Building Puertopia ???

They call what they are building Puertopia. But then someone told them, apparently in all seriousness, that it translates to “eternal boy playground” in Latin. So they are changing the name: They will call it Sol.

Dozens of entrepreneurs, made newly wealthy by blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are heading en masse to Puerto Rico this winter. They are selling their homes and cars in California and establishing residency on the Caribbean island in hopes of avoiding what they see as onerous state and federal taxes on their growing fortunes, some of which now reach into the billions of dollars.

And these men — because they are almost exclusively men — have a plan for what to do with the wealth: They want to build a crypto utopia, a new city where the money is virtual and the contracts are all public, to show the rest of the world what a crypto future could look like. Blockchain, a digital ledger that forms the basis of virtual currencies, has the potential to reinvent society — and the Puertopians want to prove it.

You can read the rest @
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/technology/cryptocurrency-puerto-rico.html

As I have warned many times before, allowing the rich to build themselves a utopia devoid of taxation can in no way benefit We The People. No matter what they promise, the end result will be heaven for them and hell for the rest of us.

As proof of my claim, I offer the following list of similar enterprises:

• Amazon
• Apple
• Facebook
• Google

All four have mainly turned into wealth generating machines which benefit their creators at the expense of everyone else. All four (coincidentally?) were created by men, and all four have benefited from tax avoidance strategies.

Don't let them do this!

Texas Shale Oil Is King

Surging shale oil production in Texas and North Dakota is being felt on trading desks in Chicago, Houston and New York, where a brisk business in West Texas Intermediate crude futures is far outpacing contracts for London-based Brent crude.

You can read the rest @
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-record-markets/texas-shale-challenges-north-sea-crude-as-world-oil-benchmark-idUSKBN1FM0IG

In a former life I worked for an organization which processed air permit applications for oil and gas facilities in Texas, so I caught a glimpse of what is going on.

As a beneficiary of the monetary proceeds from Texas shale oil, I'm somewhat happy about all this new drilling and fracking.

But as someone who must breathe the air and drink the water of Texas, I'm quite unhappy:

•  All these well holes will be there forever, and many of them will allow leakage into our groundwater;
• A heck of a lot of nasty emissions will enter our atmosphere; and
• A huge amount of toxic solid waste will be belched up onto our land.

On balance, the oil and gas industry is about as beneficial to humanity as the nuclear industry; i.e., not very much at all.

Peace ??? We Don't Need No Stinking Peace !!!

During his first State of the Union address on Tuesday, Donald Trump pledged the United States would continue its “campaign of maximum pressure” against North Korea. Meanwhile, the Washington Post ran an opinion piece written by the man who was, until recently, set to become the U.S. ambassador to South Korea.

Victor Cha, a professor at Georgetown University and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, had reportedly passed all U.S. security checks, and South Korea had signed off on him.

It was expected — and for the government in Seoul, hoped — that Trump would soon formally nominate Cha for Senate approval. But over the weekend, it was reported that the White house informed Cha he was no longer being considered for the post.

Sources say the move was motivated by Cha’s disagreement with the Trump administration’s policy on North Korea. In particular, these sources say, the would-be ambassador took issue with the White House considering a preemptive strike against the Hermit Kingdom.

Writing for the Washington Post on Tuesday, Cha stated that the answer to the North Korean question “is not, as some Trump administration officials have suggested, a preventive military strike.”

Rather, Cha wrote, there are options available to address the threat “without escalating into a war that would likely kill tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Americans.”

You can read the rest @
https://www.activistpost.com/2018/02/sure-sounds-like-us-actually-going-bomb-north-korea.html

Bombs away; and let the impeachment process begin.

The Demise Of Labor

It’s Not the Dow, Stupid! Underpaid Workforce Imperils US and Global Economies

Over a period of 40 years, capitalists like Rockefeller, Walmart, the Koch Brothers, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have completely rearranged the financial universe — all but eradicating inflation, and radically devaluing work relative to capital.

You can read the rest @
https://www.mintpressnews.com/its-not-the-dow-stupid-underpaid-workforce-imperils-us-and-global-economies/237090/

D-u-h ... that was the whole point of the US wars on communism and socialism. The capitalists won, labor lost. And note well it was the blood and treasure of We The People which were squandered in the process, while the riches of the capitalists grew beyond measure.

Face it - we're stupid. Knowing that, why would you expect anything other than they should treat us like cattle?

From Facebook To Policebook

Here is a great report from the World Socialist Web Site:

Facebook is being transformed into an instrument of censorship and surveillance, monitoring the actions and thoughts of its users.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/02/pers-f02.html

Frankly, that is what Facebook ALWAYS was. The only real difference is that we're finally starting to notice.

Shut it down. Seize its assets.

Most Important Quote So Far This Century

“Making this memo public [the FISA memo] will almost certainly impede our ability to conduct clandestine activities operating outside any legal or judicial system on an international scale,” said Wray, noting that it was essential that mutual trust exist between the American people and the vast, mysterious cabal given free rein to use any tactics necessary to conduct surveillance on U.S. citizens or subvert religious and political groups.

“If we take away the people’s faith in this shadowy monolith exempt from any consequences, all that’s left is an extensive network of rogue, unelected intelligence officers carrying out extrajudicial missions for a variety of subjective, and occasionally personal, reasons.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray

That has got to be the most stunning admission of stupidity ever made by a US official.

Dear Chris - That's the whole point. It's not merely "all that's left" ... it's all there ever was ... "rogue, unelected intelligence officers carrying out extrajudicial missions for a variety of subjective, and occasionally personal, reasons."

EVERYTHING about the National Security State is incompatible with democracy and the US Constitution.

STOP SPYING ON US - STOP TORTURING PEOPLE - STOP LYING US INTO WAR AFTER WAR.

AND RESTORE THE US CONSTITUTION.

Converting US Schools To Social Justice Factories

For decades, the public schools of Edina, Minnesota, were the gold standard among the state’s school districts. Edina is an upscale suburb of Minneapolis, but virtually overnight, its reputation has changed. Academic rigor is unraveling, high school reading and math test scores are sliding, and students increasingly fear bullying and persecution.

The shift began in 2013, when Edina school leaders adopted the “All for All” strategic plan - a sweeping initiative that reordered the district’s mission from academic excellence for all students to “racial equity.”

“Equity” in this context does not mean “equality” or “fairness.” It means racial identity politics - an ideology that blames minority students’ academic challenges on institutional racial bias, repudiates Martin Luther King, Jr.’s color-blind ideal, and focuses on uprooting “white privilege.”

You can read the rest @
http://www.weeklystandard.com/inside-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/article/2011402

Those who devised this program appear to be prime examples of what my father used to call "educated morons".

We can expect the downward slide of US students to continue, since this destructive virus seems certain to infect ALL public schools in the US.

Jeez Louise !!!