Good News for Gary

from aangirfan by Anon

Gary

The CIA has suffered a setback.

On 5th December 2011, the campaign to change Britain's unfair extradition laws scored a success in the UK parliament.

A motion calling for 'urgent reform' to the US/UK treaty on extradition was passed uncontested by UK members of parliament.

The treaty is being used to try to send Gary McKinnon, an Asperger's syndrome sufferer, to America.

Gary McKinnon is wanted for hacking U.S military computers while searching for evidence of 'little green men'.


Conservative MP Dominic Raab led the debate in the UK parliament.

He said that the motion calling for reform was about defending 'the price we place on the liberty of our citizens and the value we ascribe to that cornerstone of British justice – innocent until proven guilty.'

The motion is not binding on the Government.

Members of Parliament want changes to both the 2003 UK/US treaty and a separate extradition deal with Brussels.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2070402/Gary-McKinnon-extradition-Law-reform-motion-voted-through.html#ixzz1fk4VeWGx

A comment in the UK's Daily mail:

"This is good news. The bad news is that the US Senate is passing a bill to allow the arrest, indefinite detention without trial, of any citizen of any country anywhere, and allowing some to be detained if found innocent by a jury."

Free Gary McKinnon

5 popular but harmful drugs that can be replaced with marijuana

This article is dedicated to anyone that struggles with prescription drugs on this list because they are afraid of consuming a plant deemed illegal by the State.

Cannabis is simply the best natural remedy
to safely treat many ailments

Activist Post

The notion that any authority can determine what a sovereign human being can and cannot ingest into their own body is the very essence of control. Banning any substance from responsible adult consumption no matter how harmful should simply not be permitted in a free society.

However, certain substances are deemed so harmful by "experts" that they claim to adversely affect society as a whole and thus they're banned from the population. Of course, force of laws with guns and jails have never been able to eliminate their use throughout history. So, as a practical matter, banning any substance from society always tends to do more harm than good.

The utter failure that is the war on drugs seems to have ulterior motives besides protecting society, as evidenced by the countless harmful chemicals that are legal to consume. Marijuana is the most obvious example of a substance that remains illegal not because of health threats, or because it's a danger to society, but rather because its benefits threaten entire industries, especially Big Pharma.

If you need a fix to ease pain, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders and a host of other ailments, then a legal drug dealer is happy to sell you a chemical concoction with endless side effects. Recent studies show huge spikes in psychiatric drug use, as well as addiction to prescription pain pills, yet they remain legal and doctors get incentives to push them.

In nearly every case, marijuana is a safer alternative and just as effective. When eaten or vaporized, cannabis has proven entirely beneficial as a natural alternative. Here are 5 popular but dangerous drugs that could, in most cases, be replaced by cannabis.

1. Painkillers: Vicodin, Demerol, Oxycontin, or Percodan are used to treat moderate or severe pain. They're all highly addictive and come with side effects that vary widely from stomach problems, dizziness, depression, pain and spasms, to even death. Marijuana is a proven pain reliever that takes the edge off even the most severe pain. It is not physically addictive, has very few side effects by comparison, and has never caused a single death in 5000 years of recorded use.

2. Tranquilizers: Valium, Xanax, and Ambien are examples of popular anti-anxiety drugs. All Americans will likely know someone close to them who are dependent on these drugs to cope with daily life. The side effects are similar to anti-depressants and painkillers; stomach and liver problems, depression or suicidal thoughts, dizziness and confusion, etc. Marijuana is an excellent substitute for these temporary anxiety relievers, again with far fewer negative effects.

3. Alcohol: Alcohol is the most commonly used and accepted substance for self-regulated stress relief. It's used by countless Americans to take the edge off a long work day, and also by many soldiers seeking to relieve Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Alcohol is highly addictive and causes many long-term problems like high blood pressure and liver failure. Marijuana has proven to be far safer and more effective in reducing stress, especially among PTSD sufferers.

4. Anti-depressants: Prozac, Zoloft, Elavil, or Paxil are popular anti-depressants that a huge portion of the population are now dependent on. Side effects like nausea and sexual dysfunction are common, while suicidal tendencies are also increased tremendously, which seems to negate their very purpose. These selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) reduce the body's ability to produce natural serotonin and can be difficult for people to find a healthy balance once they rid the drug from their system. Marijuana, although a temporary anti-depressant, is far less dangerous and may result in instant happiness bordering on silliness.

5. Aspirin and Tylenol: These commonly-used over-the-counter drugs for minor aches and pains cause stomach problems like ulcers, liver damage, and even death. That's right, Tylenol causes about 450 deaths a year and Aspirin causes a whopping 13,000 deaths per year from sudden bleeding. Many natural alternatives can be used for the symptoms that these drugs ease, and marijuana is just one of the safer options -- with none of the damaging side effects.

As you can see, marijuana, which can be easily grown in nearly every climate, is a huge threat to these billion-dollar-a-year drugs. And this list represents a tiny fraction of the harmful pharmaceuticals that can be replaced by cannabis. To claim that cannabis is more dangerous than any of these popular legal substances is blatantly false, thus there's no reason for its prohibition other than the threat of competition to Big Pharma.

Thankfully, you're not a criminal in over a dozen states if you use marijuana in place of them. And surely, it's only a matter of time before it's obvious to everyone that marijuana users should not be labeled criminals no matter what they use it for.

‘The Pirate Bay Dancing’ Add-On Killls DNS and IP Blockades

Efforts to censor the Internet are increasing in the Western world. In the US lawmakers are currently discussing legislation (SOPA/PIPA) that could take out The Pirate Bay, or disable access to it. In several other countries such as Italy, Finland and Belgium, courts have already ordered Internet Providers to block their users’ access to the site. Demonstrating the futility of these efforts, a small group of developers today releases a browser add-on called “The Pirate Bay Dancing.”

When Homeland Security’s ICE unit started seizing domain names last year, a group called “MAFIAAFire” decided to code a browser add-on to redirect the affected websites to their new domains.

The release went viral and by now more than 200,000 people have installed the add-on. ICE wasn’t happy with this and asked Mozilla to pull the add-on from their site. However, Mozilla denied the request, arguing that this type of censorship may threaten the open Internet.

Today MAFIAAFire delivers a new release that aims to thwart the increasing censorship efforts in countries worldwide. Named “The Pirate Bay Dancing,” the Firefox add-on undoes local DNS and IP blocks by routing users through a series of randomly picked proxies.

The MAFIAAFire team told TorrentFreak that the development of the plugin was partly motivated by SOPA and PIPA, the pending anti-piracy bills in the US.

“DNS and IP blocking is probably the most dangerous part of SOPA/PIPA in terms of ‘breaking the Internet,’ so we tackled that first. We will be going after the other parts of SOPA in later releases but probably not in ‘our usual plugin form’ – the other parts require different solutions that we have already started work on,” we were told.

Although the add-on carries The Pirate Bay in its name it also works with other sites such as Newsbin2 and BTJunkie which are blocked in the UK and Italy respectively. In a broader sense it can also be used to bypass national “firewalls” such as in China, and soon perhaps the US.

Putting the add-on to work only requires two clicks and is completely free.

After the add-on is installed users can specify the websites for which they want it to work, and these sites then trigger a response from the plugin. If someone from Italy for example chooses to unblock The Pirate Bay, the add-on will save this preference and load the site through a proxy on the next visit.

MAFIAAFire is using thousands of proxies which will be rotated constantly, hence the (dirty) dancing. The current version is fully working but TorrentFreak was told that the functionality will be expanded in future releases.

The MAFIAAFire team told TorrentFreak that they were eager to help The Pirate Bay out, as the site’s operators have been an inspiration to them. The Pirate Bay team on their turn will soon feature the add-on on their homepage.

“Saving TPB was a big deal to us, we love the site and how it has stood the test of time while dozens of others fell, bent over or were run over. The MAFIAA have been trying to take down TPB’s sails for years, country by country, this extends its life a little more to give it smooth sailing,” TorrentFreak was told.

“In the bigger picture, other than the US’ SOPA we also have each country experimenting with its own mini-firewall. This makes all those blocks in all those countries, and all the millions the MAFIAA have spent to get to there, useless,” the MAFIAAFire team added.

While the latest MAFIAAFire add-on shows how easy it is to bypass these censorship attempts, supporters of the measures would argue that it will nonetheless stop the vast majority of casual pirates.

The creators of “The Pirate Bay Dancing” are not ignorant of this, but aside from delivering a working product, one of their main goals is to send a signal that censorship is never the right path to take. Judging from the recognition they’ve received so far, they sure have succeeded on that front.

The Pirate Bay Dancing

Study shows medical marijuana laws reduce traffic deaths

Leads to lower consumption of alcohol

Jesse Warren image

David Kelly
UC Denver

DENVER (Nov. 29, 2011) – A groundbreaking new study shows that laws legalizing medical marijuana have resulted in a nearly nine percent drop in traffic deaths and a five percent reduction in beer sales.

"Our research suggests that the legalization of medical marijuana reduces traffic fatalities through reducing alcohol consumption by young adults," said Daniel Rees, professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver who co-authored the study with D. Mark Anderson, assistant professor of economics at Montana State University.

The researchers collected data from a variety of sources including the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

The study is the first to examine the relationship between the legalization of medical marijuana and traffic deaths.

"We were astounded by how little is known about the effects of legalizing medical marijuana," Rees said. "We looked into traffic fatalities because there is good data, and the data allow us to test whether alcohol was a factor."

Anderson noted that traffic deaths are significant from a policy standpoint.

"Traffic fatalities are an important outcome from a policy perspective because they represent the leading cause of death among Americans ages five to 34," he said.

The economists analyzed traffic fatalities nationwide, including the 13 states that legalized medical marijuana between 1990 and 2009. In those states, they found evidence that alcohol consumption by 20- through 29-year-olds went down, resulting in fewer deaths on the road.

The economists noted that simulator studies conducted by previous researchers suggest that drivers under the influence of alcohol tend to underestimate how badly their skills are impaired. They drive faster and take more risks. In contrast, these studies show that drivers under the influence of marijuana tend to avoid risks. However, Rees and Anderson cautioned that legalization of medical marijuana may result in fewer traffic deaths because it's typically used in private, while alcohol is often consumed at bars and restaurants.

"I think this is a very timely study given all the medical marijuana laws being passed or under consideration," Anderson said. "These policies have not been research-based thus far and our research shows some of the social effects of these laws. Our results suggest a direct link between marijuana and alcohol consumption."

The study also examined marijuana use in three states that legalized medical marijuana in the mid-2000s, Montana, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Marijuana use by adults increased after legalization in Montana and Rhode Island, but not in Vermont. There was no evidence that marijuana use by minors increased.

Opponents of medical marijuana believe that legalization leads to increased use of marijuana by minors.

According to Rees and Anderson, the majority of registered medical marijuana patients in Arizona and Colorado are male. In Arizona, 75 percent of registered patients are male; in Colorado, 68 percent are male. Many are under the age of 40. For instance, 48 percent of registered patients in Montana are under 40.

"Although we make no policy recommendations, it certainly appears as though medical marijuana laws are making our highways safer," Rees said.

The study is entitled, "Medical Marijuana Laws, Traffic Fatalities, and Alcohol Consumption."

Contact: David Kelly
david.kelly@ucdenver.edu
303-315-6374

What is money and where is it from

Uploaded by spiritualentertainer on 27 Nov 2011

I thought I would call HSBC and ask them where the money comes from that they are 'lending' me ? After all they asked me loads of questions.

Climategate 2.0: Read 20 ‘Juicy’ emails – ‘They validate EVERYTHING the skeptics have been saying’

Junk Science

More devastating Climategate e-mails were released today. We’ve covered juicy ones in the posts listed below. More on the way. Read ‘em all. They validate EVERYTHING the skeptics have been saying. Viva les sceptiques!

• Alarmist introspection admits dishonesty on hockey stick
• Jones laments blogsites as allowing deniers to find one another
• Systematic deletion of e-mails
• How Phil Jones misleads journalists
• Santer angry over not being able to silence skeptics
• Mann says true temp anomaly not known well
• Silence of the alarmists
• Wigley accuses ‘Mike’, other IPCC-ers of deception, dishonesty
• Spun science isn’t going to end well
• Department of Energy involved in hiding temperature data?
• Jones advises e-mail deletion to avoid FOIA
• Mann says Curry not helping ‘the cause’
• ‘All models wrong’
• IPCC models not worth a darn
• Hulme hired to be the hand of God
• Praying for the ‘Day After Tomorrow’ to work
• Catholicism an ‘extreme’ religion?
• Mann a dead-ender
• Mann paper slammed by colleague as ‘pathetic’
• ‘Hockey stick’ debunking confirmed
• Hide the dissent
• Feelings more important than truth
• Kjellén has a better name for global warming
• Jones bans dissent on extreme weather
• Medieval Warm Period tough to erase
• Mann said skeptics ‘losing’
• Climategate 2.0?

How the Internet Evolves to Overcome Censorship

Getty Images

Last week’s congressional hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, drew attention to the fact that Congress has it within its power to censor the Internet. Dozens of sites across the web blacked-out their logos in opposition to the bill. Social blogging service Tumblr took it farther, redacting all content on its users’ dashboards and asking them to phone their members of Congress, resulting in over 87,000 calls.

Some folks, however, are not content to leave the fate of the Internet to politics.

Several efforts are underway to rethink the domain name system (DNS) to route around the potential censorship. Last year after U.S. authorities seized dozens of domains, Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde began work on a peer-to-peer DNS not susceptible to the type of blacklisting SOPA and similar bills would mandate. Another group is trying to develop a censorship-proof top-level domain using technology based on the Bitcoin protocol. The result is the further decentralization of the Internet.

(MORE: SOPA Won’t Stop Online Piracy, Would Censor Everyone Else)

When governments want to control information on the Internet, they invariably head for the choke points, like ISP-run DNS servers in the case of SOPA. If you could replace those servers with a peer-to-peer source for the same information, there would no longer be central point a government could control or shut down.

There is nothing new about the impulse to engineer one’s way around the law. For example, once Napster was found to be infringing, it was easily shut down because it relied on centralized servers. Napster’s eventual successor was BitTorrent, which is distributed and decentralized, and as a result can’t be shut down–even if it’s found to be illegal.

If governments continue to assert control over information on the Internet, as they have increasingly been doing, then we will likely see more attempts to dismantle the intermediary points of control. Government reactions to WikiLeaks highlight this.

Late last month, the whistle-blowing site announced it was halting operations over financial difficulties. It blames payment processors, such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, which have been persuaded (some say through political pressure) to stop processing donations to WikiLeaks. And two weeks ago, a federal court ruled that the FBI could access information about the Twitter accounts of WikiLeaks volunteers without a warrant.

These blows to WikiLeaks were possible because it relied on centralized intermediaries. If one could accept donations or receive short messages directly from the sender without them first going through hubs like PayPal or Twitter, then there would be no intermediary to control. Fortunately, such projects are in the works.

Bitcoin is a decentralized and distributed digital currency, which means a donation or payment would travel directly from sender to recipient without the need for a third-party payment processor. Wikileaks began accepting Bitcoin donations in June. Decentralized social networks, such as such as Diaspora and Identi.ca, are also being developed to supplant Facebook and Twitter.

Of course, you still have to connect to the Internet through an ISP, and that could be the ultimate choke point. But you can guess where this is going: There are projects under way looking to decentralize the physical layer of the Internet. Project Kleinrock and the Darknet Project are just two efforts to build an independent “second-layer” of the Internet using wireless mesh networking.

It’s not a certainty that these projects will all succeed. Most probably won’t. Yet these far-out efforts serve as proof-of-concept for a censorship-resistant Internet. Just as between Napster and BitTorrent there was Gnutella and Freenet, it will take time for these concepts to mature. What is certain is the trend. The more governments squeeze the Internet in an attempt to control information, the more it will turn to sand around their fingers.

MORE: The Consequences of Apple’s Walled Garden

Read more: http://techland.time.com/2011/11/21/how-the-internet-evolves-to-overcome-censorship/#ixzz1f08XVFn0