Bankocracy

Politics of Bombing Syria Is Secondary to the President’s Power

"He will claim that it is not an act of war but a one-time retaliation. He will claim that he has the authority by his power to conduct foreign policy. Precedents that go back to the earliest days of the republic support the latter claim, even if the Constitution has nothing to say about the conduct of foreign policy. Obama, the constitutional lawyer, understands this. If he decides to bomb Syria, he will. His only political calculation will be what degree of public and Congressional support he wants to secure, but he has no doubt that he has the power to bomb. He already has been using this power in Libya, Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere since he became president." Continue reading →

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Amnesty International Sells Out

"From my perspective, you have caved in to the special interests of the US government, treading softly with them and their allies and jumping on the abuses of their designated enemies. I even notice that one of your options on this questionnaire is 'Amnesty’s investigative efforts to shine a light on war crimes being committed in Syria.' Talk about a drumbeat for war! We heard this blather before in the runup to Iraq. If you are so interested in war crimes, why are you so accommodating to the war crimes committed by the United States? It’s a shame. I have been a proud member for decades, but no longer." Continue reading →

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The Last Secular Arab Country

"The US regime, with its trained and financed local jihadi army, is in the process of destroying the last non-Islamist Arab regime: Syria. Like all empires, the US seeks to make trouble in order to dominate and enrich itself and its compatriots, governmental and corporate. Oh, and here is one effect of a jihadi takeover: the ancient Christian communities in Syria, there since the time of the Apostles and protected by Assad and his father, will be ethnically cleansed, with many murdered in the process. So the cannibal rebels promise." Continue reading →

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US Admits What Ron Paul Said: “Nobody Knows Who Set Off The Gas”

"The intelligence linking Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle to an alleged chemical weapons attack is no 'slam dunk,' with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria's chemical weaponsstores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike, U.S. intelligence officials say. [..] An intercept of Syrian military officials discussing the strike was among low-level staff, with no direct evidence tying the attack back to an Assad insider or even a senior Syrian commander, the officials said. Another possibility that officials would hope to rule out: that stocks [..] were deployed by rebels in a callous and calculated attempt to draw the West into the war." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUS Admits What Ron Paul Said: “Nobody Knows Who Set Off The Gas”

Federal Regulators Consider Seat Belt Ignition Interlocks on Automobiles

"The seatbelt ignition interlock would prevent the automobile from starting unless the seatbelt was clasped. Back in 1974 the government required interlocks on nearly all 1974 year model vehicles. However, public outcry led Congress to banish the mandate. This week the NHTSA reportedly rejected a petition from BMW that would allow the German automaker to skip certain crash testing requirements if it installed seatbelt interlocks in front seats. BMW outlined three different potential types of interlocks including one that would prevent the vehicle from being started. Another would prevent the driver from shifting out of Park and a third would allow the vehicle to be driven only at low speeds." Continue reading →

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Cities Crackdown on Private Transport

"The Dallas City Council was scheduled to vote on a substantial city code rewrite that will redefine everything from who can dispatch a car to who can drive a limo to the cost of a limousine's off-the-lot sticker price (has to be more than $45,000). The rewrite will 'require limousine service to be prearranged at least 30 minutes before the service is provided.' The addendum item says 'the use of computer applications and other technologies by some providers of limousine service has distorted certain distinctions between limousines and taxicabs, and that it's high time the city 'establish those distinctions to help the public understand the differences between those types of passenger transportation services.'" Continue reading →

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Non-American spouse of American abroad narrowly avoids becoming a U.S. person

"In February 2013, an IRS examiner combing over the couple’s return wanted to know whether the wife’s act of submitting a 'married filing jointly' Form 1040 had accidentally turned the husband into a U.S. person, even if they had not explicitly made a § 6013(g) election for a nonresident alien spouse to be treated as a resident alien for tax purposes. Such treatment would saddle him with an obligation to file Form 3520 on what the IRS hilariously calls 'foreign trusts' and what the husband probably thinks of as 'my local & fully-tax-compliant retirement account' — and since the would-be joint return apparently didn’t include any 3520s for him, the couple would have been subject to penalties." Continue reading →

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Following the Bitcoin trail

"Before the paranoid start dumping their Bitcoins, Ms Meiklejohn says that changes could be made to reduce the trail that her group followed. Mixing services, for instance, can take money from one party and return it using entirely an new key. 'Those kinds of services would completely thwart our kind of analysis', she says. But caveat emptor: in the team’s testing of four mixing services, one stole their money and another returned the same key. She says the trust required and volume necessary for mixing simply doesn’t yet exist. The fundamental problem is that 'right now there are not enough ways to buy and sell Bitcoins,' which means that it is difficult to take advantage of the underlying protocol’s anonymity." Continue reading →

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Rentalutions enables US residents to pay rent in bitcoins

"A company in the US is now enabling tenants to pay their rent in bitcoins, which has the potential to significantly increase the currency’s use. Rentalutions was co-founded in Chicago by Ryan Coon as an online property management platform to help landlords vet potential tenants and look after their properties, plus enable tenants to pay their rent and request maintenance work. Landlords signed up with the company have to pay between $5 and $150 per month depending on the level of services they want to receive. Currently, there is no option for landlords to pay these monthly fees in bitcoins, but Coon said he hopes to set this feature up in the near future." Continue reading →

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