From the Trenches World Report

Stop the Drug War – by Phillip Smith

As of Monday, Vermont will be the 17th state to decriminalize marijuana possession. A bill passed earlier this year goes into effect then.

The measure, House Bill 200, was sponsored by Rep. Christopher Pearson (P-Burlington), with a tripartisan group of 38 cosponsors. It ends criminal penalties for the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana or five grams of hashish and replaces them with fines of $200 for a first offense, $300 for a second offense, and $500 for subsequent offenses. Possession of more than an ounce remains a criminal offense, as does cultivation of any number of plants.   Continue reading “Vermont Decriminalizes Marijuana Starting Monday”

The Daily Chronic – by Thomas H. Clarke

BAKERSFIELD, CA – The Bakersfield city council voted 4-0 this week to ban all medical marijuana dispensaries in the city, giving local law enforcement the power to close the existing dispensaries beginning in about a month.

City Attorney Ginny Gennaro says that under the ban, approved Wednesday, medical marijuana dispensaries will not be required to close overnight. Instead, the ordinance prohibits their operation in all zones of the city, from residential to industrial.   Continue reading “CA: Bakersfield Bans Medical Marijuana Dispensaries”

iHLS – by Dan Arkin

magal is currently completing the first phase of a large scale project for the perimeter protection of the main harbor of Mombasa, Kenya from attempts of sabotage, intrusion, terror and criminal activity. In the past, magal deployed perimeter protection systems in a great number of critical sites around the world, such as the Delhi airport and oil fields in a South American country.   Continue reading “Israeli perimeter protection systems – around the world”

Reason – by Nick Gillespie

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives is very proud of its hot new venture: using “fake drugs, big bucks to snare suspects.” USA Today reports:

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the agency in charge of enforcing the nation’s gun laws, has locked up more than 1,000 people by enticing them to rob drug stash houses that did not exist. The ploy has quietly become a key part of the ATF’s crime-fighting arsenal, but also a controversial one: The stings are so aggressive and costly that some prosecutors have refused to allow them. They skirt the boundaries of entrapment, and in the past decade they have left at least seven suspects dead.   Continue reading “ATF Proud of Expensive “Stash House” Scam to Arrest Drug Thugs”

Mail.com

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — An American doctor arrived in Vietnam carrying an unlikely piece of luggage: the bones of an arm he amputated in 1966.

Dr. Sam Axelrad brought the skeletal keepsake home to Texas as a reminder that when a badly injured North Vietnamese soldier was brought to him, he did the right thing and fixed him up. The bones sat in a closet for decades, and when the Houston urologist finally pulled them out two years ago, he wondered about their true owner, Nguyen Quang Hung.   Continue reading “Humerus reunion: Doc returns Vietnamese vet’s arm”

RT News

Unemployment across the 17 eurozone states hit an all-time high in May. Consumer price inflation rose for a second month in a row, with the spectre of deflation in recession hit Europe in the wings, according to the latest EU figures.

Unemployment rose 0.1 per cent in May, just slightly above the revised figure of 12.0 percent for April, but marginally below the original 12.2 percent, Eurostat said on Monday. Continue reading “Over 19 million jobless as Eurozone unemployment hits record high”

Washington Post – by Max Fisher

Huge numbers of Egyptians gathered in Cairo on Sunday to protest the government of President Mohamed Morsi, sworn in one year ago, as a smaller number of Morsi supporters gathered in a different part of town.

Read Abigail Hauslohner’s story to get a sense of the tension in Cairo, where protesters are hoping to topple Morsi’s year-old rule and many fear the demonstrations could devolve into violence. CNN’s Ben Wedeman, a veteran of the region, called Sunday’s anti-Morsi demonstration the largest public protest he’d ever seen in Egypt.   Continue reading “Amazing photos of Egypt’s massive demonstrations”

Before It’s News

Cyprus Precedent? “bail-in” – rules to impose failed banks’ losses on shareholders, bondholders & “some” large depositors agreed by EU finance ministers

Anyone. Anyone except the banks will do to ‘cover’ the losses of what is essentially their depositors’ money. Even with this kind of track record, the banks are so arrogant today that the’re actually charging clients to lend them their money. They call it a “Deposit Charge” because everything a bank does for you “while looking after your money” is charged to you. You end up using between 80% and 95% of your earnings. Interest? Just another revenue stream for banks – Tom Dennen   Continue reading “If You Have A Bank Account In Europe With Over 100,000 Euros In It, get Your Money Out Now”

Collective Evolution – by Arjun

Shortly after 50,000 bees were found dead in an Oregon parking lot (read more here), a staggering 37 million bees have been found dead in Elmwood, Ontario, Canada.Dave Schuit, who runs a honey operation in Elmwood has lost 600 hives. He is pointing the finger at the insecticides known as neonicotinoids, which are manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc.   This also comes after a recent report released by the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) that recorded its largest loss of honeybees ever. You can read more about that here.  The European Union has stepped forward, having ban multiple pesticides that have been linked to killing millions of bees. You can view the studies and read more about that here.   Continue reading “Over 30 Million Bees Found Dead In Elmwood Canada”

Desdemona Despair

PHOENIX (Reuters) – A dangerous, record-breaking heat wave in the western United States contributed to the death of a Nevada resident and sent scores of people to hospitals with heat-related illnesses.

The scorching heat, caused by a dome of hot air trapped by a high pressure ridge, pushed the mercury above 100 F (38 C) in parts of California, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Texas.   Continue reading “Western United States swelters amid deadly heat – 72 percent of West now in drought”

Planet Infowars – by truthsoldier777

Your televisions are sucking your Life out. The amount of noise that they generate is not normal. That blank stare that you get when you are lying on your couch without any energy is not normal. The lights that it is generating for your eyes to see are not natural. The flicker rate, etc. None of that exists in nature. You are being drained, every day. You can’t seem to pull away from it once you find a show that excites you. You find yourself wanting to get up and do other things but you can’t. it’s overwhelming your senses.   Continue reading “Your TV’s Are Draining Your Life”

Activist Post – by Stephen Lendman

America governs lawlessly. Out-of-control rogues run things. Conditions go from bad to worse. Tyranny threatens everyone. So does possible global war.

Fear-mongering, saber rattling, hot wars, proxy ones, drone ones, geopolitical ones, financial ones, anti-populist ones, mass incarceration, censorship, lawless sanctions, subversion, sabotage, targeted assassinations, mass murder, cyberwar, and horrific draconian harshness reflect out-of control governance gone mad.   Continue reading “America: Government by Terror, Torture and Tyranny”

Natural News – by Jonathan Benson

Oregon parents who choose to protect their children from the horrors of vaccines will now have to jump through a slew of unconstitutional government hoops, including subjecting themselves to state-coerced reeducation training and state-endorsed medical propaganda. This, thanks to the passage of a new bill recently signed into law by Oregon Governor and American traitor John Kitzhaber that makes opting out of vaccines more difficult.   Continue reading “Oregon passes unconstitutional bill that infringes natural right of parents to opt out of vaccination ‘requirements’”

The Free Foundation – by Ron Paul

From massive NSA spying, to IRS targeting of the administration’s political opponents, to collection and sharing of our health care information as part of Obamacare, it seems every day we learn of another assault on our privacy. Sadly, this week the Senate took another significant, if little-noticed, step toward creating an authoritarian surveillance state. Buried in the immigration bill is a national identification system called mandatory E-Verify.   Continue reading “If You Like The Surveillance State, You’ll Love E-Verify”

Before It’s News

Briefly, lending is a no-risk, ‘asset-secured’ business, in its simplest form seeing borrowers liable only for the original loan, secured against the borrower’s assets, plus interest.

When the loan is payed back, the bank profits from the interest.

When borrowers default, they yield to the lender whatever securities they’ve put up, normally far exceeding the value of the original loan.    Continue reading “Fixing Globalization & The Unbearable Simplicity of Banking”