,hl=en,siteUrl='http://0ldfox.blogspot.com/',authuser=0,security_token="v_SeT2Tv8vVdKRCcG9CCW-ZdIfQ:1429878696275"/> Old Fox KM Journal : August 2015

Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Legal Pot...

"But let’s set these aside and suppose, for the sake of argument, that the free production, commercialization and consumption of cannabis proves in practice to do no harm, or at least much less harm than other products, such as cigarettes, that are permitted. What then? What would that tell us about policy towards drugs in general?
Not very much, I am afraid, for what is true of cannabis might not be true of other drugs. In other words, wise policy for cannabis might not be wise policy for ketamine, LSD, cocaine, or dexamphetamine. It is surely difficult to envisage (except for those who value consistency above prudence as a political virtue) a situation in which one could buy any or all of these drugs as if they were bread or chocolate.
To this, of course, the response might be that what is envisaged is a controlled market, as the sale of alcohol is controlled in the province of Ontario, or indeed is subject to restrictions to one degree or another throughout the Western world. There is, after all, something between a completely free market and total prohibition.
Such a controlled market would entail the abandonment of the abstract libertarian principle that everyone should be free to do anything he liked so long as he did no (direct) harm to others. It would mean conceding that the state had a legitimate interest in what its citizens did. But it seems to me almost as impossible to envisage the state actually supervising, and therefore inspecting, the sale of all—or indeed any—of the above-mentioned drugs to its citizens, as to imagine a totally free market in them."

link
My take:
As a natve American (born in NYC), I was particularly puzzled how one of the great colonies and later US states, home of the authors of the Declaration, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and various other foundation stones of freedom and free enterprise, could presume to socialize a government monopoly for the sale of packaged alcoholic beverages. Virginia does not apparently trust the authorities of Scotland, Jamaica, France, Canada, Kentucky, and other government approved certifiers of quality and quantity to protect the alcohol consumers in its silly Commonwealth from counterfeit, adulterated, watered-down, or bootlegged Scotch, Rum, Cognac, Champagne, Vermouth, Canadian Whisky, Bourbon, Southern Comfort, Tequila, Courvoisier, Jameson Irish, or Mount Gay.
In fact, the thoughtful control freaks of Virginia won’t let anyone but their own state owned enterprise purvey packaged liquors to the consumer or make a profit from the business. They run hundreds of “package stores” staffed by state employees, in state owned buildings on state owned or leased tax-free real estate, where they pay no income tax, license tax, employer payroll tax, need not carry insurance, account for their receipts, sales tax collections, or inventory taxes. They have every advantage that no private employer or merchant can get and they have a monopoly enforced by arrest, prosecution and imprisonment. This is America?
New York State perceived a problem with gambling, with bookies, and the numbers racket afflicting poor and uneducated people. Their solution was to establish Socialized Bookmaking, where anyone above a certain age is free under the law to wager against the State. Off-Track-Betting and then the State Lottery were brought in with all those comparative business advantages of Virginia’s liquor stores, plus a massive advertising budget to lure idiots on subways, busses, billboards, radio and television to risk hard-earned cash on a fool’s game designed by Madison Avenue doctors of psychology to create the maximum addictive effect on its victims.
Now every state is doing it. When the decriminalize prostitution, you can be assured that the State will make all the hookers abandon their independent contractor status and become State Employees licensed, inspected, inured, and paid through the state’s VISA and MasterCard processing system after a nominal fee is extracted. The State will be the Pimp.

Sunday, August 02, 2015

Big Brother

link

"Today, Friday 31 July 2015, 9am CEST, WikiLeaks publishes "Target Tokyo", 35 Top Secret NSA targets in Japan including the Japanese cabinet and Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi, together with intercepts relating to US-Japan relations, trade negotiations and sensitive climate change strategy.
The list indicates that NSA spying on Japanese conglomerates, government officials, ministries and senior advisers extends back at least as far as the first administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which lasted from September 2006 until September 2007. The telephone interception target list includes the switchboard for the Japanese Cabinet Office; the executive secretary to the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga; a line described as "Government VIP Line"; numerous officials within the Japanese Central Bank, including Governor Haruhiko Kuroda; the home phone number of at least one Central Bank official; numerous numbers within the Japanese Finance Ministry; the Japanese Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry Yoichi Miyazawa; the Natural Gas Division of Mitsubishi; and the Petroleum Division of Mitsui."


The Spyfiles 4

2014-09-15
Today, 15 September 2014, WikiLeaks releases previously unseen copies of weaponised German surveillance malware used by intelligence agencies around the world to spy on journalists, political dissidents and others.
FinFisher (formerly part of the UK based Gamma Group International until late 2013) is a German company that produces and sells computer intrusion systems, software exploits and remote monitoring systems that are capable of intercepting communications and data from OS X, Windows and Linux computers as well as Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices. FinFisher first came to public attention in December 2011 when WikiLeaks published documents detailing their products and business in the first SpyFiles release.
https://www.gammagroup.com/default.aspx


https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles3
"Documents in Spy Files #3 include sensitive sales brochures and presentations used to woo state intelligence agencies into buying mass surveillance services and technologies. Spy Files #3 also includes contracts and deployment documents, detailing specifics on how certain systems are installed and operated.
Internet spying technologies now being sold on the intelligence market include detecting encrypted and obfuscated internet usage such as Skype, BitTorrent, VPN, SSH and SSL. The documents reveal how contractors work with intelligence and policing agencies to obtain decryption keys.
The documents also detail bulk interception methods for voice, SMS, MMS, email, fax and satellite phone communications. The released documents also show intelligence contractors selling the ability to analyse web and mobile interceptions in real-time."
[The site IS safe.  Google is warning because authorities have warned Google to make this material unavailable by posting a warning.  If you click "more details" there is an open link to the material there, which is entirely safe, but which they want to scare you about. Doubtless, your visit to that link will be reported to the NSA.]

If you trust the USG, the ATF, the IRS, etc., you still might not like that customers of FinFisher could be ANY government anywhere in the world including Mongolia, Oman, Dubai, Estonia, Pakistan, Vietnam, and even Nigeria.   Everyone in Nigeria is part of a criminal enterprise or two so your data could go into the hands of such crooks.  If you think Nigeria wouldn't allow that to happen, ask yourself "how many arrests have ever been made in Nigeria for the infamous 419 Advance Fee Fraud racket.