Sunday, May 19, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com

(NaturalNews) In the face of the outrageous IRS intimidation scandal now sweeping across America, gun control advocates are changing their tune. All of a sudden, the idea that the federal government could engage in tyranny against the People of America is no longer a "conspiracy theory." It's historical fact right in your face thanks to all the recent scandals now bursting onto the scene: IRS intimidation, secret targeting of non-profit groups for possible "thought crimes," the Department of Justice seizing AP phone records and so on.

Just which liberals are changing their minds on all this? Piers Morgan, for starters. The man who once called Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America a "very stupid man" on live national television is suddenly reversing course. Here's what Morgan now says in the wake of the IRS intimidation scandal:

"I've had some of the pro-gun lobbyists on here saying to me, well the reason we need to be armed is because of tyranny from our own government, and I've always laughed at them. I've always said don't be so ridiculous. Your government won't turn itself on you. But actually when you look at this [IRS scandal]... actually this is vaguely tyrannical behavior by the American government. I think what the IRS did is bordering on tyrannical behavior, I think what the Department of Justice has done to the Associated Press is bordering on tyrannical behavior."...

By Drew Prindle
May 16, 2013
DigitalTrends.com

You don’t have to be a secret agent or a notorious hacktivist to care about anonymity. Even regular Joes like you and I have plenty of good reasons to care about the privacy and security of our online activity. Pretty soon, just about everything we do on the Web will be logged, analyzed, and used for things outside of our control. In a lot of ways, it’s already happening – but that’s not to say there’s nothing you can do about it.

This guide will help you learn ways to anonymize the majority of your Internet-based communications and activities. But before we get started, it should go without saying that if you’re trying to stay anonymous online, you shouldn’t use your real name when creating any account and shouldn’t sign in with any profile that has your personal information connected to it (ie, Google, Facebook, Twitter). We’ve left out the obvious stuff here and instead focused on offering a quick summary of ways that you can keep your identity and location hidden while browsing, communicating, and downloading and transferring files.

The best thing you can do to stay anonymous online is to hide your IP address. This is the easiest way to trace your online activity back to you. If someone knows your IP address, they can easily determine the geographic location of the server that hosts that address and get a rough idea of where you’re located. Broadly speaking, there are three ways to obscure your IP address and hide your location:

1. Use a proxy server. If you want all of your online activity to be anonymized, the best way to do it is to pretend to be someone else. This is basically what a proxy server does: it routes your connection through a different server so your IP address isn’t so easy to track down. There are hundreds of free proxies out there, and finding a good one is just a matter of searching. Most major browsers offer proxy server extensions that can be activated in just one click
2. Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN). For most intents and purposes, a VPN obscures your IP address just as well as a proxy does – and in some cases even better. They work differently, but achieve the same result. Essentially, a VPN is a private network that uses a public network (usually the Internet) to connect remote sites or users together. So, if I were to log into Digital Trends’ VPN, anyone looking at my IP address would think I’m in New York when I’m actually on the West Coast. Here’s a list of good VPN services to get you started.
3. Use TOR. Short for The Onion Router, TOR is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. Browsing with TOR is a lot like simultaneously using hundreds of different proxies that are randomized periodically. But it’s a lot more than just a secure browser. We won’t get into the details here, but you should definitely check out its site if you’re concerned about anonymity.  

Using proxies, VPNs, and TOR will obscure your IP address from prying eyes, but sending emails presents a different anonymity challenge. Let’s say you want to send somebody an email, but you don’t want them to know your email address. Generally speaking, there are two ways to go about this:

1. Use an alias. An alias is essentially a forwarding address. When you send mail through an alias, the recipient will only see your forwarding address, and not your real email. Since all mail is forwarded to your regular inbox, this method will keep your real email address secret, but it will not, however, keep you from being spammed like crazy.
2. Use a disposable email account. This can be done in two ways: either you can just create a new email account with a fake name and use it for the duration of your needs, or you can use a disposable email service. These services work by creating a temporary forwarding address that is deleted after a certain amount of time, so they’re great for signing up for stuff on sites you don’t trust and keeping your inbox from being flooded with spam.

Also, using a VPN and communicating through an anonymized email address will keep your identity hidden, but it still leaves open the possibility of your emails being intercepted through a man-in-the-middle scheme. To avoid this, you can encrypt your emails before you send them. Here’s how:

• Use HTTPS in your Web-based email client. This will add SSL/TLS encryption to all of your Web-based communications. It’s not bulletproof, but it definitely helps. Just make sure the URL of your webmail has an S (for Secure) after the HTTP. Gmail users, for example could use https://mail.google.com. We also recommend using the HTTPS Everywhere extension. 
• Use PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software. We won’t go into great detail on how to install/use PGP, but you might want to consider looking into it. While using HTTPS will encrypt your data on a network level , PGP software will encrypt the actual files themselves. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of it. 

In addition to email, you might want to encrypt any instant messaging you do for the same reasons. We recommend the following two chat clients:

• TOR chat: a lightweight and easy-to-use chat client that uses TOR’s location hiding services. It uses SSL/TLS encryption.
• Cryptocat: a Web-based chat client that uses the AES-256 encryption standard, which is extremely hard to break. It also supports group chats, so its perfect for all those top-secret world domination meetings you have with your buddies.

Getting files from the Internet is easy, but the sender has access to your IP address when you download files. In the case of BitTorrent, there are thousands of different peers that can see your IP address at any given moment, which means downloading is one of the least anonymous things you can do on the Web. However, if done correctly, it is possible to download and share files while keeping your IP address and identity concealed.

• If you’re downloading directly form a file hosting site like MediaFire or Mega, you can just use a proxy or VPN to obscure your IP. 
• If you’re using BitTorrent to download stuff, using a proxy or VPN will keep your identity hidden, but rather than just using any old service, we recommend using BT Guard. At its core, BT Guard is exactly the same as any other VPN or proxy service with the one difference being that the site is designed specifically for heavy BitTorrent users. Don’t worry about DMCA violation notices you might elicit – BT Guard just ignores them for you.

This tutorial touches on a lot but is by no means comprehensive. If you have any good tips or tricks for staying anonymous online, we encourage you to share them in the comments.

By Geoff Duncan
May 14, 2013
DigitalTrends.com

Major password breaches are so common they’re becoming like storms and traffic jams: One day you hear about tens of thousands of Twitter users compromised or several million at LinkedIn, the next it might be upwards of 50 million at Evernote or LivingSocial.

But despite their fallibility, passwords won’t be replaced any time soon. Two-factor authentication technologies using our mobile devices and even biometrics can help keep us secure, but so far none are foolproof, and precious few are even convenient.

How can we make our passwords more hack-resistant and manage all the passwords we need?

Most attackers don’t break passwords by going to Gmail or Facebook and making guesses; that’s slow, and most services block access after a few failed attempts. However, if attackers steal account data through a security hole, they can make thousands, millions, or even billions of guesses per second offline using their own computers. If that sounds outlandish, consider that Stricture Consulting Group last year showed off a small computer cluster made from off-the-shelf components that could test as many as 350 billion passwords per second. Some password-cracking operations harness hundreds (or thousands) of computers via botnets or legitimate cloud-computing platforms, while others just use everyday PCs. They’re fast too.

The quality of a password doesn’t matter if a service stores your password as plain text and an attacker steals it. (Don’t laugh: it happens.) If passwords are encrypted, however, size and randomness are two factors that determine a password’s strength or entropy — basically, a measure of the possible combinations a password can have.

“The higher the entropy, the longer it will take, on average, for a brute-force attack to succeed,” noted Joe Kissel, author of the ebook Take Control of Your Passwords. So, all things being equal, you want a high-entropy password.”

The benefit of a password’s size is obvious: More characters means more possible combinations. The benefit of randomness is less subtle. A password like YesThisIsMyGreatNewRandomPassphrase wins points for size — 36 characters! — but loses points for randomness, since it’s just upper- and lower-case letters. (It’s also less random because it’s in English: Attackers try to take advantage of common letter patterns.)

Something like *5FRRcr62{d~OkP!{AKaxzevQZb6L{~S1F~b would be more secure — it’s both big and highly random. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible for most people to remember…but it’s easy for a computer to remember.

There’s no magic formula for making passwords both very strong and easy to remember. However, here are some ideas:...

And it asked what books people were reading.

A POLITICO review of documents from 11 tea party and conservative groups that the IRS scrutinized in 2012 shows the agency wanted to know everything — in some cases, it even seemed curious what members were thinking. The review included interviews with groups or their representatives from Hawaii, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere.

The long-awaited Treasury Department inspector general report released Tuesday says the agency itself decided some of its questions to conservative groups were way over the line — especially the one about donors.

The report shows that top IRS officials put a stop to some of the questions in early 2012, including the ones that asked tea party groups who their donors were, what issues were important to them and whether their top officers ever planned to run for office. And they told the investigators they planned to destroy the donor lists that had already been sent in.

But interviews with members of the groups paint a more dramatic picture than the bland language of the report, which just says the IRS “requested irrelevant (unnecessary) information because of a lack of managerial review, at all levels, of questions before they were sent to organizations seeking tax-exempt status.”

“They were asking for a U-Haul truck’s worth of information,” said Toby Marie Walker, the president of the Waco Tea Party.

Published May 13, 2013
FoxNews.com

An IRS campaign to apply additional scrutiny to conservative groups went beyond targeting "Tea Party" and "patriot" groups to include those focused on government spending, the Constitution and several other broad areas. 

The additional guidelines created by the agency were part of a timeline, obtained by Fox News, from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which is looking into the controversial IRS practice. IRS officials apologized Friday for the scrutiny, but new information suggests senior leaders were apprised of the effort as early as 2011 despite public denials from the top. 

Republican lawmakers have vowed to investigate and hold hearings, calling the revelations deeply troubling. 

"The conclusion that the IRS came to is that they did have agents who were engaged in intimidation of political groups," Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers told "Fox News Sunday." "I don't care if you're a conservative, a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, this should send a chill up your spine. It needs to have a full investigation." 

The internal IG timeline shows a unit in the agency was looking at Tea Party and "patriot" groups dating back to early 2010. But it shows that list of criteria drastically expanding by the time a June 2011 briefing was held. It then included groups focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to "make America a better place to live." It even flagged groups whose file included criticism of "how the country is being run." 

By early 2012, the criteria were updated to include organizations involved in "limiting/expanding government," education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and social economic reform. 

Taken together, the findings of the IG and the initial admissions by the IRS Friday are fueling complaints from Republicans on Capitol Hill. 

Evidence that the IRS was flagging such groups in 2011 was included in a draft inspector general's report obtained Saturday by Fox News and other news organizations and expected to be released in full later this week...

By Juliet Eilperin, Published: May 12, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Washington Post

At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials targeted nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general.

The documents, obtained by The Washington Post  from a congressional aide with knowledge of the findings, show that on June 29, 2011, IRS staffers held a briefing with senior agency official Lois G. Lerner in which they described giving special attention to instances where “statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run.” Lerner, who  oversees tax-exempt groups for the agency, raised objections and the agency revised its criteria a week later.

But six months later, the IRS applied a new political test to groups that applied for tax-exempt status as “social welfare” groups, the document says. On Jan. 15, 2012 the agency decided to target “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement.,” according to the appendix in the IG report, which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be released.

The new revelations are likely to intensify criticism of the IRS, which has been under fire since agency officials acknowledged they had deliberately targeted groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their name for heightened scrutiny.

During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) described the practice as “absolutely chilling” and called on President Obama to condemn the effort.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday he’s not satisfied with the Obama administration’s handling of the controversy. The IG report was “leaked by the IRS. to try to spin the output,” Issa said, and lawmakers now need to go through the full report so they can “see what the instituted changes need to be to make this not happen again...

Thursday, 09 May 2013 06:23 PM
By Greg Richter and Kathleen Walter
NewsMax.com

The continuation of a false narrative for weeks after the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead is "not understandable and is not forgivable," former director of the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency Gen.l Michael Hayden told Newsmax TV.

Hayden, in an exclusive interview, said he's been in the shoes of the State Department staff who had to deal with the aftermath of the Benghazi terrorist attacks. Knowing what they were going through, he tells Newsmax that he doesn't want to accuse anyone of wrongdoing in how they handled the situation while it was ongoing – or immediately afterward.

But he is curious about why so few options were available in the first place and why the State Department and the White House weeks later were sticking with the narrative of a demonstration over a video.

"I’ve been in these kinds of circumstances where if you’ve got a worldview, if you’ve got a narrative that you believe in, you try to make the facts presented to you fit the narrative," Hayden said. "I fear there may have been some people in our government who kind of fell into that trap in the days after Benghazi, which is understandable and, frankly, forgivable, and then in the weeks after Benghazi, which is not understandable and is not forgivable."

"Anyone like me who saw those events would quickly conclude it was a terrorist attack," Hayden said. "It was fairly complex, synchronized, direct and indirect fire weapons on multiple locations, and it took place in a part of Libya that was the heartland of the Libyan Islamic fighting group."

"I mean, the immediate explanation that this was a bad movie review, that just beggared comprehension," he said.

By Frosty Wooldridge
May 4, 2013
NewsWithViews.com

Senate Bill 744, Comprehensive Immigration Reform, promises the most prolific invasion of America since Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. But with one deadly difference: those storms subsided so we could repair the damage.

If S744 passes, we face endless immigration numbers to the tune of a minimum of 33 million immigrants within the first decade. Passing that bill means an increase of legal immigration from its current 1 million annually to 1.5 million annually. All totaled with immigrants, their offspring, chain migration and diversity visas, a mind numbing 100 million immigrants will land on America within 37 years—by 2050. (Source: www.NumbersUSA.org; US Population Projections by Fogel/Martin; PEW Research Center)

Even more sobering, we face a total population growth via “population momentum” of 138 million people to grow from 316 million in 2013 to 438 million people by 2050.

Their horrific impact on our schools, medical systems, infrastructure, water, resources, energy and environment cannot be calculated, but will exceed anything anyone can imagine. The impact of 100 million immigrants can and will degrade our quality of life and standard of living beyond anyone’s understanding. Their impact upon our environment cannot be measured, but it will be catastrophic for all Americans.

"Unlimited population growth cannot be sustained; you cannot sustain growth in the rates of consumption of resources. No species can overrun the carrying capacity of a finite land mass. This Law cannot be repealed and is not negotiable.” Dr. Albert Bartlett, www.albartlett.org, University of Colorado, USA.

Dennis Lynch created one of the most powerful films on illegal immigration. (six minutes) The number of Asian/Chinese coming across the border is rarely mentioned. But if you stop and consider the implications you will likely come to the same conclusion as many of us. An unsecured southern border presents a clear and present danger to all of us and this specific threat has little to do with cheap labor.

(Illegals migrate from the interior of Mexico, but come from as far south as Brazil.)

These immigrants bring incompatible cultures, religions and political clout. They displace American citizens, utilize welfare, housing and food stamps. They overwhelm villages, towns and cities...

Today, California pays over $10 billion in services annually for its estimated 3 to 4 million illegal aliens and its countless legal immigrants.

Published May 04, 2013
FoxNews.com

A Washington group is criticizing the Senate immigration bill because it allows for up to $150 million for organizations to advertise citizenship opportunities and to help illegal immigrants sign up to become citizens.

The nonpartisan Center for Immigration Services calls the money “slush funds” and earlier this week cited several concerns -- particularly that the money can go to the same groups that helped craft the legislation and that the spending appears to have no cap or oversight.

“It’s virtually a blank check,” Jon Feere, a Center for Immigration Services legal policy analyst, told FoxNews.com. “And the groups that helped draft this bill can now give themselves taxpayer dollars.”

The money is divided into two parts. The first is $100 million in grants to public and private nonprofit groups for programs that help people apply for provisional immigrant status, which includes assistance with completing applications and gathering proof of identification.

The other part in $50 million for additional assistance that includes legal help and public-awareness campaigns that tell illegal immigrants about the “eligibility and benefits of registered immigration status.”

The 844-page bill calls for the grant programs to run through 2018 and be administered by the secretary of Homeland Security through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

englishnews@chosun.com / Apr. 24, 2013 12:30 KST

In a further lurch to the far right, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told lawmakers on Tuesday that he does not believe Japan's occupation of other Asian countries during World War II can be considered "invasions."

Abe claimed there are no set international or academic definitions of the word. "It depends on the point of view of individual countries," he said, referring to a statement in 1995 by then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, which apologized to all Asian victims of Japanese aggression and from which rightwingers are scrambling to distance themselves.

Japan occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945 and invaded China and several Southeast Asian nations during an aggressive expansion to create what was billed as the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."

Experts here slammed Abe's remarks. Ko Sang-tu at Yonsei University said, "That is simply absurd. It's like saying Hitler's invasion of Poland wasn't really an invasion. If a German chancellor had said the same thing, he or she would have had to resign."

Abe told lawmakers on Monday that he does not feel bound by the Murayama statement. The global press was alarmed, with the New York Times saying he sought to whitewash his country's World War II atrocities, while the Economist warned that the right-leaning Japanese Cabinet is a bad sign for the region.

Abe said Japan's pacifist constitution was put together by what he called "occupying forces," referring to the victorious U.S. at the end of the war.

The constitution, which stipulates the country's desire for peace and pledges a policy of non-aggression, effectively "entrusted the lives and safety of the public to the goodwill of other countries," he claimed.

This suggests he is throwing his weight behind moves from the far right to revise the constitution so the Japanese military can launch pre-emptive strikes abroad.

Japanese lawmakers pay homage at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Tuesday. /Reuters-Newsis

On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and other Japanese politicians visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which houses the remains of Japan's war dead including convicted war criminals. On Tuesday, 168 members of the Diet followed suit, the biggest number of lawmakers since 1989.

The Japanese media were critical of the stunt. The Asahi Shimbun urged cabinet members to exercise "restraint" in speech as well as action, while the Mainichi Shimbun warned Japan's "national interests are at risk" if such strain is put on cooperation with China and South Korea in trying to rein in North Korea.

by Chris Cassidy
Boston Globe
Monday, April 29, 2013

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.

“The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning,” said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.

The state has handed over more than 500 documents to the 11-member House Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which today met for the first time and plans to call in officials from the Department of Transitional Assistance to testify.

“I can assure members of the public that this committee will actively review every single piece of information we can find because clearly the public has a substantial right to know what benefits, if any, this family or individuals accused of some horrific crimes were receiving,” said state Rep. David Linsky (D-Natick), the committee’s chairman.

Linsky’s committee has requested documents from the DTA, the state’s Medicaid director and Health and Human Services Secretary John Polanowicz. But so far the committee has not released the records publicly, citing a privilege the DTA is asserting under state law.

Transitional assistance officials also told the Herald tonight that the agency was conducting its own investigation into whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s family ever notified the DTA about his extended trip to Russia, and has since expanded its probe to include a full history of the benefits received by the entire Tsarnaev family.

by Neil Munro [White House Correspondent]
TheDailyCaller.com
April 26, 2013

The pending Senate immigration bill would bring a minimum of 33 million people into the country during its first decade of operation, according to an analysis by NumbersUSA, a group that wants to slow the current immigration rate.

By 2024, the inflow would include an estimated 9.2 million illegal immigrants, plus 2.5 million illegals who arrived as children — dubbed ‘Dreamers’ — plus roughly 3.4 million company-sponsored employees with university degrees, said the unreleased analysis.

The majority of the inflow, or roughly 17 million people, would consist of family members of illegals, recent immigrants and of company-sponsored workers, according to the NumbersUSA analysis provided to The Daily Caller.

The estimate is likely the first of several that will be produced by advocates as the Senate grapples with the immigration bill developed by the “Gang of Eight” senators.

The 844-page bill was released last week, and was scheduled for debate and amendment in the Senate’e judiciary committee starting April 25. However, the amendment process was held up for a week by Republican Senators, who said they need more time to study the complex bill.

Advocates for the bill have yet to release any estimates of the future inflow.

“Nobody has a number that is based on the bill right now that’s accurate,” Lynn Tramonte, deputy director of the pro-immigration America’s Voice Education Fund, told the Christian Science Monitor in an April 25 article. “It’ll take a bit more [analysis] to get a specific number about how things will change.”

A high inflow could prove to be a political problem for the bill’s advocates.

An April 20-22 Fox News poll of 1,009 registered voters showed that 55 percent of respondents want a reduction in the current number of legal immigrants.

Currently, the country accepts 1 million immigrants and 700,000 temporary company-sponsored workers each year. The bill would boost that to roughly 3 million immigrants and 1 million company-sponsored workers per year.

Forty-five percent of non-whites, 53 percent of independents and 62 percent of people without college degrees, favor a reduction in legal immigrants. Only 18 percent of Republicans and 29 percent of independents favor an increase in legal immigration, the Fox poll reported.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/26/anti-immigration-group-immigration-bill-to-bring-in-at-least-33-million-people/#ixzz2Rlm55m1X

by Todd Brendan Fahey

I listen to music. Whilst traveling, writing, surfing the Web...aside from time asleep or in the shower or teaching, I'm listening to music. And came to me, after returning from somewhere recently, a desire to hear Pat Metheny's gorgeous instrumental album Watercolors. And it was after I was possessed with an overwhelming need, was impressed upon me that it was not necessarily this particular album that I needed to listen to: but the entire ethos and structure that defines Watercolors.

And then hit me just as deeply, the question of why others don't possess this same need.  To hear other than 4/4 time and recycled formulae which (to quote chef Anthony Bourdain) any reasonably-trained bonobo monkey could master in two to three weeks time.

I queued up the album on my computer's MP3 player, and found myself performing keyword searches for all music of related genre: (in no particular order) Romantic Warrior, Return to Forever; anything at all by guitarist Al DiMeola, who was for a brief time part of Return to Forever; DiMeola's spiritual compadres Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin; John McLaughlin's monster ensemble, the Mahavishnu Orchestra; French electric violinist Jean-Luc Ponty; Frank Zappa's aggressive three jazz-period LPs (of which Jean-Luc Ponty was a part); the ambidextrous and, many will say, terroristic drum work of Billy Cobham and his Glass Menagerie (as Cobham was part of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra years earlier); and into Miles' In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew period (on which McLaughlin played guitar); and of the Dixie Dregs, whose guitarist Steve Morse is possibly the only man to ever hold a candle to Al DiMeola; oops, check that, then into Steve Howe's work with Yes, of a five album stretch (The Yes Album; Fragile; Close to the Edge; Tales of Topographic Oceans, and Relayer) that is, to my ear, unequalled in all of "rock"; and then comparing Yes's keyboard genius Rick Wakeman with that of Genesis' equally-deft (and, to me, more beautiful) maestro Tony Banks..., and then Banks to Kit Watkins of Happy The Man, which ate it, utterly, at the Box Office and were forced to disband for over 20 years, depriving me and those of my cast of mind something akin to essential vitamins and nutrients...

After suffering through 1980s New Wave and now the atrocity that is "hip hop," I'm wondering if there might be some kind of neurological explanation as to those persons who naturally gravitate to the music laid out above.

Even when listening to my favorite all-time vocalist, Van Morrison, I root out stuff like "Summertime in England" (from his criminally-neglected 1980 masterpiece, Common One) or the heart-rending "Linden Arden Stole the Highlights" (from his equally-neglected Veedon Fleece). And I scoff at those who say: "OOooooo, 'Brown-Eyed Girl'; I love that song."

Meandering through reviewers at Amazon.com, I find that there are a thousands of folk with ears like mine. I guess that should be good enough.

But, somehow--given that many of the musicians I adored and whose works I still reach for have long given up trying to "make it" in "the business"--it's not.  ("Cold comfort for change" - Roger Waters)

April 19, 2013

Dear Readers,

Over the past four months, "traffic" to my family of sites has soared to upwards of 400,000 "hits"/monthly.  Tailored toward news and opinions which reflect "small government," decentralized Jeffersonian values and self-sufficiency, SiaNews.com / FriendsOfLiberty.com / LibertyThink.com are also critical of US government surveillance of its own citizens and provide solutions to the Federal Reserve's monopoly on "money."

We also keep a hard eye on North Korea and China's support of this monster regime.

Should your products, business or self-interest, present and future, match this sensible criteria, please consider placing a top- or sidebar banner advertisement on these sites.

All best wishes,

Todd Brendan Fahey
owner/publisher: SiaNews.com, FriendsOfLiberty.com, LibertyThink.com
author: Wisdom's Maw: The Acid Novel (http://www.fargonebooks.com/wisdomsmaw)

Contact: editor@sianews.com (or: @ToddFahey at Twitter)

by Gary North
April 18, 2013

Kim Dotcom really is his name these days. He had it legally changed.

The federal government shut down his enormously profitable file-sharing business in 2011. It won’t shut down his latest version of file-sharing.

His new company, Mega, offers 100% encryption. His company can’t crack it. The U.S. government can’t crack it — not at a price it can afford, anyway.

So people can post movies, songs, or anything else on his site. You get 50 megabytes of free storage to start out.

His lawyers can now say this: “Our company will cooperate with the governments of the world. But, sorry, we have no idea what people are putting into their accounts.”

The federal government opened a gigantic can of worms when it did Hollywood’s bidding and shut him down. It made him mad. He decided to get revenge.

The federal government can track some kinds of digits. It cannot track all of them.

As people seek privacy, hackers like Dotcom will sell it to a few major players, and give it away for free to everyone else.

The days of easy tracking of data are coming to an end. People who don’t really care to defend their privacy will remain vulnerable to government intrusion. Those who decide they will no longer remain sitting ducks will not have to.

There is a new generation of haves and have-nots coming into existence: those who have privacy and those who do not.

James Hall – April 17, 2013

Money is supposed to be a store of value. After the recent collapse in the dollar convertible price of Bitcoins, the inevitable scrutiny in the viability of the monetary system is warranted.

The official description of Bitcoin states: Bitcoin is an experimental, decentralized digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority managing transactions and issuing money carried out collectively by the network. Purported myths and ground rules on how the alternative currency operates, provides calculated reading. Whether this accounting system can or would be accepted as a credible medium of exchange on any large scale is certainly an open question. 

The need for an alternative currency to fiat debt created tender is apparent. However, establishing faith and acceptance in a competing and digital method of payment for transactions is almost inconceivable to the average consumer.

The Business Insider in Bitcoin Is Changing The World provides an analysis and a risk warning report.

"Bitcoin’s inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, is a mysterious hacker (or a group of hackers) who created it in 2009 and disappeared from the internet some time in 2010.

Reddit, a social-media site, and WordPress, which provides web hosting and software for bloggers. The appeal for merchants is strong. Firms such as BitPay offer spot-price conversion into dollars. Fees are typically far less than those charged by credit-card companies or banks, particularly for orders from abroad. And Bitcoin transactions cannot be reversed, so frauds cannot leave retailers out of pocket.

Yet for Bitcoins to go mainstream much has to happen, says Fred Ehrsam, the co-developer of Coinbase, a Californian Bitcoin exchange and "wallet service", where users can store their digital fortune. Several Bitcoin exchanges have suffered thefts and crashes over the past two years.

But the real threat is competition. Bitcoin-boosters like to point out that, unlike fiat money, new Bitcoins cannot be created at whim. That is true, but a new digital currency can be. Alternatives are already in development. Litecoin, a Bitcoin clone, is one.

A less nerdy alternative is Ripple."

Wow . . . the innovative advantage for merchant acceptance might make one think that Amazon will be jumping into the cauldron and become the big daddy digital vender. Nonetheless, the spike and fall that has the appearance of a Bitcoin bubble will certainly give pause to any large retailer that is flirting with accepting payment through an exchange.

The implication in the article, Why Bitcoin crashed, and how Ripple might avoid the same fate, sets out the risks involved.

"That single point of failure is the most popular Bitcoin currency exchange, Mt Gox. There are other exchanges, but the bulk of Bitcoin trading happens there. Mt Gox claims to have been hit over the last couple weeks’ mania by the twin ills of denial-of-service attacks and sudden, excessive popularity, both of which amount to the same thing: Mt Gox’s systems falling over. The operation (which is based in Japan) has also shut down its own service at least once in an attempt to "cool down" the market.

And every time that has happened, a panic sell-off has been the result. That’s not surprising: Mt Gox’s status as the best-known exchange has led it to become the main data source for most of the Bitcoin rate visualizations out there, so when Mt.Gox goes down it affects visibility for a lot of people. And when people can’t see what’s going on, they panic, find another exchange and sell, sell, sell. Same goes for the biggest exchange unilaterally deciding to cool down the market – hardly a sign of viability."

If the Bitcoin crash was simply a function of clearing house settlement failure, the claim that Bitcoins retain the properties of money evaporates. Blaming the breakdown on an exchange, illustrates that Bitcoins have more in common with the properties of a stock or commodity, than a hard currency.

The video, Bitcoin Mania! DDoS Attacks & Phishing Scams, reports on the speculative nature of a virtual currency that operates in the etherzone of the cyber world.

The Fierce Markets site announces Jeff Berwick’s effort, Here come the Bitcoin ATMs.

"Somewhat like a traditional ATM, says Berwick. Instead of connecting to your bank account, the software he and his team have developed is installed on an ATM and converts cash to Bitcoins stored in a Bitcoin wallet or extracts cash based on what's stored in your personal Bitcoin account."

Bitcoin convertibility back into a legal tender paper currency might go a long way to establish a workable alternative to using the bankster banking system. However, this digital currency is only as solid as the confidence level of users to store wealth in a medium that promises the return of capital or its equivalent value.

For now, Bitcoins has all the trappings of a speculative scheme to harvest profits, explained in the article, Bitcoin Miners Are Racking Up $150,000 A Day In Power Consumption Alone.

"Bitcoins are "mined" by unlocking blocks of data that "produce a particular pattern when the Bitcoin ‘hash’ algorithm is applied to the data."

Blockchain.info, which tracks Bitcoin-related data, estimates that miners are generating $470,000 in Bitcoin-related revenue per day. In fact, due to the recent interest in the virtual currency and its popularity, operating margins for Bitcoin miners are close to record highs."

Such practices do not conform to the properties required to qualify as money. It would seem to describe Bitcoins as an alternative accounting organism to the central banking system. In that regard and goal, the merits of instituting a functioning and reliable digital currency, should be encouraged. Nevertheless, the lack of market stability in Bitcoin value convertibility dooms this experiment in the absence of manipulative swings in currency quotations.

The destructive consequences of floating currency rates have plagued consumers and savers alike for decades. The desired objective is a decentralized monetary system, digital or coinage that has a fixed convertibility and stable purchasing value.

WASHINGTON — While much of the debate over immigration has focused on the fate of the estimated 11 million people in the U.S. without legal authorization, one of the biggest immediate impacts of the reform bill being prepared in the Senate would be a sudden, large surge in legal migration.

The U.S. admits about 1 million legal immigrants per year, more than any other country. That number could jump by more than 50% over the next decade under the terms of the immigration reform bill that a bipartisan group of senators expects to unveil as early as Tuesday. The impact would be felt nationwide, but areas that already have large immigrant communities would probably see much of the increase.

The immigration package includes at least four major provisions that would increase the number of legal immigrants, according to people familiar with it. Some of the parts could generate as much controversy as the provisions dealing with those who enter the country illegally or overstay their visas, according to those with long experience of the politics of immigration...

Published April 11, 2013
FoxNews.com

The Internal Revenue Service believes it doesn’t need permission to root through emails, texts or other forms of electronic correspondence, according to recently released internal agency documents.

The documents, which were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union, reveal that tax department agents have been operating under the assumption that they can bypass warrants. The ACLU claims this would in turn violate the Fourth Amendment. 

According to a 2009 IRS employee handbook, though, the tax agency said the Fourth Amendment does not protect emails because Internet users don’t “have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.”

A lawyer for the agency reiterated the policy in 2010. And the current online version of the IRS manual says that no warrant is required for emails that are stored by an Internet storage provider for more than 180 days.

"This is an affront not only to our system of checks and balances, but also to our fundamental right to privacy," Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall said in a statement Thursday, adding that he wants Congress to overhaul the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News
April 6, 2013

Psilocybin is a hallucinogenic chemical in magic mushrooms

'Absurd' laws dealing with magic mushrooms, ecstasy and cannabis are hindering medical research, according to a former government drugs adviser.

Prof David Nutt says he has funding to research the use of the chemical psilocybin - found in fungi known as "magic mushrooms" to treat depression.

But he says "insane" regulations mean he cannot get hold of the drug.

The Home Office said there was "no evidence" that regulations were a barrier to research.

It is not the first time Prof Nutt has been at odds with government policy.

He was sacked as an adviser over views that ecstasy and LSD were less harmful than alcohol.

Psilocybin is illegal in the UK and is a Class A drug.

Earlier research at Imperial College London showed that injections of psilocybin could calm a region of the brain which is overactive in depression.

The group is now trying to conduct a clinical trial to test psilocybin as a treatment.

Stumbling block

The UK's Medical Research Council has given the lab a £550,000 grant to test the idea - in 30 patients who have not responded to at least two other therapies. They have also been given ethical approval.

However, there are more stringent regulations for testing the drug as a treatment than in earlier experiments. As a potential medicine it must meet Good Manufacturing Practice requirements set out by the EU.

"It hasn't started yet because the big problem is getting hold of the drug," said Prof Nutt. He said finding a company to provide a clinical-grade psilocybin had "yet proved impossible" as none was prepared to "go through the regulatory hoops"...

by SARTRE
April 6, 2013

“Still, three Security Council resolutions - in 2006, 2009 and 2013 - critical of North Korea's nuclear program and tightening sanctions on Pyongyang - had the blessings of China, a permanent member with veto powers.

 

But the harshest of possible sanctions - a naval blockade, an oil embargo or a cutoff of economic aid from China - have escaped Security Council resolutions, at least so far.

 

The 15-member Council met in an emergency session Tuesday and issued a predictable statement condemning the test as "a grave violation" of its three resolutions and describing North Korea as a country which is "a clear threat to international peace and security".”

“In this tense game of diplomatic-military poker, South Korea is not even the North's principal adversary. Kim Jong-il is now blithely defying all the major regional actors - the US, China, Russia and Japan - while actively exploiting differences between them. It makes little difference whether his aim is recognition and security guarantees; economic and financial assistance; or the succession of his son. Kim is playing off the great powers against each other, to see what he can get out of them. The result is virtual diplomatic meltdown.

 

Just look at what has happened since last month's bombardment of Yeonpyeong island. China, the North's only influential ally, has come under strong US pressure to pull its supposed client into line. China's perceived failure to do so is straining relations with Washington. James Steinberg, the US deputy secretary of state, visited Beijing today carrying the message: China must do more, fast.”

“The Chinese military, and to a lesser extent the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party, assert strong influence on China's Korea policy, and both powerful entities prefer to keep North Korea close at hand, Chinese and American analysts say. 

 

While the People's Liberation Army is not even able to conduct military exercises with the North Koreans - the government in the North forbids such contact with outsiders - Chinese military strategists adhere to the doctrine that they cannot afford to abandon their ally, no matter how bad its behavior, analysts here say. 

 

At the same time, the Chinese Communist Party looks upon the North Korean Communist Party - led by Kim Jong-un, the grandson of the nation's founder - as a fraternal brotherhood. Indeed, relations between the two countries are conducted largely between the two parties rather than between the two foreign ministries, the more normal diplomatic channel. 

 

In an early sign that Mr. Xi is unlikely to veer from past policy, the state-run news agency, Xinhua, criticized the United States and its allies for essentially forcing the North's aggression by causing the country to feel insecure.”

"North Korea's continuous provocations defying China's demands, warnings and brazen neglect of China's key strategic and security interests certainly drive many in China, both in the public and among elites, to 'soul-searching' on its North Korea policy," said Wang Dong, director, School of International Studies, Center for Northeast Asian Strategic Studies, Peking University, Beijing.

 

China will join the international community in tightening sanctions against the regime, "but it will also carefully ensure the sanctions do not 'threaten' another key goal of China, which is peace and stability on the Korean peninsula," Wang said.”

englishnews@chosun.com / Apr. 05, 2013 12:33 KST

International hacker group Anonymous on Thursday broke into Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean website that spreads propaganda from North Korea's official KCNA news agency.

The hacker collective released the personal information of the website's 9,001 subscribers, including their ID and password, name, date of birth and other details.

The South Korean National Intelligence Service said, "Many of the leaked details on the website match those of South Koreans."

Police are taking a keen interest. A National Police Agency spokesman said, "A considerable number of people who want to access information about North Korea are registered on Uriminzokkiri. If they have carried out any pro-North Korean activities such as spreading articles from the site or posting pro-North Korean comments, we will take actions since that violates the National Security Law."

The site, which is run by North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, is blocked in South Korea but can be accessed using proxy servers.

Anonymous in a statement on Tuesday urged North Korea to stop developing nuclear arms and threatening the world with nuclear weapons, and called for Kim Jong-un to step down. It also warned of a "cyber war."

Pyongyang did not react to the hacker attack, which also targeted other North Korean websites. A South Korean security official said, "Given the nature of North Korean system, where decision-making takes a long time, there's unlikely to be any official comment till the weekend."

But North Korea experts say the attack must have hurt. Besides the identity theft, the hackers also managed to keep a satirical image showing Kim Jong-un as a pig with a Mickey Mouse tattoo on the front page of the website all day.

North Korea also suffered cyber attacks from unknown sources on March 13 and 14. Access to websites with servers in North Korea including the Rodong Sinmun, North Korean Central News Agency and Naenara was disabled.