Sunday, April 23, 2017

Sad & Heartening: The North Korean TV Star Standing Up To Kim Jong-Un


The thin line separating Wellesley Editorial And Berkeley Street Fighting

Via David

 
 
On campuses and progressive enclaves, riots and violence against “offensive” speech are being normalized.
 
 The student editors at the Wellesley College (Hillary’s alma mater) student newspaper wrote an editorial recently that rightly is getting much criticism and mockery.

The Editorial is titled Free Speech is Not Violated At Wellesley.  The argument is that shutting down what the editors call “hate speech” is not a violation of free speech:
Many members of our community, including students, alumnae and faculty, have criticized the Wellesley community for becoming an environment where free speech is not allowed or is a violated right. Many outside sources have painted us as a bunch of hot house flowers who cannot exist in the real world. However, we fundamentally disagree with that characterization, and we disagree with the idea that free speech is infringed upon at Wellesley. Rather, our Wellesley community will not stand for hate speech, and will call it out when possible.

Countering “offensive” speech with more speech is in keeping  with the tradition of free speech. But it doesn’t end there for the Wellesley Editors, they advocate shutting down speech they deem “hate speech”:

More with videos @ Legal Insurrection

Raleigh and Atlanta will run into each other by 2060

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As on every Earth Day since the first one in 1970, there will be widespread calls this weekend for the government to adopt more restrictions and regulations to reduce the harm of the American people on America’s eco-systems, wildlife and natural habitats.

But the federal government continues to undermine its half-century of environmental efforts with immigration policies that are forcing a massive expansion of the sheer number of American people — from 203 million on the first Earth Day to 325 million today.

Pew Research Center projects that the United States is on pace to add another 117 million people by 2060, and 88% of it would be the result of federal immigration policies.

A place where nobody wants to leave

 

I have made a discovery. There does, indeed, exist a place where nobody wants to leave. It is possible to breathe there without worrying about what you are inhaling. This place is not infested with joggers or 300-pound shoulder-strap radios, and when you’re driving along and meet another car or truck on the road, that other driver is very likely to wave at you. You, of course, wave back. This is called courtesy.

As I write this in my office, located in the “Uptown” area of a major Southern city, I am contemplating my upcoming marriage and subsequent move to the Cloud’s Creek area of Saluda County, South Carolina, an entirely rural county populated by chickens, pine trees and a rugged breed of country folk. Many of my friends consider this marriage, at age 32, a sudden and surprising move, especially when they find out that I’ll be an instant father to three children, ages 11, 7 and 5.

Marx, Orwell, And State-Cartel Socialism

Via comment by Weaver on There are common sense, fact-based ways to fix imm..."If you link the article, don't re-post it without a disclaimer that I am not in agreement with the author!" :)

 

When "socialist" states have to impose finance-capital extremes that even exceed the financialization of nominally capitalist economies, it gives the lie to their claims of "socialism."

OK, so our collective eyes start glazing over when we see Marx and Orwell in the subject line, but refill your beverage and stay with me on this. We're going to explore the premise that what's called "socialism"--yes, Scandinavian-style socialism and its variants--is really nothing more than finance-capital state-cartel elitism that has done a better job of co-opting its debt-serfs than its state-cartel "capitalist" cronies.

We have to start with the question "what is socialism"? The standard definition is: a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

More @ Zero Hedge

107 cancer papers retracted due to peer review fraud

Via Billy


The journal Tumor Biology is retracting 107 research papers after discovering that the authors faked the peer review process. This isn’t the journal’s first rodeo. Late last year, 58 papers were retracted from seven different journals— 25 came from Tumor Biology for the same reason.

It’s possible to fake peer review because authors are often asked to suggest potential reviewers for their own papers. This is done because research subjects are often blindingly niche; a researcher working in a sub-sub-field may be more aware than the journal editor of who is best-placed to assess the work.

But some journals go further and request, or allow, authors to submit the contact details of these potential reviewers. If the editor isn’t aware of the potential for a scam, they then merrily send the requests for review out to fake e-mail addresses, often using the names of actual researchers. And at the other end of the fake e-mail address is someone who’s in on the game and happy to send in a friendly review.

More @ ARS Technica

Death toll rises to 140 after Taliban attack in Afghanistan

Via Billy


The death toll has risen to “as many as 140” Afghan soldiers in the wake of Friday’s attack on a military base by Taliban members apparently disguised in military uniforms, officials said.

One official in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where the attack occurred, said Saturday at least 140 soldiers were killed and many others were wounded, Reuters reported. Other officials said the toll could even be higher.

A U.S. official in Washington on Friday had put the toll at more than 50 killed and wounded, Reuters reported.

As many as 10 Taliban fighters, dressed in Afghan army uniforms and driving military vehicles, slipped onto the base and opened fire on mostly unarmed soldiers eating a meal and leaving a mosque after Friday prayers, officials told Reuters.

More @ AJC

Volleyball Over, North Koreans Go Back to Work at Nuclear Site, Analysts Say

Via Billy


North Korea appears to have resumed work at its nuclear test site after a perplexing series of volleyball matches were held there, according to analysts who studied satellite images of the site, renewing concerns that a major weapons test could be imminent.

Many observers had feared that North Korea would test a nuclear device at the site around April 15, the birthday of Kim Il-sung, the North’s founding president and the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un. But Mr. Kim’s government celebrated the day instead with a military parade in Pyongyang, the capital, during which a fleet of missiles were rolled out, including what analysts believed were never-before-seen long-range ballistic missiles.

North Korea carried out a missile test on Sunday, but it was considered an embarrassing failure, with the projectile exploding immediately after liftoff.

Insurance carrier won't represent city in lawsuit over Lee, Jackson parks

Via Billy


City Attorney Craig Brown and his staff will have to carry the burden of defending Charlottesville in a lawsuit over its efforts to remove Confederate monuments.

The city’s insurance carrier, the Virginia Municipal League, has declined to provide coverage in the legal case that’s arisen over the Charlottesville City Council’s recent decision to move a statue of Robert E. Lee from a downtown park.

“… [T]here are no plans to hire outside counsel,” Brown said in an email Thursday.

CoA Institute Sues for Records on Potential FBI Payment to Democratic Opposition Researcher Who Compiled Infamous Trump Dossier

Via Billy

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9t-YdbVoAAXPBs.jpg

Cause of Action Institute (“CoA Institute”) has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking records relating to the relationship between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) and Christopher Steele, a former British spy who made headlines after he was identified as the lead author of the largely-discredited Trump dossier. 
 
According to a news report, Mr. Steele entered an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the November 2016 election to investigate then-candidate Donald Trump while, at the same time, he was employed by an opposition research firm to collect information for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. 

CoA Institute President and CEO John Vecchione: “If a former spy who was being paid to do opposition research on a U.S. presidential nominee was also on the FBI’s payroll, there are serious concerns about the agency’s independence. We need to better understand this financial relationship to ensure the FBI was not misusing taxpayer money to interfere in a presidential election on behalf of one of the candidates.”

Trump to hold rally on night of White House correspondents' dinner & announce "Big TAX REFORM AND TAX REDUCTION

Via Billy

Image result for Trump to hold rally on night of White House correspondents' dinner

President Trump will hold a rally in Pennsylvania the night of the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, he said Saturday.

"Next Saturday night I will be holding a BIG rally in Pennsylvania. Look forward to it!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

More @ The Hill

Berkeley Mayor Is Member of Militant Leftist Organization’s Facebook Group

Via Bill


The mayor of Berkeley, California, is a Facebook member of a leftist militant organization that has been linked to violent incidents in the city.

Mayor Jesse Arreguin’s personal page shows he’s a Facebook member of Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN).

According to a 2001 article in the East Bay Express, BAMN, founded in 1995, is “allegedly a front group for an obscure Detroit-based Trotskyist political party called the Revolutionary Workers League.” Even by UC Berkeley standards, students considered the group extreme.

More @ HEATSTREET

Rare parchment copy of Declaration of Independence found by Harvard researchers

Via Billy

https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_960w/Boston/2011-2020/2017/04/21/BostonGlobe.com/Metro/Images/the_sussex_declaration._west_sussex_add_ms_8981.jpg

An extremely rare copy of the Declaration of Independence has been found in an obscure records office in southern England.

The National Archives in Washington has the only other parchment document like it, say Harvard researchers Emily Sneff and Danielle Allen.

They uncovered the copy at the West Sussex Records Office, in Chichester, England.

The Sussex archive listed the document as “manuscript copy, on parchment, of the Declaration in Congress of the thirteen United States of America,” in its online catalog.

More @ Fox

Putin sends troops to Russia's border with North Korea

Via Billy

 Russia is sending troops to its tiny border with North Korea while China is also understood to have sent 150,000 soldiers to its southern frontier amid fears of a refugee crisis in the event of war

Dated

Vladimir Putin is sending troops and equipment to Russia's border with North Korea over fears the US is preparing to attack Kim Jong-un.

The Russian President fears there will be a huge exodus of North Korean refugees if his American counterpart, Donald Trump, launches military action against Pyongyang.

It comes days after it emerged that China is also sending 150,000 soldiers to its southern frontier to cope with the tidal wave of North Koreans Beijing fears would flee across the border if war breaks out.

This morning, footage emerged appearing to show how Putin is reinforcing his 11-mile border with North Korea by relocating troops and equipment.  

More @ Daily Mail

Deagel Foreast: USA Population 2024 = 59 Million

Via 4Branch

https://excursionistanet.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/d904c-indochina.jpg?resize=640%2C358

Jim Rogers moved to Singapore and even if this forecast comes partly true, the far east (Indochina, Thailand and the Philippines ) will be the place to be.  Maybe I should stay......:)

There have been many questions about the countries forecast specially the one focusing on the United States of America (USA). They won't be answered one by one but below you can find some explanation, thoughts and reflections. We are going to keep this as short as possible.

The majority of the economic and demographic data used in the making of the forecasts is widely available by institutions such as the CIA, IMF, UN, USG, etc. You can see the most relevant data at every single country's page. There is a tiny part of data coming from a variety of shadow sources such as Internet gurus, unsigned reports and others. But all these sources are from the internet and are of public domain for at least a minority. For example, several years ago Dagong, the Chinese ratings agency, published a report analyzing the physical economy of the States comparing it with those of China, Germany and Japan. The conclusion was that the US GDP was something between $5 to $10 trillion instead of $15 trillion as officially reported by the USG. We assume that the official data, especially economic, released by governments is fake, cooked or distorted in some degree. Historically it is well known that the former Soviet Union was making up fake statistics years before its collapse. Western as well as other countries are making up their numbers today to conceal their real state of affairs. We are sure that many people out there can find government statistics in their own countries that by their own personal experience are hard to believe or are so optimistic that may belong to a different country.

Despite the numeric data "quantity" there is a "quality" model which has not a direct translation into numeric data. The 2014 strain of Ebola has a death rate of 50-60% but try to imagine what would happen if there is a pandemic of Ebola with hundreds of thousands or millions infected with the virus. So far the few cases of Ebola-infected people have "enjoyed" intensive healthcare with anti-viral and breathing assistance but above all with abundant human support by Physicians and nurses. In a pandemic scenario that kind of healthcare won't be available for the overwhelming number of infected leading to a dramatic increase of the death rate due to the lack of proper healthcare. The "quality" factor is that the death rate could increase to 80-90% in a pandemic scenario from the stated 50-60% rate. The figure itself is not important what is relevant is the fact that the scenario can evolve beyond the initial conditions from a 50% death toll to more than 90%. By the way, no pandemic or nuclear war is included in the forecast.

The key element to understand the process that the USA will enter in the upcoming decade is migration. In the past, specially in the 20th century, the key factor that allowed the USA to rise to its colossus status was immigration with the benefits of a demographic expansion supporting the credit expansion and the brain drain from the rest of the world benefiting the States. The collapse of the Western financial system will wipe out the standard of living of its population while ending ponzi schemes such as the stock exchange and the pension funds. The population will be hit so badly by a full array of bubbles and ponzi schemes that the migration engine will start to work in reverse accelerating itself due to ripple effects thus leading to the demise of the States. This unseen situation for the States will develop itself in a cascade pattern with unprecedented and devastating effects for the economy. Jobs offshoring will surely end with many American Corporations relocating overseas thus becoming foreign Corporations!!!! We see a significant part of the American population migrating to Latin America and Asia while migration to Europe - suffering a similar illness - won't be relevant. Nevertheless the death toll will be horrible. Take into account that the Soviet Union's population was poorer than the Americans nowadays or even then. The ex-Soviets suffered during the following struggle in the 1990s with a significant death toll and the loss of national pride. Might we say "Twice the pride, double the fall"? Nope. The American standard of living is one of the highest, far more than double of the Soviets while having added a services economy that will be gone along with the financial system. When pensioners see their retirement disappear in front of their eyes and there are no servicing jobs you can imagine what is going to happen next. At least younger people can migrate. Never in human history were so many elders among the population. In past centuries people were lucky to get to their 30s or 40s. The American downfall is set to be far worse than the Soviet Union's one. A confluence of crisis with a devastating result.

The Demographic crisis in the former Soviet Union countries has extended for over two decades, if we accept that it ended early in this decade (2010s). The demographic crisis will hit the World in the near future and is projected to last between three and eight decades more or less depending on technological breakthrough and environmental issues. The aftermath is more likely a frozen picture with the population numbers staying the same for a very, very long period of time. The countries forecast population numbers do reflect birth/deaths but also migratory movements. Many countries are going to increase their gross population due to immigration while their native population may shrink.

Over the past two thousand years we have witnessed the Western civilization built around the Mediterranean Sea shifting to Northern Europe and then by the mid 20th century shifting to an Atlantic axis to finally get centered into the States in the past 30 years. The next move will see the civilization being centered in Asia with Russia and China on top. Historically a change in the economic paradigm has resulted in a death toll that is rarely highlighted by mainstream historians. When the transition from rural areas to large cities happened in Europe many people unable to accept the new paradigm killed themselves. They killed themselves by a psychological factor. This is not mainstream but it is true. A new crisis joins old, well known patterns with new ones.

Sorry to disappoint many of you with our forecast. It is getting worse and worse every year since the beginning of the pre-crisis in 2007. It is already said that this website is non-profit, built on spare time and we provide our information and services AS IS without further explanations and/or guarantees. We are not linked to any government in any way, shape or form. We are not a death or satanic cult or arms dealers as some BS is floating around the internet on this topic. Take into account that the forecast is nothing more than a model whether flawed or correct. It is not God's word or a magic device that allows to foresee the future.

Jared Kushner: A Suspected Gangster Within the Trump White House

Via Nancy

Jared Kushner: A Suspected Gangster Within the Trump White House
   Worth reading.

Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has emerged as a significant influence within the policy-making apparatus of the White House. After a rather public imbroglio with Trump’s strategic policy adviser Stephen Bannon over the U.S. cruise missile attack on the Shayrat airbase in Syria, Kushner is «in», as they often say in Washington, and Bannon is «out». In any case, the anti-globalist faction, which is led by Bannon, has received verbal «thumbs down» on several fronts from Trump.

Trump’s adoption of Clintonesque Democratic Party policies of opposing the Syrian government, confronting Russia, supporting NATO, backing the U.S. Export-Import (EXIM) Bank, and militarily confronting North Korea and China in East Asia have neo-conservatives and globalists cheering but many within Trump’s political base of «America First» nationalists and libertarians crying foul.

IMF Advocates a Cashless World

Via Billy

Image result for IMF Advocates a Cashless World

In its recent report, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposed to abolish cash and recommended to adopt measures in order to restrict its use. In an interview with Sputnik Germany, former head of the Federal Association of German Industry (BDI) Hans-Olaf Henkel said that this “could lead to terrible consequences.”

Henkel believes that one of the main reasons behind this proposal is the desire of financial institutions to force people to keep their money in banks.
“The European Central Bank (ECB) does not want that depositors to keep their money under the pillow. If any bank in Europe goes bankrupt, then depositors have a guaranteed right that the state will return them the amount of up to 100,000 euros. But not more,” the economist told Sputnik Germany.
So, if a bank goes bankrupt, people who have savings of over 100,000 euros will remain with nothing. Thus, many keep their cash not in banks, Henkel argued.

More @ LRC

Help! :) Can't find contact information for Couzan Services, Ltd. who will remove NOLA Confederate Monuments 1:00 a.m. Monday

Via Billy


In the continuing drama of the New Orleans Confederate monuments, it seems the matter is finally coming to a critical point.

Last week, Mayor Mitch Landrieu planned to remove at least two of the four targeted monuments in the dead of night, but his plans changed at the last moment when word was leaked to the public.

His plans are now back on track for this weekend. Reliable sources are suggesting that Landrieu will remove the monuments at 1:00 a.m., Monday although this is not officially confirmed by Landrieu's office.