ACTA More Dangerous than SOPA

What’s that you say?  What’s ACTA?  Well. it’s a treaty know as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.  And you think to yourself – we can put a stop to that, just like we did with SOPA.  The problem is, it’s already been done.  Obama already signed it. 

Global Internet censorship is here.  SOPA and PIPA have been stopped (at least for now) in the United States, but a treaty known as ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is far worse than either of them.  ACTA was quietly signed by Barack Obama back on October 1st, 2011 and most Americans have never even heard of it.  But it could mean the end of the Internet as we know it.  This new treaty gives foreign governments and copyright owners incredibly broad powers.  If you are alleged to have violated a copyright, your website can be shut down without a trial and police may even show up at your door to take you to prison.  It doesn’t even have to be someone in the United States that is accusing you.  It could just be a foreign government or a copyright owner halfway across the world that alleges that you have violated a copyright.  It doesn’t matter.  So far, the U.S., the EU and seven other nations have signed on to ACTA, and the number of participants is expected to continue to grow.  The “powers that be” are obsessed with getting Internet censorship one way or another.  The open and free Internet that you and I have been enjoying for all these years is about to change, and not for the better.

So how come the U.S. Senate never voted on ACTA?  Doesn’t the U.S. Constitution mandate that all treaties must be approved by a two-thirds vote in the Senate?

Of course it does.  [endoftheamericandream.com]

executive agreement!!?????

 

 

sage

 

 

 

There’s a Drone for Everything Now!!

Better make sure you’re minding your p’s and q’s – and your recycling and water usage while you’re at it.  Everybody cheers when  drones spot illegal Japanese whale hunters.  I doubt we’ll be cheering when the drone is over our backyards, and looking through the walls of our homes.

Adam Martin reporting -

Using Drones to Capture Environmental Violations Makes Perfect Sense

Earlier this week, a story circulated about a drone hobbyist whose photos of a Dallas-area meat-packing plant dumping blood into a river got the feds to investigate the plant. Environmentalism seems to be a perfect use for the new breed of cheap drones, something activists are just now starting to figure out. Last month, Sea Shepherd activists used a drone to track and photograph a Japanese whaling fleet. But compared to their counterparts’ organizing protests and reporting news, environmental campaigners have been relatively slow to adopt drone technology. They shouldn’t be.

With things like the Drone Journalism Lab and the occucopter, simply and easily seeing and filming activities on the ground from above, out of reach of the police or other grounded obstructions, is easier than ever. For environmentalists, these drones can do double duty as environmental monitors as well as camera platforms.

The story from Dallas is a great example of why drones are so efficient at spotting environmental problems: Using a $75 airframe fitted with a point-and-shoot camera, the drone operator shot pictures of discoloration in the water, which he could show to regulators. From what he wrote to the drone news site sUAS News, he wasn’t necessarily even looking for evidence of pollution, but when he saw it, he had instant evidence. Had he been drone-free, he’d have had to somehow get a water sample or some other proof, which would require getting to the edge of the river close enough to the plant. Environmentalists tend to get busted for trespassing when they try to collect evidence from suspicious sites, so being able to snap photos from a distance gives them a huge advantage.

Read Atlantic Wire article here.

I can only find about a million things wrong with this.  And, thankfully, I’m not the only one.

Drones to Monitor U.S. Citizens

By the Staff of American Free Press -

Barack Obama’s government is expanding its use of remote-controlled drone aircraft from monitoring and killing its enemies overseas to tracking and monitoring average Americans here inside the United States. These are the same drones that the U.S. military claims have successfully assassinated so many of its political opponents abroad.

According to two recent documents circulated by the U.S. Army, the White House is seeking vendors to help it develop “tagging, tracking and locating” technology as part of a network of unmanned drones that would hover over American cities and towns, videotaping people as they go about their daily tasks. They could then use facial recognition technology to feed this information into a centralized database that would allow the government to more efficiently monitor our daily lives.

While the initial deployment of this technology will be in Afghanistan where it will be tested on alleged terrorists and militants who oppose U.S. occupation of that country, the technology is scheduled for American delivery after testing its use in the domestic tracking of citizens.

More here.

As the first article above states – “it makes perfect sense.” 

 

sage

 

 

Therapy Dogs and Wounded Warriors

H/T Kelleigh

~LTG

Open Primaries are a Liberal Tool

For all of the anxiety about the state primaries, after reading this in today’s paper, I found myself wondering why we bother.  And then I found myself wondering why this is even legal.

Detroit Democrats told to vote for Ron Paul in GOP primary

By Kathleen Gray

They wore Obama T-shirts and draped a banner calling for the re-election of President Barack Obama.

But a couple hundred Detroit Democrats got a bit of a conflicting message Thursday evening at Triumph Baptist Church in Detroit.

At a rally for Obama’s re-election, they were told to vote for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul for president at the Feb. 28 presidential primary.

By voting for Paul, a Republican, they hope to derail Mitt Romney’s primary performance in his native state and force Paul to stay in the race and run as an independent.

Because Obama is the lone Democrat on the ballot, there’s no harm to him, and state Democrats plan to officially nominate him at caucuses in May.

“There is a $10-million election taking place next month with our tax dollars,” said WCHB radio host Mildred Gaddis. “Help me and help Ron Paul get all the votes he can.

“They can’t control this. He’s driving them crazy. We need him to run as an independent, shaving off votes from the Republican.”

Voters in Michigan don’t have to register as a Republican, Democrat or independent. And although it is frowned upon, partisan voters can cast ballots for their opponents in the primary, just to create a bit of chaos.

It was a strategy used by Democrats in 2000 when John McCain beat George W. Bush in that year’s presidential primary and by Republicans in 1998 when they helped give attorney Geoffrey Fieger the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

Democratic activist Ernest Johnson said Romney’s South Carolina loss was good because it took Romney’s focus off Obama and onto another Republican, Newt Gingrich.

“This is Romney’s home, and if he comes here and loses — which we can help him do — his campaign is over,” Johnson said.

Detroit Free Press

A couple of important points to consider:

1. This is being done inside a “Baptist” church
2. Crossing the party line is done all the time
3. This is how unelectable John McCain won the primary in 2008.

For more on the open primary, go here.

I am against the open primary.  It supposedly “gives voice” to a broader spectrum of positions.  The “broader spectrum” is code for B.S.  The primary process was pure -  a long, long time ago.  Alas – it is now more like watching never ending episodes of a sinister soap opera – not unlike the old “Dark Shadows.”  Complete with vampires!!!

sage

Altanta News Coverage Has a Different Report of Hearing Outcome

No Obama in court, no ‘birther’ ruling

This story and video about the hearing yesterday takes the usual “birthers are idiots” stance in reporting on Obama’s status regarding ballot eligibility and being a natural born citizen.  Interesting that the Atlanta-Constitution does not allow for comments.    ~LTG

This is the Beginning of the End for Barack Hussein Obama

~LTG

Obama’s Black Thumb Strikes Again (Updated)

Oops

(See update at bottom) 

Yet another “green” enterprise that got big Obama bucks has gone Tango Uniform.

Via cnsnews.com:

Electric-Car Firm That Received Biden Visit and $118M in Stimulus Funds Files for Bankruptcy

By Fred Lucas

(CNSNews.com) – Ener1–a company that manufactures batteries for electric cars, and that received $118.5 million in federal stimulus money, and that Vice President Joe Biden visited last year the day after President Obama’s State of the Union Address—announced today that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

In last year’s State of the Union Address, delivered Jan. 25, 2011, President Obama set a national goal of having a million electric vehicles on the road in the United States by 2015—a goal that would be achieved, Obama said, by taking money out of the oil industry and “investing” it in new technology.

“With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015,” said Obama.

“We need to get behind this innovation,” he said. “And to help pay for it, I’m asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re doing just fine on their own. So instead of subsidizing yesterday’s energy, let’s invest in tomorrow’s.”

The next day, Biden visited the Ener1 plant in Greenfield, Ind.—which the White House said at the time had received a $118.5 million grant from the Department of Energy and was the type of investment the president was talking about in his State of the Union.

Brian Levine, deputy domestic policy adviser to Biden, wrote an article about Biden’s visit to Ener1 on the White House webpage for the White House Middle Class Task Force, which Biden leads. The article was headlined “Our Plan to Put One Million Advanced Technology Vehicles on America’s Roads.”

“Last night, President Obama set a goal of making the United States the first country in the world to put one million advanced technology vehicles on the road,” Levine wrote. “This goal is part of the President’s plan to rebuild our economy by investing in innovation to create the jobs and industries of the future.

“Today, Vice President Biden visited Ener1, Inc., a manufacturer of advanced batteries for electric vehicles, in Greenfield, Indiana to announce our plan to reach this one million vehicle goal by 2015,” wrote Levine. “The facility that the Vice President visited would not exist if not for a $118.5 million grant from the Department of Energy, which was part of a $2.4 billion Recovery Act investment in electric vehicles. Ener1 added 120 jobs across the company in 2010 and the future looks bright. They expect to expand the manufacturing and assembly operation in Greenfield from 80 workers today to over a thousand by the start of 2013.”

At the Ener1 plant, Biden made a gaffe, mistakenly referring to Ener1—as Enron1.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen, here at Ener1, we’re going to harness electricity and bring it to the world like Edison did more than a century ago,” said Biden. “We’re going to reshape the way Americans drive, the way Americans consume, the way Americans power their lives. And in turn, we’re going to reshape America itself. We may not make battery power so cheap that only the rich can afford to drive their cars on imported oil, but—but–with Enron1 (sic) leading the way, we’re certainly going to come pretty close.”

Ener1 produces advanced lithium-ion battery systems for electric vehicles.

On Thursday, the company put out a statement announcing that it was filing for Chanter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York.

You will find the rest of the article here.

I realize $118.5 million is chump change in the overall scheme of things, but I am curious as to just how much of it found its way into the Dear Ruler’s reelection slush fund.

Update: Electric cars aren’t just a tough sell here in America, but apparently prospective car buyers the world over are shunning them.

-Dave 

(h/t: boortz.com)

What passes as fashion among Muslims

We’re constantly clubbed on the head with the claim that Islam is the “Religion of Peace,” that jihadist crazies are just a miniscule minority, and that the Muslim world really condemns and abhors the 9-11 terrorist bombings, blah, blah, blah.

Yet every day, shirts like this are mass produced, marketed, and sold by street venders throughout the Middle East. But that’s just fine.  

Now, a few of our guys, after months of sleeping on the cold hard ground in that hell hole called Afghanistan — eating MREs, not having a hot shower, and away from their loved ones — get caught pissing on a dead Taliban and they are condemned by the world.

H/t my friend Bob W.

~Eowyn

There, I fixed it!

You gotta wonder where some people get their ideas…

Sadly, I could use this…

Wonder if the operator got hazardous pay?

 Hey, at least he’s re-using!

I wouldn’t touch dare touch that…

Ewwwww! 

Funny, I don’t see a problem with this one

DCG

Senate Demorats vote to raise U.S. debt ceiling — again

Congratulations, my fellow Americans!

Already, the U.S. national debt has exceeded our Gross Domestic Product.

Now, your splendiferous elected Democratic representatives in the United States Senate just voted to raise America’s debt ceiling to $16.4 trillion!

Yesterday, in a simple 52 vote majority all of it along party lines, the Senate failed to reject a bid to stop the debt ceiling hike. This means America now has $16.4 trillion in debt capacity as of this morning, January 27, 2012.

Writing for ZeroHedge, Tyler Durden notes that:

“since roughly $100 billion was plundered from Pension Funds in the past month, we will have about $15.4 trillion in debt by next Monday…. The question then is how long will the $1 trillion in debt capacity last: at $125 billion/month it won’t be enough to carry the US past the election without another massive debt ceiling spectacle.”

Way to go, Demorats! Bankrupt Greece and the Eurozone, here we come! Wheeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~Eowyn