From the Trenches World Report

The Internet Post – by bjjangles

Thousands of people last week discovered that Amazon had quietly removed electronic copies of George Orwell’s 1984 from their Kindle e-book readers. In the process, Amazon revealed how easy censorship will be in the Kindle age.

In this case, the mass e-book removals were motivated by copyright . A company called MobileReference, who did not own the copyrights to the books 1984 and Animal Farm, uploaded both books to the Kindle store and started selling them. When the rights owner heard about this, they contacted Amazon and asked that the e-books be removed. And Amazon decided to erase them not just from the store, but from all the Kindles where they’d been downloaded. Amazon operators used the Kindle wireless network, called WhisperNet, to quietly delete the books from people’s devices and refund them the money they’d paid.   Continue reading “Amazon Secretly Removes “1984″ From the Kindle”

To be delivered to: John Plasse, County Supervisor, Richard Forster, County Supervisor, Ted Novelli, County Supervisor, Brian Oneto, County Supervisor, and Louis Boitano, County Supervisor

Stop the Drug War – by Phillip Smith

USA Today – by Tim Mullaney

For the first time, a majority of Americans now support legalizing marijuana. Commercial marijuana sales are estimated at $1.5 billion today which could quadruple by 2018. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia currently allow its medical use.

Brendan Kennedy and Michael Blue are nice boys. Really. They’re bankers. Yale MBA classmates. Wearers of ties.   Continue reading “As marijuana goes legit, investors rush in”

Huffington Post

With a massive budget of around $4.6 billion, you’d think the NYPD would pay to repair a little damage to one of its cop cars, especially when said cop car was damaged only after slamming into a cyclist and leaving him with stitches.

You’d think.   Continue reading “Justin Johnsen, Brooklyn Cyclist, Received $1,200 Bill For Damage To NYPD Car That Hit Him”

Guardian – by Karen McVeigh

Life had not been easy for Landris Hawkins, who struggled with several health problems, mental and physical. But his close-knit family in Little Rock, Arkansas, were loving, and looked after him as best they could.

His sisters, Deshuna and Levonne, called him their “gentle giant”, a reference to a 6ft 7in stature caused by Marfan syndrome, a genetic growth disorder. His grandmother, Neomia, with whom he had lived since he was six, called him “Twiki”, after the robot in the Buck Rogers television series they watched together when he was small.   Continue reading “Death in Little Rock: ‘They hollered a couple of times and it was all over’”

Gun Owners of America

See a Shrink, Lose your Guns. The anti-gun “ranters” have spent the last week telling us that Republican Senators can’t filibuster Harry Reid’s gun control bill; that they can’t cut off debate to a bill they haven’t seen yet. “Let the bill come up,” they say. “We need to see the bill” before Senators can vote against cloture to proceed to it.

Well, we’ve seen the Toomey-Manchin-Schumer sell-out, and it’s worse than the Feinstein gun ban, which will reportedly be tied to it and offered simultaneously in a Senate procedure known as an “amendment tree.”   Continue reading “Senator Toomey Betrays Gun Owners”

The Organic Prepper

A genetically modified rose by any other name may smell sweet, but it could still have frankenthorns that might independently detach themselves and lop off your finger while you’re smelling it.  That’s not unlike a trip to the grocery store these days. There are a lot of ugly surprises in pretty, charmingly-named packages.

It seems like no matter how hard you try to avoid them, GMOs and toxic foods creep into your life.   Continue reading “The Grocery Store Blacklist: 12 Food Companies to Avoid (and 95 Sneaky Aliases)”

New York Times – by JENNIFER STEINHAUER

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan collection of senators on Wednesday announced a compromise measure to expand background checks for gun buyers, increasing the chances that a viable package of new gun safety laws will soon hit the Senate floor.

Fellowship of the Minds – by Dr. Eowyn

In April 2011, Williams Institute, a gay and lesbian think tank at UCLA School of Law, released a study that found Americans grossly overestimate the number of homosexuals in the United States. Instead of the common misconception that 25% of the US population are gay or lesbian, the truth is that it’s probably less than 2 percent.

And yet JC Penney’s CEO Ron Johnson decided to “improve” the family store by pandering to homosexuals — a move that, on the grounds of simple market calculation, isn’t smart.   Continue reading “JCPenney fires gay-pandering CEO”

Sweetness and Light – by Steve Gilbert, March 21, 2013

From IPT News:

Saudi Arabia, the nation which produced 15 of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 attacks, is about to become one of a handful of countries whose travelers can bypass normal passport controls at major U.S. airports. Sources tell the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) that this will mark the first time that the Saudi government will have a direct role in vetting who is eligible for getting fast-tracked for entry into the United States.   Continue reading “DHS Plans To Speed Saudis Through US Customs”

The Economic Collapse – by Michael

Did you know that there are thousands upon thousands of homeless people that are living underground beneath the streets of major U.S. cities?  It is happening in Las Vegas, it is happening in New York City and it is even happening in Kansas City.  As the economy crumbles, poverty in the United States is absolutely exploding and so is homelessness.

In addition to the thousands of “tunnel people” living under the streets of America, there are also thousands that are living in tent cities, there are tens of thousands that are living in their vehicles and there are more than a million public school children that do not have a home to go back to at night.    Continue reading “The Tunnel People That Live Under The Streets Of America”

Free North Carolina – Goodies from Ol’ Remus

We’ll take one step at a time, and the first is necessarily—given the political realities—very modest. We’ll have to start working again to strengthen the law, and then again to strengthen the next law and again and again. Our ultimate goal, total control of hand guns, is going to take time. The first problem is to slow down production and sales. Next is to get registration. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and ammunition (with a few exceptions) totally illegal.

Pete Shields, founder of Handgun Control, 1976, via SprinklesAndGumdrops, comment at cnn.com   Continue reading “It takes a twisted sense of humor for Connecticut to call itself the Constitution State. Somewhere, Nathan Hale is puking.”

San Jacinto County Outlaw

Governments have always been corrupt, man has always been inherently evil, times are much different now, we sit at the precipice. What went wrong? Many of us blame the Marxists that have gained a foot hold in our republic, some blame the women’s movement. Is it really that simple? While others blame the lack of religion and faith, is it really that simple.

How did we get to the place we now reside? How did America Fail? I happen to believe we failed America, yes I am well aware the anarchist’s think differently. The cauldron has been boiling for some time, how did we get here? Does anyone really have the answer?   Continue reading “Hanging Judges”

Resister in the Rockies

If you’ve been saving your pennies for some hard plates, consider the VERY affordable AR500 armor.

Cheap price doesn’t mean cheap quality when it comes to these plates.

The plate pictured above was shot with the following at 15 yards with NO penetration:   Continue reading “AR500 Body Armor – Affordable and Effective”

HS Today – by Anthony Kimery

The proposed expansion of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), better known today as drones, by federal, state and local law enforcement, first responders and other agencies, “raises far-reaching issues concerning the extent of government surveillance authority, the value of privacy in the digital age and the role of Congress in reconciling these issues,” a new policy report for congressional lawmakers stated.

The introduction of drones into American airspace raises many legal and policy questions. For instance, how far can the government go in its attempts to maintain security and ensure that laws are enforced? What level of privacy should Americans expect in an age where technology facilitating the acquisition of personal information expands at a phenomenal pace?   Continue reading “Legal Aspects Of Using Drones For Domestic Surveillance Explored In Congressional Report”

HS Today – by Anthony Kimery

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is testing a wide variety of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS) sensor platforms, including one that can determine whether individuals are armed or unarmed, for use by first responders and frontline homeland security professionals.

The testing is taking place at the Oklahoma Training Center for Unmanned Systems (OTC-UC), a unit of University Multispectral Laboratories (UML), a not-for-profit scientific institution operated for Oklahoma State University (OSU) by Anchor Dynamics, Inc. UML is a “Trusted Agent” for the federal government, technology developers and operators.   Continue reading “DHS Small Drone Test Plan Calls For Evaluating Sensors For ‘First Responder, HS Operational Communities’”

The Foundry – by David S. Addington

Under Senator Harry Reid’s (D-NV) gun control bill (S. 649), if somebody steals your firearm or you lose it, you can go to prison for up to five years if you have not reported the theft or loss to local police and to Attorney General Eric Holder within 24 hours.

The provision merits ridicule for treating as a felon someone who misplaces a firearm and does not report it to the police and the federal government fast enough.   Continue reading “Reid’s Gun Control Bill Makes a Missing Firearm a Ticket to Five Years in Prison”

RT News

The 11 largest drug companies have made $711 billion in profits in just a decade, largely due to overcharging Medicare, which does not seek out competitive prices and uses taxpayer funds to support Big Pharma.

Since Medicare is prohibited from purchasing drugs based on their cost, its prescription drug program has been making large payouts to drug companies that have overcharged the program for years, according to an analysis by Health Care for America Now (HCAN).   Continue reading “Big Pharma made $711 bln overcharging seniors and disabled”