Education

Schools ban 53 percent more books in 2013.

Politics

Even Walter Williams advocates secession.

Only 9 percent of Ohio bills, 59, became law.  Only 60 became federal law, but 40,000 new state laws were passed.

Obama pollster tells his buddies in the media not to report on Obama's terrible poll numbers in 2014, and most will oblige.

Regulation

Supposedly complete list of things banned by Nanny Bloomberg.

Regulations are driving fast food companies overseas.

"Unfortunately, it's easier for our franchisees to open a restaurant in Siberia than in California."

Yep.

Economy

US stocks set for best year since the dot.com bubble. You know things are bad when printing crazy trillions of dollars doesn't inflate the stock market more than the dot.com bubble.

Health Care

Monsanto infiltrates 4-H to brainwash children about GM crops.

Record number of Americans on disability.

Global Warming and Energy

This story of the propaganda ship trapped in Antarctica gets more surreal by the hour.

"Passengers and crew aboard a Russian ship trapped for eight days in ice off Antarctica planned to ring in the New Year with dinner, drinks and song as they waited for a break in a blizzard to allow a Chinese helicopter to rescue them. But they can't party too hard because the rescue could come at any minute."

These people don't seem to care if they're rescued or not. Is the rescue a publicity stunt too?

""The camaraderie has been great but it is all a bit of a shame for it to end this way. We know a lot of other people are working incredibly hard to get us out of here.""

It's like they have no grasp of the burden and danger they put on others.

"While it has been impossible to break the pack ice outside, the ice has been broken on board with birthday celebrations, singing and art classes. There is enough fresh food on board for two weeks.

"We are all keeping busy, with twice daily briefings outlining all the information we have to hand, alongside classes through the day (knot tying, languages, yoga, photography and many others) while the science program has continued as best we can," Turney said on a blog for the expedition. — Reuters" 

This is bizarre. You would think they would be conserving food, fuel and their personal energy. It's interesting these supposed green activists have no concept of conservation.

Climate frauds deny reality.

"Climate sceptics like to criticise climate models for getting things wrong, and we are the first to admit they are not perfect,” said Sherwood. “But what we are finding is that the mistakes are being made by the models which predict less warming, not those that predict more."

That's too funny.

The graph really does illustrate the fraud.

I don't put any significance on more record lows than highs being set in the US this year.

Police State

UK to implement warrantless detention around US military and spy bases. Guess where it will come next.

Apple denies helping NSA hack its products. I'm skeptical.

Obama on track to become one of America's most merciless presidents for issuing so few pardons after only George Washington among those who ruled two terms.

Local

Dayton's rulers are trying to get $11 million in stolen money from the state for arts projects.

Tax and Spend

Yakuza raking in taxpayer dough for hiring homeless people to help clean up Fukushima.

War on Drugs

Fatal OVI crashes fall in Ohio in 2013, probably because the state cracked down on cigarette smoking in bars.

Economy

The stocks of the big car companies are down significantly, a possible canary in the stock market.

"Could it be related to the gloomy news that the number of new mortgage applications has just hit a 13 year low? That the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries is a barely break-even-with-inflation 3 percent? That there are almost1.5 million fewer Americans employed full-time today than there were in 2006, even as the population has increased by 16 million since then?"

Or it could be that people have less money.

Christmas retail sales were down.

Global Warming and Energy

Final rescue attempt of ship trapped in sea ice off Antarctica called off. Partiers will be evacuated by helicopter.

"People are realizing that there’s no real science being done on this trip, and that it seems to be little more than a chartered party boat for Antarctic enthusiasts and media."

That's good to know, but these people are still in danger. This isn't something to celebrate. We can laugh at them after they've been rescued. This rescue attempt will be dangerous too since the rescue helicopter will have to land on sea ice.

Misc

Wounded Warriors Project exposed as a looting enterprise.

"According to Veterans Today, “As far as I can determine, WWP does little, if any, direct support of wounded warriors and wounded warrior programs.” It turns out that “compensation for the top ten WWP employees runs from $150K to $333K per officer annually.”"

Despicable.

Health Care

No sympathy for health care companies that worked with Obama to screw over Americans and who are now getting screwed over by Obama for it, the way Obama always planned.

Second in command Obamacare bureaucrat retires, the second to do so.

Pregnant nurse in Baltimore fired for refusing flu vaccine.

More robot surgery injuries.

With the cholesterol myth becoming more widely known and statins under attack, the establishment purports to link cholesterol with Alzheimer's. Even if this is true, statins are not the solution. Lifestyle changes are the solution.

War

Over 80 percent of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan that Obama wants to extend.

Former drone pilot says our rulers lie about the effectiveness of the program and its impact on drone controllers.

Stolen Nazi art discovered in German Parliament.

Police State

US law enforcement deaths drop to 54 year low.

Indian diplomat in US accused of human trafficking.

Airports using robots to identify travelers.

Former cop receives only two year sentence for repeated, illegal anal rape of suspect.

"The Journal Sentinel documented at least a dozen similar instances of Vagnini performing invasive, illegal searches on black men. According to his reports, some of the victims were indeed carrying drugs, though they contend that the officer lied about the details and even planted drugs inside their bodies."

Standard operating procedure.

How NSA remotely hacks iPhones and WiFi.

Regulation

Thirteen states including Ohio raise minimum wage.

Local

Happily, the FCC doesn't pick the Dayton-Springfield region for drone development. We're not going to be guinea pigs for our greedy rulers.

Our rulers are excited about the potential for upcoming crony projects. I'm not.

Originally Huber Heights contracted the company that runs Riverbend to run its music venue boondoggle, but this article says its still looking for a manager.

"Three of the companies the city is considering to manage the 4,500-seat covered music center are: Music and Event Managemen Inc. in Cincinnati; VenuWorks, based in Iowa; and SMG, whose corporate headquarters are in suburban Philadelphia. A fourth company has requested to remain confidential, Falkowski said.
MEMI manages the PNC Pavilion in Cincinnati — the venue Huber Heights is modeling its music center after. Huber Heights has had two consulting agreements with MEMI totaling $25,000."

That's the company they had reportedly hired.

"According to a Conventions, Sports & Leisure study, the city projects to collect a $400,000 profit annually — following management, maintenance, advertising and utility costs — after two full seasons of events."

This is a fantasy. The Fraze barely turns a profit, if it really does. And we know Huber Height's aqua-center looses money.

Springfield cops chase a man into a crash for the second time in four days, but fortunately they didn't kill this guy.

Federal Reserve

I don't understand all the attention given to bitcoins. It's funny to think that computer games can generate assets, but that's been going on for a while. At least since Second Life started. But why anybody values the time a computer spends running an arbitrary algorithm - not even a game - I don't know.

Police State

Graphic breaks down US prison system.

Global Warming and Energy

While it is ironic that this global warming fraud propaganda cruise to Antarctica got trapped in sea ice in summer, it isn't funny. They must be in real danger for three different ice breakers to have tried to rescue them. I hope they are rescued.

War on Drugs

Pot smokers may have had a good year, but I'm unimpressed with this tinkering around the edges. The government is still using coercion to control what Americans put in their bodies.

War

US intelligence review basically says the US has lost the war in Afghanistan.

Israel and Lebanon attacking each other again.

With terrible poll numbers and facing big losses in November, "in an unprecedented move", Obama to declassify secret conversations between George Bush, Tony Blair and Gorden Brown about invading Iraq. This takes political cynicism to a new level.

Foreign Policy

Internal NSA catalog reveals NSA has inserted back doors into all kinds of computer equipment.

"Specialists at the intelligence organization succeeded years ago in penetrating the company's digital firewalls. A document viewed by SPIEGEL resembling a product catalog reveals that an NSA division called ANT has burrowed its way into nearly all the security architecture made by the major players in the industry -- including American global market leader Cisco and its Chinese competitor Huawei, but also producers of mass-market goods, such as US computer-maker Dell."
"Another program attacks the firmware in hard drives manufactured by Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung, all of which, with the exception of latter, are American companies. Here, too, it appears the US intelligence agency is compromising the technology and products of American companies. "

NSA is killing US tech companies. More info:

"A German magazine lifted the lid on the operations of the National Security Agency's hacking unit on Sunday, reporting that American spies intercept computer deliveries, exploit hardware vulnerabilities, and even hijack Microsoft's internal reporting system to spy on their targets."

NSA is the eyes and ears of the monster.

Diplomats abuse their workers. Imagine that.

Turns out the supposed corruption in Turkey is people buying oil from Iran and paying with gold. The US can't allow that.

Local

Huber Heights rulers used their music venue boondoggle as an excuse to travel to concerts on the taxpayer's dimes.

Homicides were up 27 percent in Montgomery County.

Health Care

Government has made Americans sicker than ever, and life expectancy is declining in certain locales, a prelude to a general decline. Around 100 years ago government licensed doctors, Crisco appeared and government allowed pharmaceutical patents. That was the cause of the decline.

Apparently a million people signed up for Obamacare this year. If I remember correctly, the government needed 7 million to sign up to make it worthwhile. Of course the vast majority of people were signing up for Medicaid, which doesn't help offset the new expenditures at all. This sounds like the disaster it was designed to be.

"The fledgling exchanges are still likely to fall short of the government's own targets for 2013. That's a cause for concern, because Obama needs millions of mostly younger, healthy Americans to sign up to keep costs low for everyone. The administration had projected more than 3.3 million overall would be enrolled through federal and state exchanges by the end of the year."

Oops.

Get ready for a wave of taxpayer-funded Obamacare propaganda.

Misc

Wal Thornhill destroys new theory about quantum entanglement and wormholes, part 1.

Iowa State AIDs researcher admits falsifying findings.

Police State

Eight years after Hurricane Katrina, judge dismisses libel cases against the feds, specifically the Army Corp of Engineers.

"U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. has dismissed the cases. The move comes more than a year after a federal appeals court overturned his ruling that held the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers liable for flooding caused by lax maintenance of a shipping channel."
"More than 500,000 residents, businesses and governments filed claims against the Corps. People in southern Louisiana have long taken for granted that the flooding in the wake of the 2005 storm was a man-made disaster — one caused specifically by the corps — and they have wanted the agency to pay up for lost homes and property."

No justice for these people.

Politics

The Pope is naive to trust politicians, bureaucrats and coercion to benefit the people over economic freedom.

Regulation

Peter Schiff exposes liberal hypocrisy regarding the minimum wage by asking Walmart customers if they want to pay 15 percent higher prices at Walmart in order to raise wages to $15 per hour. They don't.

Global Warming and Energy

2013 has fewest tornadoes on record. Also fewest forest fires since 1984. Few hurricanes too. The extreme weather claim of the frauds is destroyed.

Residents without power for six days frustrated. I bet they are.

Health Care

China rejects two more shipments of American GM corn.

Calcium, not cholesterol, linked to heart attacks.

Breast cancer on rise in men.

War

Female marines don't have to do pull-ups.

Tax and Spend

Moguls administer trusts in South Dakota to avoid taxes.

Thanks to its government's bankruptcy, Detroit's resurgence continues.

Even if you believe that government policies are well-intentioned, they still invariably harm the people they are supposed to help.

"sociologist Charles Murray chronicles, most recently in his bestseller Coming Apart, how the federal government’s war on poverty paradoxically hurts the poor. He explains that though welfare benefits are well intentioned, what they in effect do is pay people to stay poor, hurting the very people they intend to help. These misaligned incentives are a leading reason why $15 trillion in welfare spending over the past 50 years has perversely resulted in a 50-year-high poverty rate of 15.1 percent. "

If government policies were well-intentioned, they would be abolished when the damage they do became obvious. But they never get abolished. This proves government policies are not well-intentioned.

The Pentagon refuses to comply with a congressional order for an audit.

War

US to start drone strikes again in Iraq.

Local

Dayton metro adds 1,200 jobs in November after losing jobs in October, but the state lost 12,000 jobs.

Police chase man to death. I like how the article places the blame other way around.

"The man who led police on a deadly high-speed pursuit early Saturday morning was driving a stolen vehicle and had several outstanding warrants for his arrest, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said."

The man "led police" on a chase. That's like saying a hare led dogs on a chase. If the police hadn't chased this driver, he would still be alive.

Economy

Microsoft has been the monster under the bed, the giant that crushed all independent ideas, that hindered computer growth for three decades, so I'm skeptical that computer makers are going to revolt, but I sure hope they do. Please. The reason this might be happening now is patents are expiring.

Media

Political correctness destroyed by redneck obscenity as A&E renews Duck Dynasty.

Regulation

China bans Battlefield 4.

A couple months ago, people who didn't work at Sea-Tac airport voted to force a minimum wage of $15 on employers at Sea-Tac airport. I made fun of the lack of jurisdictionality. Now a judge has, surprisingly, agreed with me and probably ended is career.

War

Military sexual assault reports jumped by 50 percent in 2013.

Police State

A second judge has ruled ubiquitous NSA spying legal, setting up a potential, future Supreme Court case.

In big cities around the country, blacks have been attacking whites in what's called the "knockout game." For some reason a white guy decided to do the same to a black person. Unlike all the others, he's been charged with a hate crime.

Misc

DIY Windows computer more expensive that comparable new Mac Pro. I bet this is quickly challenged.

Economy

As casino hiring rises, other entertainment jobs decline. The Dayton Daily News seems surprised to discover that people have finite sources. People budget for for entertainment, and casinos are taking a portion of that budget from other activities. Closing internet cafes also killed jobs.

Health Care

There's no such thing as a safe vaccine.

Swine flu is back in Ohio.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a health advisory warning U.S. residents about the reemergence of the so-called “swine flu” virus that wreaked havoc in Ohio during a worldwide pandemic in 2009 and 2010."

I must have missed the havoc. The CDC isn't doing a very good job of control and prevention of swine flu.

Police State

Houston police have a thousand security cameras downtown, but they don't bother to figure out if they reduce crime. That means they don't redyce crime. If they did, the police would be shouting it from the highest mountain.

NSA critics claim the amount of data NSA grabs makes it ineffective. Instead of searching for needles, it wastes resources building bigger haystacks, making the search for needles harder. NSA insiders say the same thing.

Tax and Spend

Yields on ten year Treasury bonds hits 3 percent. The Fed will have to buy more of them to keep the yield down.

Congress's program that pays people to not work ends Saturday. This is a good thing, but both parties in Congress will probably extend them. Jobless benefits is quite the Orwellian name.

War

US arming Iraqis with hellfire missiles as the war in Iraq escalates again.

Local

Montgomery County water and sewer rates to rise each of the next three years.

Crash knocks out power.

Global Warming and Energy

Paper uncovers link between the electrical effects of the sun and climate via cloud cover.

Federal Reserve

Just like Alan Greenspan raced out of Dodge to avoid being blamed for the damage he caused and Ben Bernanke printed way more money than Greenspan to temporarily cover up that damage, Ben Bernanke is racing out of dodge to avoid being blamed for the greater damage he caused, and Janet Yellen is likely to print way more money than Bernanke in an attempt to cover up that damage, but it won't work.

The Target hack supplies another reason to get your money out of banks.

Health Care

More walking linked to longer life.

Obamacare has been in a death spiral since it was passed. It was designed to fail, and it's doing exactly what it was designed to do. The problem is it wasn't supposed to fail immediately. It was supposed to take some time so Obama and his minions could escape the consequences. Don't count Obamacare out too soon.

"Some of those who oppose the law, 15 percent of all respondents, continue to do so because they think it is not liberal enough. That means half of the public either supports the law or thinks it is not liberal enough."

Exactly. This is what Democrats are counting on. Obama and Democrats will steal heaven and earth to keep it afloat long enough to save themselves and blame the supposedly free market.

Foreign Policy

After decades of US aggression at home and abroad has dragged our county into decline, Arab monarchies move towards China.

Here's a link to Snowden's Christmas interview. Let's see if NSA scrubs it.

CIA people claim they're the good guys while they're breaking in your house and spying on you.

"Working overseas for some bosses who would kill their own mothers to get promoted has made most of them quite cynical about how CIA operates and how policy is shaped, but they nevertheless regard their time in harness as a dirty job that someone had to do and they take pride in that fact."

Police are the same way.

Media

Peter Griffen nails this one.

More evidence the DD guy was set up.

War

VA hospitals refuse to deliver Christmas cards to wounded veterans.

Sports

Bill Belichick links extra injuries to NFL curtailment of off-season workouts.

Economy

Sweden climbed out of depression by dramatically reducing the size and scope of its government.

"Since 1992, Sweden has, across the board, seen consistent government cutbacks while increasing restrictions on welfare policies, deregulating markets, and privatizing former government monopolies. The country has instituted an overall new incentive structure in society making it more favorable to work. The national debt tumbled from almost 80 percent of GDP in 1995 to only 35 percent in 2010. "

Too bad Americans aren't that smart.

Mobile internet traffic doubled this year.

Knowing full well the economy is going to collapse, the ultra-rich are installing moats around their houses.

Politics

Massive corruption uncovered in Turkish government.

Police State

It wasn't long ago that the Muslim Brotherhood won a democratic election in Egypt. Then the US-backed military staged a coup and ousted that leader. Now the current regime has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. This shows the real motives behind the war on terror is oppressing political opposition so the current regimes everywhere can stay in power.

Fusion centers are dangerous to Americans.

"In 2012, a Senate investigation found that fusion centers cost taxpayers billions of dollars, but disrupted no actual terrorist plots. The investigation said the intelligence gathering was “oftentimes shoddy” and “more often than not unrelated to terrorism” while “sometimes endangering citizens’ civil liberties.”"

That's a government report, and the government puts a pro-government bias into everything.

Radio program suffers bizarre technical meltdown while interviewing lawyer to beat NSA. I wonder who did that.

Global Warming and Energy

Tens of thousands still without power on Christmas Day.

This article tells us how government gets away with oppressing us so outrageously.

"According to a new survey, only 40% of Americans are aware that incandescent bulbs are being phased out. However, the federal regulations are about to impact the most popular bulbs of all — 40W and 60W lamps. As of Jan. 1, 2014, the bulbs will no longer be produced. A significant portion of those who are aware of the phase out have been hoarding the bulbs in anticipation of the ban."

Thanks to the media.

Regulation

This Google versus Rockstar conflict highlights the waste of resources caused by patents.

Education

The higher education bubble increases salaries at Ohio State.

Local

Water main break.

Blue Jacket cheese from King family farm in Ohio growing. I expect to hear the government attack it soon.

Police State

Lawyer who won injunction against NSA warns Americans to ignore the NSA review panel report.

""It's a ruse," Klayman tells U.S. News. "This is an age-old government practice: When caught with their hand in the cookie jar, they come up with a 'solution.'" The practice is somewhat similar to advocating a law outlawing murder after killing someone, he says."

The former Reagan prosecutor knows what he's talking about. He's also having more email problems.

"When he checked his email using a smartphone Sunday, he says, "I was getting old emails on Yahoo going back six years – they were popping up six years out of date. [It was] very strange." Klayman made similar claims during a Nov. 18 hearing in Leon's courtroom, saying text messages were sent from his phone without his knowledge."

I wonder who might be doing that.

Tax and Spend

Italy passes internet ad tax called the Google tax. Article shows how corporations, and ultra-rich plutocrats, can avoid taxes while the rest of us who don't have the wealth to do so cannot.

War on Drugs

Woman subject to corrupt drug dog response stripped, cavity searched, X-rayed, CT-scanned, forced to defecate while being observed, and then charged a $5,000 fee for not complying after the fact, sues. This is becoming commonplace.

Foreign Policy

Putin criticizes the leftist transformation of America.

"Peoples all over the world, claims Putin, are supporting Russia’s “defense of traditional values” against a “so-called tolerance” that is “genderless and infertile.”"

That's a good one.

"As the decisive struggle in the second half of the 20th century was vertical, East vs. West, the 21st century struggle may be horizontal, with conservatives and traditionalists in every country arrayed against the militant secularism of a multicultural and transnational elite."

The latter has always been the real problem; it's just that the elite are very good at distracting the people from it.

"He is seeking to redefine the “Us vs. Them” world conflict of the future as one in which conservatives, traditionalists and nationalists of all continents and countries stand up against the cultural and ideological imperialism of what he sees as a decadent west."

"Without naming any country, Putin attacked “attempts to enforce more progressive development models” on other nations, which have led to “decline, barbarity and big blood,” a straight shot at the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Egypt."

As usual, Putin is way ahead of US rulers. 

Foreign companies and government are requiring their tech companies to store data outside the US.

Global Warming and Energy

The Guardian prints fraudulent article about "dark money" funding climate skeptics, then quietly changes the article to make it vague.

The US power grid is a disaster waiting to happen.

Mises wiki on monopoly.

Why public utility monopolies fail.

"To prevent "burdensome competition" among utilities in a given area, governments have often granted legal local monopolies to specific water, electricity, and natural gas companies — or provided the services themselves."

Burdensome competition. That's funny.

Federal Reserve

China is printing money too, ostensibly to overcome a phony, Keynesian liquidity crisis.

War

North Korea is saber-rattling again. That leader is a loon, and American troops are stuck in the middle.

Navy develops underwater drone that can travel for five years. You knew this was coming. They won't stop at collecting information any more than the Air Force did. These are going to be armed with warheads. China and Russia will do the same. The day of the aircraft carrier might be over.

Economy

Durable goods sales up in November. I wonder if this is real or if inflation has filtered down the capital structure.

Misc

NASA astronauts successfully replace cooling pump.

Defending Ebenezer Scrooge and misers.

Comet to pass extremely close to Mars on October 19, 2014. Hopefully this will set off some serious interplanetary electrical fireworks that will make the electric nature of comets, planets and the universe too obvious for scientists to ignore any more.

Scientists cannot explain the moon. Most support the theory the moon's surface was blasted by electricity.

Turing had also been castrated.

Local

Government's higher education bubble is funding a new arena and renovations at Miami.

Local officials list their top crony capitalist projects to receive stolen tax dollars from the state.

Dayton government receives more stolen money from the state to demolish houses. This is quite the scam.

I think this is the fourth RTA bus crash in the last month or two. Two separate RTA crashes injure six in December. One injured four. RTA bus hit building in November. It was the FedEx building. Other crashes occurred in January, August, January again, March, March again. At least nine in one year.

Health Care

FDA allows toxic meat additive banned in 160 other countries.

McDonald's website tells employees not to eat fast food or fried food. The website is currently down for maintenance.

Regulation

Ohio's minimum wage to go up by a dime.

Immigration

Obama's policies lead to surge in child illegal immigrants.

Foreign Policy

Claim that Kim Jung-un executed his uncle for trying to control the coal trade.

"Jang Song-thaek, the once-powerful uncle and political regent to young leader Kim Jong-un, was executed on December 12 on charges that included plotting a coup and corruption."

Sounds a little more complicated than just the coal trade.

War

I doubt US marines en route to South Sudan will be limited to evacuations only. More than likely, US troops are already involved in this war.

Federal Reserve

On 100 year anniversary of the Fed, a reminder of why it was created.

"It was considered standard-operating procedure for Whig representatives to receive monetary compensation for their support of the [2nd Bank of the US] when leaving Congress. The Whig Daniel Webster even expected annual payments while in Congress. Once he complained to the Bank of the United States President Nicholas Biddle, “I believe my retainer has not been renewed or refreshed as usual. If it be wished that my relation to the Bank should be continued, it may be well to send me my usual retainer.” "

At least they were honest.

Critics on the anniversary: End the Fed.

Global Warming and Energy

Press release claims sun doesn't impact climate.

"From the University of Edinburgh , another one-paper syndrome in the making funded by an NGO with a political mission to grab a headline. And, another poorly written press release where they don’t even cite the name of paper."

The fraud care about politics and headlines, not science.

Mann's lawsuit against Stein thrown out by appellate court.

Price of electricity in US hits all-time high.

Regulation

Cars are designed to take major damage from minor collisions.

Police State

I love this argument for increasing NSA spying.

"Morell also said that while he agreed with the report's conclusion that the telephone data program, conducted under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, made "only a modest contribution to the nation's security" so far, it should be continued under the new safeguards recommended by the panel. "I would argue that what effectiveness we have seen to date is totally irrelevant to how effective it might be in the future," he said. "This program, 215, has the ability to stop the next 9/11 and if you added emails in there it would make it even more effective. Had it been in place in 2000 and 2001, I think that probably 9/11 would not have happened."'"

The government had plenty of info to stop the first 9/11, and it didn't do it.

Contrary to what NSA claims, it can easily match your name to your metadata.

"One of the key tenets of the argument that the National Security Agency and some lawmakers have constructed to justify the agency's collection of phone metadata is that the information it's collecting, such as phone numbers and length of call, can't be tied to the callers' names. However, some quick investigation by some researchers at Stanford University who have been collecting information voluntarily from Android users found that they could correlate numbers to names with very little effort. The Stanford researchers recently started a program called Metaphone that gathers data from volunteers with Android phones. They collect data such as recent phone calls and text messages and social network information. The goal of the project, which is the work of the Stanford Security Lab, is to draw some lines connecting metadata and surveillance. As part of the project, the researchers decided to select a random set of 5,000 numbers from their data and see whether they could connect any of them to subscriber names using just freely available Web tools. The result: They found names for 27 percent of the numbers using just Google, Yelp, Facebook and Google Places. Using some other online tools, they connected 91 of 100 numbers with names."

NSA isn't limited to those tools.

Company denies weakening its encryption for NSA.

Analysis of judge's ruling that wholesale NSA spying is unconstitutional.

Despite recently commuting the sentences of eight crack cocaine criminals, Obama's clemency record is terrible.

Police medic reminds us whom the police protect and whom they harm.

Alan Turing posthumously pardoned for gay sex.

Citizens of medium-sized city in northern California criticize police for obtaining a tank.

Health Care

More healthy praise for apples.

Criticism for claims that supplements are worthless.

Obama signing up for Obamacare is as phony as everything else about him.

Led by women, support for Obamacare drops 5 percent in a month.

Global Warming and Energy

Storm cuts power to 95,000 in northeast.

Differences in datasets.

War

CIA helped Columbian government kill FARC rebels. Here's another civil war the US is fighting via proxy.

Federal Reserve

Bernanke is trying to save his reputation with this minor reduction of QE, pretending he hasn't painted the Fed and our whole economy into a corner.

"But more important than the taper “surprise” was the unusually dovish language in which the Fed decided to wrap its seemingly bitter pill. Today’s statement goes significantly farther than any prior communications in assuring that interest policy, its main monetary tool, will remain far more accommodative, for far longer, than anyone previously predicted. In fact, they have now committed themselves to keep rates at zero until “well after” the unemployment rate has fallen below 6.5%. On this score the Fed is not simply moving the goalposts, they are running away with them."

More evidence our rulers intend to loot every last dime from us until we're back to the stone age.

"With such amorphous language in place the FOMC appears to be hoping that it will never have to face a day of reckoning in which they will be forced to actually raise rates. On that score they are similar to the legislators on Capitol Hill who want to pretend that America will never have to pay down its debt."

It's going to be ugly.

"As the amount of bonds on their books surpass the $4 trillion threshold, market watchers need to dispel illusions that the Fed has any intention to actually shrink its balance sheet, or even stop its growth. Already fears of such moves have pushed up yields on 10-year Treasuries to multi-year highs. Any actual tightening could push them significantly higher."

They can't let that happen.

Foreign Policy

Speculation that the execution of North Korean leader's uncle happened because the uncle was plotting a coup backed by China.

The people are fed up with US adventurism.

Israel claims outrage that the US and Britain spy on its rulers. Give me a break.

War on Drugs

US to wage war on Mexican drug kingpins as terrorists.

Politics

More on government's cover-up of the Saudi connection to 9/11.

"As a Hoover Institution media scholar wrote in the New York Post (normally no bastion of deep investigative inquiry):

The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials — not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by the kingdom — helped the hijackers both financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war.

Congressmen “absolutely shocked”"

I doubt they're shocked.

It's not hard to figure out Obama is evil, not stupid.

Health Care

You can't trust establishment medical articles.

Contrary to the establishment's lies, second-hand smoke, called passive smoking, doesn't hurt anybody.

"So why does the medical establishment pretend otherwise? Sullum quotes a doctor who comments on the latest study's findings. The doctor observes primly:

"The strongest reason to avoid passive cigarette smoke is to change societal behavior: to not live in a society where smoking is a norm."

Aha. Now we're closer to the mark. What the doctor is showing here are the classic symptoms of "freedom of choice is far too dangerous for the little people" syndrome."

Politics, not health.

Endurance athletes go paleo.

Police State

US intelligence agencies aren't the only ones which lie to courts to break the law. Canadians do too.

Greedily seeking a copyright that could not be granted, FBI agent releases secret interrogation manual to public through Library of Congress.

Rulers come to defense of NSA spying on Americans after a report claimed it was out of control and useless.

Misc

When Microsoft stops supporting Windows XP, malware will explode on it.

Local

More DUI checkpoints that weren't announced in advance.

Shortages of drugs indicate that prices are being artificially held below market price.

Local

Kettering claims the Fraze turned a profit for the fourth straight year.

Foreign Policy

Japanese government steps up defense plan because of Chinese aggression.

Global Warming and Energy

Plutocrat Elon Musk became a billionaire off the great global warming scam, and now he's defrauding California taxpayers with its battery swap.

Debunking new claim of more rapid sea level rise by the end of the century.

Police State

Director of National Intelligence releases more NSA bulk collection information to justify the program.

Obama tries to shut down NSA cases by claiming they harm security.

Reporter with Snowden connection has had his apartment quietly broken into.

Federal Reserve

Despite the taper, the Fed continues to print like crazy.

"In a capitalist economy, relative prices play a crucial role in sending information to producers about what society wants. When one price goes up and another goes down, these are signals that tell producers to make more of the first good and less of the second. It is a complex system of signals with price changes reflecting the urgency of the needs within the reality of the law of scarcity. The most important aspect of a price system is the information it conveys to guide production.
Inflation causes an “information extraction” problem. When all prices are going up by different degrees, it is very difficult for an entrepreneur to distinguish between a relative and an absolute price change. Is a rising price a reflection of greater demand or inflationary pressure? That is, does it reflect a society’s changing needs or simply reflects a changed measuring stick (i.e., the value of money)?"

Imagine you were building a building, and every day, your measuring stick changed.

"Looking at historical evidence, inflation leads to higher, not lower, unemployment. This should not be surprising. Inflation is like a wrench thrown into the workings of a capitalist system. "

There goes the justification for printing money.

"Napoleon and Hitler, both responsible for millions of deaths, rode to power on a wave of discontent that followed periods of excessive monetary printing. Why are we taking such risks?"

Strong men.

Chase puts limits on debit cards after Target fraud.

War

US troops wounded when a US plane is fired upon in South Sudan.

Misc

Protesters in San Francisco and Oakland stopped Google and Apple buses because the techies make too much money, and they don't want people who make a lot money living in their neighborhoods. Another economic fallacy.

Health Care

One in five American deaths associated with obesity promoted by government's unnatural food recommendations.

Wall Street Journal says Obama has repealed Obamacare. Don't I wish.

I'm not the only one angry that unethical scientists are trying to make bird flu more deadly. Unethical researchers are desperate for a disastrous disease so they can get more funding.

Media

US legalizes use of propaganda on Americans.

Global Warming and Energy

The humorous, clearly phony but problematic Russian hotspot should have been dealt with when it first, suddenly, presented itself.

Foreign Policy

Mossad trained Nelson Mandela.

Liberty

Canadian Supreme Court strikes down all prostitution laws. This is more evidence Canada is routinely more free than the US.

Misc

80 percent of scientific data is lost in two decades. That's bad.

Government science is not reproducible.

Freedom of Speech

Bittorrent attempts to create secure chat service. I don't know if will be as secure as they hope, but I love the idea.

Tax and Spend

Article describes why a scientifically useless photo NASA is the most important in government space program history. It's propaganda.

S&P drops EU credit rating.

Police State

Another report that one government's corporate tech companies weakened encryption so the NSA could break it.

Microsoft Security Essentials misses 39 percent of malware, probably all of which is produced by NSA.

NSA's metadata collection program has stopped zero attacks. Government said this, not me. This won't stop for the same reason the great global warming fraud won't stop. Money. The participants get rich off the stolen money.

The government wants to seize control of internet security, and DHS wants to turn it over to unpaid college interns. I have no words.

For those who didn't know, police are tracking your car via license plate cameras.

Federal Reserve

Earlier this year I predicted the Fed would have to reduce money printing based on inflation. The Fed just announced it would reduce money printing.

Mainstream Forbes says the Fed has failed at everything it has tried to do for 100 years, and it's right. The mainstream is turning on the Fed. Sooner rather than later, it's going to be abolished.

China wants gold, not dollars.

Economy

Ohio loses 12,000 jobs and probably more college graduates.

The government wants us to believe that the economy grew at 4.1 percent in Q3. That's inflation, not growth. Grab onto your wallets. This inflation is why the Fed is tapering.

Politics

Obama's biggest supporter Boehner thinks shuffling his staff will dissipate the anger he has earned.

Ohio lobbyist pleads guilty to corruption for doing what every plutocrat does with every politician. This is business as usual. This guy messed up in some other way we'll never know about.

Local

City government is doing another plutocrat neighborhood upgrade, this time around Children's Hospital, called the DaVinci Project.

State government gives city government more stolen money to destroy wealth. Are you kidding me?

Tree trimmer cuts power to 2,500.

Cityfolk goes from bad to worse, disbanding completely. City government is responsible for this.

Economy

Home sales down nationally and jobless claims rise.

Immigration

Border agents help smuggle illegal immigrants into the US.

Tax and Spend

45 percent of Ohio companies which receive state tax dollars fail to meet their promises. I'm surprised it's that low. This destroys the justification for giving stolen money to companies.

Despite making $1 billion, Facebook will pay no taxes. If everybody had the same deal, this country would be soaring to the future.

Global Warming and Energy

Bizarrely warm temperature readings in Russia allow frauds to claim November 2013 was the hottest November on record, but the satellites show this is false.

"Dr. John Christy gives these values for the satellite data sources of global temperature and their ranks:

• UAH Nov 2013 9th warmest Nov (0.20 C cooler than warmest Nov.)
• RSS Nov 2013 16th warmest Nov (0.22 C cooler than warmest Nov.)

And, when we look at the UAH map of the world, while Russia was certainly warmer, it wasn’t as warm as NCDC makes it to be"

The frauds are wrong again.

Greek economic problems prove people only care about the environment when they're standard of living is high. This is why economic freedom is the key to a clean environment.

The oceans aren't warming either.

Politics

72 percent of Americans have come to realize Big Government is the biggest problem America faces. Funny how the politicians they vote for see it so differently.

Health Care

Obama again lawlessly changes Obamacare to allow people to buy catastrophic health care coverage.

Half of super-market chicken breasts contaminated with super-bugs.

71 percent of Americans oppose Obamacare.

"“Folks, there’s 71 percent of voters opposing Obamacare,” he said, during his most recent broadcast. “That’s 71 percent of a universe of people that the Republican Party could forge a relationship with — a political voting relationship,” he said, Breitbart reported.
“And they haven’t, outside of three or four Republicans, made one effort to do it, which leads to an obvious conclusion: Maybe the Republicans don’t really dislike Obamacare that much.”"

I've been saying that since the moment it passed.

Scientists researching reversing death.

War

US General in charge of nuclear missiles fired for drinking and womanizing.

Police State

Microsoft has its own digital crime unit police force to fight cyber-crime. There's nothing creepy about this.

Maybe they can solve this cryptolocker scam.

Report claims NSA is manipulating bank accounts.

Foreign Policy

US spying costs Boeing military jet deal with Brazil.

Putin jealous of Obama because of NSA.

Local

Home prices fell for the second consecutive month.

Politics

Treason is so limiting, that treasonous government employees have no fear.

Energy

Government gives another plutocratic tax break to Tesla.

Health Care

Cell phone use correlates with lower grades and anxiety. I'd add bad parenting, but the study didn't address that.

Tax and Spend

Big government Senate Republicans did what Republicans always do, just like Boehner's House Republicans did, which is raise taxes and increase spending. Let's hope those thieves of both parties all burn in hell. More.

Media

The politically correct Nazis remove patriarch from Duck Dynasty. I appreciate that money was more important to him and his family than the evil that attacked him.

Foreign Policy

Sentiment for boycott against Israel grows. Academics endorse boycott.

Misc

Major Android botnet steals text messages and logs them into Chinese servers. Maybe Google will get serious about anti-malware software for Android.

Nearby star system shatters fantasies about our solar system and stellar systems in general.

Freedom of Speech

Beatles release previously unreleased recordings to extend copyright.

Police State

NSA weakens encryption standards so not only it, but every government and hacker, can break them.

FBI is seizing lots of bitcoins.

Not too long ago, the feds, assisted by locals, set up a road block and arbitrarily pulled over people in Texas, asking for DNA samples. Yesterday they did the same in Pennsylvania.

In typical government double-speak, some panel pretends it wants it both ways with NSA, "A board set up to review the NSA's vast surveillance programs has called for a wide-ranging overhaul of National Security Agency practices while preserving 'robust' intelligence capabilities." And I want NSA to deliver fresh ice cream that doesn't make my mouth cold. What a travesty.

Judge Napolitano reminds us how Orwellian the NSA is.

Politics

Eric Margolis on polarizing Nelson Mandela.

"In those days, the US and Britain branded Mandela and the ANC as “terrorists.”   White civilians were killed, restaurants and bars bombed. I joined a special South African unit up on the Limpopo River trying to protect isolated, elderly white farmers from  being murdered by gangs of ANC gunmen.
In fact, most of the ANC’s white victims were civilians.  Hundreds of blacks accused of collaboration with the government were “necklaced” (burned to death by having gasoline-filled tires put around their necks). It was your typically brutal, dirty revolutionary war, the kind I’d covered in Africa, Asia and Latin America"

Not much like Gandhi.

Misc

The Nazi economy was a Keynesian dream, but it starved the German people.

Walter Williams explains to the Pope that the free market is the best economic system.

More criticism of the Pope's economics.

Tax and Spend

NASA orders three urgent spacewalks to fix ISS cooling system, but it won't be finished for over a week.

Freedom of Speech

Swedish man fined $650,000 for uploading one pirated movie.

Local

I'm not impressed that this project started on a napkin because it steals $12 million from taxpayers. Start a project on a napkin and then raise the money for it voluntarily.

Student who tried to commit suicide sues school district for failing to address constant bullying. This will probably go nowhere, but I it's good to see government schools put on the defensive.

Global Warming and Energy

Claim that climate for the last several hundred years was determined almost completely by natural solar, AMO and PDO cycles.

Because of recent cooling, period without global warming extends to 17 years and three months.

"It is intriguing, and disturbing, that WattsUpWithThat is just about the only place where you will be allowed to see this or any graph showing the spectacularly zero trend line through 207 continuous months of data.
CO2 concentration continues to climb. Global temperature doesn’t. Absence of correlation necessarily implies absence of causation. Game over, logically speaking."

Too bad logic isn't the driving force behind the global warming frauds. Stolen money is.

"Maybe natural influences are still strong enough to pull in the other direction and cancel the predicted warming. Maybe the models got the forcing wrong, or the feedbacks wrong, or the climate-sensitivity parameter wrong, or the amplification equation wrong, or the non-radiative transports wrong."

Or all the above wrong.

Global warming conference sponsored by big oil companies.

The ethics of geo-engineering.

Federal Reserve

The fed turns 100 next week.

"One would think this anniversary would elicit some sort of public recognition of the Fed’s growth from a quasi-agent of the Treasury Department intended to provide an elastic currency, to a de facto independent institution that has taken complete control of the economy through its central monetary planning. But just like the Fed’s creation, its 100th anniversary may come and go with only a few passing mentions."

I bet it gets mentioned a lot at Mises.org and LewRockwell.com.

Foreign Policy

NSA claims it saved the country by detecting a Chinese malware plot to wipe out all the computers in the US. Exaggerate much?

Tech plutocrats pressure Obama over NSA spying that costs them business.

Police State

Red light camera use dropped in US for first time.

Feinstein signals she would consider cutting NSA phone surveillance. She must be tired of having her phone tapped.

Health Care

Journal removes GMO study because it shows bad results. More corruption of science.

Microsoft exec formerly in charge of Microsoft Office to oversee healthcare.gov website. Funny how they picked an executive from a company known for not embracing the internet and from a division that doesn't involve the internet. Cronyism is it's own motivation.

How government regulations made health care so expensive.

"Since the early 1900s, medical special interests have been lobbying politicians to reduce competition.  By the 1980s, the U.S. was restricting the supply of physicians, hospitals, insurance and pharmaceuticals, while subsidizing demand.  Since then, the U.S. has been trying to control high costs by moving toward something perhaps best described by the House Budget Committee: “In too many areas of the economy – especially energy, housing, finance, and health care – free enterprise has given way to government control in “partnership” with a few large or politically well-connected companies”  (Ryan 2012)."

True.

China spreads antibiotic resistance through waste water treatment plants. To solve this problem, start by razing the old hospitals that breed these bugs.

Right ot Keep and Bear Arms

479 sheriffs refuse to enforce some gun control laws. Don't count on it. Here's the list.

Media

Foxnews draws more viewers than CNN,CNNHN, and MSNBC combined.

Socialism

Of course GM won't voluntarily reimburse the US Treasury for $10 billion in bailout losses.

Misc

Possible source of Microsoft Windows XP horrifically slow update problem discovered, but Microsoft has failed to fix it twice.

Local

In another consequence of government's corruption of science, Dayton is short of salt because the government bought into the great global warming fraud.

"More than 14 inches of snow have already fallen in the Dayton area this winter season, which is 11 inches above normal.
More precipitation has meant more work for local road crews and higher demand for salt, brine and related products.
Fred Stovall, director of public works said the City of Dayton has used about double the amount of salt used by this time last year."

They haven't dropped one iota of salt on my street.

Health Care

The FDA goes after antibacterial soaps. Apparently that's the greatest to health in the US. I think the FDA should have to prove it benefits people.

The establishment attacks multi-vitamins and supplements again.

"Among those begging to differ are a vitamin industry group and one of the researchers whose studies prompted the editorial.
"While those in the ivory tower may say that people just need to eat their sardines and salads, in the real world there are nutrient gaps," says Duffy MacKay, of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, which represents supplement makers."

Exactly, but the establishment must protect Big Pharma's profits.

British drug company to stop paying doctors to promote and prescribe its drugs. Wow. So Britain has a direct kickback system. They must be going to adopt the indirect US system.

Superbugs created by decades of government misuse of antibiotics are breaking out of hospitals and into the community.

Global Warmingand Energy

Highest paid EPA employee busted for bilking taxpayers out of a million or so dollars.

"The EPA’s highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change deserves to go to prison for at least 30 months for lying to his bosses and saying he was a CIA spy working in Pakistan so he could avoid doing his real job, say federal prosecutors."

Typical.

Gore's prediction that the North Pole would be ice free by last Saturday is proven false.

Mexico opens up to foreign investment in oil production which will increase supply.

War

John Kerry frighteningly declared Kim Jong-un as bad as Saddam. I hope he doesn't mean the US is planning to invade North Korea.

After harder core jihadists oust top US proxy commander in Syria, US attempts to ally with the harder core jihadists. This is going to get Americans killed.

Police State

NSA does damage control on 60 minutes, but can't be believed or trusted.

Judge grants injunction against NSA phone collection program, doubting its constitutionality in a preliminary ruling, but nothing will change. It's funny how the article uses the words 'likely' and 'appears' because they know nothing will change too.

Exactly as predicted by the blackmail organization, NSA put attorney who filed the lawsuit under surveillance.

Internet security guru Bruce Schneier reportedly lost his job because of his criticism of NSA and its British counterpart. If you work for a corporation, you can't criticize the god of government.

Presumed innocent man, former chief of staff to a senator, forced to live with parents under house arrest, wear tracking ankle bracelet and denied internet access while awaiting trial on child porn charges. Whatever happened to bail?

Global Warming and Energy

Over half the US is covered in snow, the most in eleven years.

Federal Reserve

I doubt the Fed will reduce printing.

War

Redacted portion of 9/11 report detailed Saudi state support for the hijackers.

13,900 men were raped last year in the US military.

Regulation

Former Google lawyer to run US patent office. That's convenient for Google.

More light bulbs to be banned at the beginning of the year.

The government has no business being involved in marriages including polygamy.

Foreign Policy

US and Chinese warships nearly collide in South China Sea. This is like six year olds wrestling in the back yard. Apparently the Chinese had ordered the US ship to stop.

"According to the officials, the run-in began after a Chinese navy vessel sent a hailing warning and ordered the Cowpens to stop. The cruiser continued on its course and refused the order because it was operating in international waters.
Then a Chinese tank landing ship sailed in front of the Cowpens and stopped, forcing the Cowpens to abruptly change course in what the officials said was a dangerous maneuver.
According to the officials, the Cowpens was conducting a routine operation done to exercise its freedom of navigation near the Chinese carrier when the incident occurred about a week ago."

That sounds provocative.

More on the supposedly rogue CIA agent who disappeared in Iran.

"In the case of the Illicit Finance Group, the same pattern occurs: within the larger intelligence community, an obscure sub-agency with a mind of its own pursues its own agenda – with productive results for the War Party. A CIA investigation shows Jablonski and her colleagues did their best to cover up Levinson’s activities on their behalf. Jablonski was fired, along with several of her co-workers, and a good number of others were "disciplined.""

I wonder how much they were paid.

"And of course it’s just a coincidence that the issue of Levinson’s disappearance – and the fact that the CIA paid an agent to discredit Rafsanjani and other Iranian moderates – has been revealed just as sensitive negotiations between Washington and Tehran have reached a critical juncture."

The implication is they were working for Israel.

Tax and Spend

All three Republican House leaders voted to increase spending and raise taxes in the bipartisan budget agreement. They are what they vote for.

Economy

Google has purchased nine robotics companies in the last six months including one that makes research robots for the military.