In a leaked letter sent to Spain’s outgoing President, the US ambassador to the country warned that as punishment for not passing a SOPA-style file-sharing site blocking law, Spain risked being put on a United States trade blacklist . Inclusion would have left Spain open to a range of “retaliatory options” but already the US was working with the incoming government to reach its goals.

United States government interference in Spain’s intellectual property laws had long been suspected, but it was revelations from Wikileaks that finally confirmed the depth of its involvement.

More than 100 leaked cables showed that the US had helped draft new Spanish copyright legislation and had heavily influenced the decisions of both the government and opposition.

Now, another diplomatic leak has revealed how the US voiced its anger towards outgoing President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero last month upon realizing that his government was unlikely to pass the US-drafted Sinde (site blocking) Law before leaving office. (Read more)

SOPA, Piracy, Censorship and the End of the Internet? Stephen Kinsella on Freedomain Radio

WTF is SOPA ? aka The American Government trying to ruin the internet

SOPA Versus Free Speech

Koopia pole vargus — remixed (jazz)

Not many consumers realize that the FDA does not require genetically modifiedfood to be labeled.

That’s because the FDA has decided that you, dear consumer, don’t care if the tomato you’re eating has been cross bred with frog genes to render the tomato more resistant to cold weather.

Some consumers may not be concerned with eating Frankenfood, but for those who are, here’s how to determine if the fruits and vegetables you’re buying are (GM) genetically modified.

Hat tip to Marion Owen for her valuable information. Here’s how it works:

For conventionally grown fruit, (grown with chemicals inputs), the PLU codeon the sticker consists of four numbers. Organically grown fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 9.

Genetically engineered (GM) fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 8.

For example:

A conventionally grown banana would be: 4011

An organic banana would be: 94011

A genetically engineered (GE or GMO) banana would be: 84011

These tips are specially important now that over 80% of all processed foods in the US are genetically modified.

Many countries in the European Union have beenbanning GM products and produce (including Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Luxembourg).

We say “Eat healthy, buy or grow organic”. (Read more)

Wow!

1) Starting tonight, Ron Paul will begin winning caucuses. This will be followed by either an assassination, or, in the long term, prosperity. Remember, they killed Bobby Kennedy after he began winning primaries. The chances of this are probably small. I do think there are powerful people and institution who would consider it.

If Ron Paul is assassinated, it’ll be followed by isolated instances of violence against federal institutions. These will be used to discredit anything libertarian. Government will declare new powers for itself, and the gigantic anti-terrorism apparatus will turn its full attention to Americans. An assassination would also be followed by large scale tax protests which would cripple the state. They will resort to printing money and slander tax protesters as domestic terrorists.

If, on the other hand, Ron Paul wins the primary, he will defeat Obama. Democrats will defect en masse to support him. The media mud slingers will realize their impotence. The markets will celebrate, perhaps with the exception of large commercial banks. They will threaten to blow-up the economy as revenge upon a public that elected Ron Paul. We will call their bluff.

2) At least one country will leave the Euro Zone. The EU will remain intact, but calls to end it will grow louder and more insistent. The turmoil in Europe will continue to create the illusion of economic stability in the U.S. and capital will flow away from the headlines, but once things have stabilized there, expect the much bigger and much more destructive problems of the U.S. to resume their unfolding. The prices of precious metals will resume their climb. Let’s hope Ron Paul is in power so the crisis isn’t used to lead us further down the road to serfdom.

3) SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, a thinly veiled attempt to censor the internet will fail. However, it’s proponents will very quickly put another piece of legislation on the table. They will not stop until it is passed.

4) A massive troop reduction will occur in Afghanistan. It will be done for political reasons. The media will spend weeks praising Obama.

5) A galvanizing incident will be provoked or staged in Iran. There will be an outbreak of hostility, but the United States, despite the propaganda from neo-con politicians and the media will not fully commit to a war.

See also, predictions for:
2011
2010
2009
2008

The pair was crossing a street at a widely-recognized intersection when they were fatally blindsided by a vehicle traveling at a speed well in excess of the posted speed limit. Despite the fact that darkness had descended, the driver hadn’t turned on his headlights. The victims were killed instantly.

Within minutes, police swarmed the scene, and arrests were made — none of which involved the driver, Deputy John Swearengin of the Kern County Sheriff’s Office. The four people arrested were relatives of the victims, who got into what the Sheriff’s Office described as an “altercation” with California Highway Patrol officers when they attempted to identify the victims.

“I was at home on Friday night working on my car when someone came running over and told me that a deputy ran over my daughter in the street,” recalls Jimmy Clevenger, Jolley’s father. “I ran down here, I was very upset…. The next thing I know, they had me by the neck and threw me to the ground and said I resisted arrest. My daughter was dead in the street and it was their fault.”

The outraged relatives were taken to jail, and face criminal charges. Swearengin, the killer, was taken to the hospital and wasn’t compelled to undergo drug or alcohol screening (Read more)

Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

“We don’t use [drones] on every call out,” said Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks. “If we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don’t call them.”

The drones belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which operates eight Predators on the country’s northern and southwestern borders to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate. (Read more)

The U.S. military has some of the most advanced killing equipment in the world that allows it to invade almost wherever it likes at will.

We produce so much military equipment that inventories of military robots, M-16 assault rifles, helicopters, armored vehicles, and grenade launchers eventually start to pile up and it turns out a lot of these weapons are going straight to American police forces to be used against US citizens.

Benjamin Carlson at The Daily reports on a little known endeavor called the “1033 Program” that gave more than $500 million of military gear to U.S. police forces in 2011 alone. (Read more)

Main stream writer “discovers” what libertarians have been saying all along:

The public is in a foul mood over increasing college costs and student debt burdens. Talk of a “higher education bubble” is common on the contrarian right, while the Occupy Wall Street crowd is calling for a strike in which in which ex-students refuse to pay off their loans.

This week, President Barack Obama held a summit with a dozen higher-education leaders “to discuss rising college costs and strategies to reduce these costs while improving quality.” The administration plans to introduce some policy proposals in the run-up to the presidential campaign.

Any serious policy reform has to start by considering a heretical idea: Federal subsidies intended to make college more affordable may have encouraged rapidly rising tuitions.

It’s not as crazy as it might sound.

As veteran education-policy consultant Arthur M. Hauptman notes in a recent essay: “There is a strong correlation over time between student and parent loan availability and rapidly rising tuitions. Common sense suggests that growing availability of student loans at reasonable rates has made it easier for many institutions to raise their prices, just as the mortgage interest deduction contributes to higher housing prices.” (Read more)

Perhaps the illustrious author encountered Peter Schiff’s videos, one of which I posted and summarized here.

Two exchange students accepted a Chinese peace prize Friday on behalf of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was honored for enhancing Russia’s status and crushing anti-government forces in Chechnya, the prize organizers said. (Read more)

Ha!

The 13 Senators that voted Nay on this year’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with 86 voting Yea:
Cardin (D-MD)
Coburn (R-OK)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Durbin (D-IL)
Franken (D-MN)
Harkin (D-IA)
Lee (R-UT)
Merkley (D-OR)
Paul (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Sanders (I-VT)
Wyden (D-OR)

One was apparently too busy to vote: Moran (R-KS)

The lengthy list of the Senators who passed this bill:
YEAs —86
Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT)
Begich (D-AK)
Bennet (D-CO)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Brown (R-MA)
Burr (R-NC)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Coons (D-DE)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hagan (D-NC)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (D-SD)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kirk (R-IL)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lugar (R-IN)
Manchin (D-WV)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ) Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Portman (R-OH)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Rubio (R-FL)
Schumer (D-NY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Shelby (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Thune (R-SD)
Toomey (R-PA)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Vitter (R-LA)
Warner (D-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wicker (R-MS)

(Read more)

At the first camp we found, the North Korean guards threatened us and tried to throw us out. Billy the Fish laughed—a great gold-toothed guffaw—and then smiled. “This is Russia,” he growled, eyes glinting. Motioning to the vast expanses around him, he declared, “This is mine.” Then to our camera crew, “Keep shooting. They can do nothing.” So we did.

Later, when we were deep in the forest, we came upon cadres of North Korean workers. A group of them approached and quickly surrounded our truck. One of them was swinging an iron bar, looking like he was going to bash our imperialist brains in. Billy took it from him, looked at it, and remarked calmly, “This your lights-out switch?” Sniff. “You’re going to need more than that.” He smiled and chucked it into the forest. (Read more)

Tenzin Phuntsog – a Buddhist monk in his forties from the Monastery of Karma – set himself on fire this week as an act of self- immolation. He is the twelfth Buddhist monk to attempt self- immolation this year, an observance that the Chinese Communist government describes an act of terrorism. Tenzin Phuntsog survived his voluntary religious ceremonial act of setting his body on fire, now he is identified by the Chinese government as a terrorist. Self- immolation is an expression of prayer in self- sacrifice intended to spread the message that the ideals of Buddhism are being brutally suppressed by the government of China. (Read more)