Corrupt Law Enforcement Sold Information To Silk Road Mastermind, Lawyers Say

 

Corrupt Law Enforcement Sold Information To Silk Road Mastermind, Lawyers Say

by Mike Hayes

BuzzFeed - Tech / 2016-11-29 17:34

Ross Ulbricht

Facebook

A person with inside knowledge of law enforcement's investigation into dark-web drug bazaar Silk Road sold information to the site's mastermind, according to lawyers for Ross Ulbricht, the man convicted over the site and sentenced to life in prison.

Attorneys for Ulbricht, who was convicted last year of seven drug crimes, said Tuesday that a user named 'notwonderful' communicated with the Silk Road boss's Dread Pirate Roberts account on the site's forum in the summer of 2013.

According to the defense attorneys, notwonderful asked DPR to pay him or her an $8,000 down payment, with subsequent payments of $500 per month, in exchange for information on the authorities' investigation into Silk Road.

After DPR was said to have agreed, notwonderful allegedly set up an account on the Silk Road marketplace under the name albertpacino in order to receive the payments in bitcoins.

Ulbricht's attorneys believe that between $10,000 and $11,000 was paid by DPR to the albertpacino account. The last payment was made in September 2013 just weeks before Ulbricht's arrest inside a California library, where his laptop was still logged-in to the DPR account.

Ulbricht's lawyers said that the information "kept DPR one step ahead" of the investigation.

Ulbricht's lead attorney, Joshua Dratel, said that his team found the communications between notwonderful and DPR while examining an administrator version of the forum they just discovered this past summer during their persistent review of the massive amount of digital data — an estimated five to six terabytes — from the Silk Road.

However, in a puzzling twist, Dratel said that the communications were missing from previous versions of the forum that were turned over to the defense during the course of the case by the government. In fact, all forum data from July and August 2013 is missing from those government versions, Dratel said.

"Why was it wiped? Because somebody didn't want it to be found," Dratel said.

Silk Road

According to Ulbricht's attorneys, notwonderful told DPR that they were working as a law enforcement analyst and had access to the same intel as field agents. The notwonderful user allegedly told DPR that he was "in it for the money" and thought the Silk Road was "interesting" and "in a fantasy world I might be doing this myself."

Ulbricht's attorneys said that they reviewed the investigation information that notwonderful provided to DPR and that the timing and substance of communications align with information that agents testified to during the case, further leading them to believe that the person operating notwonderful was a corrupt law enforcement agent.

However, Dratel said that they had reason to believe notwonderful is not one of the two former law enforcement agents who were convicted of corruption related to their investigation into Silk Road, DEA agent Carl Mark Force and Treasury Department special agent Shaun Bridges.

Force and Bridge were caught extorting hundreds of thousands of dollar in bitcoin from site admins that they transferred to personal accounts.

Dratel said that during the investigations of Force and Bridges all of their electronic devices were seized and investigated by the government, and neither albertpacino or notwonderful came up. If one of the corrupt agents had operated under these aliases, Dratel said, "We would have seen it in hundreds of pages."

However, the albertpacino handle was referenced in the Force case at least one time during the investigation, according to a recently unsealed 2014 letter in which Department of Justice officials discussed their probe of agency corruption:

Department of Justice

However, the albertpacino handle was never officially mentioned again in the case.

"This is someone else," Dratel maintained.

Ulbricht's team said that they sent a letter requesting additional discovery to prosecutors handling the case against the corrupt agents in the District of Maryland. They hope to gain more information about notwonderful and albertpacino and determine why exactly the forum communications were wiped from versions of the site that the government turned over to the defense.

"If they have investigated, we should be apprised of the results," Dratel said. "If they haven't, the government is derelict."

Ulbricht is currently appealing his life sentence in the Second Circuit. At the appeal arguments in October, the judges indicated some apprehension, calling the life sentence for Ulbricht "unusual" and "quite a leap" given his lack of a criminal history.

The judges also asked whether allowing the impact statements of families whose loved ones died after buying drugs from the Silk Road and overdosing created "enormous emotional overload" at sentencing.

During his argument at the appeal, Dratel told the panel of judges that corrupt agents had administrative privileges and hijacked user accounts. "They were inside the guts of the website," Dratel said.

Ulbricht's attorneys said that this new evidence would not have direct immediate impact on the appeal. However, Dratel said that this new information "amplifies our defense that the investigation lacked integrity."

They also said they would not ask the Second Circuit to put the appeal aside while they continue to investigate. However, they said they were not ruling out using this new information about notwonderful selling information to DPR as the subject of a new trial motion at some point.

LINK: Judges Question Whether Life Sentence For Silk Road Founder Is Unfair

--

Trump Treasury Secretary Candidate Is Anti-Fed Libertarian Who Wants To Return To The Gold Standard

 

Trump Treasury Secretary Candidate Is Anti-Fed Libertarian Who Wants To Return To The Gold Standard

by Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2016-11-29 16:01

While speculation swirls over Trump's pick for the next Treasury Secretary, with eyebrows raised after the President-elect unexpectedly met with Goldman COO Gary Cohn earlier in the day, one of the more interesting names to have emerged in the running for the top economic post is that of John Allison, former CEO of the bank BB&T and of the libertarian non-profit think tank the Cato Institute.

What makes Allison's candidacy especially notable is that he happens to be a prominent critic of the Federal Reserve, as well as an advocate of the gold standard. Allison has said his "long-term ambition" for monetary policy "would be to get rid of the Federal Reserve and get back to a private banking system." He also accurately portrayed the Fed by saying that it is "a scary organization because there's no control."

In a 2014 paper authored by Allison for the Cato Journal, he said he "would get rid of the Federal Reserve because the volatility in the economy is primarily caused by the Fed." Allison said that simply allowing the market to regulate itself would be preferable to the Fed harming the stability of the financial system.

"When the Fed is radically changing the money supply, distorting interest rates, and over-regulating the financial sector, it makes rational economic calculation difficult," Allison wrote. "Markets do form bubbles, but the Fed makes them worse."

Allison said he would want to see rules that would constrain or define the Fed's ability to change interest rates in response to economic conditions because of what he called "a very difficult mess." Both Allison and Trump have said low interest rates create or exacerbate asset bubbles.

Allison also suggested that the government's practice of insuring bank deposits up to $250,000 should be abolished and the US should go back to a banking system backed by "a market standard such as gold."

Additionally, the libertarian ex-CEO also argued for higher capital reserves of up to 20% of assets at banks and has also argued that the government should repeal three of the broadest banking regulations.

"We should raise capital standards, but it is even more important to eliminate burdensome regulations — including Dodd-Frank, the Community Reinvestment Act, and Truth in Lending," Allison wrote. "About 25 percent of a bank's personnel cost relates to regulations. Banks cannot pay the regulatory costs and have high capital standards." This is similar to Trump's desire to roll back regulation — including Dodd-Frank — on financial institutions, though he has since backtracked somewhat.

Speaking after his meeting with Trump, Allison said it "looked like a job interview and also I think a sincere effort to get a little advice" according to Bloomberg. He told Fox News that his meeting also included Vice President-elect Mike Pence and Trump strategist Steve Bannon, and talked about how to accelerate economic growth.

"It was a very interesting conversation: Two old business guys talking about business, in a certain sense"

In an interview with CNBC, Allison said "I would certainly consider it, but I would have to reflect on it," when asked whether he wants to be Treasury secretary. He hedged further by saying "It's a very exciting job, but I'm in a very nice place in my career."

Sadly, despite his libertarian leanings, Allison told CNBC that eliminating the Fed and returning to a gold standard "probably aren't realistic in practice" adding that "how we get back to an international commodity-based standard, I'm not sure. I think it would be desirable in some ways, because it would impose some discipline on government"

* * *

In any case, the wait for Trump's Treasury pick may be almost over. As reported late on Monday, VP-elect Pence told reporters "there will be a number of very important announcements" on Tuesday.  Another Cabinet announcement will be made Tuesday afternoon, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said on CNN.

--

Castro's 'Accomplishments' in Cuba a Load of Nonsense - Reason.com

Castro's 'Accomplishments' in Cuba a Load of Nonsense - Reason.com

Justin Trudeau sure as heck stepped in it, hasn't he? Of course, the Canadian prime minister was not alone in praising Fidel Castro's "significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation." Here is a compilation of the usual suspects (CNN, MSNBC, NBC, etc.) fawning over the dead dictator's "legacy." And, since fish stinks from the head down, let's not forget President Obama's lionization of the Castro brothers' "accomplishments" when he visited Havana earlier this year.

Sure, our 44th president acknowledged that Cubans are pathetically poor and lack basic human rights, but then he took the sting out of his condemnation of the Cuban dictatorship by saying that the Cuban government "should be congratulated" for giving each child basic education and every person access to healthcare. I wonder if our president would perform a similar rhetorical summersault when talking about General Augusto Pinochet, whose economic policies have turned the once backward Chile into Latin America's richest country in one generation.

Looking on the bright side, at least nobody has claimed that Cuban education and healthcare are of world-beating quality. That Cubans should be literate is to be expected. All communist dictatorships taught their people how to read and then they gave them all the reading material that the government propaganda ministries have managed to print......

Assad On Verge Of Biggest Victory Since Start Of Syrian War With Imminent Capture Of Aleppo

 

Assad On Verge Of Biggest Victory Since Start Of Syrian War With Imminent Capture Of Aleppo

by Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2016-11-28 23:15

The battle for one of the most contested Syrian cities in the nation's long-running civil war, Aleppo, is approaching its climax. According to Reuters, the Syrian army and its allies announced the capture of a large swath of eastern Aleppo from rebels on Monday - by some estimates as much as 40% of the militant held part - in an accelerating attack that threatens to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold.

In a major breakthrough in the government's push to retake the whole city, regime forces captured six rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo over the weekend, including Masaken Hanano, the biggest of those. On Sunday, the 13th day of the operation, they also took control of the adjacent neighborhoods of Jabal Badra and Baadeeen and captured three others.

As is customary, when it comes to describing events in Syria, one has two biased narratives to choose from: one from the perspective of the Western forces, for whom the protagonist are the Syrian rebels, and Assad is the enemy, and then there is the Syrian/Russian point of view, in which the rebels are aligned with the Islamic State (and are supported by the US) and the liberation of the country entails removing both at the same time.

Covering the former "angle" first, Reuters writes that two rebel officials said the insurgents, facing fierce bombardment and ground attacks, had withdrawn from the northern part of eastern Aleppo to a more defensible front line along a big highway after losses that threatened to split their enclave. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - a UK funded "think tank" operated by just one man, who in 2013 was responsible for the Assad "chemical attack" fabricated YouTube clip - said the northern portion of eastern Aleppo lost by the rebels amounted to more than a third of the territory they had held, calling it the biggest defeat for the opposition in Aleppo since 2012.

Thousands of residents were reported to have fled. A rebel fighter reached by Reuters said there was "extreme, extreme, extreme pressure" on the insurgents. Part of the area lost by the rebels was taken over by a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia from another part of Aleppo in what rebels described as an agreed handover, a rare example of cooperation between groups that have fought each other.

What appears to be the imminent loss of Aleppo by rebel forces has sent shockwaves of demoralization across the war-torn country, and hundreds of miles to the south, people have started to leave the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Khan al-Shih for other parts of the country controlled by insurgents under a deal with the government, the Observatory said.

As Reuters adds, capturing eastern Aleppo would be the biggest victory for President Bashar al-Assad since the start of the uprising against him in 2011, restoring his control over the whole city apart from a Kurdish-held area that has not fought against him.

For Assad, taking back Aleppo would shore up his grip over the main population centers of western Syria where he and his allies have focused their firepower while much of the rest of the country remains outside their control. More importantly, it would be seen as a victory for his allies, Russia and Iran, which have outmanoeuvred the West and Assad's regional enemies through direct military intervention. It would be a major slap in the face for the US and its allies.

"What happened in the last two days is a great strategic accomplishment by the Syrian army and allies," a fighter with a militia on the government side in the Aleppo area said.

Meanwhile, animosity toward the US is building even among its erstwhile "friends" as rebels said their foreign patrons including the United States have abandoned them to their fate in Aleppo.

While some of the rebels in Aleppo have received support from states such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United States during the war, they say their foreign backers have failed them as Assad and his allies unleash enormous firepower.

"The situation is very bad and the reason is the round the clock shelling with all types of weapons," said Abdul Salam Abdul Razaq, military spokesman for the Nour al-Din al-Zinki group, one of the main Aleppo rebel factions.

"There is very fierce fighting going on now and the regime and its supporters are destroying whole areas to allow themselves to advance," he told Reuters. Another fighter said there was heavy attrition in "people and ammunition".

Assad has gradually closed in on eastern Aleppo this year, first cutting the most direct lifeline to Turkey before fully encircling the east, and launching a major assault in September. A military news service run by Hezbollah declared the northern portion of eastern Aleppo under full state control. The Russian Defence Ministry said about 40 percent of the eastern part of the city had been "freed" from militants by Syrian government forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the Syrian army's advances with members of his Security Council on Monday, Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.

To preserve some pride, officials with two Aleppo rebel groups said rebels had withdrawn to areas they could more easily defend, particularly after losing the Hanano housing complex area on Saturday.

"It is a withdrawal for the sake of being able to defend and reinforce the front lines," an official in the Jabha Shamiya rebel group told Reuters.  In other words, it's not a defeat, just a strategic retreat.

* * *

Meanwhile, the same narrative from a biased Russian angle, as reported earlier by RT, sounds as follows:

More than 3,000 civilians have left the eastern part of the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo in the last 24 hours, the Russian Center for Reconciliation said. It later reported that about 40 percent of the militant-held part of the city has been liberated. Some 3,179 people, including 1,519 children – among them 138 newborn babies – have left Eastern Aleppo through the 'humanitarian corridors' set up by Syrian government forces, Russian Reconciliation Center said on Monday. The center reported that 12 neighborhoods, comprising roughly 40 percent of the territory previously controlled by the militants, have been cleared.

According to the Russian Center for Reconciliation, more than 80,000 people live in the newly liberated areas of the eastern part of the city. It added that more than 5,000 people fled from the southern districts of eastern Aleppo, which are still controlled by the militants, to the areas held by government forces. More than 100 militants laid down their arms and left eastern Aleppo through the special corridors, the statement said.

Despite joint humanitarian efforts undertaken by the Syrian government and Russia, thousands of civilians are still kept in the eastern part of the city by militants. To minimize damage to the civilian population, the Russian and Syrian militaries suspended airstrikes and set up 'humanitarian corridors' for both non-combatants and militants willing to leave the area.

However, the corridors are vulnerable to militant small arms fire and shelling, which complicates the evacuation of civilians. RT's Lizzie Phelan, reporting from Syria, said the government army's advance in the eastern part of Aleppo "has enabled civilians to leave the area," and that there are thousands of people desperate to flee. Those who managed to escape told RT crew the militants deprived them of all means to survive, including food and water.

"The militants are lying, they are holding us there, even now they are holding families [in the area]. They don't let people go," one man said.

"Every time we tried to flee they caught us and turned us back," a young woman added.

As RT concludes, "currently, the Syrian Army is continuing their large-scale offensive in eastern Aleppo, targeting Al-Nusra Front and other radical militants still controlling the area. The troops have already established control over important blocks and districts in the eastern part of the city."

* * *

Readers can decide which narrative they like better, but no matter how one spins it, whether Assad's ongoing acts are of barbaric brutality or altruistically humanistic, should Aleppo fall to the Assad regime, the Syrian civil war will enter into a new phase, one where the regime will now have the clear upper hand, and will set back the US allied effort years, giving Trump few options if he wants to reengage in Syria: expand the US presence by orders of magnitude, including overt ground forces, or simply withdraw.

--

Quartz: Fake news isn’t a recent problem in the US—it almost destroyed Abraham Lincoln

Fake news isn't a recent problem in the US—it almost destroyed Abraham Lincoln
Quartz

Abraham Lincoln was more than just a foe of slavery. He was also a mixed-race eugenicist, believing that the intermarriage of blacks and whites would yield an American super-race.

Or at least, that's what newspapers in 1864 would have had you believe. The charge isn't true. But this miscegenation hoax still "damn near sank Lincoln that year," says Heather Cox Richardson, history professor at Boston College.......

Huge Cracks In the West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Signal Its Collapse

 

Huge Cracks In the West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Signal Its Collapse

by Maddie Stone

Gizmodo / 2016-11-28 13:22

A new rift in West Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier, photographed during a NASA Operation IceBridge flyover on November 4th, 2016. Image: NASA/Nathan Kurtz

Last year, a 225 square-mile chunk of West Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier broke off and tumbled into the sea. Now, Earth scientists at Ohio State University have pinpointed the root cause of the iceberg calving event: a crack that started deep below ground and 20 miles inland.

It's like nothing scientists have witnessed in West Antarctica before, and it doesn't bode well for the ice sheet's future.

A frozen fortress containing enough water to raise global sea levels many feet should it melt, the West Antarctic ice sheet is separated from the ocean by a series of large glaciers. For now, these glaciers act like corks in wine bottles to hold the ice at bay, but that may not be the case for much longer. Recent research has shown that Pine Island, Thwaites, and other glaciers along the Amundsen sea are retreating rapidly, as warm ocean waters lap against their margins. At this point, NASA says, collapse of the entire Amundsen sea sector appears to be "unstoppable."

"This event gives us a new mechanism for ice sheets falling apart quickly. It fits into that picture of a rapid retreat."

The biggest question on everyone's mind is how quickly all of that ice will go, and to find out, we need to pinpoint the mechanisms responsible for ice sheet collapse. To that end, a study published today in Geophysical Research Letters takes a deep dive into an iceberg calving event in the summer of 2015. It arrives at a startling conclusion.

Bird's eye view of the Amundsen sea embayment, where major glaciers of the West Antarctic ice sheet empty into the ocean. Pope, Smith, and Kohler glaciers were the focus of this study. Image: NASA/GSFC/SVS

"The calving event itself wasn't a big deal," lead study author Ian Howat of Ohio State University told Gizmodo, noting that iceberg break-offs of this size happen about every 5 to 6 years at Pine Island. "What made this one different is how it got started."

At Pine Island and elsewhere along the Amundsen sea embayment, calving occurs at the glacier's outer margin, where the ice shelf is detached from bedrock. "It's kinda like a diving board sticking out over a pool," Howat said. Normally, cracks will start to form in areas experiencing extreme shear from ice flowing off the continent. They'll propagate laterally across the shelf, eventually causing the entire diving board to break away.

Not so with last year's Pine Island calving event. Analyzing several years of images taken by the Sentinel-1A satellite, Howat and his colleagues traced the break-off to a rift that formed at the base of the ice shelf nearly 20 miles inland, in 2013. Over the course of two years, the rift propagated all the way from bottom to top, until finally, it spat out an iceberg ten times the size of Manhattan.

What could have caused so much ice to break away in this unusual manner? In all likelihood, melting that started at the contact point between ice and bedrock is to blame. This would explain why the rift overlapped with a topographic valley—a place where the ice appeared to have thinned—in satellite images taken before the calving.

"I think what we're seeing is the surface expression of a much bigger valley at the base of the ice shelf," Howat said. "This tells us the ice shelf has weaknesses that are being exploited by increased ocean temperatures."

Troublingly, as waters around West Antarctica heat up, those weaknesses could be exploited more and more often. "If the ice sheet was going to retreat very slowly on long timescales, we'd just expect to see the usual calving," Howat said. "This event gives us a new mechanism for ice sheets falling apart quickly. It fits into that picture of a rapid retreat."

Howat noted that a second interior ice shelf rift (pictured above) was spotted during a NASA Operation Ice Bridge survey earlier this month. And there are many other topographic valleys—possible sites of future calving events—further up-glacier, but our ability to study them is hampered by a lack of good data.

One can't help but note that NASA's Earth science program, which makes such data available to scientists and the public, faces the possibility of major cuts under a Trump administration. These cuts would come at the precise moment when our planet is changing in rapid and hard-to-predict ways, which is when Earth science research is needed the most. Like cracks in an ice sheet, the irony runs deep.

[Geophysical Research Letters via OSU News]

--

Unsexy Infrastructure: Lock and Dam

 

Unsexy Infrastructure: Lock and Dam

by Alex Tabarrok

Marginal REVOLUTION / 2016-11-27 11:37

The NYTimes has a good piece on dam infrastructure:

Built in 1929, Lock No. 52 sits in a quiet corner of southern Illinois that happens to be the busiest spot on America's inland waterways, where traffic from the eastern United States meets and passes traffic from the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River. More than 80 million tons of grain, coal, fuel and other goods — worth over $22 billion — move through here each year.

The problem is that the old dam is crumbling and a new one is way behind schedule:

The average delay at No. 52 in October and November was 15 to 20 hours. At the moment, No. 52's sister dam downriver, No. 53, is adding 48 more hours to the wait.

Dealing with both dams, it can take five days to travel just 100 miles on this stretch of the Ohio River.

It's not just dams, there is a lot of room for relatively simple infrastructure projects which aren't sexy like high-speed rail but are valuable. As I wrote in 2012 (no indent):

Rail congestion in Chicago, for example, is so bad that freight passing through Chicago often slows down to less than the pace of an electric wheel chair. Improvements are sometimes as simple as replacing 19th century technology with 20th century (not even 21st century!) technology. Even today, for example:

…engineers at some points have to get out of their cabins, walk the length of the train back to the switch — a mile or more — operate the switch, and then trudge back to their place at the head of the train before setting out again.

In a useful article Phillip Longman points out that there are choke points on the Eastern Seaboard which severely reduce the potential for rail:

…railroads can capture only 2 percent of the container traffic traveling up and down the eastern seaboard because of obscure choke points, such as the Howard Street Tunnel in downtown Baltimore. The tunnel is too small to allow double-stack container trains through, and so antiquated it's been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973. When it shut down in 2001 due to a fire, trains had to divert as far as Cincinnati to get around it. Owner CSX has big plans for capturing more truck traffic from I-95, and for creating room for more passenger trains as well, but can't do any of this until it finds the financing to fix or bypass this tunnel and make other infrastructure improvements down the line. In 2007, it submitted a detailed plan to the U.S. Department of Transportation to build a steel wheel interstate from Washington to Miami, but no federal funding has been forthcoming.

Longman points out that:

Railroads have gone from having too much track to having not enough. Today, the nation's rail network is just 94,942 miles, less than half of what it was in 1970, yet it is hauling 137 percent more freight, making for extreme congestion and longer shipping times.

…. And it's not just rail, sewers and the water supply are another example. Consider:

The average D.C. water pipe is 77 years old, but a great many were laid in the 19th century. Sewers are even older. Most should have been replaced decades ago.

Does that sound like the infrastructure of an advanced nation?

The post Unsexy Infrastructure: Lock and Dam appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

--

Castro's Record in Cuba

Indian Government Seeks To Quell Panic: "No Plan To Restrict Gold Holdings"

 

Indian Government Seeks To Quell Panic: "No Plan To Restrict Gold Holdings"

by Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2016-11-26 12:12

Amid increasing social unrest, a collapsing currency (against the dollar), and an economy at a standstill, there has been another growing fear in India that has spooked many around the world.

The rumors and speculation of an Indian gold import ban (or even an outright ban on gold ownership) have sparked panic-buying of the precious metal sending retail premia soaring at local jewelers. In an effort to quell the 'uproar', a top Indian finance minister has confirmed the government is not considering an plans to restrict holdings of gold by individuals.

As a reminder, Acting-Man.com's Pater Tenebrarum notes that in the recent past, India's government has also launched several initiatives aimed at reducing gold purchases by Indian citizens. For one thing, it is asserted that the gold hoards held by citizens are "unproductive" and a sign of India's backwardness that needs to be eradicated in the name of modernization. Another  official reason is that government wants to lower the country's trade deficit. Since India isn't producing much gold, it is importing quite a lot; in recent years gold imports oscillated around 700 tons per year.

 

India's trade deficit over the past decade – cick to enlarge.

 

The world's governments are almost without exception comprised of  economically ignorant mercantilists who believe that a trade deficit is a symptom of declining wealth. Naturally, India's government is no different in this respect. This mercantilist view of trade is one of the most "sticky" and widespread economic errors in history (evidently, not only prices and wages are "sticky"…). It is a direct result of viewing the economy through a collectivist lens instead of through the lens of methodological individualism. The government's efforts included raising a tariff on gold imports (ever since, India's gold import statistics are no longer reliable, as a lot of gold is smuggled in), as well as urging the creation of assorted "paper gold" products by commercial banks.

The latter were supposed to entice citizens to deposit their gold with banks in exchange for paper receipts. You have one guess why the government would be eager to see that happen.

India's citizens have a traditional affinity for gold. Gold is not only a "love trade"  for Indians though, as our friend Ronnie Stoeferle puts it. They also buy gold because they don't trust their government and its economic policies.

 

Looking good, ma'am.

 

As has just been demonstrated again, this is quite a healthy attitude – even if the  government of the day is widely considered to be "good for the economy" (Mr. Modi's government has indeed adopted a number of positive economic reforms as well in the past). Not only can it be very costly to trust the government, there is obviously also a big difference between looking at and fondling actual metal, as opposed to a bank receipt for a gold deposit. If you try it, you will see it is just not the same. Indian women love gold adornments and gold jewelry plays a major role as a wedding present that concurrently serves as a store of wealth. Hence the government's efforts to "wean the citizenry off gold" have completely failed to gain traction.

It remains to be seen if the government will get away unscathed with the recent demonetization of large denomination banknotes. As Jayant has pointed out, Mr. Modi has actually enjoyed widespread popular support for the measure – at least initially. Certain segments of society continue to be supportive, depending on the degree to which they are actually affected by the ban.

 

The degree of Modi's support is presumably inversely proportional to the length of time spent in such queues.

 

After two weeks of increasing chaos and ample demonstrations of government ineptitude, the political opposition has finally decided to join the fray and is now beginning to forcefully denounce the measure.

Parliament was adjourned after an "uproar" over the currency ban,  the opposition is organizing an "all India protest" for November 28, as it is now united in opposing the ban.  Moreover, allegations that the plan was leaked to certain people in advance have surfaced (that wouldn't surprise us one bit).

As Jayant has rightly pointed out in the third part of his articles on the currency ban, the evolving situation is forcing the government to continually issue new ad hoc decrees in order to stop people from successfully fighting the edict.

Similar to the attempts of the post-revolutionary assembly of France to defend the assignat in the late 18^th century, it is resorting to increasingly repressive steps (the most recent one is that it has apparently suddenly shortened the grace period for banknote exchanges, concurrently with announcing that it will impose a  tax penalty on "too large" deposits).

This has led to speculation that gold may be in the government's cross hairs next.  As the thinking goes, if it can ban certain banknotes, surely it can also enact a ban on gold imports? As an aside, an outright ban on gold ownership seems highly unlikely, as that would probably cause more than just an "uproar".

 

Banning gold ownership is out of the question.

Also, some of the largest gold hoards are held by temples – in other words, the country's religious establishment would undoubtedly be less than amused.

*  *  *

And so, clearly seeking to calm these fears, a top finance ministry source said on Friday that the government is not considering any proposal to restrict holdings of gold by individuals. As The India Times reports, following the demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes in a bid to crack down on black money, there were apprehensions among people that the government might impose some kind of restrictions on gold holding by individuals.

"There is no such proposal before the government on restricting domestic gold holding," the source said.

 

There were reports that many people have converted their black money into gold following the announcement of demonetisation of high denomination currency notes by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8.

Of course, we note that there was no official denial of any proposals to impose a gold import ban.

--

World's Kindest Repo Man Pays Off Elderly Couple's Buick Right Before Thanksgiving

 

World's Kindest Repo Man Pays Off Elderly Couple's Buick Right Before Thanksgiving

by Patrick George on Jalopnik, shared by Eve Peyser to Gizmodo

Gizmodo / 2016-11-26 11:14

Stanford and Patty Kipping had a hard choice to make: keep making the $95 monthly payments on their 1998 Buick, or pay for the increased costs of their prescription medicines. They couldn't do both. So the couple, 82 and 70, were ready to lose their Buick to the bank—until one very kind repo man stepped up to save the day.

Advertisement

The Thanksgiving story you need to read comes from the Belleville News-Democrat in Illinois. It tells the tale of repo man Jim Ford, a guy who's been shot at in the course of repossessing cars but approaches his job with a little more kindness than most, and how he tried to work out a deal with the bank for the Kippings to keep their car.

When that didn't work, the newspaper reports, he took matters into his own hands:

Advertisement

"When I got home that night, I said to myself, 'They are a real nice elderly couple. I gotta do something. I can't just take their car,'" Ford said.

Then he did something that surely broke the hard code of ethics for repo men; he decided that he would pay off the Kippings' debt and return their car to their driveway.

Using the online service "GoFundMe" and depending on his friends in the repo business, Ford said he raised more than $3,500 in one night. After the fee for the service and after paying the $2,501 to the bank owed on the Buick, Ford tucked $1,000 in cash into an envelope. A co-worker at his business bought a frozen Thanksgiving turkey and Ford put it in the cab of his tow truck.

On Monday, he and Tom Williams, a friend, fixed the Buick's headlights, topped off the radiator and changed the engine oil. Then they hooked the car up for a return trip.

The story says Stanford Kipping is a retired dock worker who had to stop working at a local market due to poor eyesight, and he and his wife are both on fixed incomes. And while it may be hard to believe that the couple was making payments on a nearly 20-year-old Buick, it shows the hard choices some folks have to make when they need a car to get around and don't have a lot of money.

The newspaper reports the Kippings said they didn't know what they were going to do without the car, and when they took it back paid off—along with the turkey—they described it as "a miracle come true."

Hat tip to Paulo!

--

Merkel Backs Crackdown on Free Speech On Social Media Sites

 

Merkel Backs Crackdown on Free Speech On Social Media Sites

by jonathanturley

JONATHAN TURLEY / 2016-11-25 10:54

German Chancellor Angela Merkel long ago established herself as a menace to free speech, particularly in her decision to first apologize to authoritarian Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for a satirical poem and then approve the prosecution of the comedian is a shocking and chilling disgrace. Now, she is throwing her support behind a crackdown on "hate speech" on social media like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube — radically expanding the already broad scope of government regulation of speech.

Merkel declared "I support efforts by Justice Minister Heiko Maas and Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere to address hate speech, hate commentaries, devastating things that are incompatible with human dignity, and to do everything to prohibit it because it contradicts our values."

"Incompatibility with human dignity"? That is a standard that virtually defies definition. It would leave the government in the position to determine who is insulting "human dignity."

Merkel is also threatening social media companies to get rid of "fake news" or risk a government crackdown. Merkel appears to fear that social media bots could influence German elections after President Obama flagged the role of fake news in the Trump election. Merkel insisted that such postings must be dealt with by the companies or the government will step in.

We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in France (here and here and here and here and here and here) and England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Much of this trend is tied to the expansion of hate speech and non-discrimination laws. We have seen comedians targeted with such court orders under this expanding and worrisome trend. (here and here).

Merkel is clearly "all in" on the crackdown on free speech. The question is whether the German people will or can reverse this trend against this defining right of fundamental civil liberties and human rights.

What do you think?

Filed under: Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics

--

Shared via Inoreader

Sent from my iPad

Ill-Fated Battleship, 1916

 

Ill-Fated Battleship, 1916

by Dan Schlenoff

Scientific American Content: Global / 2016-11-25 09:33

The cover story from 100 years ago today shows the battleship USS Arizona leaving the Brooklyn Navy Yard and steaming down the Hudson River under the Brooklyn Bridge. At that moment, the ship was one of the mightiest battleships in the world and a symbol of modernity that would herald America's place as a major naval power.

Unfortunately, the early symbolism didn't match the ship's real-life history.  

Sister ship to the USS Arizona, the USS Pennsylvania, showing the forward three-gun turrets mounting 14-inch guns. The arrangement of guns was somewhat outdated by the time the vessel was launched: the most modern ships had more powerful guns but fewer of them. Credit: Scientific American, October 28, 1916

The modern technology of the ship may have been its greatest weakness. The U.S. Navy had opted for oil as a fuel for its battleships, as opposed to the traditional coal, starting with the U.S.S. Nevada, which first started building in 1912. Oil packed in more energy for the weight and volume, it could release that energy faster and more efficiently, and it could be moved onto and around the ship with pumps and pipes much more easily than the slow, clumsy, laborious work of stokers who had to shovel chunks of coal around manually. In 1912 the British Royal Navy had decided the same. Yet when war broke out, the supplies of oil from Persia (Iran, Iraq) were cut off, and at the height of the war, German submarines became quite successful in sinking oil tankers bringing oil from America and Mexico to the Allied navies. As Daniel Yergin noted in "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power (Simon & Schuster, 1991)," fuel was in critically short supply: "by the end of May 1917 ... the shortfall in oil supplies was constraining the mobility of the Royal Navy. So serious had the situation become that it was even suggested that the Royal Navy stop building oil-driven ships and go back to coal!" In America, too, demands for fuel (coal, oil) for factories and cars was skyrocketing, as was its cost. With such shortages, the large battleships, with no large ships to fight against, and useless at confronting the submarine menace, were a liability given how much fuel they burned up. The USS Arizona was kept at home for the duration of the war, and only emerged after the war was over to escort President Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference.

You have heard of the USS Arizona, unfortunately. Most people do not know its World War One history, but as a symbol of American sea power it was targeted on the first day of America's involvement in World War Two, when it was sunk by a Japanese bomb in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The hull still lies on the seabed in the harbor as part of a memorial to the lives lost on that day.

-

The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

Our full archive of the war, called Scientific American Chronicles: World War I, has many articles from 1914–1918 on technological developments in the First World War. It is available for purchase at www.scientificamerican.com/products/world-war-i/

--

Progressive Hypocrites

I'm not a Trump supporter.  However, I have to love the progressive line of thinking.  Everything they accuse Trump of doing they do themselves:

1) Trump's refusal to accept election results is a threat to democracy and then they refuse to accept the elections results.

2) Trump spreads fake news.  The progressives then spread fake news that election results in swing states have been corrupted with no evidence.

3) Trump's claims of election rigging undermines democracy.  The progressives spread fake news of election rigging with no evidence.

4) Trump supports racism with the alt-right.  Progressives give the idiotic alt-right more press and coverage than Trump ever could thus legitimizing them to other idiotic people.

Thanksgiving Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln

http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

Dear Media: Please Stop Normalizing the Alt-Right - Reason.com

http://reason.com/archives/2016/11/25/dear-media-please-stop-normalizing-the-a

Why does the March for Life, a rally that attracts tens of thousands of anti-abortion Americans to Washington, D.C., every year get less prominent media coverage than a fringe neo-Nazi gathering? Because institutional media and white nationalists have formed a politically convenient symbiotic relationship.

For Jew-hating racists, the attention means they can playact as a viable and popular movement with pull in Washington. In return, many in the media get to confirm their own biases and treat white supremacy as if it were the secret ingredient to Republican success....

Cash Crackdown Escalates: India May Impose 60% Tax On "Unaccounted" Deposits, Curbs On Gold Holdings

 

Cash Crackdown Escalates: India May Impose 60% Tax On "Unaccounted" Deposits, Curbs On Gold Holdings

by Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2016-11-25 06:40

As reported yesterday, India's unexpected crackdown on "black money" which saw the elimination of the old high denomination bills, is not going well, not only because former PM Manmohan Singh slammed the idea warning it would cut as much as 2% from the GDP of the world's fastest growing economy, but because so far the voluntary participation in the "exchange" of old for new notes ahead of today's exchange suspension (deposits of old cash may still take place until December 31) has been far below expectations.

As a result, the government is taking even more aggressive steps to part savers with their allegedly "laundered" cash, and as the Indian Express reports, Mody's cabinet discussed amending laws to levy close to 60% income tax on unaccounted deposits in banks above a threshold post demonetisation of high-denomination currency notes. "The move comes amid banks reporting over Rs 21,000 crore being deposited in zero-balance Jan Dhan accounts in two weeks after the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes were banned, which authorities apprehend may be the laundered black money."

IE sources said the government was keen to tax all unaccounted money deposited in bank accounts after it allowed the banned currency to be deposited in bank accounts during a 50-day window from November 10 to December 30. The Indian paper adds that there was no official briefing on what transpired in the meeting that was called at short notice as Parliament is in session, further suggesting that the Modi government is indeed panicking, and scrambling to come up with legislation on the fly to demonetize India's mostly-cash rich population.

There have been various statements on behalf of the government ever since the demonetisation scheme was announced on November 8, which has led to fears of the taxman coming down heavily on suspicious deposits that could be made to launder blackmoney.

 

Officials have even talked of a 30 per cent tax plus a 200 per cent penalty on top of a possible prosecution in cases where blackmoney holders took advantage of the 50-day window for depositing the banned currency.

Reprotedly, in the government's scramble to sequester cash, the government plans to bring an amendment to the Income Tax Act during the current winter session of Parliament to levy a tax that will be higher than 45 per cent tax and penalty charged on blackmoney disclosed in the one-time Income Disclosure Scheme that ended on September 30. As for those blackmoney holders who did not utilise the window, they would be charged a higher rate which could be close to 60 per cent that the foreign blackmoney holder had paid last year.

But wait, there's more.

Recall, that as per our report last night, one of the reasons proposed for the recent tumble in gold has been speculation that India may ban gold imports. As a reminder, gold has traditionally been a widely-accepted cash alternative in an economy where gold has long held a supremacy over cash equivalents, to the point where recently the government started paying a dividend to those who deposit their gold to local banks for "safe keeping."

Well, it now appears that the government is taking its crusade against gold one step futher, and according to a report by NewsRise, the Indian government may soon impose curbs on domestic holdings of gold as Modi intensifies his war against "black money", news agency NewsRise reported.

As we reported previously, gold prices have soared in India ever since the November 8 demonetization announcement, and premiums jumped to two-year highs last week as jewellers ramped up purchases on fears the government might restrict imports after withdrawing higher-denomination notes from circulation in its fight against black money. 

India is the world's second biggest gold buyer, and it is estimated that one-third of its annual demand of up to 1,000 tonnes is paid for in black money - untaxed funds held in secret by citizens in cash that don't appear in any official accounts.  

The move to withdraw higher denomination notes has already started to disrupt cash-based gold smuggling, officials have said.  Scrap gold supplies were also set to halve this quarter as the cash crunch and falling prices make it difficult for consumers to liquidate their holdings.

If the past is any indication, such escalations by the government will only make it even more attractive for the local population to hold gold as a safe "alternative" to cash, which as the past month has shown can be stripped of its value overnight, and will ultimately lead to even greater gold smuggling by the local population, resulting in another spike in the current account deficit, something which has plagued previous administrations, who have repeatedly looked for ways to prevent hot money outflows from the Indian economy.

--

Mars probe crashed because it misjudged where the ground was

Mars probe crashed because it misjudged where the ground was
https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/24/mars-probe-crashed-because-it-misjudged-where-the-ground-was/

Mars probe crashed because it misjudged where the ground was

Engadget Full RSS Feed / 2016-11-24 19:24

The European Space Agency believes that it knows what caused its Schiaparelli lander to crash on the surface of Mars. It turns out that the spacecraft was hurtling towards the ground perfectly well until it, uh, forgot where the ground actually was. A sensor tasked with determining its altitude failed for a single second, but that was long enough to wreck the entire mission. Since the vessel believed that it had already arrived, it ran through the rest of the landing process and activated the on-ground sensors. 

The inquest as to what caused the failure is still ongoing and may not be resolved for the better part of a year. But officials believe that, specifically, Schiaparelli's inertial measurement unit was oversaturated for a second, which told the system that it was already below ground. As a consequence, the lander fired its parachute, ejected its heat shield and fired its braking thrusters all at once while still 2.3 miles above the surface.....

In Last Minute Twist OPEC Demands Big Production Cuts From Non-OPEC Members; Russia Balks

 

In Last Minute Twist OPEC Demands Big Production Cuts From Non-OPEC Members; Russia Balks

by Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2016-11-24 11:02

With less than a week to go until the much anticipated OPEC meeting in Vienna on November 30, the oil exporting cartel still seems unable to determine the terms of production cut quotas, who will be exempt from cutting, and even who will participate. According to Reuters, in the latest twist to emerge, as OPEC tries to find the sweet spot for production that reduces the oversupply of crude, the organization will ask non-OPEC oil producers to also make big cuts in output, as it seeks to share the burden of declining output and prevent market share gains by non-OPEC nations.

The oil minister of Azerbaijan was quoted as saying the cartel may want non-OPEC producers to cut output by as much as 880,000 barrels per day (bpd). "It could be expected that OPEC members may ask non-OPEC countries to cut production volumes for the next six months starting from Jan. 1 2017 ... by 880,000 barrels from the total daily production," Azeri newspaper Respublika quoted the country's oil minister, Natig Aliyev, as saying.

Reuters countered that according to an OPEC source the group had yet to decide on the final figures to be discussed on Nov. 28, when OPEC and non-OPEC experts meet in Vienna. As previously reported, OPEC is expected to discuss production cuts of 4.0-4.5% among its members at the Vienna meeting to comply with the roughly 1.2mmbpd reduction as set forth in the Algiers meeting which expects total OPEC output of 32.5-33.0mmbpd, but Iran and Iraq still have reservations about how much they want to contribute.

A cut of 880,000 bpd would represent less than 2% of current total non-OPEC output.

Shortly after the report came out, Russian energy minister Alexander Novak said Russia was working with Kazakhstan and Mexico, though not the United States, on joint output curbs, but reiterated Moscow preferred to freeze output over cuts. He said that a freeze would be "quite a difficult and harsh situation for us as our plans envisioned an output growth next year."

In an amusing twist, Russia floated the concept of a "pro-forma" cut, saying that by keeping its production fixed, it would be an effective "cut" to its 2017 production plan. 

A production cap would mean Russia pumping 200,000 to 300,000 barrels a day less than planned in 2017, Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters in Moscow on Thursday, or as Bloomberg's Will Kennedy put it, Russia is trying to "sell a production freeze as a cut."

"According to our plans, (Russia's) oil output is going up next year. If we keep production at the current level we are making our contribution, for us that essentially means a cut of 200,000-300,000 barrels per day (in 2017)", he said.

Under pressure from #OPEC, Russia's energy minister tries to sell #oil production freeze as a cut | https://t.co/bkLU68AKgF #OOTT pic.twitter.com/zffsw5U1Ge

— Will Kennedy (@wenkennedy) November 24, 2016

Novak also said that Russia's position "has remained unchanged and consistent" (even if the algos may have misinterpreted it), and added that "as our president said earlier, we are ready to freeze production at the current levels." President Vladimir Putin on Monday reaffirmed the country is willing to freeze, adding he sees no obstacles to an OPEC agreement this month after the group made major progress in overcoming differences.

In other words, one can forget about a production cut from Russia, which - like OPEC - is already pumping at record output levels. Russian output increased to a record 11.205 million barrels a day in November, near a post-Soviet record. The country has raised its production forecasts several times a year since 2015.

While Russia, the largest crude supplier outside OPEC, has reiterated its preference for a freeze over a cut for several months, members of the group including Saudi Arabia had been expecting the nation would eventually join a cut, according to people briefed on the matter. If Russia and other non-OPEC producers balk at the idea of cutting output, the exporters' group could reconsider pushing ahead, the people said.

As Bloomberg reminds us, if there's no agreement to restrict output, the International Energy Agency has said that oil prices are likely to fall in 2017. OPEC's own estimates of supply and demand also show that the Algiers agreement would barely drain a record oil surplus next year without the cooperation of non-members.

* * *

Which means that the role of Russia, and other non-OPEC members, will be critical in shaping of next week's deal, Emmanuel Kachikwu, Nigeria's minister of state for petroleum, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "Russia is as interested in firming up the price as we are," he said. A senior OPEC delegate told Reuters earlier this week full participation by Moscow would be required: "Statements from Moscow indicating they are not willing to participate in a cut but just to freeze - this will make it difficult for OPEC to rebalance the market alone and bring prices up."

Putting even a cut of 880,000 bpd in context, this would represent less than 2 percent of current total non-OPEC output. But given few non-OPEC producers are expected to participate in the cuts, the burden could be heavy on those that do so - potentially Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Mexico, all of which rely heavily on oil revenues.

To summarize:

The good news: an ideal scenario, should OPEC and non-OPEC members reach a deal to cut 1 million bpd and 880,000 bpd in production respectively, it would immediately help the market turn into a supply deficit and help erode record stocks amounting to over 3 billion barrels. It would also likely send the price of oil to the upper-$50 range.

The bad news: according to the head of the IEA, Faith Birol, U.S. shale oil producers - which are in no way bound to any production cuts or freezes - will increase their output if oil prices hit $60 a barrel, meaning OPEC will have to walk a fine line if it curtails production to prop up prices, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.

"If this decision pushes the prices up (to) around $60 dollars, we may well see a significant increase from shale oil from the U.S.," Fatih Birol told Reuters on Wednesday. He said this level would be enough for many U.S. shale companies to restart stalled production, although it would take around nine months for the new supply to reach the market.

Low prices have led to two consecutive years of falling investment in upstream oil and gas investments, a pattern Birol expects to continue in 2017. This, he said, could lead to tighter oil supply and price spikes in the future.

"We are entering a period of greater oil price volatility and the companies, organizations and countries should prepare themselves accordingly," he said.

* * *

Finally, adding to the complexity, there are two more wildcards: one is Iran oil production and whether Trump will seek to undo the Iranian nuclear deal. Should that happen, and if sanctions are reintroduced, some 1 million barrels in daily oil exports from Iran may go offline, further pressuring the market. The other is suddenly waning Chinese demand, on what some analysts have speculated is the result of the Chinese Strategic Petroleum Reserve approaching full status, which could eliminate as much as 1.1 million bpd in demand from the market once China stop filling up its extensive SPR.

--

Pluto

America Theme For College Party Declared “Alienating, Divisive, and Harmful”

 

America Theme For College Party Declared "Alienating, Divisive, and Harmful"

by jonathanturley

JONATHAN TURLEY / 2016-11-23 10:49

School officials at Loyola University Maryland pressured student government leaders to drop the "America" theme for their senior class party as "very alienating, divisive and harmful" and against the university's "core values." The party was to be one of four celebrations for graduating seniors and the theme was selected by the students themselves but then declared as inappropriate and offensive by university officials.

The student held their ground and held their America party. University officials warned that they would intervened if students were offended. University Executive Vice President Susan Donovan sent an email to two SGA members claiming she "talked with a number of students and heard from faculty members" about the party. She warned "None of it is positive and it sounds very alienating, divisive and harmful." She added "I encourage you to reconsider this plan in light of the legitimate concerns raised by so many We have made progress in providing a welcoming climate on campus and do we want to reverse that progress with a theme that divides us?"

Dean of Students Sheilah Horton also objected and suggested that those who wanted an America them were insensitive and had not considered who such a party "provides an opportunity for students to dress or behave in a way that offends or oppresses others." Horton reportedly said that any offense would be dealt with by the Administration and that the party risked making students and faculty "unsafe." She even said that the party could drive down applications at the university.

I fail to understand why a theme celebrating America (which is a melting pot of cultures) is insensitive or offensive (though, as we discussed, the use "melting pot" itself has been declared a microaggression). We have been discussing how it often seems that universities are allowing the most sensitive students to dictate speech and symbols that are used on campuses — instead of instilling a sense of acceptance for a pluralistic community of different values.

Nevertheless, the student leaders felt compelled to apologize for a "Party in the USA" theme:

"As an organization, we want to extend our deepest apologies to those that were hurt by this theme and the negative impact it had on them. Although it was not our intention to create such a divisive climate, we understand that the impact of this decision is much greater than our initial intention."

What do you think?

--

Asteroid That Killed Dinosaurs Made Earth's Surface Act Like Liquid, Scientists Say : The Two-Way : NPR

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/22/503013290/scientists-say-dinosaur-killing-asteroid-made-earths-surface-act-like-liquid?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews

A computer illustration of a large asteroid colliding with Earth. (Size may not be to scale.) Such an impact is believed to have led to the death of the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago.

Mark Garlick /Getty Images/Science Photo Library RM

When the asteroid believed to have killed off the dinosaurs smashed into Earth some 66 million years ago, its sheer force made the planet's surface momentarily act like a liquid.

The asteroid ripped open a 60-mile-wide hole. From miles deep in that abyss, rock hurtled upward to a height twice that of Mount Everest and then collapsed outward to form a ring of mountains......

Inoreader - China Uses US Concern Over Fake News To Push For More Control Of The Internet

It's never a good sign when China and the US agree over the need to tighten regulation.  It proves the true goal is to control people and their behavior.



(14) Inoreader - China Uses US Concern Over Fake News To Push For More Control Of The Internet

All this talk of fake news and the public's apparent inability to be trusted with the task of sorting the real from the bogus has now led to China introducing even more censorship. #MakeSuppressionGreatAgainAlso.

China's ambitions to tighten up regulation of the Internet have found a second wind in old fears - terrorism and fake news.

Chinese officials and business leaders speaking at the third World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen last week called for more rigid cyber governance, pointing to the ability of militants to organize online and the spread of false news items during the recent U.S. election as signs cyberspace had become dangerous and unwieldy.......