My Thoughts on Mt. Gox

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I was going to start this article by stating: “Mt. Gox needs to get its shit together.” But its too late for that. Much too late. Mt.Gox has been the dominant Bitcoin exchange pretty much since the beginning. In its brief history, it has suffered several bad setbacks, with the one last spring an incident … Read more

You Can Now Buy Bud for Bitcoin in Washington State

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Bitcoin and bud are a match made in liberty heaven. They are perfect examples of things people want, but that the state thinks is their job to “protect” you from. Two inevitable forces, two civil rights issues. Bitcoin can help the nascent legal marijuana business, and the marijuana business can help Bitcoin. I wrote a piece all about this last month, which I suggest reading titled: How Bitcoin Could Serve the Marijuana Industry as Banks Remain Too Scared to Enter.

Now from Coindesk:

Medical marijuana dispensary Kouchlock Productions, which opened on Monday February 3, began accepting bitcoin for its wares this week. The dispensary, based in Spokane, is said to already have sold the drug in several bitcoin transactions.

While medical mariijuana dispensaries are legal in the state, they are still federally illegal, which makes it difficult for them to process credit cards. This makes bitcoin a useful alternative for them.

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Bitcoin vs. Apple: Videos of Users Destroying Their iPhones Proliferate on YouTube

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Apple unleashed a well deserved firestorm in the Bitcoin community with its decision to suddenly ban the extremely popular Blockchain app. This app was the last remaining user friendly way to facilitate Bitcoin transactions on iPhones and it had been downloaded 120,000 times. Apple has remained completely silent on its reasons for removing the app, … Read more

An Open Letter to Sam Zell: Why Your Statements are Delusional and Dangerous

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The 1 percent are being pummeled because it’s politically convenient to do so. The problem is that the world and this country should not talk about envy of the 1 percent. It should talk about emulating the 1 percent. The 1 percent work harder. The 1 percent are much bigger factors in all forms of our society.

– Sam Zell yesterday on Bloomberg Television

Mr. Zell,
I’ve seen clips of you on television several times in the past. I can’t say those appearances elicited strong reactions from me. I can recall being offended at things you have said, and I can remember agreeing with you on other occasions. However, yesterday I found your statements on “class warfare,” “envy” and the “1%” delusional and dangerous. I will address these two points separately.

Why Your Statements Are Delusional

Individuals, social classes, even cultures and nation-states develop storylines and so-called “myths” about themselves and how they fit into the bigger picture of current events and human history. We all see ourselves and whatever group(s) with which we identify within a particular social, political and economic context. This is obvious, yet it is much more difficult to look at your owns myths and question them. It is far easier to look at other groups’ myths and heap criticism on them. That is basically all you do.

For the purpose of this letter, I will focus on socio-economic groups that people are now using in these contemporary United States. Ever since Occupy Wall Street popularized the terms, many people have divided themselves into two overly-simplistic groups, the so-called 99% and the 1%. However, this isn’t the real struggle. I was always against the 1% label, because the true cancer, the true problem comes from a much smaller slice of the population. It comes from what I call the “oligarchs,” the 0.01%, and the politicians that do their bidding. This is your class Mr. Zell, so let’s get that straight right off the bat. That doesn’t mean everyone in the 0.01% should be vilified. I am certain there are many well meaning, decent and honestly good people in that bucket. Nevertheless, what the past five years have proven without a shadow of a doubt is that this class collectively represents the most destructive, delusional and counter-productive members of our society.

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Wisconsin Middle School Forces Children to Play “Cross the Line” Game – Asks Kids if Parents are Alcoholics

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Just in case you had any lingering doubt about the uselessness of many U.S. public schools, I bring to you Marinette Middle School. Yes, the administrators of this school thought it would be a fantastic idea to gather sixth graders around and ask them in front of all their classmates questions like; if their parents are alcoholics, … Read more

Highlighting the LLC IRA – Own Gold, Silver or Bitcoins for Your Retirement

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I have brought the guys at Perpetual Assets to your attention once before, following my meeting them at the Liberty Masterminds conference in Dallas (check out my speech here)( this past summer. While these guys sell bullion, they do a lot more than just that. In fact, what separates them from others relates to the … Read more

Video of the Day – Thuggish Militarized Police Terrorize and SWAT Team Iowa Family

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So police in the city of Ankeny, Iowa are on the hunt for a couple of people suspected of credit card fraud. Their solution? Conduct a SWAT raid on an older woman’s Iowa home with a team of at least eight militarized, storm-trooper wannabe cops. In a raid that appears more suitable for a compound in Abbottabad than a neighborhood in the corn belt, you’d at least think they were certain they had the right home? Wrong.

The police didn’t find the suspects they were looking for, and instead went ahead and arrested two other people in completely unrelated charges to justify their ridiculous behavior. If not for the fact the family had security cameras installed (which the police made every attempt to dismantle), we would have no evidence of this wildly inappropriate behavior. You seriously have to wonder what is wrong with these people. Are they still being taught their mission is to “Protect and Serve” or has this been change to “Probe and SWAT.” One seriously has to wonder.

This video is brought to our attention by Radley Balko, author of Rise of the Warrior Cop, and now a writer for the Washington Post. I have highlighted Mr. Balko’s excellent work in the past, most recently last summer in my article: There are Over 50,000 SWAT Team Raids Annually in America, which you should definitely go back and read.

In his article for the Washington Post, Radley writes:

Watch this video, taken from a police raid in Des Moines, Iowa. Send it to some people. When critics (like me) warn about the dangers of police militarization, this is what we’re talking about. You’ll see the raid team, dressed in battle-dress uniforms, helmets and face-covering balaclava hoods take down the family’s door with a battering ram. You’ll see them storm the home with ballistics shields, guns at the ready. More troubling still, you’ll see not one but two officers attempt to prevent the family from having an independent record of the raid, one by destroying a surveillance camera, another by blocking another camera’s lens.

Now here’s the video. Brace yourself, this is extraordinarily disturbing and pathetic behavior:

Radley continues:

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Video of the Day – Edward Snowden’s Recent Interview with German Television

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Many people have lamented the fact that the U.S. mainstream propaganda media has barely covered this excellent interview of Edward Snowden conducted recently by German television. Some have gone so far as to call it intentional censorship. Either way, I’m more than happy to bring it to you. There’s a lot of really good stuff … Read more

Meet the U.S. Allies – Saudi Arabia Passes Draconian, Medieval Laws to Crush Dissent

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One of the most significant geopolitical events of 2013 was the failed push for war in Syria by the Obama Administration. It didn’t merely fail as a result of a war weary public (although that played a key role), it also failed due to the fact our clownish “leaders” were attempting to offer military support to rebels with a large al-Qaeda element. So the pathetic “sell” by the U.S. establishment was to push the nation into a conflict allied with the very terrorist group against which we are fighting the “war on terror,” and have given up so many of our civil liberties to wage. Ridiculous, yet they tried anyway. That is how stupid they think the public is.

What that failed attempt at war mongering demonstrated to anyone paying attention is that our foreign policy is a complete joke and total sham. We publicly claim to support “democracy” and “freedom” around the world, yet in reality support some of the most oppressive regimes out there.

No relationship highlights this hypocrisy as clearly as our extremely close alliance with the Saudi regime, one of the last “absolute monarchies” on the planet. Not only that, but increasing evidence points to its direct involvement in the 9/11 attacks. But it gets worse. A lot worse. The regime has just passed a series of Medieval laws to crack down on all dissent. In a nutshell: Dissent = Terrorism.

From the New York Times:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia put into effect a sweeping new counterterrorism law Sunday that human rights activists say allows the kingdom to prosecute as a terrorist anyone who demands reform, exposes corruption or otherwise engages in dissent.

The law states that any act that “undermines” the state or society, including calls for regime change in Saudi Arabia, can be tried as an act of terrorism. It also grants security services broad powers to raid homes and track phone calls and Internet activity.

Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s last absolute monarchies. All decisions are centered in the hands of 89-year-old King Abdullah. There is no parliament. There is little written law, and judges — implementing the country’s strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam — have broad leeway to impose verdicts and sentences.

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Mandatory “Vehicle to Vehicle” Communications Coming to U.S. Cars

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The vision of ‘talking’ cars that avoid crashes is well on the way to becoming a reality. And we’re not just talking about cars talking to cars, but about cars talking to bikes, trucks talking to motorcycles, and even buses talking to pedestrians. This promises to significantly reduce the number of deaths and injuries on our nation’s roads while unleashing a new wave of innovation from advanced traffic management systems and smart mobility apps to real-time traffic, transit and parking information.

– Scott Belcher, President and CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America

Worried about “pre-crime?” What about “pre-crash?”

The geniuses at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTS) are so concerned about your “safety,” they have decided to take it into their own hands and make it mandatory that your car wirelessly communicate with other vehicles on the road. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx went so far as to say the technology could save “thousands of lives and even prevent accidents in the first place.” The concept of “pre-crash” has been born.

As in so many other aspects of life, there is a top down push to remove all control from the individual to the collective (recall the MSNBC host who proclaimed children don’t belong to their parents), typically justified within the content of the “war on terror,” and always justified with “it’s for your own good.” Apparently, we aren’t capable of making our own choices in anything any more, including something as simple as driving a car.

This push to exert control within individual vehicles is nothing new and appears to be a global phenomenon.  For instance, just last week I posted an article titled: The EU May Mandate a “Remote Stopping Device” in All Cars for Police Use.

Now we learn from The Detroit News that:

Washington— The U.S. Transportation Department said Monday it plans to propose requiring all new cars and trucks to eventually communicate with one another, which could one day help reduce up to 80 percent of crash deaths.

But under the tentative timetable laid out, automakers aren’t likely to be required to install the in-vehicle communication devices until around 2020 — and even then, the devices will be phased in.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will begin working on a proposal to require vehicle-to-vehicle communication in future cars and trucks. He said he hopes to propose the regulation by the time the Obama administration leaves office in January 2017. NHTSA gives automakers at least 18 months of lead time before mandating new technology.

Foxx said at a news conference the technology could save “thousands of lives and even prevent accidents in the first place.”

Acting NHTSA chief David Friedman said the technology is a “game changer” and “nothing short of revolutionary.”

Um, sorry but if this is such a “gamer changer” and “revolutionary” why not just put it out there and see if the market adopts it. If it is as wonderful as Mr. Friedman claims, why does it need to be mandatory. No one made Bitcoin mandatory, yet it is being adopted because it genuinely is revolutionary. This guy’s statement is completely idiotic.

But major challenges need to be addressed: including ensuring that the devices would be secure — to prevent hackers couldn’t take control of the signals.

Hahaha, ok good luck with that. Just ask Target for some tips.

NHTSA also expects to decide soon whether to require future cars to have active collision avoidance systems — like automatic braking that halts a vehicle about to strike a stopped vehicle in front of it. Those systems are currently on many luxury cars.

Yeah, what could go wrong…

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