For real, people are gonna feel stupid for selling early and at a loss once the future does its thing down the line - unless they truly needed the money for something serious in the mean time rather than just blowing it on upgrading to the newest iphone.

Solitude's comment was so vulgar and shocking that I literally burst out laughing, sorry for that. Anyways, I thought pedicabs only happened in third world countries, never heard of one here in the states. Anyways, Rand Paul is speaking at this event so hopefully his talk goes over well with the crowd.

Indeed he is a fraud. From the article

It's that the big timers are starting to realize they need to have a backup plan unless they can morph Bush out of what he is cuz half the party allegedly won't support him. They're likely hoping that Rube can be remodeled to fool the conservative base while maintaining the establishment status quo military machine foreign policy and fend off more conservatives from supporting Rand - which a primary concern for them. Walker's buzz has plateaued and has no where to go but down. Furthermore, months ago there was all this talk about having a Governor be the nominee because they have sooo much executive experience - hoping that line would sell with the party in order to be another negative on Rand. But, Christie faded, very few dig Bush and Walker is showing that he knows nothing about foreign policy so that whole line has been put on the back burner as they try to polish up Rube. We'll just have to see how short memories conservatives have and whether they'll take another liking to Rube despite his push for amnesty.

These academies are solely for training young men and some women and making them into trusted military officers but they also teach them in other specialized fields such as lawyers and doctors. They're very hard to get into. It's a long process of writing samples, selling oneself via grades and extra curricular activities and such. Also, you need to interview in front of the your US Rep to get their approval for appointment to said academy. Furthermore, all the students that enter these academies have to be fairly spread across all congressional districts across the country to some extent. I went through this process towards the end of high school and even received an appt to the US Air Force Academy - which I eventually turned down. That could've either been the biggest mistake of my life or the best choice to stay away from being an Air Force pilot after the going through the school and having to be retained in the AF for the next ten years ensuring I'd be dropping bombs all over the middle east. Not to mention, I'm sure I would've been court martialed at some point as I was just becoming a libertarian and didn't vibe well with authority. My choice didn't exactly go over well with my folks after making that choice.

They could just overuse the disturbing the peace statute rather than micromanaging and creating more laws even further. Increasingly totalitarian societies don't like people hanging out in groups to spread the word about things outside of what the sanctioned media is able to spread.

Where is Putin? Russian leader’s absence sparks rumors.

Everyone has their off days, but when you're the proudly virile and uncontested leader of one of the most-watched countries in the world, your days off make people nervous. Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn't been seen for days, and now people are beginning to wonder why.

On Thursday, Putin's spokesman announced that the president would not attend a meeting with the Federal Security Service (FSB), which he usually attends. But no, Putin was "absolutely" healthy, Dmitry Peskov told Russia's Ekho Moskvy, before adding that the president's handshake was so strong it could “break your hand.”

Putin's absence at the FSB meeting comes just a day after he unexpectedly canceled a trip to Kazakhstan. "The visit has been canceled. It looks like he [Putin] has fallen ill," an anonymous Kazakh official told Reuters afterward, prompting a flurry of speculation.

To make matters more confusing, on Wednesday the Kremlin released an image of Putin meeting with the regional governor of Karelia. But local Web site Vesti Karelii reported that Putin actually had met with the head of the Republic of Karelia, Alexander Khudilainen, on March 4. In fact, RBC.ru reported that a number of events posted by the Kremlin appeared to have been recycled from earlier events. If this is correct, the last time Putin was seen in public may have been March 5, when he met the Italian prime minister in Moscow.

On Friday, as speculation grew further, state TV released footage showing Putin meeting with the head of Russia's Supreme Court at his residence outside of Moscow. It was not clear, however, when the meeting had occurred.

Amid rumors that Russian President Vladi*mir Putin is avoiding public appearances due to poor health, state television showed footage that puportedly shows Putin holding a meeting with a Russian official on Friday. (AP)

Getting worked up by an absence of a few days may seem silly, but these things happen in authoritarian regimes: North Korea's Kim Jong Un disappeared for weeks last year, intriguing the world. In that case, Kim later reappeared with no real explanation and continued going about his business as usual (don't be surprised if that happens in Russia, too). Russia isn't North Korea, but it's still an intensely personalized political system. Little of political substance happens without Putin's personal approval, and it's hard to imagine how the country would respond if he really were sick.

There's also a history here. At the end of the Soviet era, three separate Communist Party chiefs died suddenly in office, and during the end of Boris Yeltsin's time as president of Russia, alcoholism and poor health led to a number of unexplained and embarrassing absences. Again, Putin is certainly no Yeltsin -- he's a black-belt in judo and known to be extremely health conscious -- but many Russians now assume that the state would lie about the health of its leaders.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/03/12/where-is-putin-russian-leaders-absence-sparks-rumors/

Esteemed economist Larry Kotlikoff warned the Senate Budget Committee last month that Greece is more solvent than the United States.

Kotlikoff identified the “fiscal gap” as the most important and telling measurement for gauging the health of an economy. The fiscal gap is “the difference between our government’s projected financial obligations and the present value of all projected future tax and other receipts.” The projected financial obligations are also known as “unfunded liabilities” such as future Social Security payouts. At $210 trillion, the U.S.’s fiscal gap is higher than many of the world’s economic basket cases.


Kotlikoff furthered: “The first point I want to get across is that our nation is broke. Our nation’s broke, and it’s not broke in 75 years or 50 years or 25 years or 10 years. It’s broke today. Indeed, it may well be in worse fiscal shape than any developed country, including Greece…”
Broke? Well, how did the U.S. essentially bankrupt itself? In short, politics and normalcy bias.


Explains economist Gary North (covering Kotlikoff’s address):
“I suspect, most Congressmen really don’t understand it (the fiscal gap). They have been able to kick the can, decade after decade, and they assume that they will be able to do this in the future. Nothing bad has happened so far, so they assume that nothing bad will ever happen… Congress doesn’t care. The President doesn’t care. The AARP doesn’t care. The voters don’t care. Investors in Treasury bonds don’t care. It is all distant. Anything that is beyond two years out is not considered an important factor. The attention span of the public is short. The attention span of the media is short. Anything longer than the next Congressional election is considered long-term. Politicians don’t care about the long-term. They care about getting reelected. A budgetary strategy of hiking taxes and reducing benefits is a sure-fire way not to get re-elected.”

Thinking the implications through, the point must be made that the reason the U.S.’s essential bankruptcy is not yet as visible as Detroit’s – or Greece’s — is because the Federal Reserve “prints” dollars out of thin air, which allows the federal government to keep borrowing and spending. This cannot go on in perpetuity.


The rest of the world has been waking up to this fact. China has been making a push to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency for some time. And even “allies” like the UK are beginning to comprehend which way the wind is blowing. According to Financial Times, the UK has decided to become the first G7 nation to join China’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. This has riled the U.S.: “The Obama administration accused the UK of a ‘constant accommodation’ of China after Britain decided to join a new China-led financial institution that could rival the World Bank.”

http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/the-fiscal-gap-why-were-the-most-insolvent-of-developed-nations/

Rand Paul Is Right—Give The Kurds A State

Sen. Rand Paul is right to call for an independent Kurdistan, and the arming of its forces, the Peshmerga. In doing so, he strikes a balance sorely needed in the GOP’s 2016 foreign-policy platform after years of imbalance.

The Bush administration’s subtly-stated justification for the Iraq War was to establish a vibrant, Muslim, western-style democracy in the Middle East. Such a development’s efforts in preserving Pax Americana can hardly be underestimated. An Arab democracy in the heart of the Muslim world would abide by the rule of law, uphold private property rights, foster free-thinking education, and enshrine the human rights of women and girls—all necessary ingredients to development and happiness dependent upon democracy, and woefully missing in the Middle East.


A vibrant Muslim democracy in the Middle East would also be a major blow to radical Islam, providing an example of modernity and wealth that an Obama-administration jobs program could never hope to accomplish. This would be the Muslim world’s ticket into the twenty-first century.

More...http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/12/rand-paul-is-right-give-the-kurds-a-state/#disqus_thread

STANDING OVATION: RAND PAUL BLOWS AWAY LIBERAL BLACK AUDIENCE WITH CONSERVATIVE MESSAGE AT BOWIE STATE

BOWIE, Maryland — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was a hit speaker on the campus of Bowie State University on Friday, earning several rounds of applause and a standing ovation for the conservative message he delivered to a predominantly liberal audience at the historically black university—part of an outreach effort to traditionally non-Republican communities the senator and potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate has been engaged in nationwide for the five-plus years he’s been in the U.S. Senate.

Paul wove individual examples of people throughout history and in modern times who have faced unfair consequences as a result of government’s heavy hand, making his case to the room on the basis of the need to defend the full Bill of Rights in the Constitution—a classic Tea Party style of speech—all while citing the Founding Fathers, and making economic and social limited government conservative pitch that seemed to resonate throughout the theater inside the student center.

“Clyde Canard got out of prison the same month that I was born, which was a long time ago, in 1963,” Paul opened his speech with after a couple thank-yous to organizers. “The reason that Clyde Canard went to prison is that, his crime was he was trying to get enrolled in Mississippi Southern. At that time, it was very difficult for a black man or a woman to enroll. The second time he tried to enroll they planted liquor on him—he didn’t drink—and gave him a $600 fine. Can you imagine what $600 was like in 1963 if you were poor in Mississippi? One thing led to another and he declared bankruptcy. He tried to enroll a third time and he was arrested and bullied by police. But when he tried the third time, he’s declared bankruptcy and he goes by his farm to pick up some chicken feed—$25 worth of chicken feed—and you know what happens to him? He’s arrested, and you know what kind of prison term he’s given? Seven years in prison for stealing $25 worth of chicken feed which really was his—it was on his land which the bank was repossessing. People’s lives can spiral out of control from a $600 fine.”

Paul noted that “a lot of things have improved since” 1963, when this particular example happened—specifically the fact that the United States has gotten rid of segregation by law. However, he said, “we still have a problem in our country that’s a lot like segregation but it’s also like there are two systems.”

More...http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/14/standing-ovation-rand-paul-blows-away-liberal-black-audience-with-conservative-message-at-bowie-state/

With Bush faltering, Insider Buzz for Marco Grows
Are we on the cusp of a Rubio moment?

Everybody’s talking about Rubio.”  So says a top Republican operative who’s been in touch with nearly every potential presidential campaign, as well as with several top donors. 

Jeb Bush’s announcement in December launched both a fundraising juggernaut and an aggressive hiring spree, and Scott Walker’s speech in Iowa the following month lifted Walker to the top of national polls. But a little more than a month later, says the operative, “The Jeb boom is over and people are having second thoughts about Walker.” 

The beneficiary in terms of buzz is Marco Rubio, who now has many of the party’s top donors looking at him in a way they weren’t even a month ago. Though Rubio hasn’t made as much noise as his competitors as the 2016 campaign has gotten underway in earnest, his knowledgeable presentations and obvious political talent are nonetheless turning heads or, at least, enough of them. Rubio hasn’t made a big splash, neither building a “shock and awe” campaign like Bush nor delivering a marquee speech like Walker (who afterward seemed almost to be caught off guard by his rapid ascent). Instead, Rubio appears to be gambling on the idea that, in what is sure to be a long primary with a crowded field, a slow-and-steady approach will prevail.

Morehttp://www.nationalreview.com/article/415280/insider-buzz-grows-marco-rubio-eliana-johnson

That must be the motherload of all drug raids in history. Normally, a dozen kilos being pictured would be enough to raise many eye brows but this is incomprehensible in magnitude. I'm surprised this place wasn't being guarded by an army of sorts.

Hillary Clinton: A Pay-Phone Candidate in an iPhone World
The Democrat trots out tired tactics and stale strategies in email news conference.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is an ancient presidential candidate. Not age-wise. Attitude-wise.

Staggered by self-inflicted wounds, the former secretary of State faced a choice between the right way and wrong way to manage a public-relations crisis in the post-Internet era, when the 1990s tactics of deflection, deception, and victimization are far less effective. She chose the wrong way.

Rather than be transparent, completely honest, and accountable, Clinton doubled down on the 1990s. She refused to turn over her emails stored on a secret service in violation of federal regulations. She defended contributions to her family's charity from foreign nations that discriminate against women and support terrorism, a brazen contradiction to her public profile.

"I fully complied with every rule I was governed under," she said, a legalistic dodge that rivals Al Gore's lame defense of his fund-raising shenanigans in 1997: "There is no controlling legal authority."

She dodged legitimate accusations, parried accusations that were never in play, and coolly laid out a defense that you could boil down to five words: "Trust me, I'm a Clinton."
...
Clinton had a four-point response:

1. She decided to use her personal email account for both work and private business as a matter of convenience. "Looking back," she said, "it would have been better had I simply used a separate account."

That was as close as Clinton got to contrition, and even this talking point was misplaced. Nobody questions her right to use a personal account for work-related matters. Nobody seeks to make truly private emails public. The issue is Clinton's clear violation of federal regulations requiring her to store official emails on government servers. For reasons she left unsaid, Clinton went rogue.

A home-brewed server gives her full control of government records. Theoretically, she can delete or withhold public documents without the public ever knowing.

2. The "vast majority" of her emails went to government authorities, which means they would be captured by people who (unlike her) followed federal rules. Clinton didn't put a number to "vast majority" or characterize what material was contained in the "minority" of emails lost. Presumably, though, they're on the server she won't cough up.

3. After she left the State Department, House Republicans investigating the Benghazi attack discovered that they had none of her emails and notified State. The agency asked all former secretaries of State to turn over their emails. With her cache secured on an off-the-books server, Clinton decided which ones to turn over: only 30,490 of 62,320 emails, according to her office. More than 31,000 were deleted! It is irrelevant that Clinton says the notes are private. Those are our emails, not hers. A government archivist, not a Clinton, is suppose to decide what is private and what is public.

4. She took the "unprecedented step of asking the State Department to make my work-related emails public for everyone to see." Gee, thanks. We can see the emails you want us to see?
...
Trust me, I'm a Clinton. This is part of a decades-old pattern: For all their strengths, Hillary and Bill Clinton have a weakness for victimization, entitlement, and their unbounded belief that the ends justify the means.

Rules are for little people, not them.

She had a choice—the right way or the wrong way, the new way or the old way. She chose to turn back the clock to the 1990s, when her husband's White House overcame its wrongdoing by denying the truth, blaming Republicans, and demonizing and bullying the media.

She unleashed the hounds of Whitewater. David Brock demanded a correction from The New York Times, which broke the email story. James Carville dismissed the charges as "right-wing talking points." A slightly less-worn henchman, Howard Dean, called one of my stories "trash." These retreads made Clinton look small.
...

http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/hillary-clinton-a-pay-phone-candidate-in-an-iphone-world-20150310

His alleged alt account was quoted a few posts up where he said he was diagnosed w/ cancer and that it was terminal.  That's the most ominous and eerie thing I think I've ever read.

More...http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/03/12/hackers-probing-clinton-server-cite-security-lapses/

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to turn to comments made by Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton, the senator who spearheaded the letter to Iran. Just weeks into his first term in the Senate, he warned against a nuclear deal with Iran while speaking at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.


SEN. TOM COTTON: First, the goal of our policy must be clear: regime change in Iran. We cannot and will not be safe as long as Islamist despots rule in Iran. The policy of the United States should therefore be to support regime opponents and promote a constitutional government at peace with the United States, Israel and the world. The United States should cease all appeasement, conciliation and concessions towards Iran, starting with the sham nuclear negotiations. Certain voices call for congressional restraint, urging Congress not to act now, lest Iran walk away from the negotiating table, undermining the fabled yet always absent moderates in Iran. But the end of these negotiations isn’t an unintended consequence of congressional action. It is very much an intended consequence, a feature, not a bug, so to speak. Third, congressional actions should start with crippling new sanctions against Iran. These sanctions should be immediate. They should not be contingent on further negotiations with Iran. On the contrary, Iran is achieving, through slow motion, all that it might want in a final deal, exploiting the Obama administration’s desperation to keep the negotiations alive and for a deal, any deal. It’s time for the responsible adults in both parties of Congress to stop this farce.

More...http://www.democracynow.org/2015/3/12/ex_us_official_with_iran_letter

It definitely is interesting to comprehend or see those across the world who've checked in and seen what Bitcoin has done in different markets. The many different minds potentially haven't seen all the intracacies that have happened in the BTC sphere over the last few months and years, or have they? This is what I'm concerned about on a long term scale. The price will do its thing no matter what I think.

US President Barack Obama threatened to take military action against Israel not to let Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strike Iran.

Netanyahu was planning airstrikes at an emergency meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Chief of Staff of the Israeli army Benny Gantz, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarîda said.

The meeting was held after it became known that Barack Obama’s administration and the clergy of Iran had concluded a secret agreement.

Israel even conducted test flights of its fighter jets in the airspace of Iran after it became possible to overcome the radar protection. However, US Secretary of State John Kerry disclosed Netanyahu’s plans. Afterwards, Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli planes on their way to Iran. As a result, the Israeli Prime Minister had to curtail the operation. The relationship between Israel and the United States have been worsening since then.

More...http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2015/03/10/obama-threatens-war-on-israel-if-it-attacks-iran/

This ought to get the neocons and Israeli-firsters out in full bunch.

More...http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-12/911-commissioners-were-conspiracy-theorists

Rand Paul Is Right—Give The Kurds A State

Sen. Rand Paul is right to call for an independent Kurdistan, and the arming of its forces, the Peshmerga. In doing so, he strikes a balance sorely needed in the GOP’s 2016 foreign-policy platform after years of imbalance.

The Bush administration’s subtly-stated justification for the Iraq War was to establish a vibrant, Muslim, western-style democracy in the Middle East. Such a development’s efforts in preserving Pax Americana can hardly be underestimated. An Arab democracy in the heart of the Muslim world would abide by the rule of law, uphold private property rights, foster free-thinking education, and enshrine the human rights of women and girls—all necessary ingredients to development and happiness dependent upon democracy, and woefully missing in the Middle East.


A vibrant Muslim democracy in the Middle East would also be a major blow to radical Islam, providing an example of modernity and wealth that an Obama-administration jobs program could never hope to accomplish. This would be the Muslim world’s ticket into the twenty-first century.

More...http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/12/rand-paul-is-right-give-the-kurds-a-state/#disqus_thread

The tradeoff here is quite interesting but don't go the way of letting the neocon Bush's set the tone here. Senator Paul has so much to offer on this point and I think this is the saving grace.