Freedomshift

Following his interview with Breitbart London , Greenpeace founder Dr. Patrick Moore addressed the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London last night, telling them why he left the environmentalist group and became sceptical of man-made global warming. Read his speech: here

- U.S. state budgets rely on “faulty practices” – Volcker - Shoddy budget practices push costs to future generations - Faulty budget practices lead to poor policy making - “Problems hidden by lack of truth and integrity” – Volcker - No common definition of balanced budget allows for gimmicks The highly regarded former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, has severely criticized the State Governments in the U.S. over “faulty practices” used to devise budgets which mask the true financial position of those states. Read more: here

Today is Earth Day — an annual event first launched on April 22, 1970. The inaugural festivities (organized in part by then hippie and now convicted murderer Ira Einhorn ) predicted death, destruction and disease unless we did exactly as progressives commanded. Sound familiar? Behold the coming apocalypse, as predicted on and around Earth Day, 1970 : “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — Harvard biologist George Wald “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.” — Washington University biologist Barry Commoner “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.” — New York Times editorial Read more: here

Bloggers, conspiracy theorists and people who challenge establishment narratives on the Internet were all likened to ISIS terrorists during a chilling Congressional hearing which took place yesterday.

The Virginia fraternity who was blamed for a gang rape which started a firestorm of anti-male leftist hate across US college campuses was falsely accused and the story fabicated.  The Fraternity will seek damages. CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) -- A fraternity at the University of Virginia announced Monday that it will "pursue all available legal action" against Rolling Stone, saying a Columbia Journalism School review shows the magazine acted recklessly and defamed its members by publishing an article that falsely accused them of gang rape. "The Rolling Stone article viewed by millions fueled a court of public opinion that ostracized Phi Kappa Psi members and led to vandalism of the fraternity house," the fraternity's statement said. Read more: here

If the FBI’s revelations on Wednesday about the sloppiness of North Korea’s hackers was meant to silence critics who doubt the government’s attribution for what happened to Sony, it failed. Despite assertions from FBI Director James Comey that he has very high confidence in the attribution to North Korea and a statement by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that North Korean General Kim Youn Choi was directly responsible for ordering the attack , security experts still doubt the veracity of the claims based on the evidence provided so far. Read more: here

FBI agents investigating the Sony Pictures hack were briefed Monday by a security firm that says its research points to laid-off Sony staff, not North Korea, as the perpetrator — another example of the continuing whodunit blame game around the devastating attack. Even the unprecedented decision to release details of an ongoing FBI investigation and President Barack Obama publicly blaming the hermit authoritarian regime hasn’t quieted a chorus of well-qualified skeptics who say the evidence just doesn’t add up. Researchers from the cyber intelligence company Norse have said their own investigation into the data on the Sony attack doesn’t point to North Korea at all and instead indicates some combination of a disgruntled employee and hackers for piracy groups is at fault. Read more: here

Having confirmed unequivocally, in a statement by the FBI and reiterated by President Obama, that "the North Korean government is responsible" for hacking Sony, it appears the YouTube-less 'evidence' the FBI provided is being questioned by the hacking-collective 'Anonymous' and former Lulzsec hacker Sabu. As The Daily Beast reports , the hackers blasted, the North Koreans "don’t have the technical capabilities," and added "we all know the hacks didn't come from North Korea, and "all of the evidence FBI cites would be trivial things to do if a hacker was trying to misdirect attention to DPRK." Meanwhile, on Saturday afternoon, Guardians of Peace, the hacking group that’s so far claimed responsibility for wreaking havoc on Sony, posted a message online mocking the FBI’s investigation - a series of gyrating animated bodies shrieking, "You are an idiot!" Read more: here

North Korea is  continuing to deny any involvement with the devastating cyber attack on Sony Pictures. But the entire affair just got even stranger: foreign ministry officials have announced through the government's state-run news agency that "we propose a joint investigation with [the US] into this incident." The government then warned that there will be "grave consequences" if the US continues its "groundless slander" of North Korea and rejects its proposal of a joint investigation. Officials also added, "Without resorting to such tortures as were used by the CIA, we have means to prove that this incident has nothing to do with us." Read more: here

Even after the Federal Bureau of Investigation 's official statement that North Korea was behind the Sony attack, many cybersecurity experts are still skeptical the hermit nation is truly the culprit, citing a lack of new and more convincing evidence. “It’s mostly a repeat of information that has been in the public before,” Rob Graham, chief executive officer of research firm Errata Security, said of the FBI's statement issued Friday. Many prominent names in the field, Graham and others, took to Twitter to express their concern. "I'm completely underwhelmed by the FBI's 'proof' attributing Sony attack to North Korea," Graham tweeted from his @ErrataRob account.  Read more: here

Today Sony canceled the premiere of “The Interview” and its entire Christmas-Day release of the movie because of fears that terrorists might attack theaters showing the film. The actions show just how much power the attackers behind the Sony hack have amassed in a short time. But who exactly are they? 1 The New York Times reported this evening that North Korea is “centrally involved” in the hack, citing unnamed U.S. intelligence officials. It’s unclear from the Times report what “centrally involved” means and whether the intelligence officials are saying the hackers were state-sponsored or actually agents of the state. The Times also notes that “It is not clear how the United States came to its determination that the North Korean regime played a central role in the Sony attacks.” The public evidence pointing at the Hermit Kingdom is flimsy. Other theories of attribution focus on hacktivists—motivated by ideology, politics or something else—or disgruntled insiders who ...

By:  Peter Schiff    Tuesday, December 9, 2014   There can be little doubt that data releases rather than experience or intuition are driving the economic conversation. This is perhaps a function of the disconnection that many people feel about an economy that they no longer understand. Rather than trusting their own eyes or their own gut to form an opinion, it's much easier to grab a set of convenient numbers. The big question then becomes what numbers you choose to look at and which you choose to ignore.   While there are a great many types of economic data releases, issued by a myriad of public and private sources, two reports have risen above the rest in importance: the Quarterly GDP estimates issued by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the monthly jobs report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And those two reports have been recently coming up roses. ...

It's Christmas again, time to celebrate the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge. You know the ritual: boo the curmudgeon initially encountered in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol , then cheer the sweetie pie he becomes in the end. It's too bad no one notices that the curmudgeon had a point—quite a few points, in fact. To appreciate them, it is necessary first to distinguish Scrooge's outlook on life from his disagreeable persona. He is said to have a pointed nose and a harsh voice, but not all hardheaded businessmen are so lamentably endowed, nor are their feckless nephews (remember Fred?) alwavs "ruddy and handsome," and possessed of pretty wives. These touches of the storyteller's art only bias the issue. So let's look without preconceptions at Scrooge's allegedly underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit. The fact is, if Cratchit's skills were worth more to anyone than the fifteen shillings Scrooge pays him weekly, there would be someon...

by Justin Raimondo , September 26, 2014 Print This | Share This Did Senator John McCain, a leading advocate of arming Syria’s Islamist revolutionaries, meet with members or allies of the Islamic State in al-Sham [the Levant] (ISIS) during his trip to Syria on May 27 of last year? Read more: here

Ricochet.com Editor  and Freedomworks contributor Jon Gabriel looks back at some of the doomsday predictions made when Earth Day debuted in 1970. Below is Gabriel's top 13, as first published by Freedomworks, reprinted with permission: 13 Worst Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970, by Jon Gabriel The 1970s were a lousy decade.  Embarrassing movies ,  dreadful music and  downright terrifying clothes reflected the national mood following an unpopular war, endless political scandals and a faltering economy. Popular culture was consumed with decline, especially Hollywood.  The Omega Man, Soylent Green, Damnation Alley and countless other dystopian films showed a planet wrecked by war, pollution and neglect. In large part, the entertainment industry was reflecting the culture at large. In 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated - okay, "celebrated" doesn't capture the funereal tone of the event. The events (organized in part by then hippi...

The LAX TSA shooting story is beginning to fall apart as the government and its propaganda dispensing media jostle to exploit the incident as a pretext to further militarize TSA procedures and also demonize official enemies, including Alex Jones and Glenn Beck. In similar fashion to the government generated narrative on the Boston Bombing and “active shooter” incidents over the last two years, the cover story for the murder of a TSA agent in Los Angeles has a number of glaring incongruities and oddities. It was initially reported that the shooter was a fellow TSA agent. “Law enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times that the gunman was a Transportation Security Administration employee at LAX,” the media reported shortly before noon on Friday. “The gunman was killed by authorities after he opened fire Friday morning. He allegedly shot and killed a fellow TSA employee.” Less than an hour later, it was reported that a “federal law enforcement official said that the...

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/dhs-contingency-plan-component-summaries.pdf

It turns out that the ominous “government shut down” isn’t so apocalyptic after all since it won’t actually shut down government because the vast majority of federal services and activity will continue as normal. Image: Capitol Hill from the Washington Monument. In addition, the same thing has happened – without dire consequences – no less than 17 times over the past three decades. The dispute over Obamacare means it is  “99.9%”  certain that the US government will “shut down” on October 1st because lawmakers have failed to pass legislation that will authorize the government to spend money to fund its operations from the beginning of the new fiscal year. However, as the  Washington Post highlights , the same “shut down” has occurred 17 times since 1977. Most of the previous shut downs lasted from a few hours to a few days. The longest ran for 21 days from December ’96 to January ’97 during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Read more: here