Puppet MastersS


Handcuffs

FBI seizes 'Silk Road' black market domain, arrests owner

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© Reuters / Thomas Peter
Authorities have arrested a man in San Francisco, California accused of operating an underground website that allowed users to purchase guns and drugs from around the world using encrypted, digital currency.

Ross William Ulbricht, a 29-year-old graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Materials Science and Engineering known by the online alias "Dread Pirate Roberts," was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday for his alleged involvement in the Silk Road online marketplace, according to court papers published this week.

The Silk Road website was shut down following Ulbricht's arrest on Tuesday.

A sealed complaint dated September 27 was unearthed by security researcher Brian Krebs, in which Ulbricht is accused of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and more.

Complaint, courtesy of Brian Krebs


USA

If It Happened There ... the Government Shutdown

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This is the first installment of "If It Happened There," a regular feature in which American events are described using the tropes and tone normally employed by the American media to describe events in other countries.

Washington, United States - The typical signs of state failure aren't evident on the streets of this sleepy capital city. Beret-wearing colonels have not yet taken to the airwaves to declare martial law. Money-changers are not yet buying stacks of useless greenbacks on the street.

But the pleasant autumn weather disguises a government teetering on the brink. Because, at midnight Monday night, the government of this intensely proud and nationalistic people will shut down, a drastic sign of political dysfunction in this moribund republic.

The capital's rival clans find themselves at an impasse, unable to agree on a measure that will allow the American state to carry out its most basic functions. While the factions have come close to such a shutdown before, opponents of President Barack Obama's embattled regime now appear prepared to allow the government to be shuttered over opposition to a controversial plan intended to bring the nation's health care system in line with international standards.

Black Cat

Instant Karma? 143-year-old 'Antideficiency Act' law stirs fears among administration officials during shutdown

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Administration officials now live in fear of a 19th-century law that could get them fired, penalized or even imprisoned if they make the wrong choices while the government is shut down. The law is the Antideficiency Act, passed by Congress in 1870 (and amended several times), which prohibits the government from incurring any monetary obligation for which the Congress has not appropriated funds.

In shutting down the government, most memos cite the law as the reason. The Government Accountability Office says employees who violate the Antideficiency Act may be subject to disciplinary action, suspension and even "fines, imprisonment, or both."

CNBC has learned that in several executive branch departments, high-level staff members review individual decisions about what government activities to allow for fear of running afoul of the Antideficiency Act. One White House official said he has advised his employees not to check their email or cellphones. Under the act, even volunteering for government service is expressly prohibited.

In a memo to his department employees today, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew cited the law as the reason for reduced staffing.

"For the duration of this impasse, as required by the Antideficiency Act and directed by OMB, the Department will be required to operate with only the minimal staffing level necessary to execute only certain legally exempted activities," Lew wrote.

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: IPCC climate: A product of lies, damn lies and statistics built on inadequate data

If you torture the data enough, nature will always confess - Ronald Coase.
Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable. - Anonymous.
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Climatology is the study of average weather over time or in a region. It is very different than Climate Science, which is the study by specialists of individual components of the complex system that is weather. Each part is usually studied independent of the entire system and even how it interacts or influences the larger system. A supposed link between the parts is the use of statistics. Climatology has suffered from a pronounced form of the average versus the discrete problem from the early 1980s when computer modelers began to dominate the science. Climatology was doomed to failure from then on, only accelerated by its hijacking for a political agenda. I witnessed a good example early at a conference in Edmonton on Prairie Climate predictions and the implications for agriculture.

It was dominated by the keynote speaker, a climate modeler, Michael Schlesinger. His presentation compared five major global models and their results. He claimed that because they all showed warming they were valid. Of course they did because they were programmed to that general result. The problem is they varied enormously over vast regions. For example, one showed North America cooling another showed it warming. The audience was looking for information adequate for planning and became agitated, especially in the question period. It peaked when someone asked about the accuracy of his warmer and drier prediction for Alberta. The answer was 50%. The person replied that is useless, my Minister needs 95%. The shouting intensified.

Eye 1

Best of the Web: From NSA spying and VIPR sweeps to domestic drones: A round-up of the police state programs NOT affected by a Government shutdown

drones USA
© Salon
Like clockwork, we've ticked back to the annual government shutdown scare that invariably dominates news headlines and sends stocks seesawing for a few scant weeks until, at the very last moment, the nation is miraculously pulled from the brink of disaster. It's always an entertaining show, with both Republicans and Democrats doing their best to one-up each other with heartbreaking anecdotes about the millions who will suffer in the event of a government shutdown and showy bravado over the need for greater fiscal stewardship, while conveniently failing to rein in two of the biggest drains on our budget - namely, the military and surveillance industrial complexes.

Indeed, while a government shutdown will inevitably impact everything from Head Start, and key welfare services to national museums and IRS audits, the one area not impacted in the least will be the police/surveillance state and its various militarized agencies, spying programs and personnel. Incredibly, although more than 800,000 government workers could find themselves without paychecks or with reduced (or for members of the military, delayed) paychecks, President Obama and Congress will still get paid on time.

Take a look at the programs and policies that will not be affected by a government shutdown, and you'll get a clearer sense of the government's priorities - priorities which, as I point out in my new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, have little to do with serving taxpayers and everything to do with maintaining power and control, while being sold to the public under the guise of national security.

Bad Guys

U.S. Budget talks fail: government shuts down for 1st time in 17 years


The US federal government is partially shutting down after the Congress failed to fund its work amid a Republican drive to defund the Obamacare healthcare program. President Obama addressed to US troops to boost their confidence amid the crisis.

The Congress left the government without funding as competing spending measures bounced back and forth between the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-led Senate late into Monday night.

The partial shutdown will leave some essential government functions, including national security and public safety, intact. It's not clear how long the situation will continue, with lawmakers expected to take a further vote in a matter of hours.

If the shutdown persists, it will affect an estimated 800,000 of public workers, who will be forced into unpaid leave as the government would be unable to fund their employment. National parks and most federal offices are closed, as is almost all of NASA, except for Mission Control in Houston.

Dollars

Best of the Web: World Bank whistleblower Karen Hudes reveals how the Global Elite rule the world

KAren Hudes
© The Economic Collapse Blog
Karen Hudes is a graduate of Yale Law School and she worked in the legal department of the World Bank for more than 20 years. In fact, when she was fired for blowing the whistle on corruption inside the World Bank, she held the position of Senior Counsel.

She was in a unique position to see exactly how the global elite rule the world, and the information that she is now revealing to the public is absolutely stunning. According to Hudes, the elite use a very tight core of financial institutions and mega-corporations to dominate the planet. The goal is control.

They want all of us enslaved to debt, they want all of our governments enslaved to debt, and they want all of our politicians addicted to the huge financial contributions that they funnel into their campaigns.

Since the elite also own all of the big media companies, the mainstream media never lets us in on the secret that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that our system works.

Remember, this is not some "conspiracy theorist" that is saying these things. This is a Yale-educated attorney that worked inside the World Bank for more than two decades. The following summary of her credentials comes directly from her website...
Karen Hudes studied law at Yale Law School and economics at the University of Amsterdam. She worked in the US Export Import Bank of the US from 1980-1985 and in the Legal Department of the World Bank from 1986-2007. She established the Non Governmental Organization Committee of the International Law Section of the American Bar Association and the Committee on Multilateralism and the Accountability of International Organizations of the American Branch of the International Law Association.
Today, Hudes is trying very hard to expose the corrupt financial system that the global elite are using to control the wealth of the world.

Vader

Top 45 lies in Obama's speech at UN

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1. President Obama's opening lines at the U.N. on Tuesday looked down on people who would think to settle disputes with war. Obama was disingenuously avoiding the fact that earlier this month he sought to drop missiles into a country to "send a message" but was blocked by the U.S. Congress, the U.N., the nations of the world, and popular opposition - after which Obama arrived at diplomacy as a last resort.

2. "It took the awful carnage of two world wars to shift our thinking." Actually, it took one. The second resulted in a half-step backwards in "our thinking." The Kellogg-Briand Pact banned all war. The U.N. Charter re-legalized wars purporting to be either defensive or U.N.-authorized.

3. "[P]eople are being lifted out of poverty," Obama said, crediting actions by himself and others in response to the economic crash of five years ago. But downward global trends in poverty are steady and long pre-date Obama's entry into politics. And such a trend does not exist in the U.S.

4. "Together, we have also worked to end a decade of war," Obama said. In reality, Obama pushed Iraq hard to allow that occupation to continue, and was rejected just as Congress rejected his missiles-for-Syria proposal. Obama expanded the war on Afghanistan. Obama expanded, after essentially creating, drone wars. Obama has increased global U.S. troop presence, global U.S. weapons sales, and the size of the world's largest military. He's put "special" forces into many countries, waged a war on Libya, and pushed for an attack on Syria. How does all of this "end a decade of war"? And how did his predecessor get a decade in office anyway?

Bad Guys

Australia shows us all the way by sacking its useless, pointless Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery

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"G'day mate, would you like fries with that? G'day mate, would you like fries with that? G'day mate, would you like fries with that?"

Oh to be a fly on the wall at Tim Flannery's waterside property as he practises in the mirror for a job more suited to his talents. This time last week he was Australia's Climate Commissioner, on an A$180,000 a year salary which required him to work just three days a week. But incoming premier Tony Abbott's night of the green knives has put paid to that. Flannery's Mickey Mouse job has gone; so too has Australia's Climate Commission, a multi-million dollar, allegedly "independent", propaganda outlet set up by Julia Gillard to help give her climate alarmist policies - such as the hated carbon tax, which Abbott is also abolishing - a veneer of scientific credibility.

As Jo Nova notes, while it may be a good day for the Australian taxpayer, it is far too late now to recoup the billions which have already been wasted on the "expert" advice of Flannery and his alarmist chums David Karoly and Will Steffen.
This agency propped up billions of dollars in pointless futile government spending trying to change the weather. Nothing will bring back money spent on desal plants that were mothballed when the floods came that real scientists predicted. Likewise the money burned on solar panels and windfarms is gone for good too, and still going.

Vader

Barack Obama slams Republicans for threat to 'blow up entire economy'

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© Michael Reynolds/Pool/EPABarack Obama delivers a statement on the budget, a possible US government shutdown and foreign policy.
President stands firm in confrontation over Obamacare and debt ceiling as government prepares for looming shutdown

President Barack Obama on Friday issued a stark warning over the consequences of the continued stalemate in Congress over funding the federal government, saying US troops face disruption to their pay in the event of a shutdown and castigating his opponents for threatening to "blow up the entire economy".

The president took to the podium for the second time in as many days, to issue his most withering attack yet on House Republicans who will spend this weekend deciding whether to attach new demands to stalled federal spending authorisation.

Obama said he was willing to negotiate over government spending, but would not give in to a laundry list of other demands from Republicans who want to repeal his signature healthcare law and advance other "pet projects" they have otherwise failed to pass. "We're not going to do this under the threat of blowing up the entire economy," Obama said.