The concept of Balkanisation has been taken to a new level with the creation of a brand new, self-declared country on the border between Slovenia and Croatia – the second such micro-nation to be formed in a month.

The Kingdom of Enclava is unlikely to be given international recognition any time soon but its founders insist it has every right to exist because it has been established on land claimed by neither the Croats nor Slovenes.

The 1,000 square foot patch of land is near the Slovenian town of Metlika and around 30 miles west of Croatia's capital, Zagreb.

It has been designated as the Kingdom of Enclava by a group of Poles who discovered that the land was "terra nullius" – no-man's-land.

Micro-nations have been proclaimed in different parts of the world for decades, but the trend has been spurred on by the growth of the internet, which has enabled their founders to attract attention and recruit thousands of 'virtual' citizens.

They are often born out of discontent or frustration with the established order and represent a way of thumbing one's nose at national authorities.
Billed as "the smallest country in Europe", Enclava has no citizens as yet.

Despite being the size of a suburban garden, its founders claim to have plans to create a tax-free community of like-minded people, who will be able to choose from five official languages – English, Polish, Slovenian, Croatian and – bizarrely – Mandarin.

A constitution is being drawn up and so far more than 5,000 people have applied for honorary citizenship.

The idea is to "create a place, where everyone, regardless of skin colour, religion or nationality, will be able to express their opinions, study for free, and earn money without worrying about taxes", said Piotr Wawrzynkiewicz, one of the founders.

More...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/croatia/11609226/Welcome-to-the-worlds-newest-country-the-Kingdom-of-Enclava.html

America is no longer the land of the free. We are still free in the sense that Norwegians, Germans and Italians are free. But that’s not what Americans used to mean by freedom.

It was our boast that in America, unlike in any other country, you could live your life as you saw fit as long as you accorded the same liberty to everyone else. The “sum of good government,” as Thomas Jefferson put it in his first inaugural address, was one “which shall restrain men from injuring one another” and “shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.” Americans were to live under a presumption of freedom.

The federal government remained remarkably true to that ideal—for white male Americans, at any rate—for the first 150 years of our history. Then, with FDR’s New Deal and the rise of the modern regulatory state, our founding principle was subordinated to other priorities and agendas. What made America unique first blurred, then faded, and today is almost gone.

We now live under a presumption of constraint. Put aside all the ways in which city and state governments require us to march to their drummers and consider just the federal government. The number of federal crimes you could commit as of 2007 (the last year they were tallied) was about 4,450, a 50% increase since just 1980. A comparative handful of those crimes are “malum in se”—bad in themselves. The rest are “malum prohibitum”—crimes because the government disapproves.

More...http://www.wsj.com/articles/regulation-run-amokand-how-to-fight-back-1431099256

I don't know much about what's going on in Germany other than they're pretty smart people in general and they have one of the more responsible governments in Europe. Go figure on how things can change over the decades and for the worse in the US. Things would radically have to change for the US to ever consider bitcoin as the cashless currency, the entitlements and military posture aren't sustainable. Not to mention, the job market is so increasingly weak.

I'd say it's more of a payment system atm but it still has long term potential as a currency during these times. Could be a currency near term rather than later tho. Either way, it's prime time to get bitcoin now at these prices.

Clinton's are pulling in MITT ROMNEY amounts of money.

It's widely known the Clintons have done well for themselves in recent years, but until now, it wasn't clear just how well. Today, the campaign filed a financial disclosure report revealing they earned $30 million in just the last seventeen months.

The report is not yet posted on the Federal Elections Commission website, but the campaign voluntarily released it to reporters. It covers the period from January 2014 to present.
In that time the former president and former secretary of state earned just over $25 million from about 100 paid speeches. That works out to about $250,000 per speech. Not bad work, if you can get it, which they can.

Another $5 million came from Simon and Schuster, the publisher of Hillary Clinton's book Hard Choices.

This income puts them in the upper echelons of the top 1 percent of income earners in the United States. An income of $430,000 puts you in the top 1 percent.

More...http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/05/15/407117996/clintons-earned-30-million-from-paid-speeches-and-book-sales

Despite all of this unfolding, I'd say that Zach should say his piece about what is going on up in here. It might be unnerving but necessary to his holders.

Hey there MO, my best guesses for that would be: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=6.0 or:https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=52.0. Hope these help but if not, I know a crytpo-bot creator (thru another site) that is pretty smart that might be able to help out.

Then by all means keep enjoying being the mistress and broadcasting his tripe x2 for the rest of the onlookers to have to be exposed to. Very responsible of you and a swell contribution to the market. 

I have to assume that anyone that shows up here is mostly interested in the magic that bitcoin can make happen in the future in lieu of other sound money and in irritation of central fiat bankers that have put the public finances where they are, especially in the US where the debt is unreal. So yes, stacking coins is first and foremost and finding potential upstarts to invest in is worth it up to a point as well as finding an alt to spec on. When bitcoin rallies into a true and undeniable bull market, I'll look to park some coinage into litecoin and see if it does its historical thing but I have my favorite upstart biz (CVFS) well stocked into the port and it's been doing nothing but moving forward and paying divs on pace.

Some have been around here longer than others and this flirtation w/ JS could be relatively new to yall but some of us have seen the circular, exhaustive and at times, ridiculous commentary coming from the guy which is why he's reached ignore status just like the other main troll round these parts. Keep subjecting your time and mentality to this crap and it's hard to feel sorry for ya. Just sayin but the active time wastes around here these days are JS and lambscrotch and her smelly sox that are born on a daily basis at minimum.

Guess the near term depends on whether this new Swedish exchange or whatever has any bull money sitting on the sidelines waiting for opening day. It'll be interesting to see what the volume looks like during this opening week.

I never got into sci-fi as a kid so I never paid any attention to star wars and star trek. Just seemed so unrealistic. I was more of the saved by the bell youngster.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The original charges were shocking: Six San Francisco police officers were accused of stealing from drug dealers. Then federal prosecutors released racist and homophobic text messages.

Those texts have now turned a small-time police corruption case into a racially charged scandal, thrusting a diverse and liberal city into the national debate over policing in minority communities.

"We now know this can happen in San Francisco," San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon said. "We're certainly not immune to the problems that we have seen in Baltimore, Staten Island, South Carolina."

The San Francisco turmoil comes amid growing tensions between police departments and communities of color. Large, sometimes violent protests over police treatment of black suspects have occurred in several cities over the last two years.

More...http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SAN_FRANCISCO_POLICE_RACIST_TEXTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-05-15-07-00-37

Good to see. Not sure if they're sitting on any VC money atm or will be getting any anytime soon but boy would a nice marketing campaign go a long way to boost demand over there.

It's hard to take this seriously as I can't see 30+ million americans getting into this w/o the price making a move thus enticing them or discounts to be offered at more well known places incentivizing the purchasing of coins to get their goods with.

I just hope Rand gets more time than his dad used to get. At some point, I just couldn't take it watching an hour and a half debate and Ron getting like 2mins of time to speak. I think this time around the venues or the channel doing the debate may set some criteria to keep the number of candidates between 7 and 12 cause, yeah, you can't have everyone and their brother running. No point in making people tune out by having a dog and pony show considering ratings are on the line. There's usually some post debate poll taken allowing people to text their debate winner and this is something we've always succeeded at and they don't like reporting that our guy is the chief to all the viewers.

BOSTON — Two years after bombs in two backpacks transformed the Boston Marathon from a sunny rite of spring to a smoky battlefield with bodies dismembered, a federal jury on Friday condemned Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for his role in the 2013 attack.

In a sweeping rejection of the defense case, the jury found that death was the appropriate punishment for six of 17 capital counts — all six related to Mr. Tsarnaev’s planting of a pressure-cooker bomb on Boylston Street, which his lawyers never disputed. Mr. Tsarnaev, 21, stood stone-faced in court, his hands folded in front of him, as the verdict was read, his lawyers standing grimly at his side.

Immediate reaction was mostly subdued.

“Happy is not the word I would use,” said Karen Brassard, who suffered grievous leg injuries in the bombing. “There’s nothing happy about having to take somebody’s life. I’m satisfied, I’m grateful that they came to that conclusion, because for me I think it was the just conclusion.”

More...http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/16/us/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-death-sentence.html?_r=0

If some of you haven't realized by now that this is none other then lambscrotch, I don't know what else to say. It's like a ritual at this point and perhaps a treatment plan to get themselves away from posting deranged porno stuff.

2016 Presidental Candidate
“Senator Rand Paul”
Accepts Palm Beach County (FL) Tea Party’s Invitation


Dr. Rand Paul is the junior U.S. Senator for Kentucky. Elected in 2010, he has proven to be an outspoken champion for constitutional liberties and fiscal responsibility, and a warrior against government overreach. Among his first legislative proposals: cutting $500 billion in federal spending and a plan to balance the federal budget in just five years. He has since introduced similar bills with growing support. In the Senate, Rand serves on the Foreign Relations, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Homeland Security and Government Affairs, and Small Business Committees.

Rand has been a vocal advocate for term limits, a balanced-budget amendment, a Read the Bills Act, and an audit of the Federal Reserve. He has gained prominence for his independent positions on many political issues.

Rand has been married for 23 years to Kelley Ashby of Russellville, Ky., and they have three sons.
A graduate of Duke University School of Medicine, Rand was a practicing ophthalmologist in Bowling Green, Ky., for 17 years.

Rand Paul Tries to Stake Territory as Lone Candidate Who’d Guard Civil Liberties

SAN FRANCISCO — Senator Rand Paul can’t stop swearing.

“What the hell is a Republican doing in San Francisco?” he blared to a crowd of 150 Bay Area tech entrepreneurs intrigued enough to come hear him speak on Saturday.

The people who support his crusade against the National Security Agency’s surveillance dragnet? “The leave-me-the-hell-alone coalition,” Mr. Paul calls them.

Then there is his biggest and most reliable stump-speech applause line: “What you do on your phone is none of the government’s damn business.” Mr. Paul may soon put it on T-shirts. They would make nice companions to the $15 “NSA Spy Cam Blocker,” which covers laptop webcam lenses in hopes of shutting Big Brother’s prying eyes.

As Congress and the courts try to resolve the difficult question of how far the federal government may go in collecting data on citizens’ private communications, Mr. Paul has become the most unabashed and unambiguous opponent of renewing those far-reaching powers of any presidential candidate.

“The right to be left alone is the most cherished of rights,” he said here over the weekend. “There’s not one other candidate on the Republican side or the Democratic side who’s willing to say: ‘On Day 1 I’d stop it all. I would end all bulk collection of records.’ ”

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/us/politics/rand-paul-tries-to-stake-territory-as-lone-candidate-whod-guard-civil-liberties.html?_r=0