s call for an armed march on DC because it was bad strategy,not even civil disobedience. Kokesh’s last description of his intent (before he canceled it) said the armed marchers would stop well short of the police line, declare the government illegitimate, and then disperse. So, what would be the point? How is that some grand, glorious, hard stand? It isn’t. But even if it were, it is still bad strategy as it puts the liberty movement in the posture of the aggressor while also risking a catastrophic and bloody defeat on that bridge…..
…. the Revolutionary war was kicked off by the patriots winning both a clear military victory and a clear moral victory since it was obvious that Gage and his men were the aggressors. It didn’t matter who fired first at Lexington. What mattered is Gen. Gage had sent his men out into the countryside, against the people. And because Gen. Gage and his men got their asses handed to them on a silver platter, it was not just a moral victory for the patriots but also a morale victory, and an embarrassing morale defeat for the British Army and the Crown…..
..Kokesh’s armed march on D.C. would have been the exact opposite. The patriots would have been perceived as the aggressors…..
So, if shooting had erupted, it would have been a blood-bath and brutal defeat for the patriots, while the patriots would have also been perceived by most people as the aggressors.
Nor was Adam Kokesh’s rhetoric confined to talk of peaceful civil disobedience, as some claimed.
Kokesh had clearly, on Alex Jones, stated that the intent was to “overthrow the government”…… And that alone made it something Oath Keepers could not support or take part in because we have active duty military members who cannot belong to an organization that supports or advocates overthrowing the US government. There are specific DOD regulations on that……
If there was no violence, and the marchers did as Kokesh said, and marched toward the police but stopped well short of the police line, declared the government illegitimate and then dispersed, it would have been portrayed by the mainstream media as “violent, armed extremists, who had declared their intent to march into DC to overthrow the government wussed out and didn’t even dare try to cross police lines. They chickened out and stopped well short of the police and then retreated and went home.” FAIL.
…The people are not oath bound. But I am. And until they release me from that oath, by deciding that the Constitution no longer protects their rights and must be replaced, I will do my best to fulfill it. And yes, that does include giving my life if I must. But I also do my best to use sound strategy, so that we have the best chance of actually prevailing for the sake of the liberty of our children and future generations, even if we who are now in this fight do not survive. Whatever comes, fight smart, so that your efforts, and your life, will not be spent in vain. – Stewart Rhodes