BE300 should be out in the next couple of weeks. Nothing is wrong, it's just quiet while we wait on the new chips.

Hi guys, I was simply trying to let you know that it's not just 'dead silence'.

As you know, I'm the IR Manager for the company - I'm here to be the go-between for them and the forum members here. This does put me at the disadvantage of not having all first-hand knowledge of all of the company's workings, so I'm only able to communicate the information that I'm provided. Anyone is still welcome to email the team directly at info@alcheminer.com as well.

As you probably know, a low BTC/USD price and a low LTC/BTC rate has made it hard to get a decent margin on the machines. In addition, the mask cost was high and that cost still needs to be recouped. Despite these issue, the company is still getting more customers and word of mouth is spreading. The company hopes distribute a dividend to shareholders in the future, but the initial outlay needs to be earned back first.

Not all thank-you notes are created equal.

After lunching with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Capitol Hill earlier this month, Republican super-donor Foster Freiss emailed the White House hopeful a personal note thanking him for his time and for hosting him in the Senate dining room, “my favorite D.C. place to be fed.” But Paul wasn’t the only senator on the other end of Friess’ correspondence, nor were the topics limited to the Senate bean soup.

In a copy of the email obtained by the Washington Examiner, Freiss, a highly successful investment manager known for his generous support of conservative and Christian causes, gently scolded Paul’s libertarian foreign policy, especially his reticence toward more active U.S. leadership in the Middle East. Freiss didn’t keep the criticism private, either, informing Paul that he had “BCC’d” four other Republican senators on the email. Among them: Ted Cruz of Texas, considered Paul’s chief rival for the anti-Establishment vote in the 2016 primary field.

A spokesman for Cruz declined to comment on the email. In the note, Friess, who was unavailable for comment, specifically urges Paul to support sending more U.S. aid to the Kurds in the battle against the Islamic State.

-President Barack Obama flew to California for a fundraiser and a speech
-He then spent the next three days playing golf at an exclusive resort
-At the same time Michelle and Malia and Sasha were skiing in Aspen
-Figures show that Air Force One costs $228,288 per hour to run
-As a result, the ten-hour return trip to California would cost almost $2.3m
-It is estimated that Mrs Obama's skiing trip cost a further $100,000
-With accommodation and car rental, the weekend break would cost $2.5m

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin is suggesting that the United States is already delivering weapons to Ukraine.

At a news conference Tuesday in Budapest with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Putin was asked how he assessed the possible consequences if the United States decides to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed separatists.

He answered that "according to our information, these weapons are already being delivered."

He said the new weapons for Ukraine could increase the number of victims but "the result will be the same as it is today. This is unavoidable."

North Korea
The Kremlin has been nurturing ties with Pyongyang for years as a way of thumbing its nose at the West, but the effort accelerated last year as the Ukraine crisis took hold.

In January, the Kremlin confirmed that Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s eccentric leader, will attend the annual Victory Day celebrations on Red Square on May 9 marking the Soviet triumph over the Nazis during the Second World War.

Syria
Russia is the main international backer of Bashir al-Assad’s Syria and Western politicians have accused Vladimr Putin of supplying his regime with arms.

Earlier this month, Mr Putin renewed his criticism of US airstrikes targeting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria, saying they should not be carried out without Damascus’s permission.

Hungary
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, famously said last year that he wanted to abandon liberal democracy in favour of an “illiberal state”.

He has provoked street protests by cosying up to the authoritarian Mr Putin, despite the unease of Hungary’s EU partners.

Western town al-Baghdadi captured by ISIS fighters last week
Victims thought to be members of security forces and their families
Follows barbaric video of Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Muath al-Kaseasbeh
Attack is only five miles from air base with 320 US Marines

Militants from Islamic State have burned 45 people to death in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, according to the local police chief.
Col Qasim al-Obeidi said the motive was unknown but he believed some of the victims were members of the security forces.
He has pleaded for help from the government and international community and said the compound, which houses the families of security personnel and local officials, was now under attack.
It follows the capture of al-Baghdadi, near Ain al-Asad air base, by ISIS fighters last week.

As ISIS makes inroads into Libya, officials in Rome are panicking about an Islamic State just across the sea—but have no idea how to combat the crisis.

ROME — Last weekend in Italy, as the threat of ISIS in Libya hit home with a new video addressed to “the nation signed with the blood of the cross” and the warning, “we are south of Rome,” Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi shuttered up the Italian embassy in Tripoli and raised his fist with the threat of impending military action.  Never mind that Italy has only 5,000 troops available that are even close to deployable, according to the defense ministry. Or that the military budget was cut by 40 percent two years ago, which has kept the acquisition of 90 F-35 fighter jets hanging in the balance and left the country combat-challenged to lead any mission—especially one against an enemy like the Islamic State.

US officials believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has authorized his government to release secret details of the US nuclear negotiations with Iran to the Israeli press, according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.

The alleged leaks would appear designed to undermine the negotiations, which Israel opposes.

In response, according to Ignatius, the US has decided to "reduce the exchange of sensitive information about the Iran talks" with Israel.
This would be a major new low in the US-Israel breakdown

It is important to note that Ignatius does not detail his sources for the story, and has no official confirmation from either the Israeli or American governments. The columnist is known as a non-partisan reporter with a strong track record and close links in US intelligence agencies, so his report is so far being taken seriously.

The alleged leaks are, to be clear, not highly sensitive secrets. Rather, they are technical details of the US offers to Iran in the nuclear talks, such as the number of centrifuges that Iran would be allowed to maintain. (The details of negotiations are always kept secret while they're being hammered out, so that all parties can negotiate more freely, something Israeli negotiators have done themselves, for example in reaching the Oslo Accords.)

Ignatius' sources contend that the Israeli leaks were not only secret but misleading, releasing incomplete information in a way that would make the US position on Iran appear more generous than it actually was. Those sources also point out that Israeli media began publishing these secrets in late January, just days after Obama and Netanyahu had a contentious Jan. 12 phone call over the Iran talks. Also in that window, Netanyahu announced he would visit the US to speak to Congress on a Republican invitation, undermining the White House.

The US reaction has allegedly been to reduce intelligence sharing with Israel. "US officials believed that Netanyahu's office was the source of these reports and concluded that they couldn't be as transparent as before with the Israel leader about the secret talks," Ignatius reports.

This would be bad for everyone — including people who want a deal with Iran

A federal judge ruled that the government must stop implementation of President Obama's executive action to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. The Obama administration will appeal.

February 17, 2015   

A federal judge in Texas has ordered the Obama administration to halt plans to grant special immigration status to 4 to 5 million individuals who entered the United States illegally or overstayed their visas.

US District Judge Andrew Hanen issued a preliminary injunction late Monday to block federal officials from implementing programs that stem from President Obama’s executive action on immigration announced last November.

The judge said the executive branch was engaged in a “complete abdication” of statutory goals set by Congress.

Recommended: Could you pass a US citizenship test?

“The government has pointed this Court to no law that gives [the Department of Homeland Security] such wide-reaching discretion to turn 4.3 million individuals from one day being illegally in the country to the next day having lawful presence,” the judge wrote.

Judge Hanen’s injunction effectively halts the expansion of the administration’s immigration program until the courts can examine whether it complies with regulatory procedures, federal immigration statutes, and the Constitution. Any appeal of the injunction will be directed to the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, and perhaps, eventually, to the US Supreme Court.

Republicans in Congress have called the president’s unilateral immigration action illegal and unconstitutional. They have sought to block the effort legislatively through amendments to the Department of Homeland Security’s appropriations bill. That effort threatens to shut down funding to DHS on Feb. 27.

In the meantime, Texas and 25 other states filed suit in federal court in Brownsville, Texas, challenging the president’s actions.

Specifically, Hanen found the Obama administration had enacted a substantive government regulation without following the proper legal procedures, such as offering interested parties an opportunity to receive notice of the new rules and give comments.

Every book you read on your Kindle (or Kindle app) and every word you highlight in those ebooks is recorded by Amazon and may be shared by the bookselling behemoth with the federal government.

The Guardian (U.K.) explains how the agents of the surveillance state are surreptitiously storing all the annotations readers make in electronic copies of books:

Just take a look at the Kindle terms of use. As you wrestle with the rantings of Austria's most lethal watercolourist [Adolf Hitler], your device is providing Amazon with "information related to the Digital Content on your Kindle and Supported Devices and your use of it ... such as last page read and content archiving". It's also reporting back on information "including annotations, bookmarks, notes, highlights, or similar markings", and may be storing those reports on "servers that are located outside the country in which you live" — say hello, China — all so they can "personalise and continually improve your shopping experience," or to "send offers to selected groups of Amazon.co.uk customers on behalf of other businesses", or to, erm, "comply with the law; enforce or apply our Conditions of Use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property or safety of Amazon.co.uk, our users or others" — oh, hello NSA.

It's not just about Jeff Bezos, of course. Whether you're exploring fascism on your iPad or your Android phone, Big Brother is watching. These kind of concerns tend to raise little more than a shrug around these parts, but you might want to think twice before downloading your electronic copy of Mao's Little Red Book of Guerilla Warfare.


While The Guardian is right to warn readers that the NSA and other watchers employed in the federal government’s Panopticon that their reading lists and highlights are being monitored, it is likely that the wardens in Washington are less concerned with people who read Mein Kampf on the sly or mull over Mao between classes. No, the government is much warier of those who would download and digest the words of those whose writings would elicit doubts about the magnanimity of the central planners and their purported concern for the safety of Americans.

Sen. Rand Paul is drawing liberal fire from many left wing commentators, now including Prof. Paul Krugman. Many of the criticisms are badly off base. As noted in yesterday’s column there is so much simply factually incorrect about The New Republic‘s Danny Vinik recent Rand Paul Has the Most Dangerous Economic Views of Any 2016 Candidate — for example — that one hardly knows where to begin. So, to quote the composer John Cage, let’s “begin anywhere.”

First, Rand Paul, unlike Ron Paul, nowhere appears on record as advocating the gold standard. Implication of such advocacy to Sen. Paul is, flatly, wrong. This is sloppy journalism.

Second, whatever Sen. Paul’s views may be, the current overwhelming opposition to the gold standard by academic economists is reminiscent of nothing so much as the Wizard of Oz’s movie peroration: “I, your Wizard, per ardua ad alta, am about to embark upon a hazardous and technically unexplainable journey into the outer stratosphere…to confer, converse, and otherwise hobnob with my brother wizards.” The pronouncements of such eminent economic wizards as those sampled by the Booth School are as unpersuasive as they are rotund. In the unvarnished language of Forbes.com contributor Nathan Lewis, a leading witness to the fact that the Emperor has no clothes, “Academic economists of every variety, along with high-fashion architects, are now generally regarded as deluded nincompoops….”

Rand Paul traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, recently and delivered a sure-fire applause line. “Anybody here want to audit the Fed?” the Kentucky senator asked. “Anybody feel that the Fed’s out to get us?”

He followed it up with an op-ed comparing the Federal Reserve to Lehman Brothers and calling it essentially bankrupt. The bash-the-Fed routine, perfected by Paul’s father, former Texas congressman Ron Paul, is political gold with libertarian voters suspicious of all federal authority, especially a central bank with a $4.5 trillion balance sheet.

But Paul could face a significant challenge if he emerges from Iowa with a legitimate shot at the Republican nomination. Because experts say he gets many of his arguments about the Fed flat wrong. And the establishment wing of the GOP — backed by piles of Wall Street money — views Paul’s approach to the Fed as dangerous and irresponsible.

The thinking in these circles is that should Paul emerge as a viable threat to get the nomination, an even larger outpouring of money and organizational muscle will be deployed to stop him, in large part out of fear of what a President Paul might do to the Fed.

“If he comes out of Iowa or begins to emerge with any kind of strength, I think you will see the GOP establishment go on red alert because they are going to view him as a dangerous person,” said one financial services industry executive who did not want to be quoted on record criticizing Paul. “The Fed is the pre-eminent central bank on the planet and no one wants to put that at risk.”

Fear of Paul emerging as a potential nominee is part of what is driving the gush of Wall Street money to Bush, and to some extent to Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

“He seems to be moving to the position of abolishing or severely limiting the actions of the Fed,” said Pethokoukis. “Every other advanced economy has a central bank. We are going to somehow do something different? That’s going to strike a lot of business people and people on Wall Street as a very extreme and not very responsible position to take.”