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The 15 Rules of Web Disruption David Martin’s Thirteen Rules for Truth Suppression, H. Michael Sweeney’s 25 Rules of Disinformation(and now Brandon Smith’s Disinformation: How It Works) are classic lessons on how to spot disruption and disinformation tactics. We’ve seen a number of tactics come and go over the years. Here are the ones we see a lot of currently. 1. Start a partisan divide-and-conquer fight or otherwise push emotional buttons to sow discord and ensure that cooperation is thwarted. Get people fighting against each other instead of the corrupt powers-that-be. Use baseless caricatures to rile everyone up. For example, … Continue reading →

This is your real government; they transcend elected administrations, they permeate every political party, and they are responsible for nearly every aspect of the average American and European’s way of life. When the “left” is carrying the torch for two “Neo-Con” wars, starting yet another based on the same lies, peddled by the same media outlets that told of Iraqi WMD’s, the world has no choice, beyond profound cognitive dissonance, but to realize something is wrong. What’s wrong is a system completely controlled by a corporate-financier oligarchy with financial, media, and industrial empires that span the globe. If we do … Continue reading →

From our work computers to smartphones and TVs, many of us spend the majority of our days staring at screens. But experts are warning this has led to a surge in eye problems including dry eyes, fatigue and a surge in people becoming short-sighted. David Allamby, a leading laser eye surgeon and founder of Focus Clinics, London, believes the number of people with short-sightedness – where they struggle to see things in the distance – could increase by 50 per cent in the next ten years. The problem, caused by the trend for constant use of computers and phones, is … Continue reading →

Remember when young people were in favor of free speech and free expression? Yeah, me neither. The kids who once sought liberation from the Man’s stultifying grip are now rushing into his arms for protection against the specters of racism, misogyny, and transphobia. Even more shocking, their teachers and professors, who fought for free expression when they were students, are eagerly acceding to their demands. For an outstandingly condescending example, see University of Chicago professor Eric Posner’s recent Slate article, “Universities Are Right—and Within Their Rights—to Crack Down on Speech and Behavior.” Posner’s article rests on a laughably flimsy premise: students are children, not … Continue reading →

Yesterday the Austrian Court of Audit (Der Rechnungshof) released a report on the Austrian central bank’s official gold reserves audits (Austria holds in total 280.0 metric tonnes). This report contains (official) critical notes regarding the safekeeping of the Austrian gold. The report is written in German, but from being Dutch (my native language is similar to German), using Google Translate, having spoken to Peter Boehringer about this and using the English introduction from the Rechnungshof’s report, we can squeeze the essential bullion points from the report. I will sum up the highlights. Let’s start with a quote from the English introduction: In end-2013, the … Continue reading →

American technology companies are losing business on a major scale. The NSA will be responsible for wiping out the United States as a leader in computer science all because they have to listen to the entire world like an old woman addicted to soap operas. I find myself totally shocked at Microsoft. I purchased the latest office at a store. You then have to go online to download the program. They REQUIRE you to have a Microsoft Account. The worse part of this was they demanded I enter a credit card to PROVE who I was acknowledging it would not … Continue reading →

The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site. The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights. Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility … Continue reading →

This free test is based on Carl Jung’s and Isabel Briggs Myers’ typological approach to personality *. Upon completion of the questionnaire, you will: Obtain your 4-letter type formula according to Carl Jung’s and Isabel Briggs Myers’ typology, along with the strengths of preferences and the description of your personality type Discover careers and occupations most suitable for your personality type along with examples of educational institutions where you can get a relevant degree or training See which famous personalities share your type Be able to use the results of this test as an input into the Jung Marriage Test™ … Continue reading →

There’s a familiar ring to the U.S. calls to arm Ukraine’s post-coup government. That’s because the same big-money players who stand to benefit from belligerent relations with Russia haven’t forgotten a favorite Cold War tune. President Obama has said that he won’t rule out arming Ukraine if a recent truce, which has all but evaporated, fails like its predecessor. His comments echoed the advice of a report issued a week prior by three prominent U.S. think tanks: the Brookings Institute, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Atlantic Council. The report advocated sending $1 billion worth of “defensive” military … Continue reading →

The US definition of assassination in a 1953 instruction manual includes that assassination is “the planned killing of a person who is not under the legal jurisdiction of the killer”, “whose death provides positive advantages” to the organization that performs the killing. All conceivable methods for carrying out and hiding or publicizing assassinations, depending on the situation, have long been conceived by US militants.  The following is a brief sample of tips and tricks advised by the US. … Orders for secret assassinations will never “be written or recorded.” “All planning must be mental; no papers should ever contain evidence … Continue reading →

In a rather ghastly Nineteenth Century experiment, a biologist by the name of Heinzmann found that if he placed a frog in boiling water, the frog immediately leapt out but that if he placed the frog in tepid water and then gradually heated it, the frog stayed put until he was scalded to death. Are we like the frog? I see disturbing elements of that process today as we watch events unfold in the Ukraine confrontation. They profoundly frighten me and I believe they should frighten everyone. But they are so gradual that we do not see a specific moment … Continue reading →

Conspiracy Theorists USED TO Be Accepted As Normal Democracy and free market capitalism were founded on conspiracy theories. The Magna Carta, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and other  founding Western documents were based on conspiracy theories. Greek democracy and free market capitalism were also based on conspiracy theories. But those were the bad old days …Things have now changed. The CIA Coined the Term Conspiracy Theorist In 1967 That all changed in the 1960s. Specifically, in April 1967, the CIA wrote a dispatch which coined the term “conspiracy theories” … and recommended methods for discrediting such theories.  The dispatch … Continue reading →

The growing number of secession movements around the world gives rise to our topic: breaking away from current government structures that do so much harm to liberty, peace, and prosperity. Recorded at “Breaking Away: The Case for Secession”—the Mises Circle in Houston, Texas, on 24 January 2015. Comments open on YouTube The Best of Jeff Deist

Three stories that were making daily headlines last week all had one very important thing in common. One was the shambles unfolding over Ukraine. The second was the ongoing shambles over Greece and the euro. The third was the ever-growing flood of refugees from Africa and the Middle East desperately trying to escape to safety in Europe. Over Ukraine, I cannot recall any issue in my lifetime when the leaders of the West have got it so hopelessly wrong. We are treated to babyish comparisons of President Putin to Hitler or Stalin; we are also told that this crisis has … Continue reading →

If you’ve never been to prison, you have no idea what prison is like. No matter how many episodes of Orange Is the New Black you’ve binge-watched, the experience of life behind bars is basically unfathomable to those of us who have only ever known freedom. So when first-time offenders find themselves locked up, they enter the system not knowing what to expect, how to behave, or how to keep themselves safe. Last week, The Marshall Project published a pair of extraordinary 20-minute videos about what inmates must do in order to avoid becoming victims of sexual abuse. The videos, which … Continue reading →