statism watch

Flashback: Associated Press Tries To DRM The News

Mike Masnick, Techdirt.com
August 5, 2009

A few weeks ago, after the AP announced its plans to crack down on people who it felt were linking/excerpting too much, we suggested that Reuters should speak up and respond to the AP’s position by encouraging linking and sharing of news. It appears that Chris Ahearn, President, Media at Thomson Reuters, has taken us up on the offer, writing a nice little manifesto: Why I believe in the link economy. And, of course, helping to prove that, he linked to a bunch of other sites — including our original blog post asking him to make a statement just like this (in contrast, by the way, while I’ve been quoted multiple times by the AP, I’m pretty sure they’ve never linked to Techdirt in an article). His post is pretty much exactly what I’d hoped Reuters (or others) would say (though, Ahearn is better at being diplomatic about the AP). Here are some key excerpts:

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Flashback: US Cyber Security Czar Front-Runner No Friend of Privacy | Obama Nominates Globalization Advocates to Clinton’s State Department | Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets | CFR-Brookings to Dominate Obama Strategy | Obama appoints architects of economic collapse, financial globalism to economic team | Obama, like McCain, surrounds himself with elite CFR, Brookings powerbrokers

Daniel Tencer, Rawstory.com
August 5, 2009

In yet another sign that the Obama administration’s opposition to hiring lobbyists is weakening, a Justice Department official who once worked as a copyright and cyber-security lobbyist for companies like Microsoft and IBM is now the top candidate for a US Attorney position.

Deputy attorney-general Neil MacBride, who was listed in 2007 as a lobbyist with the Business Software Alliance, has been named by the Washington Post as the most likely candidate to fill the role of US Attorney in the Alexandria, Va., office.

As one of his first acts in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order forbidding hiring people to work on projects if they had worked as lobbyists on similar issues in the previous two years. But, contrary to popular opinion, the order did not actually forbid the hiring of former lobbyists.

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One way to create a monopoly in a market is to rig the requirements to enter the market. The mechanisms of fiat money – let’s just call it ‘virtual cash’, since it isn’t based on any objective standard of value any more – and the high frequency trading processes described below, enabling ‘frontrunning’ of the market, have nearly finished the process of converting the global financial system into a casino. Chips (bets and debts) are the only true currency left at this level, underlying commodity value is almost besides the point, and the house is all in.

Flashback: Derivatives rear their ugly head again: Leveraged ETFs outed | Record quarterly profits and bonuses: Goldman Sachs makes out like a bandit on taxpayer’s dime | Goldman-Sachs: Pilfered trading code could be used to ‘manipulate markets’ | Taibbi: NYSE ends transparency to protect Goldman Sachs | Goldman Sachs: The Great American Bubble Machine | Which Banks Will Rule? | Geithner Said to Have Prevailed on the Bailout | Goldman-Sachs Alumni Hold Reins of Financial System | Court Grants Big Banks Immunity from Lawsuits over Derivatives Losses | What Really Killed Bear Stearns? | Soros points out regulated markets fail to operate on market fundamentals, calls for more regulation | Competition study calls for lowered barriers to foreign ownership, bank mergers | Massive overhaul urged on foreign investment in airlines, media, and banks | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda

Julian Delasantellis, Asia Times
August 5, 2009

All your base are belong to us.

Just for the moment, let’s pretend that James Cameron’s 1984 The Terminator was being made for the first time today, and, instead of the evil robots emerging from the fatally misguided foundries of Cyberdyne Systems, they came from the dark laboratories of Goldman Sachs. [Ed. Note: There are better sci-fi metaphors to mine when it comes to Time Lords that want unlimited rule.]

From out of the future, a warrior is sent back in time to warn the present.

“You still don’t get it, do you? They’ll find your money!! That’s what they do! That’s all they do! You can’t stop them! They’ll wait for you! They’ll reach down into your bank account and tear its f*&^*^g balance out!”

“Now just wait one cotton-picking moment!” I hear many of you saying. A few weeks ago, in my review of Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone-published anti-Goldman Sachs screed, I demurred, advancing an argument that, although Goldman certainly proudly wielded the sharpest elbows in investment banking, they were not the eternal center of a global nefarious conspiracy of plutocrats that has been making the lives of average people miserable since the 1920s. (See Goldman good but not that bad, Asia Times Online, June 9, 2009).

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The article states that the authors of the study quoted are not advocating eugenics, but wish “simply want to make people aware of the environmental consequences of their reproductive choices”. Sure they aren’t, and eugenicists in the 1930s simply wanted to make people aware of the social consequences of their reproductive choices (prior to enshrining sterilization in law).

Flashback: Aging Shanghai pushes for more babies | Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures | Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation | David Attenborough becomes patron for population reduction | UK population must fall to 30m: Optimum Population Trust | Don’t blame right-wing thugs for eugenics — Socialists made it fashionable | Do Swiss parents need a childrearing licence? | Population control thinktank to Britons: Have less children

Sam Wong, The Guardian
August 4, 2009

Estimates of the carbon legacy of bringing a child into the world suggest that the green choice may be to stop at two kids

Pernicious youth: The latest dire threat to the earth, chubby fingers wrapped tight around Gaia’s throat.

There are already 6.8 billion people living on this crowded planet and the figure is expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050. How can we expect to reduce global carbon emissions by 50 per cent or more if populations continue to grow exponentially? Family planning is often regarded as taboo by environmentalists, but many are now coming round to the view that curbing population growth will be crucial to combat climate change.

The Optimum Population Trust (patron, David Attenborough) runs a campaign urging parents to “Stop At Two”. Gordon Brown’s green adviser Jonathon Porritt and Science Museum director Chris Rapley have also spoken of the environmental importance of tackling population growth.

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This must really be on the fast track, for Flaherty to go as far as to offer a taxpayer-funded bribe to ‘harmonize’ taxes to an HST standard across the country. What’s actually being slowly harmonized is Canadian tax law to the European VAT standard. Should make it just that much easier to implement that EU ‘free trade’ agreement you’ve got cooking away on the back burner, eh Mr. Flaherty? Surely you remember how well Canadians reacted to the GST. The ‘conservatives’ must be just about ready to hand the baton over to Ignatieff so he can take up ruining the country where they’ve left off, because an expansion of the GST after all the hype about reducing it two points is political suicide.

Flashback: BC, like Ontario, moves to harmonize taxes | Ontario Liberals pressing to hide new ‘harmonized’ tax in prices | Ontario to merge GST, PST in ‘harmonized’ tax hike | EU approves free-trade talks with Canada | Canada expects EU free-trade talks soon: Stockwell Day | Harper, Sarkozy vow to work toward Canada-EU deal | CD Howe Institute backs Canada-EU deal, deep integration | Towards a new world order: Canada-EU trade proposal rivals scope of NAFTA

CBC News
August 5, 2009

B.C. NDP Leader Carole James is a fierce opponent of the province’s tax harmonization plan, which she says would cost B.C. taxpayers $4 billion a year when they can least afford it. (CBC)

A day after Ottawa offered cash to provinces to harmonize their sales taxes across the country, the few holdouts remain cool to the HST idea.

On Tuesday, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Ottawa was willing to offer financial support to provinces choosing to harmonize their provincial sales tax with the federal GST.

Business groups like the idea because they argue it reduces red tape and lowers the tax on investment. But harmonization detractors argue it ends up costing consumers more in real terms because the GST applies to more goods and services than the provincial levy.

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Many republics throughout history have fallen at the hand of troops performing domestic operations at the behest of oligarchs. So wake up, it’s happening here – it’s just being pulled off incrementally so you don’t take any notice. But perhaps one morning you’ll wake up and wonder how your country could have become such a grim authoritarian state, and whether you could have stopped it. You can. Speak out. Just tell people – this insanity can still be reversed through political means.

Flashback: US Military To Work With FEMA During Swine Flu Pandemic | Government of Canada Participates in Major US Homeland Security Exercise | US FEMA emergency management, Israeli IDF team up for martial law exercises | British Army to Police Medicine Hat During Urban Warfare Drills | Afghan front lines take mental toll on military and RCMP | Urban warfare drills coming to Medicine Hat | Military may patrol bar zone in Barrie | Military readies reservists for threats to ‘domestic front’ | Military and police practice integration during Olympic security exercises | US Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage | Troops in the Streets: Army Brigades Standing By to Assist in Disasters, Help Quell Dissent | Canada, U.S. agree to use each other’s troops in civil emergencies

Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
August 5, 2009

The implementation on martial law in America advanced a step further yesterday when the sheriff of Alabama’s most populous county said he would probably have to bring in National Guard troops to perform law enforcement duties due to budget cuts.

Plans to slash $4.1 million from the budget of Sheriff Mike Hale by Jefferson County commissioners in order to head off a municipal bankruptcy filing were approved by Circuit Judge Joseph L. Boohaker.

“A spokesman for Hale, Randy Christian, said the sheriff told Riley after the ruling that state assistance may be needed to perform basic law enforcement tasks once the department’s current funding is exhausted in early September,” reports the Associated Press.

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