Alan C.
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Posts posted by Alan C.
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Detroit files for bankruptcy, stage set for court fight
...to tackle the city's spiraling long term debt, which is estimated at $18.5 billion.
. . .
Now the city's name has become synonymous with decline, decay and crime. Detroit has seen its population fall to 700,000 from a peak of 1.8 million people in 1950. The city's government has been beset by corruption cases over the years. Waning investment in street lights and emergency services has left it struggling to police the streets.
The city's murder rate is at its highest in nearly 40 years; only a third of its ambulances were in service in the first quarter of 2013; and its nearly 78,000 abandoned buildings create "additional public safety problems and reduces the quality of life in the city," the governor noted in his letter.
In June, Orr presented a proposal to creditors offering them pennies on the dollar. His plan had met with resistance from some creditors, most notably Detroit's two pension funds representing retired city workers. The funds recently filed lawsuits in a state court challenging the governor's ability to authorize Orr to file for bankruptcy.
Creditors are expected to mount a stiff challenge to the bankruptcy, which was filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of Michigan.
Douglas Bernstein, a bankruptcy attorney at Plunkett Cooney in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, said he expected the case would last one-to-three years and would be very costly.
"This could run to tens-of-millions to hundreds-of-millions of dollars," he said.
Cue toilet flushing sound.
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The same kinds of comments can also be seen on Peter Schiff's channel.
This is the world we live in: the State ruins lives every day and these self-righteous hypocrites in the YT comments are nowhere to be seen.
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Microsoft helped NSA, FBI access user info: Guardian
Microsoft Corp worked closely with U.S. intelligence services to help them intercept users' communications, including letting the National Security Agency circumvent email encryption, the Guardian reported on Thursday.
Citing top-secret documents provided by former U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden, the UK newspaper said Microsoft worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the NSA to ease access via Prism - an intelligence-gathering program uncovered by the Guardian last month - to cloud storage service SkyDrive.
Microsoft also helped the Prism program collect video and audio of conversations conducted via Skype, Microsoft's online chat service, the newspaper added.
Microsoft had previously said it did not provide the NSA direct access to users' information. On Thursday, it repeated that it provides customer data only in response to lawful government requests.
"To be clear, Microsoft does not provide any government with blanket or direct access to SkyDrive, Outlook.com, Skype or any Microsoft product," the company said in a statement on its website.
Facebook Inc, Google Inc and Microsoft had all publicly urged U.S. authorities to allow them to reveal the number and scope of the surveillance requests after documents leaked to the Washington Post and the Guardian suggested they had given the government "direct access" to their computers as part of the NSA's Prism program. -
Students blame Republicans, wish they would all die
A Georgetown University student blamed the Republicans for allowing student loan rates to double, while another said that all Republicans should be put to death.
Campus Reform interviewed Georgetown students about their thoughts on student-loan reform and the GOP in general. One student gave a startling answer when asked whether he supported the Republican plan.
“I don’t think I support anything the Republicans do,” he said. “I think all of them should probably be put to death.”
Another student, who was watching the interview, chimed in with, “That was a little harsh.”
Off camera, the first student said, “No, it wasn’t.”
[view:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvSnZU5LSOU:640:390]
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DOJ actively worked to foment Trayvon racial unrest, spending thousands in taxpayer dollars
It’s now evident how the US federal government, led by Eric Holder’s
Department of Justice (DOJ), secretly spent tax dollars in order to
politically charge and inject race into the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman
case back in 2012 – according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch.
This came at a time where White House ‘advisor’ Al Sharpton organised
Afro-American protest mobs in Sanford to elicit national media coverage
and to racially charge the event.This was the first such local crime case where a US President has forced
himself into the case early on, also injecting race for the purposes of
politically charging the conversation, where President Obama claimed,
“If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin.”The facts now indicate that if the President, Sharpton and the DOJ had not
set the national media on fire with with radicalizing what would
normally be one of many daily local criminal cases in America – then the
country would not be facing the potential racially-motivated violence
on its streets that it is today.So here we have three men Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and Al Sharpton
– each of whom have played a pivotal role in racially charging this
case in Sanford, Florida. Afro-American mobs are now gathering again and
threatening to riot and target any innocent bystanders in retaliation
should George Zimmerman not be convicted of murder. White House
broadcast network MSNBC is dutifully playing its role in putting
Zimmerman on media trial – in effect promoting a lynch mob verdict which
could lead to public violence across the country.. . .
Records obtained by Judicial Watch in response to local,
state and federal public records requests show that the so-called
peacekeepers are part of a large and growing division within DOJ called
the Community Relations Service (CRS).Though CRS
purports to spot and quell racial tensions nationwide before they arise,
the documents obtained by Judicial Watch show the group actively worked
to foment unrest, spending thousands of taxpayer dollars on travel and
hotel rooms to train protestors throughout Florida. The peacekeepers
also met with officials of the Republican National Convention, scheduled
for several months later in Tampa, to warn them to expect protests in
connection with Martin’s death.- CRS employee spent
$1,142.84 to travel to Sanford, Florida from March 25-28, 2012 “to work
marches, demonstrations, and rallies”; - CRS
employee spent $751.60 to travel to Sanford, Florida from March 30-April
1, 2012 “to provide technical assistance to the City of Sanford, event
organizers, and law enforcement agencies for the march and rally on
March 31”; - CRS employee spent $1,307.40 to
travel to Sanford, Florida from April 3-12, 2012 “to provide technical
assistance, conciliation, and onsite mediation during demonstrations
planned in Sanford”; - CRS employee spent $672.24
to travel to Tampa, Florida from April 18-20, 2012 “to meet with RNC
official related to possible protests and demonstrations during the RNC”
If Obama had a son, he'd look like Trayvon
Al Sharpton: race baiter, shakedown charlatan, poverty pimp
Preparations in response to potential riots is racist
Trayvon supporters vow violence if Zimmerman acquitted
Mainstream media ignores death threats, racial epithets against Zimmerman
Referring to Whites as "crackers" isn't racist; it's culture
- CRS employee spent
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Wash. teen boys injured in brutal hazing incident; group banned (with video)
A group of teens were found injured in a wooded area in Bothell after an apparent school-related hazing incident on Monday night, the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office said.
About 10:40 p.m. deputies responded to the 23900 block of Carter Road after receiving a report of young men yelling in a large wooded area.
Deputies arrived to find a dozen teens who ranged in age from 16 to 18 years old, Lt. Jeff Brand said.
All the teens were current or former students of Inglemoor High School in Kenmore, Brand said. The hazing of seven juniors by five recent graduates was an initiation rite for "Naked Vikings," a group not officially sanctioned by the school, but the school allowed it to cheer at football and basketball games.
James Walvatnee, Sr. said his son, James Walvatnee, Jr., a junior at the school, was one of the underclassmen who was brutally beaten.
Walvatnee, Sr. said his son was burned with cigarettes and cigars, had urine thrown on him and as well as eggs, and got hit with a headless golf club and PVC pipe.
"He didn't know it was that kind of brutality but he says he couldn't say anything because if he said something he couldn't be a Naked Vik," Walvatnee, Sr. said.
When police arrived they observed that some of the teens were dressed only in shorts. Others were bent over a log when deputies first found them and some of them had open wounds from being struck with switches and other items.
A few also appeared to be suffering from hypothermia so medical aid cars were called to the scene. -
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Government Destroys $170k of Hardware in Absurd Effort to Stop Malware
In December 2011 the Economic Development Administration (an agency under the US Department of Commerce) was notified by the Department of Homeland Security that it had a malware infection spreading around its network. These things happen, but what came next was truly exceptional. The EDA's IT people—including its CIO—had a meltdown.
. . .
EDA’s CIO concluded that the risk, or potential risk, of extremely persistent malware and nation-state activity (which did not exist) was great enough to necessitate the physical destruction of all of EDA’s IT components. 20 EDA’s management agreed with this risk assessment and EDA initially destroyed more than $170,000 worth of its IT components,21 including desktops, printers, TVs, cameras, computer mice, and keyboards. By August 1, 2012, EDA had exhausted funds for this effort and therefore halted the destruction of its remaining IT components, valued at over $3 million. EDA intended to resume this activity once funds were available. However, the destruction of IT components was clearly unnecessary because only common malware was present on EDA’s IT systems.
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It's nothing more than a coincidence. Your mom's religious inculcation conditioned her to recognize patterns of no significance.
See patternicity by Michael Shermer.
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Arrested again and again — but still a Chicago cop
Over the past seven years, Chicago police Officer Richard A. Rizzo has been arrested four times by fellow members of his department. The charges included domestic battery, child endangerment and aggravated assault with a gun.
Each time, officers booked Rizzo and took his mugshot. Each time, prosecutors filed criminal charges against him.
And each time, prosecutors ended up dropping the charges against the 15-year police veteran.
There’s no public record showing Rizzo ever has been disciplined for violating Chicago Police Department rules and regulations, which generally target officers who break the law or otherwise bring discredit upon the department.
So Rizzo, 44, is still a member of the department, making $80,724 a year, records show.
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I don't deny that humans practiced intraspecies predation for hundreds of thousands of years, but cooperators managed to create capital structures which permit billions of people to live in relative comfort despite the exploiters.
Wealth and abundance are recent phenomena, existing for only a small fraction of 1% of human history. Humans (including exploiters) lived under grinding poverty for most of history. If not for cooperators, humans would still be living that way and you and I probably wouldn't exist.
We're currently seeing parasitism run amok, which is eroding the foundation of the capital structures that sustain civilization.
Exploiters pose a threat to themselves as well as others.
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Narcissism resides on a gradient.
Examples of healthy narcissism include care taken in preparing one's appearance or presentation, personal hygiene and fitness, and joy at receiving recognition for one's accomplishments.
Regarding Obama, Sam is referring specifically to malignant narcissism in the form of a personality disorder.
Healthy narcissism poses no danger to others. People afflicted with NPD are a menace.
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Violence is profitable only in the short-term and only insofar as it's possible to use the State apparatus to impose the costs of violence upon others.
Societies with institutionalized violence eventually disintegrate. We're currently witnessing several in the process.
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”LAN party tax” hits Swedish gamers
Gamers in Sweden suffer a hard financial blow as authorities decide to tax so-called LAN parties. From now on, organizers of multiplayer get-togethers will be forced to pay a fee of up to $5,000 in order to receive a "permit" to connect PCs and video game consoles for gaming purposes.
The ruling was made by the Gambling Board, the supervisory authority for gambling and lottery, in accordance with the liberal government’s revised slot machine regulation of last year.
The thriving gaming culture in Sweden – which hosts DreamHack, the biggest LAN party in the world – is expected to be struck hard by the decision.
Video games, too, are included under the new authorization.
”In the eyes of the law, these are slot machines. There is no difference,” Johan Röhr, general counsel at the Gambling Board, told the computer magazine M3.
According to Röhr, the new rules do not apply to, for instance, Internet cafes, where computers are mainly connected for purposes other than gaming.
In addition to the new tax, LAN organizers may be forced to pay an extra inspection fee should the Gambling Board decide to supervise the party.
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Report: Former state lab supervisor involved in possible cover-up
The audit, conducted by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, determined in March that Cynthia Burbach, the former supervisor of the state’s CDPHE lab, may have tampered with or even lied about forensic tests in court.
. . .
“The D.A.’s may have known there’s been a problem with state lab and still sat on it,” Dan Schoen, the executive director of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, told FOX31 Denver Sunday.
“They’ve possibly blocked these disclosures and violated their responsibility by sitting on this information knowing it’s been affecting cases. They are constitutionally required to disclose this and we’ve had months of convictions and defendants taking pleas possibly without evidence being disclosed that could have freed them.”
Burbach, who served in the position for more than a decade before she abruptly resigned last week, stopped signing the laboratory’s official reports shortly after the audit was completed, according to Schoen, who has long been suspicious of the state lab and has spent three years trying to bring this information to light.
. . .
According to the press release, the lab supervisor, whose identity has thus far been withheld, operated with a bias “against individuals accused of crimes who were seeking exoneration at trial” and “in favor of getting convictions over doing justice and of helping prosecutors win trials over advancing science and the truth seeking process.”
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76% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck
Fewer than one in four Americans have enough money in their savings account to cover at least six months of expenses, enough to help cushion the blow of a job loss, medical emergency or some other unexpected event, according to the survey of 1,000 adults. Meanwhile, 50% of those surveyed have less than a three-month cushion and 27% had no savings at all.
. . .
Last week, online lender CashNetUSA said 22% of the 1,000 people it recently surveyed had less than $100 in savings to cover an emergency, while 46% had less than $800. After paying debts and taking care of housing, car and child care-related expenses, the respondents said there just isn't enough money left over for saving more.
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Alan Dershowitz on Glenn Greenwald: "He did this because he hates America"
"Well, it doesn't border on criminality – it's right in the heartland
of criminality. The statute itself, does punish the publication of
classified material, if you know that it's classified," explained the
guest. "Greenwald – in my view – clearly has committed a felony."Continuing his assessment of the reporter, Dershowitz held little back:
"Greenwald's a total phony. He is anti-American, he loves tyrannical
regimes, and he did this because he hates America. This had nothing to
do with publicizing information." -
APD email says traffic money to fund future pay raises
The email from police union President Ken Allen explains future police pay raises will be funded through traffic tickets and court revenue. It comes on the heels of the passage of the city’s budget.
“The mayor has designated traffic court/ticket revenue for future pay increases ... (This is) the first time ever that a revenue stream has been designated to salaries,” Allen told officers in the email. “Future pay increases are in our hands. We need only enforce traffic violations as we are now, but increase our attendance in court to prevent cases being dismissed."
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California Orders Bitcoin to Cease and Desist
California's Department of Financial Institutions has sent a letter to the Bitcoin Foundation warning that financial transactions within the state are required to be fully licensed and authorized.
The letter follows the Bitcoin 2013 conference held last month in San Jose, CA. The Bitcoin Foundation operates as a non-profit corporation that aims to promote the use of Bitcoin as a digital currency worldwide. While the organization is registered in the U.S. capitol of Washington, D.C., members also come from international jurisdictions.
"It has come to the attention of the Commissioner that Bitcoin Foundation may be engaged in the business of money transmission without having obtained the license or proper authorization required by the California Financial Code," the two-page letter states.
In full capitalization, the letter goes on to say, "You are hereby warned to cease and desist from conducting the business of money transmission in this state. Failure to do so will result in appropriate action being taken."
As pointed out by Jon Matonis in a Forbes article, the foundation itself does not transmit Bitcoin funds. Matonis happens to sit on the board of directors of the Bitcoin Foundation.
Penalties for transmitting funds in California without proper state licensing can reach $2,500 per day and criminal prosecution that can result in hard time. On the federal level, failure to register with the U.S. Department of Treasury can lead to fines up to $250,000 and five years in a federal penitentiary.
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Seventh-grade boy allegedly raped during gym class at Barack Obama Prep
The 13-year-old boy...is a special-needs student at the middle school... He has the mental capacity of a six-to-eight year old.
The boy’s parents...announced plans to to sue the Los Angeles Unified School District...
At a press conference...an attorney retained by the family, said that Julian’s physical education teacher left Julian unsupervised during class. The alleged assailant, an unidentified eighth-grade boy, then lured Julian behind a set of bleachers and sexually assaulted him.
Julian’s mother said she filed a complaint some two months ago because she feared that other students were bullying Julian during gym class. She says school officials did nothing in response.
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It wouldn't suprise me if the real rate of inflation was that high. Most of it is being tied up in bonds which is why we haven't seen prices rise as rapidly as they otherwise would.
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It's not unsual for people to show apathy about things which don't personally affect them. For example, a welfare parasite isn't going to care about a local business which spends millions of dollars annually on taxes and regulatory compliance.
The mistake is thinking that such people need convincing that their freedom is in jeopardy unless they do something.
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I recommend both of these interviews if you have the time. Both contain very good information about narcissism.
The article mentioned, which Sam wrote in 2008: Barack Obama - Narcissist or Merely Narcissistic?
An earlier interview: Sam Vaknin Analyzes Barack Obama
Stef's Get off Julia! video, plus a bunch of links.
The Obamas' extravagant lifestyle at taxpayer expense.
Obama's barber flies from Chicago twice a month to cut his hair (I wonder if he also has wipers)
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France to seek ban on Amazon bundled discounts, free delivery
France's Socialist government aims to introduce a law preventing online retailer Amazon from offering both discounts and free delivery for books in France, the culture minister said, arguing this amounts to unfair competition.
Unresponsive stroke victim arrested, charged with obstruction [Florida]
in Current Events
Posted
Inmate's untreated, fatal stroke results in $1 million settlement by Hillsborough sheriff, jail medical provider