Alabama Legalizes Weed For White People Daily Currant
I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here’s How. io9 (Richard Smith). Also explains one of my simple rules: ignore ANY study where you don’t have a test and control group of at least 100 each. It’s garbage even it it was not designed to be garbage.
To drown out flight noise, the Amsterdam Airport turned to large-scale landscaping Smithsonian (Dr. Kevin)
Sudden onset of ice loss in Antarctica so large it affects Earth’s gravity field ScienceDaily
WOODEN computer chips reveal humanity’s cyber elf future Register
U.S. swimming pools ban long breath-holding after deaths Reuters (EM). I hate to sound mean-spirited, but events like this strike me as Darwin Award fodder.
Lung cancer therapy is ‘milestone’ BBC
Amazon’s reportedly planning its own line of grocery products and household items Pando
Panel Warns About Endoscopes, But Advises Their Continued Use Patient Blog Safety
The conference is calling Gillian Tett, Financial Times
Fifa re-elects Blatter president BBC
The $9b waste that is Australia’s solar industry Brisbane News (EM)
China equities turnover surpasses US equities turnover Business Insider (furzy mouse)
Why is Obama Goading China? Counterpunch. Important.
G-7 still have AIIB’s standards under magnifying glass Asia Times
Women, seniors providing reinforcement as companies try to fill ranks Nikkei
Grexit?
US warns of Greek exit ‘accident’ as bank outflows soar Financial Times
Jacob Lew Warns Time Is Running Out to Reach Greek Debt Deal New York Times
German newspaper corrects IMF chief Lagarde’s Greece comments Reuters. Wow, the original quote was wrong but the correction does not change the fact that Lagarde admitted a Grexit could happen. But this is still super sloppy.
Greek banks: not in their hands Financial Times. Important.
Greece one step before BRICS! failed evolution
VAROUFAKIS AND GAME THEORY Sustainability Report
Varoufakis’s Great Game Project Syndicate. Problem is it treats the choice as a deal v. a Gresit, as opposed to a deal v.a default
Syraqistan
America Breaks the Middle East Counterpunch
Yemeni hackers accessed Saudi Arabia’s top secret documents YouTube (furzy mouse)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Mysterious low-flying plane over Twin Cities raises eyebrows StarTribune. More people need to start wearing Guy Fawkes masks or obvious fake noses and mustaches, or big sunglasses + surgical masks to make a point and impede surveillance.
Indian police seize pigeon over spying fears Agence France-Presse. Furzy mouse: “How DO you waterboard a pigeon,anyway? If it is a suicide pigeon bomber, are there 72 virgin pigeons waiting for him?”
Richard Burr Wants to Label People Who Make Threats and Carry Guns “Terrorists” Marcy Wheeler
UN: Government efforts to undermine encryption threaten basic human rights Pando
Current NSA Officials Admit Agency Is Drowning In TOO MUCH Info George Washington
Hillary Clinton and Campaign-Finance Reform Atlantic (Chuck L)
FBI: HASTERT HUSHED UP SEX ABUSE Daily Beast (furzy mouse)
Hastert accused of paying victim of molestation Washington Post. See also: If I understand the history correctly… Washington Post
Founder of Silk Road given life in prison Financial Times
Baltimore, Wilmington, Philly, and Newark — Inside the Forgotten Corridor Vice
Five Chicago Suburbs Headed for Bankruptcy (More Illinois Cities Will Follow) Michael Shedlock
Black Injustice Tipping Point
Keywords in Black Protest: A(n Anti-)Vocabulary Truth-Out
Baltimore gets bloodier as arrests drop post-Freddie Gray Associated Press (furzy mouse)
Anderson Cooper hammers Ariz. man behind anti-Islam rally: Isn’t bringing guns to a mosque violent? Raw Story (furzy mouse)
It’s Official, We’re Negative, GDP -0.7% for First Quarter Economic Populist
Chicago PMI Unexpectedly Crashes: New Orders, Production and Employment Down by More Than 10% Michael Shedlock
Is Another Crisis Looming? Jacobin
Class Warfare
Why don’t Americans feel better about the economy? Washington Post. OMG, is this dopey. Nothing on the job market, short job tenures, falling benefits, more McJobs…
Here’s What You Need to Make Hourly to Afford a 2-Bedroom Rental in Every State Alternet
The economics of wealth and sadness Business Spectator
If you are in NYC, there are still two more days of Left Forum! See the schedule here.
Antidote du jour. Expatmd: “Mother bald eagle refuses to leave the eggs, covered in snow…”
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
118 comments
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Because he, Hillary, and Victoria Nuland didn’t get their nuclear war with Russia (yet)?
~
If at first you don’t succeed (in Syria et al), try, try again ;-( The world only requires a few millionaires, their domestic staffs and enough robots to do the real work. Coming to a dystopia near you, real soon!
Who actually thinks there is even a remote possibility of a war w/ China? For anyone that harbors a genuine fidelity to that notion, I would love to start making book in say, three month increments out for 2 years. I will offer very favorable odds to any takers.
Granted BHO has proven in dramatically sweeping ways that he is an idiot, in this case freedom of navigation is actually one of the few legitimate uses of a Navy, has historical precedent and is codified in international law. Don’t like the international law, then change it and, we can all sit back w/ the popcorn and watch the chaos. Me?, I’ll start build sand pump kits if building whimsical “sovereign territory artificial islands” become the new international standard for marine/air transport interference.
China’s concept of squirting sand up on a reef ~3,300km from it’s coastline, off shore from several other countries and declaring it sovereign territory is absurd.
Lets see the And, haven’t Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines all engaged in similar “land reclamation” activities
comparisons 3,30km from their respective coasts.
It’s likely to be a Black Swan event.
i don’t know about the two years, but it seems inevitable unless, somehow, tensions decrescendo.
Next week’s headlines:
China Demands US Desist From Deploying Mobile Manmade Islands in Gulf of Mexico
I am not up to date on Newspeak, but shouldn’t that be “Floating Fortresses”?
We already did that.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Towers
China is better off using existing military bases in over 100 countries in the world.
Why reinvent the Great Wall every time?
I’m guessing their Neocons and militarists are as dead- end stupid as ours…
MIKE WHITNEY (all caps?) Why is Obama Goading China? (not all caps – go figure), has a few points he’s completely BS on.
One example: “China has never blocked shipping lanes or seized boats sailing in international waters. Never. ”
Wrong, way Wrong. China navel vessels have seized boats from the Philippines, Vietnam, and at least sunk two Vietnamese navy boats, If we want to count Chinese flagged fishing vessels, which are agents provocateurs under the command of the CCP, then you can add Taiwanese, South Korea, and Japanese vessels to the list. Many of these acts involved fatalities.
Yes, the USA is nasty and dangerous, but as Ho Chi Men is reputed to have put it: “You fools! Don’t you realize what it means if the Chinese remain? Don’t you remember your history? The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life..
Living in Hong Kong, perhaps we get to see a bit more of the nasty side of China than this guy. However, a warning is given by his by-line, which shows his hatred of anything Obama is so fierce, that apparently facts should not be allowed to get in the way of slamming the man. Obama is bad enough with just the facts, please. Why weaken the argument by contaminating it with fables and fictions.
The Chinese have stayed for so long, it’s hard to tell which Vietnamese is Chinese, which is a Kinh or a Lac, or an Austranesian Cham.
It’s not unlike the thousand year plus situation in Great Britain. Who is a Saxon a Dane, a Norman, a an Anglo or a Jute? Will a revolutionary Celt prefer to sniff Chinese shit for five years than to eat Anglo-Saxon shit for the rest of his/her life*?
*Looking up Wiki, it seems the quote is being disputed.
For that matter, the “Chinese” aren’t Chinese, either. Problem solved.
Precisely, even the CCP mistake China=Han for Chinese=Han, they often forget the symbolic institutionalized racism represented in the flag.
That particular quote isn’t really a straight quote, its a translation of a letter written to a conference between the various patriotic movements of Vietnam at the end of WWII.
One suspects the Wiki comment is from someone on the payroll of the Confucius Institute (U of Hawaii only recently, as a University, quit accepting their money, this doesn’t apply to the professors as individuals). A search of Google Scholar will do you right. Wikipedia is a source for entertainment purposes.
Re: Why don’t Americans feel better about the economy?
I know why I don’t. Unemployed for nearly 2 years. Few, if any prospects, in sight. Considered unemployable by most employers due to age/time out of work. Will almost certainly have to accept a massive cut in salary/benefits not to mention the loss of professional status in order to work again. Relegated to Medicaid by Obummercare – poor choice of physicians in my plan and even most of those aren’t accepting new patients. Depleting my retirement savings just to make expenses every month. Lower gas prices don’t really help me because I have no job to drive to and I can’t afford to go anyplace. Besides, gas prices have crept up near $3/gallon again where I live.
Yeah, I really give a shit about the “improving” economy.
America means a war of everyone against everyone else, foreign and domestic. Economic war first, militant war second. Justice today is “trial by combat”. If you survive, you were right in your opinions and actions … otherwise … Hunger Games isn’t just for teenagers. The stats don’t matter … if my neighbor is unemployed, that is a recession, if I am unemployed, that is a depression. In a war zone, childhood dreams die.
As long as you breath, keep at it. If you have to move to China and assemble iPhones … do it. Anyone not self employed, is a wage slave (I know I am). Today wage slaves are cheaper than Chinese dirt. Don’t accept victimhood from anyone, including yourself. Some people will survive. many will not … be a fighter and a survivor … and your odds will improve. There is no sure thing, no free lunch … and nobody is your advocate except you (and maybe a few others dependent on you).
Are you out of your fucking mind? Move to China to assemble fucking iPhones? Take your meds and keep your idiotic, survivalist, lunatic advice to yourself.
I am not “accepting vitcimhood” and I’m not looking for a free lunch unlike the oligarchs, elites and Ivy Leauge policy wonk pukes who slide from one high-paying, bullshit, think-tank job to another or become political courtiers or agents of bribery (sorry, lobbyists).
America means a war of everyone against everyone else, foreign and domestic.
Really? You go to the supermarket (farm?, cattle ranch?) and fight people for food? Take a hose and siphon gas out of other people’s tanks or hold up gas stations to supply your expropriated car? Shoot anyone that comes near your house?
No, the modern world is about ever more cooperation. And ever more blindness to it and indulgence in fantastic views of reality – always extreme ideals of self-sufficiency and independence, or an opposite one of infantile dependence.
Never what is in front of everyone. Peepul both individually and collectively working most of the time, but being divided and ruled by nonsensical beliefs and philosophies to make the whole so much less than the sum of the parts. By forgetting, destroying social technology, accounting that makes sense and is used everywhere but its origin, where it is most easily understood, in the understanding of communities and societies. Words and concepts which must be purged from Newspeak, because to speak them at all is to be a communist socialist.
I’m in a similar boat as you, but maybe better off. I own my house and cars. Have had temp jobs thru agencies in financial services, but the last one was almost 18 months ago. Meanwhile, I work tending bar for high end catering firms. I have a room mate. Between rent and part time work, I get by and pay bills, but not more.
Once in a while I get an interview with (usually) a smaller firm that isn’t necessarily locked into the HR mindset that they must get “recent college grads” aged people or bothered by my approaching 2 yr absence from my field.
I had another 2 year absence from my work field before – about 12 years ago – and got back into it nicely. But this time seems harder to get back into it. Plus I’m older.
A former co-worker of mine was laid of from State Street (and has been laid off an re-hired by State Street several times over the years). She was just offered a new job at State Street (less money, different position) but her credit is now bad, so the offer was withdrawn.
It can be tough out there, and I consider myself lucky but still notice things are more difficult.
One can’t take a 2-year absence and expect to rejoin the planation just like that.
Your loyalty to the Machine is in doubt.
The only recourse is to join the buffalo hunters in the Great Plains.
At least, that was the way once upon a time.
“Wage serfdom is not a hobby. It’s a lifetime commitment.”
LOL tru dat…
I went from an in-demand technical consultant to unemployable by having the temerity to take time off and train in Chinese medicine…now I pull in the odd tech gig via friends but have spent most of my time building sets for the likes of Katy Perry and the odd lowbudget feature…
And before somebody starts, technical expertise is not related to versions of software…I encounter very few techy types that have studied Knuth, etc.
Turns out you need funds to finance a life of helping people…apparently the requisite cashflow is only achieved by ripping people off in the current climate…which I find counter to the aim of HELPING people :/
‘Federal law-enforcement officials have told multiple news outlets that Dennis Hastert paid a former high-school student of his almost $1 million to cover up alleged sexual abuse while Hastert was a wrestling coach and teacher in Illinois.’
This is pure slander. Hastert hasn’t been charged with ‘alleged sexual abuse,’ perhaps because the victim doesn’t want to testify, or because the statute of limitations has passed. Instead, they’ve charged him with two flimsy ‘derivative offenses,’ lying and structuring bank withdrawals (of his own money, gasp!).
Before Ronald Reagan transformed federal criminal courts into a well-oiled conviction machine in 1984, Hastert would have had a good chance of getting acquitted by a jury on the patently absurd charge of withdrawing his own money in the ‘wrong’ pattern.
But under Anthony Kennedy’s ‘system of pleas, not trials,’ going to trial and losing means getting the maximum sentence, which could be ten years in Hastert’s case. So rational defendants plea out to a lesser bullshit charge that carries a 1-2 year sentence, instead of risking a decade in jail.
Even if one rationalizes that Hastert is getting what he deserves, his railroading by the federal conviction machine built by him and his Depublicrat buddies is the model that feeds millions of Americans into the Gulag.
Sixth amendment? Just a goddamned piece of paper. We don’t need no stinkin’ trials.
Maybe they are just evening the bipartisan score for the witchhunt the US attorney down in North Carolina waged against Edwards. In truth these prosecutors have way too much power.
The jury, a fundamental aspect of ‘English liberty’ dating back to the 12 century, was explicitly incorporated in the Bill of Rights: the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.
The end-run around this bulwark of liberty was implemented in 1987: harsh sentencing guidelines, coupled with an utterly unconstitutional policy of imposing the maximum sentence on convicted defendants who dare to waste the government’s resources on a trial.
Since the maximum sentence is usually far more severe than a plea bargained term, demanding a jury trial is now a de facto, per se crime.
Quoting from the Sacred Societies of All Ages and Countries (by Heckethorn):
The order was restricted to one family, like the Israelite priesthood, and later turned tyrannical.
Make that ‘Secret Societies.’
Plea bargaining was the usual way of handling state/local criminal cases long before 1987. I recall reading about it in high school (early 70s) where IIRC it already accounted for some 90% of case dispositions. Apparently the huge increase in crime during the 60s overwhelmed the court systems in a lot of places.
Who needs a court of law? And what is the alleged crime against this former student. Hastert admitted his guilt loud and clear by paying these people off. (two different people, one got a million in hush money, another got 3.5 million from Hastert himself). In reality, this proves Hastert did something that is obviously wrong. And he knows it.
What I really can’t figure out is when the “value” voters in this country will wake up to the fact they are voting for child molesters, serial cheaters and then some. Gingrich,hastert,,the guy with “the wide stance” from Minnesota?, and then there is the ex south Carolina gov. ; who got caught not only cheating on his wife, but missing in action from his job as gov, which when no one knew where he was, anything could have happened while he was in argentina with his girlfriend. And wasn’t he using public money to fly there with?… but then the real kicker is those south Carolina “values voters”, re-elected that dipshit as their congressman, two years later…. WTF?
As for john Edwards, the pretty boy trial lawyer who got his north Carolina senate seat because any democrat was going to beat the republican who was on his way out. He did absolutely nothing in office, except maybe impregnate his girlfriend while his wife was dying of cancer….
You can’t make this stuff up. No one would believe the plot line.Truth is stranger than fiction.
I don’t know when we started judging politicans on “values” as opposed to how they used their power to bring concrete material benefits to the sovereign people; maybe with Nixon, when Democrats demonized him instead of looking at systemic issues. (They rather liked “the Imperial Presidency,” after all.) Not that Nixon wasn’t a great sinner; he was. Or maybe it’s always been this way…
I don’t know when we started judging politicians on “values” as opposed to how they used their power to bring concrete material benefits to the sovereign people
Interesting. I have to ask, when did we last elect someone based on any meaningful (honest) assessment of “values”? Ignorance and Prejudices surely , Deceitfulness and duplicity? Absolutely!
As for Hastert ?
In July 2006, shortly before Democrats won the midterm congressional elections and ended his speakership, Hastert spearheaded a bill to toughen punishments for sex crimes against children. The legislation, named after the abducted and murdered Florida boy Adam Walsh, passed the Republican-controlled House unanimously. In a statement at the time, Hastert said protecting children from predators was as high a priority for him as national security — this, post-9/11 and during two wars.
“At home, we put the security of our children first, and Republicans are doing just that in our nation’s House,” he said. “We’ve all seen the disturbing headlines about sex offenders and crimes against children. These crimes cannot persist. Protecting our children from Internet predators and child exploitation enterprises are just as high a priority as securing our border from terrorists.”
The biography of the former speaker at the website of Wheaton College’s Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy states that during his three terms in the Illinois Legislature, Hastert “spearheaded legislation on child abuse prevention.” During his 20-year congressional career, Hastert supported legislative initiatives to deter and punish sexual abuse of minors, including the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Amendments of 1996, the Child Abuse Prevention and Enforcement Act of 2000 and the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. …. http://www.ibtimes.com/dennis-hastert-promoted-himself-crusader-against-sexual-abuse-children-1944886
QED
OTOH maybe it’s time to define “values”, because I can easily draw a big fat red line between the private lives of tortured creatures seeking sexual adventures in airport bathrooms, more premeditated narcissist like Edwards/Clinton/Gingrich –all with fckd up personal relationships, apparently compulsed to find some sort of satisfaction w/ mutually consenting adults vs sexual predators working on the public dime in schools.
They all may be functional administrators, but I see no reason why the latter should be in a position of public trust, or sympathized with as they are caught up trying to white out there true legacy with money..
As for those unfamiliar w/ Wheaton College , OUCH!!:
There is so much rich irony that the center of gravity of Wheaton College, The Billy Graham Center for Evangelicalism faces the Hastert Center for Blah blah blah , I leave it to the interested reader. http://www.wheaton.edu/hastertcenter/About-the-Center/Mission-and-Purpose yes, “iron sharpens iron”…indeed. I’ll be doing a drive by to see if they have it the bldg rebranded next week. I do see the “Hastert Fellows” have that page wiped clean. One of the less subtle but precious ironies is the Director of the Hastert Center for blahblablah .. …served as a state, federal and military prosecutor.. Wow, File that under: Karma is a Bitch!
As for Nixon, smart guy with a screw or two loose for a long, long time. What part of that wasn’t evident from the Checkers speech going forward? In spite of his proletariat lamentations he apparently did well enough w/ a lifetime in “public service” as his San Clemente estate bears witness. This picture with Bebe Rebozo and JEHoove captures his essence http://www.crimemagazine.com/mobs-president-richard-nixons-secret-ties-mafia
One wonders how this money was reported to the IRS, or wasn’t.
The DEA apparently just raided and arrested almost all of the pain management specialist in the USA, mostly so they could get their hands on the doctors records. My sister with terminal cancer is now under suicide watch because her specialist was arrested, probably for doing his duty according to best medical practice. Justice is only for those who pull the levers.
Agree completely. This appears to be an exercise in character assassination, pure and simple.
HSBC ADMITTED to laundering drug money, the crime this “law” was enacted to prevent, and no one was “indicted.” No drug money laundering here.
The heads of the cia, nsa and fbi as well as titans of industry routinely “lie” to congressional committees, also against the “law,” and no indictments or even whispers of same for them.
“Ordinary” americans are often subjected to civil asset forfeiture without the benefit of so much as a charge. Nothing like that here.
According to the “law,” the unnamed “victim,” who is also the blackmailer, is supposed to seek “justice” by pressing criminal charges instead of engaging in criminal activity him/herself.
And, of course, there is the not insignificant fact that Hastert was USING HIS OWN MONEY and the matter, at the time, was PERSONAL and, apparently, remains so.
Something else must be going on here. Maybe a “message” being sent to one of Hastert’s “clients?”
Prosecutors take special glee in bringing down high-profile defendants: medical doctors, celebrities, prominent politicians.
A side benefit in Hastert’s case is that by leaking scurrilous sex offense allegations that they aren’t prepared to prove, prosecutors make the public feel good about convictions based on bogus charges such as ‘structuring’ the withdrawal of one’s own funds, an Orwellian absurdity that a jury likely would choke on.
This in turn slowly changes our culture to transform federal juries into compliant rubber stamps like grand juries, in the rare cases where a trial is actually conducted.
A criminal justice system operating mostly without juries is the purest form of Soviet-style tyranny.
This appears to be an exercise in character assassination, pure and simple.
More like a case of assisted character suicide.
leaking scurrilous sex offense allegations that they aren’t prepared to prove,
How much effort should be spent proving crimes that can’t be prosecuted when the POS response to the “allegations” is resigning from BODs like a cat backing up vomiting furballs?
Agree on the sentiment regarding Fed Prosecutors, DOJ ect. The tape winds back further than RR considering their blunt weapon of choice is RICO
Introduced in the Senate as S. 30 by John L. McClellan (D–AR)
Passed the Senate on January 23, 1970 (74-1)
Passed the House on October 7, 1970 (341-26)
Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on October 15, 1970
As far as Hastert, a class A POS and alleged sexual abuse I think the operative word is alleged. I also think any sexual contact between a HS teacher and a student fulfills the classification of “sexual abuse”.
My vintage in HS sexual harassment was rampant, several convictions, more that were never prosecuted. They actually named a football field at my HS after one of them. Now the name has changed, presumably as kids my age became parents and schoolboard members.
BTW I dated a girl after college that was a volleyball player where Hastert was employed (Yorkville HS). He was a POS. More than that, a hypocritical conservative POS
As an aside on media, it would be interesting if the feds stated the allegation “alleged sexual abuse” or if that is a media artifact? I don’t know.
It is very hard for a public figure to prevail in a slander case. Becoming a public figure puts you wholle life on view, with little on no recourse for nasty comments or allegations of any manner.
WTF? is Hastert or anyone relevant protesting this as slander?? link?
The money holders have something on everybody who rises high enough to have influence over their wealth. These secrets are the strings that control their political puppets. Now and then, the strings get entangled. Dennis Hastert gets indicted for withdrawing his own money from banks to hide his secret. Or, so many weapons were shipped to “moderate jihadists” and the puppet Iraqi Army, paid with our tax money and borrowing, that the Sunni Arabs took control of all of their regions of Syria and Iraq and proclaimed themselves the next Islamic State.
Regarding Australia’s “wasteful” solar industry:
The Grattan Institute is a neoloberal think tank devoted to Australian “liberal democracy” in a “globalized” economy. It disapproves of solar subsidies. Not other subsidies for other industries, just solar. That’s pretty much it.
So shoot the messenger much?
They did the math. They are not necessarily against solar so much as the subsidy.
Biggest problem with solar? It allows everyone to mistakenly believe that solar will allow BAU so they don’t have to worry or change any of their consumption habits.
Disclaimer; I have 3 different solar installations on my property, have installed several others for people, and have had small solar systems for over 25 years.
What people never ask is what does solar solve for.
Re: What people never ask is what does solar solve for.
Well, mostly guilt.
Well, solar is mostly a game of financial types, and we know what Upton Sinclair had to say about understanding…
So…cops?
Yeah, and how about people who give the orders to those who carry guns and utter threats. As in, Corporate CEOs’ and politicians?
Sounds like his base voter to me. Way to shoot yourself in the foot with the “don’t tread on me”/guns everywhere/”stand your ground”/second amendment solution people. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
The American system in its entirety! Alright. So do we lock this coward up for sedition or do we just tar and feather him?
(I can say that because I’m not packing right now, I guess.)
Per – U.S. swimming pools ban long breath-holding after deaths Reuters
I unpacked this a wee bit back, shallow water blackout (Latent hypoxia).
http://www.scuba-doc.com/latenthypoxia.html
Body is already almost depleted of O2, so water entering the lungs is a latent effect, which only increases the difficulty in aspirating the individual if retrieved soon enough.
Skippy…. wanna be Enzo’s – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNGbV8h7ESc
“Why is Obama Goading China? Counterpunch. Important.”
First Russia was demonized, now China, amongst others. But there is one commonality in all the world’s conflicts, one man from one nation that is always in the mix who can not get along with anyone else: BARACK OBAMA.
Simple truthiness, thank you, very difficult for triumphalist, exceptionalist Americans (most of them) to admit.
I’m all for free passage through international waters, but I bet the “Murkans would see Chinese destroyers in the Gulf of Mexico or the entrance to Chesapeake Bay as pretty darned provocative.
Minutemen lining the beaches, queue the movie “1941” from 1979, w/Belushi/Ackroyd et al.
Re Alternet, Here’s What You Need to Make Hourly to Afford a 2-Bedroom Rental in Every State
Juxtapose
http://la.curbed.com/archives/2015/05/biggest_house_in_los_angeles_500_million.php
enjoy
Or closer to home:
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/05/22/one57_home_of_nycs_priciest_condo_now_rents_to_the_1.php
The chocolate story shows how to turn a press release into a news story.
The author adds “For far too long, the people who cover [diet science] have treated it like gossip”. I would say that most of journalism has been reduced to gossip, laundering press releases, and trying out for a career in corporate P.R.
In my youth, I had a little fling with an Aussie chick whose job, when she wasn’t touring the world, was placing advertisements in news stories. She said it worked just as the article describes. Write up a “news story” featuring whatever product or event you’re shilling, send it out as a press-release, as watch as 75% of news outlets run your thinly disguised ad completely unaltered. She claimed that 1/2-2/3 of all the text in an average newspaper was composed by people like her.
Add in officially-sponsored ‘Operation Mockingbird’ agitprop, and the total approaches 100 percent.
Absolutely everything in the Mainstream Media is there for a reason: to advance someone’s agenda.
Now are they going to pay world touring Aussie robot chicks to do those stories for 1/100th the cost?
No job is safe.
Trust Me I’m Lying ; Confessions of a Media Manipulator”.
by Ryan Holiday
Recommended reading on the subject, though I’m sure that if you are already in the media or blogosphere, or connected, you all ready know of /have read the book.
The link is broken for:
• “To drown out flight noise, the Amsterdam Airport turned to large-scale landscaping”
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/crazy-land-art-deflects-noise-from-amsterdams-airport-180955398/?no-ist
I just remove the “a” in the front of http in the original link, probably the HTML coder software stumbled, WordPress is pretty awful stuff.
If anybody goes out and buys a pet lobster today, don’t forget to buy a tank!
In all the excitement, it would be so easy to get the lobster home . . . and then realize. You’d have to put it in the sink or the bathtub.
If you have a shallow conscience, you might even say fukk it and boil up some water. Whoa that’s harsh. What a metaphor. It makes you wonder. faaak.
Looks like the Doomers & Gloomers are on the run. I read through that link to Jacobin story. Is another crisis looming? good question. I always though “no” over the past 7 years, but unfortunately let all the Doomers bend my mind and lost all my money. Faak. I thought I’d be wasting time all day by now, but I have to work. it’s hilarious and amazing all at the same time, nobody who has a degree in economics knows what money is or why it gets created or what gives it credibility as a medium of exchange. They think Quantity is Form. All they do is count units of quantity and they think that’s the entirety of the meaning of the phenomenon they seek to measure. Wow. it would be completely hilarious except for all the social trauma it creates. Not knowing what the very thing is with which they measure things. That’s like not knowing what a mile is and measuring distance. or not knowing what a light year is and measuring space. or not knowing what a cube is and measuring volume. Or not knowing what a minute is and measuring time. Well, nobody knows what time is anyway, so that’s maybe a bad example. Anyway. “The Crisis”. Is it looming? No. it’s everywhere, right now. it’s always there, almost all the time, the way the stars are there in the bright blue sky. They’re there. You just don’t see them. You just don’t measure it in a way that sees it.
I thought about getting a pet lobster, just briefly, but decided against it. Doesn’t seem right somehow. Not real sure why, but maybe it’s the lack of fur that just doesn’t trigger that cuddly pet feeling in me.
But for those who still want one, I think taking it to the park and playing fetch the stick with it really is not a good match for your lobster pet. However, recently in my neighborhood I just discovered we have a self service dog washing store. This is in the strip mall just across the street from my gas station that has a facebook page and twitter account for the gas pumps. It occurred to me a dog washing store would be a great place to take a pet lobster. I think the lobster might even like it – much more than chasing a stupid stick at the park.
:D
Lobsters will live in your fridge for four or five days.
The Reuters story on breath-holding is full of mistakes and half-truths; in sum it is in error about breath hold swimming or diving.
The article states: “Swimmers often start by taking multiple deep breaths to go a longer distance underwater, causing their blood levels of carbon dioxide to plunge. ”
It isn’t “deep breaths” that are the culprit; it is hyperventilating which means forceful outbreaths that purge the body of CO2. The article correctly states that the (strong) urge to breathe, our warning signal to do just that, is not activated by low O2, but rather by high CO2 levels. If you purge your body of CO2 by hyperventilating i.e. forceful out-breaths, then the body’s O2 levels will go too low to sustain consciousness before the CO2 levels get high enough to trigger the urge to breathe.
If one is interested in maximizing his/her time or distance under water, proper technique raises the body’s O2 levels to a maximum (actually only a few percent higher) without dangerously lowering the CO2 levels. It’s pretty simple. This is also taking “deep breaths.” Thus the article is seriously misrepresenting the situation.
Taking deep breaths that increase O2 without lowering CO2 means one will have sufficient warning that O2 levels are getting dangerously low (again, in fact that CO2 levels are getting too high, the two are inextricably linked via respiration). Then all one has to do to avoid blacking out is….come up and breathe!
That said, practitioners must be properly trained beyond the paragraphs above, including how to recognize the additional warning signs of low O2 beyond the urge to breathe, that one should never engage in it unsupervised (i.e. by someone out of the pool), and how to quickly bring someone back to consciousness in the unlikely event they black out.
Even Wikipedia has some of this information. Much more detailed information is available via the numerous websites, books, and people who practice breath-hold aka apnea diving and swimming. Apparently the researchers, CDC folks, et al couldn’t be bothered to check with experts who have actually engaged in this practice safely for anywhere from decades to millennia depending on how far back you want to look.
The problem is that these swimmers–even Michael Phelps, if you can believe it!–are being taught to hyperventilate. That indeed is a very bad idea.
Thousands of people have been practicing this safely for years.
If the State wants to play nanny to prevent people from killing themselves, I can think of a number of other activities (pre-college football, handing 9-year olds automatic firearms, letting 16-year-olds zoom around in 3000-pound automobiles come immediately to mind) they could go after long before *properly* practiced apnea diving/swimming (aka dynamic apnea).
Better yet, this could be an excellent opportunity for people who actually know what they’re talking about to educate others (beyond the NC commentariat) about safely engaging in this amazing, mind-expanding, life-enhancing activity. Those with any interest could do worse than check out Sig Severinsen’s website or read his book, “The Art of Conscious Breathing.” Perhaps best to order it quickly tho before the DOJ orders a book burning to, you know, save the swimmers.
One summer in high school I worked as a lifeguard at public pool with the typical 15 minute break once an hour. I had eight or more fifteen minute sessions of prolonged underwater swimming and breath holding every time I went to work to increase my swimming/breath-holding stamina. I don’t remember how many full laps I could do when the job ended that September, but it was a lot- I was a fast swimmer, I was able to swim continuously for over five minutes. When I started my little practice sessions/experiments it was under a minute and one pool-length was a stretch. It was pretty amazing seeing my incremental progress and noticing what a huge difference small things like a bummed cigarette the day before could have on my underwater performance. I didn’t have a coach, a book, or even an end-goal in mind. Even my foolish 16-year-old brain knew what I was doing was potentially dangerous if I pushed too far but I would always surface on my third bout of a strong desire for air and/or at the first sign of any greying out of vision or mental fuzziness. I was probably on the edge of being among these victims, but then again driving on the freeway routinely puts you in situations where it could be said you are on the edge of dying as well. It sounds crazy but I wasn’t deep beneath the sea, I was only in a few feet of water so air was never more than a mere stroke away. I can totally see how a contest situation between two young, macho, competitive Navy Seals could easily result in death or injury, like the man who cooked himself to death in a drunken Finnish Sauna contest, but the lone swimmer situations seems like people who simply didn’t realize the danger. A public awareness campaign would probably do the trick and requiring a dedicated spotter for public pools should be more than ample for safety. Runners drop dead all of the time from heart attacks or heat exhaustion, so do people shoveling their driveways after a big snow. No one talks of banning shoveling or running. Imagine a track with “No Sprinting” signs or “No Extra-Long Distance Running” posted. Reiterate the danger of underwater oxygen deprivation for those who aren’t struck by the obviousness of such physiological facts and let things go on.
I enjoyed your reply. Not to get into a long apnea discussion, but….definitely don’t go until you feel dizzy! The key is to not purge CO2, it’s your best friend. So that’s the article’s major misrepresentation.
Interesting to hear about Sinatra, my interest and practice is for similar reasons.
I’ll just add that I always hated swimming on the surface, it seemed so unnatural. But swimming underwater feels perfectly natural. Seeing that humans are the only land mammals who both can swim naturally (that is won’t drown as babies if thrown in the water), and who exhibit a dive reflex, it must be more than just a feeling.
Frank Sinatra did long underwater swims to improve his breathing, his singing.
Lung cancer therapy is milestone. I guess an extra 3-10 months of life is better than nothing but still seems awfully short. Wondering about the quality of life and the $ pricetag for that extra 3-10 months as well. Hopefully it is a milestone leading to greater success in the future.
To drown out flight noise, the Amsterdam Airport turned to large-scale landscaping -link doesn’t work because of an “a” before the http (ahttp). Remove “a” and retry OR…
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/crazy-land-art-deflects-noise-from-amsterdams-airport-180955398/?no-ist
Sorry for the redundant comment about broken link. I tried to delete but was not able to.
I’m so dense! I should have placed “Music for Airports” after this comment. Redundancy says it all, again and again.
How about some good old “Music for Airports.”
Eno, “Music for Airports”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_1:_Music_for_Airports
This is considered the granddaddy of ambient music.
I don’t know how well it will do, but here’s the album itself. Safe journey space fans…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KGMo9yOaSU
Awesome. If they could get this to waft across the airport, perhaps it would cancel out the sound of the take-offs and landings for nearby houses :-)
I’m listening to the first track and it sounds like new age music more than air port music (or are they one and the same now?). Anyway, I enjoy it!
Glad you like it! I find it calms me and helps me concentrate.
This is one of the Ur motifs in New Age.
We are now living in the Neo New Age.
5 Ways to take back Tech ~The Nation
Thanks for making the “to the top” arrow smaller!
Right on. Also my pages automatically, mostly, fill my screen and don’t need adjustment.
Good job!
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-baltimore-blew-up-20150526?page=2
“Most Americans have never experienced this kind of policing. They haven’t had to stare down the barrel of a service revolver drawn for no reason at a routine stop. They haven’t had their wife and kids put on an ice-cold sidewalk curb while cops ran their license plate. They haven’t ever been told to get the fuck back in their car right now, been accused of having too prominent a “bulge,” had their dog shot and their kids handcuffed near its body during a wrong-door raid, watched their seven-year-old dragged to jail for sitting on a dirt bike, or dealt with any of a thousand other positively crazy things nonwhite America has come to expect from an interaction with law enforcement. “It’s everywhere,” says Christen Brown, who as a 24-year-old city parks employee was allegedly roughed up and arrested just for filming police in a parking lot. “You can be somewhere minding your business and they will find their best way to fuck with you, point blank. It’s blatant disrespect.”
AND:
“A thin young man with a quick sense of humor, Fields was heading to the grocery store in February 2013 and made the mistake of getting into an elevator with two police officers. A civil complaint he later filed describes how the problem started when he laughed as the police argued with another young man in the elevator.
Police claimed that Fields blocked the elevator door, then made things worse after he left the elevator by elbowing a police officer, hiding his hands and struggling. Fields’ story is different. “He just came, pushed me straight back to the corner,” he says. “He’s like, ‘Oh, you think you could bump a cop and get away with it?’ I looked at him like, ‘What? I ain’t touch no cop. I ain’t touch no cop. What are you talking about?’ ”
Fields got charged for resisting arrest, attempted assault in the third degree, disorderly conduct, and harassment in the second degree. He had to spend a day in jail. No one outside his family and friends would ever know a thing about this case, except for the atypical part of the narrative, which was that the action in the elevator was captured on video. (The NYPD says it can’t comment on a sealed case.) The video clearly shows that Jaleel Fields not only didn’t block the elevator door, he expressly stepped aside to let people on and off and stood in a corner for most of the ride. Fields’ real crime seems to have been laughing near a couple of cops.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-baltimore-blew-up-20150526#ixzz3bdexRfR2
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
“Say you live in a large American city — Baltimore, for example. Police stop and search you, something goes wrong and you end up getting your ass kicked. You don’t die, and more to the point, nobody films you not dying, which means CNN doesn’t show up the next day.”
…….
You’re hauled off to jail. Sometime between a few hours and a few days later, you learn the charges against you. It’s usually a hell of a list, which is part of the game. On what Ansar describes as “that motherfucking paper they slide under the door,” you might find yourself charged with resisting arrest, assault against a police officer, criminal possession of marijuana, criminal possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment and whatever else the on-scene officers can think of.
The case is weak, however, so a few days or weeks later a prosecutor tells you charges will be dropped. In being processed, you sign a paper. It reads:
I, (name), hereby release and forever discharge (complainant) and (law enforcement agency), all its officers, agents and employees, and any and all other persons from any and all claims which I may have for wrongful conduct by reason of my arrest, detention, or confinement on or about (date).
This General Waiver and Release is conditioned upon the expungement of the record of my arrest. . . .
You sign, and your “criminal record” disappears, which is great for you. But so does the incident, which is expunged from the public record. And, except in very rare cases, the same police go right back out on the street. The only results of the entire episode are things that can hurt you: Your prints might now be in the system, you might attract future attention by the same police, and your employer might be upset by the whole situation.
This expungement trick is the way it works in Baltimore. To make the charges go away, victims often end up overtly forfeiting a right to sue (by signing a paper to that effect) or effectively doing so by pleading guilty to lesser offenses (undercutting, say, any federal civil rights case they might later want to bring).
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When I started viewing videos of police misconduct, it was a revelation. But as I often say, the rot is not JUST the police apples. Our vaunted judicial system surely knows about the lying, the abuse, the outright illegality of it all – and the go along to get along path to success. Remember that Martin O’Malley started as a prosecutor in Baltimore…
At least here in Hawaii, arrests that result in non-conviction are not automatically expunged. Law enforcement agencies can still view the information although non-law enforcement people (e.g. employers) can’t. Getting records expunged requires the person to apply for it and pay a fee.
Uhhmm, I’d be a bit skeptic about that “employers can’t see” part. When inquiring about expunging a misdemeanor underage alcohol possession ticket which was ultimately dismissed (should have been an automatic expungement I was a minor at the time, 17, but it’s still on the record books 23 years later) I was told by an employee of the clerk of court in Wake County N.C. there is no such thing as an expungement for employment and background search purposes anymore. Their professional advice regarding expungements was save my money and my time, go ahead and fess up, hope for the best. There is a plethora of multiple and competing pre-employment background search companies competing for quick, cheap, dirty and extensive background checks that don’t have any real oversight or regulation. So while the Clerk of Court’s office could expunge my Wake County government record I would never be able to track down, contact and ensure all of the various private agencies did the same. Criminal data goes into their systems but it never comes out. The only time criminal histories are updated is when people rack up new charges. Even those who do have a completely clean background should worry because the cheap and sloppy background check companies frequently mix up people with criminals of the same name. It’s another outsourced big-business run amok in dire need of regulation.
Porky appoints Misha governor of Odessa. I had been thinking, Abe NYC disappeared from these parts about the same time Misha left hipster central for Kiev.
Well, I guess Governor Saakashvili will order Ukrainian troops in Odessa to shell Russian peacekeeping troops in the breakaway territory of Moldova known as Transnitria that is governed as Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR).
I’m sure this will be whitewashed as another “miscalculation” of Saasashvili by the US Dept of State when the Russians totally kick his ass just like in Georgia.
I don’t know about that, wouldn’t be easier to keep burning colorados in the Trade Unions House? Odessa Oblast has some serious separatist issues right now, what with the founding of the Bessarabian People’s Congress and the subsequent disappearance of its leaders (that everyone knows currently enjoy SBU’s hospitality). Bulgarians, Gagauzians, and Russians are none too happy about any of it. Given that, picking a fight with Russia over another breakaway part of another country is too dumb even for Misha and his American sponsors.
An overview of Odessa repressions: Kiev’s Repression of Anti-Fascism in Odessa. Given Misha’s track record, I fully expect to see Odessa following Donbass sooner or later.
Misha’s miscalculation may stem from the NATO exercises that are emanating out of Romania on the Black Sea, just West of Moldova. Meanwhile, Russia is conducting joint exercises with China on the Black Sea. If Ukraine shells ethnic Russians and Russian peacekeeping troops in PMR, then Russia will proclaim a right to protect.
Keep in mind that the Ukrainian government is desperate. They would love to keep the Russian sanctions going and wouldn’t mind the assistance of NATO in fighting against Russia. Hopefully, NATO, the EU, the USA, Russia and China will issue severe warnings to Porky the Pig Poroshenko and Misha before they make any “miscalculation”.
Indian police seize pigeon over spying fears Agence France-Presse. Furzy mouse: “How DO you waterboard a pigeon,anyway? If it is a suicide pigeon bomber, are there 72 virgin pigeons waiting for him?”
I am much more afraid of when pigeons are used as drones….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUUKrHO3wZU
If you want to see the fine young eagles that the mother was sitting on, go here: http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles/pop-out
Thanks for that, I was wondering about the maternal instinct to see it through.
But, I’m thinking one of those is not long for this plane.
The link about the Antarctic melt. They knew about this massive melt of glaciers that were floating on the ocean surface and also connected to the land mass and when the ocean float melted, the landmass would rapidly follow. They knew about it “around” 2009. Really. How nebulous. I’m thinkin they knew about it in the summer of 2007 and they checked it for a year. Just after the Beijing Olympics they crashed the world.
http://mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com/post/120192377388/every-usa-presidential-election-now-as-an
interesting that the first election, i.e. founding dudes, was for independants. afterwards, well..
another interesting thing is how the elections before 1970 the map would entirely flip in the next election.
now it just squiggles a bit.
Amazing. Especially some of the drunken sailor shifts from red to blue and back.
First there was the “Donald Cook”, now its the “Ross” that got a visit from SU-24s. Is there a plan to create artificial reefs in the Black Sea that I am unaware of?
Varoufakis and Game Theory
IMO this is a complex Game of Chicken that I have previously described as between a compact car and a tractor-trailer.
It differs from the classic/simple Game of Chicken in that there are unevenly matched vehicles (injury to Troika/trucker is much less than the car driver) and a two-stage ‘payoff’: first at the crash/non-crash and secondly at a future point (where damages to the trucker’s cargo is accounted for – for example the trucker’s estate could be sued for damages).
What’s important about THIS Game of Chicken is that despite the overwhelming advantage of the trucker in any crash, the future/secondary considerations relating to cargo damages give him reason to swerve and avoid the crash.
Most analysts ignore the cargo and what may happen AFTER a crash/default. But that is because previous Greek governments have not been willing to force the issue and Syriza also doesn’t threaten this publicly because it is not in their interest to do so.
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Consider:
This can only help Greece as it increases the potential costs of a GRexit. IMO a default puts GRexit on the table. Event though neither party WANTS to see a GRexit, that doesn’t mean that the potential costs of a GRexit are not on their minds.
The costs of a GRexit only factor into negotiations if there is a Greek government that is willing to play the game of chicken into an uncertain endgame. That has not been true until now.
That Jacobin article was nonsense. There is no resiliency in this economy nor sustainability, hence the recent clamoring for DOUBLE seasonal adjustments for non-existent “residual seasonality”. This is just a euphemism for “the economy sucks and demand is falling but we can’t let the rubes lose faith in the con so cook the numbers some more.” The Jacobin article waxes on (with subjective cherry picking of data I might add) about how investment really is higher than GDP even in light of the vast sums of money being hoarded by our elites. However, the article author leaves out a very significant counterfactual to his argument: the level of debt of these same corporations is increasing faster than the rate of share buybacks. So this massive $1.7 trillion of cash being hoarded is still LESS than the amount of debt they’ve been taking on to buy back shares and fraudulently boost earnings and is essentially hollowing out these companies and their future productive capacity. You’ll find out during the next crash just how Potemkin this economy really is.
School of Chicago introduced NAIRU, which is preserve asset prices via scapegoating the least productive margin of the populace, and the future can look after itself.
Right now, the western world suffers from understated inflation resulting in loss of real wages or labour, then wondering why we have a shortfall in aggregate demand because the rich are hording all the financial assets.
Skippy… assets before citizens…. and some talk about priority’s….
“WOODEN computer chips reveal humanity’s cyber elf future”
Great. Now my computer might get termites. What next?
But a compost pile is probably more useful than a computer as we go forward…
If you throw your 2nd wood computer into the compost pile and connect the internet there, then network it to your first wood computer, then you have a “sandbox” that will protect you from hacker attacks.
Yeah but you pay the price in a huge increase in bugs…
And lets not talk about the massive quantity of worms…
Perhaps everything will work out if you go to a Raid Array?
If not, I say put the whole mess in an airtight plastic case!
Oddly enough…I had ants eat my RAID a few years ago…
And…re. Plastic caae…
Composting is aerobic decomposition…anerobic smells like shit….
Yeah, this whole idea of composting computers seems wrong, if not outright dangerous. I remember in the novel Perdido Street Station by China Mieville a garbage dump went sentient. All the PCs and industrial waste dumped there sort of bubbled and stewed together resulting in a AI garbage network. The mob dumped a few bodies there too, so whenever the AI wanted to communicate with humans, it would spear a dead body with network cable and animate it. Not a pretty sight.
Jim Haygood and Katniss Everdeen make strong points regarding the punitive, social control, economic extraction model our “justice” system operates on; seperate and beyond the horrifying parade of police violence we witness daily.
Let me add this to the litany of tyranny: common criminal cases, whether possession or theft or assault, may bring first offenders sentences of 1,2 or three years, if not probation, provided they accept a “plea bargain. There is no bargaining on their part, only acceptance of a deal made by others who are not subject to the penalties. However, their refusal is backed by the threat of 5, 10, 20 years, delivered by their own “attorney” as the only option to salvage their very lives. The stakes are double for repeat offenders.
It is no exagerration to say the penalty for exercising the constituional right to trial by jury is 4x greater than the penalty for the underlying offense.
Along with civil forfeiture, prosecutor overcharging and baseless searches targeted against entire communities, this is the absolute embodiment of arbitrary state power for the purpose of control and oppression.
We’re there. some people just aren’t feeling it yet.
…spot on observation!
For once, a punishment befitting the crime…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ohio-judge-orders-woman-to-walk-30-miles-for-bailing-on-a-taxi-fare-10286623.html
Musk at the trough…
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html#page=1
Style over substance ftw…
On that silk road guy, a bit of background – conversation between him (silk road owner) and drug dealers, on hiring hitmen to kill 5 people:
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss-ordering-5-assassinations/
Farking hell. Before I Google’d that, I felt – for about a microsecond – that his sentence might be a little harsh.
While the conversation is of successful hits, there is no evidence later found that the people were actually killed, as far as I can tell from Googling (could have just been people scamming him), but I don’t feel bad for one moment, about this guy spending his life in prison (so long as it’s all above-board legally).
Do you believe the transcripts?
One DEA agent involved in the case has already been arrested for stealing Bitcoins in the middle of the investigation from the now convicted felon.
Bitcoin was more or less “birthed” out of the early “cypherpunk” days and ideas. One famously elaborated “thought experiment”, not that they’d ever do it, was how to pay to have someone killed anonymously. Bitcoin, or something similar, was a required
http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/jimbellap.htm
“Assassination Politics”
very morbid pedigree. And like most things in the tech world- it’s vaporware. It could, possibly, someday, maybe exist. But, not now. Beta testing is, apparently, a bitch.
I don’t know as I haven’t read up on it enough yet; is there reason to consider it as fabricated?
Ok, after reading up on it more – yes, I believe the transcripts (though I think he was scammed – he intended to hire hitmen, but they were really scamming him):
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/sunk-how-ross-ulbricht-ended-up-in-prison-for-life/1/