Deaf preschooler has to change sign for his name because it ‘looks like a weapon’

By Madison Ruppert: The insanity of the American public school system surfaces once again in a way that makes the censoring of innocuous topics on exams in New York seem almost reasonable.

Now a three and a half year old deaf preschooler named Hunter Spanjer has been told that he may actually have to change the sign for his name, which is an actual registered sign through Signing Exact English (SEE).

The Grand Island Public School (GIPS) system in Grand Island, Nebraska has a “Weapons in Schools” policy, Board Policy 8470, which forbids “any instrument … that looks like a weapon,” and apparently this includes the hands of a preschooler.

“He’s deaf, and his name sign, they say, is a violation of their weapons policy,” said Brian Spanjer, Hunter’s father, to local news outlet 1011 Now.

“Anybody that I have talked to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous,” said Janet Logue, Hunter’s grandmother. “This is not threatening in any way”

The most absurd aspect of this situation is that the sign for Hunter’s name is actually a registered sign with SEE, which means that it is not some made up weapon-like gesture (if such a thing exists) he made up.

Then again, when people are actually arrested for pointing a finger at police, I guess it’s not all too shocking to see something like this.

To make matters even worse, Hunter’s name gesture is modified with cross-fingers, thus making it uniquely his own personal name sign.

A Critique of the Methodology of Mises & Rothbard - azizonomics

Aziz: I find myself in the middle of a huge blowup between Max Keiser and Tom Woods over Mises, Menger and Austrian economics and feel that this is an opportune moment to express some doubts I have regarding contemporary Austrian methodology.

I am to some extent an Austrian, on three counts.

First, I subscribe to the notion that value is subjective; that goods’ and services’ values differ according to different individuals because they serve various uses to various users, and that value is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

Second, I subscribe to the notion that free markets succeed because of the sensitive price feedback mechanism that allocates resources according to the real underlying shape of supply and demand and conversely the successful long-term allocation of labour, capital and resources by a central planner is impossible (or extremely unlikely), because of the lack of a market feedback mechanism.

Third, I subscribe to the notion that human thought is neither linear nor rational, and the sphere of human behaviour is complicated and multi-dimensional, and that attempts to model it using linear, mechanistic methods will in the long run tend to fail.

Sandeep Jaitly, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand and the Gold Standard Institute - Darryl Robert Schoon

The Gold Standard Institute intends to bring truth into the open… and allow…people to make up their own minds…Far from us to try to impose our ideas on anyone!

      Rudy Fritsch, Gold Standard Institute

As a result of an August 16th interview on the Max Keiser Show, Sandeep Jaitly was forced to resign from the Gold Standard Institute for comments he made about novelist Ayn Rand and economist Ludwig von Mises (Jaitly appears 12 minute, 15 seconds into Keiser’s interview).

Ludwig von Mises is the greatest economist of 20^th century

                               Sandeep Jaitly 8/16/2012 on The Max Keiser Show

The above comment by Jaitly about von Mises is not the comment objected to by ‘objectivists’ at the Gold Standard Institute. It does, however, show the admiration Jaitly has for von Mises despite Jaitly’s belief that von Mises departed from the earlier path set by Carl Menger, the ‘father’ of Austrian economics, in the 19^th century.

Since his forced resignation, the Jaitly matter has spiraled into something greater than an intra-organizational spat. On August 26^th, Forbes Magazine posted an article by John Matonis, “Economist Appearing on Max Keiser Show Forced to Resign”; and, on August 27^th, two of the most widely read and respected economic bloggers on the web, Jesse’s Café Americain and Tyler Durden’s ZeroHedge, linked to the Matonis article about Jaitly’s departure.

Watching this grow into a media event was unexpected. Especially since I know Sandeep Jaitly personally. I consider Sandeep a friend and I admire his intellect. I also know Rudy Fritsch of the Gold Standard Institute and Philip Barton, the president of GSI who announced Sandeep’s departure to the public. (Here is an interview I conducted with Philip Barton prior to the formation of the Gold Standard Institute in 2009).

Because of my proximity to the characters in this apparently ideological drama, I have some insight into the underlying motives for Sandeep’s expulsion;

The Rot Runs Deep 2: Don't Call Out My Scam and I Won't Call Out Yours - Charles Hugh Smith

Complicity reigns supreme as everyone benefiting from a scam keeps quiet about everyone else's skim lest their own share of the spoils fall under the harsh light of inquiry.

The uncomfortable truth is that America has become a nation of skimmers and scammers. The rot runs deep not just in the upper reaches of the financial and political Elites, but in the bottom 99.5% as well.

America can now be summarized by this phrase: "don't call out my scam and I won't call out yours." In other words, all the skimmers and scammers have become complicit, not just in protecting their own scam from the light of day, but in protecting everyone else's scams, too, lest those who lose their swag unmask someone else's scam in revenge.

Examples of skimming and scamming abound in finance and government. It's almost tiresome to even list examples; fortunately for us, tireless truthseeker "George Washington" has amassed a list of bank fraud and malfeasance (reprinted by the equally indefatigable Barry Ritholtz).

It's easy to skewer the financial and political Elites' abuses of power, but few look at all the rot below. The fraud and embezzlement-riddled mortgage market of the previous decade included not just investment bankers but non-Elite Americans who lied about their income, debt, and other material facts in order to obtain a fraudulent mortgage.

Another "middle class" scam is practiced by public workers nearing retirement.
(Please don't claim this doesn't happen, I have first-hand accounts from cousins with 30-year careers in fire and police departments.)

Jim Rogers - Global economic shocks coming in 2013-2014 + From Hard Landing To Train Crash, All Chinese Indicators Have Slammed On The Brakes

The G8 meeting in Camp David was focused on saving Europe from its economic nightmares. World leaders discussed Greece and its severe debt crisis, trying to figure out how to save the eurozone. The Great Recession struck the world nearly four years ago, but the aftershock is still being felt. And it's unclear when the economy will finally start to recover, and where its new center will emerge. So are there any signs of light at the end of the tunnel? RT talks to one of the insiders of the world financial elite, co-founder of the Quantum Fund, Jim Rogers.

Akkar N Lebanon Due to Explode - Jean in Lebanon

above is Morris's latest (due to some weird youtube code cycling)  - See all video interviews at Morris108 channel
Morris: Good Background Info - and current situation status. Very real report I thought. My voice over with some generic and poignant images of Lebanon.
Hariri, Joumblat, and more ... Source

Fascist Gulag USA: Austin Texas Children To Be Tracked with GPS Device + Breaking Evidence in Gov't Fraud Revealed

Children in nine Austin high schools are to be given GPS tracking devices and assigned "mentors" in a program designed to prevent truancy yet one that also illustrates how kids are being treated like prison inmates.

Summer Is Over With A Bang As Bomb Explodes Outside Greek Bank + The art of Bank Burning revisited

Submitted by Tyler Durden: If the unofficial end of the European summer season comes with the return of those 9-saying Germans who dash every carefully laid plan to stuff German taxpayers with the European bailout bill for the second year running, the official end is when the Greeks come back from their German-sponsored two week vacation in the Cyclades (soon to be known as Nieder-Niedersachsen) and start bombing things. Which is precisely what happened two hours ago. From Reuters: "A makeshift bomb exploded outside a National Bank of Greece branch in Athens early on Tuesday, causing minor damage but no injuries, police said. Windows were smashed and four parked cars suffered minor damage in the blast, which took place about 4 a.m (0100 GMT) in the western suburb of Ilion." Luckily nobody was hurt. However, it would not look good on the front page of German papers that the general Greek population is not ungrateful for the continued ECB recycling of ponzi cash, but has decided to take out an ATM machine or two, which is why... "We suspect it is linked to terrorism," said a police official who declined to be named. Sure enough, when all else fails, blame something: Bush, a glitch, or terrorism.

Stacy Herbert: Was Mises a stoner?

GOP social policy is dictated by their selective reading of the Bible, says Andrew Sullivan; and now its economic policy is dictated by the Tea Party wing that certainly demands those Biblical social policies but then demands Austrian School (or so they say) and Objectivism as economic policy.  The two are so irreconciliable (as both Rand and Mises said) that somewhere somehow someone is lying.

Ayn Rand on libertarian/religionists:

“The trouble with the world today is philosophical: only the right philosophy can save us. But this party [Libertarian] plagiarizes some of my ideas, mixes them with the exact opposite — with religionists, anarchists and every intellectual misfit and scum they can find—and call themselves libertarians and run for office.”

Ayn Rand on abortion:

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?

and:

Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a “right to life.” A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable. . . . Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living: the right of young people to set the course of their own lives. The task of raising a child is a tremendous, lifelong responsibility, which no one should undertake unwittingly or unwillingly. Procreation is not a duty: human beings are not stock-farm animals. For conscientious persons, an unwanted pregnancy is a disaster; to oppose its termination is to advocate sacrifice, not for the sake of anyone’s benefit, but for the sake of misery qua misery, for the sake of forbidding happiness and fulfillment to living human beings.

Veterans Forcibly Sent to 'Mental Institutions' + Dreams from My Real Father: A Story of Reds and Deception - trailer

Alex covers the latest on the growing number of veterans forcibly sent to mental institutions and having their firearms taken by the government. Alex also covers the latest "eye in the sky" surveillance technology and other news covering the police state and government corruption.

Applied ethicist: "Just Say NO To Drones" engineers should stop working on drones, kick habit of military funding + IARPA’s Synthetic Holographic Observation program: developing advanced dynamic holographic displays

By Madison Ruppert: It is hardly arguable that the use of drones – especially in the United States – is on the rise with no sign of slowing down any time soon. It is also inarguable that there seems to be a long future for this technology with a stunning variety of technological innovations and various lines of development.

However, not all are as enthusiastic about this as the military, law enforcement, lobbyists and those so-called public servants who support these dangerous efforts are.

One of those stepping up and speaking out against the seemingly unstoppable wave of drone development and deployment is Dr. Robert Sparrow, a Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Associate Professor (although one page lists him as a Senior Lecturer) in the department of philosophy at Monash University in Australia as well as one of the founders of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC).

In his refereed paper published in IEEE Technology and Society Magazine entitled, “’Just Say No’ to Drones,” Sparrow argues that engineers should begin to stop working on deadly drone technology and also to stop accepting huge amounts of funding from the military and defense contractors.

While this suggestion is obviously one I agree with, unfortunately I believe that the monetary incentive is so great that defense contractors and those who work for them will not seek to stop developing this type of technology so long as the funds keep flowing in.

Sparrow has gone as far as to call on engineers to outright boycott work on military robots in general, saying, “It is clear that military organizations fund a significant amount of, and perhaps even most of, robotics research today.”

Indeed, this is quite true as seen in the recent focus of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has focused on everything from cheap and somewhat creepy robots to lifelike humanoid robots to robots nearly as efficient as human beings to legged robots that can run at unbelievable speeds and more.

“Recent technological progress, which has greatly increased the potential for robots to keep soldiers ‘out of harm’s way’ and the perceived success of the U.S.’s Predator and Reaper drones in Afghanistan, has lead to a massive influx of funding from governments all around the world for research on military robotics,” said Sparrow.

According to a press release from Monash University, in his paper Sparrow argues that military robots are actually helping make war more likely by lowering the so-called threshold of conflict.

“Military robots are making it easier for governments to start wars, thinking that they won’t incur any casualties on their own side,”

A Flashing Warning On The "Unintended Consequences" Of Ultra Easy Monetary Policy From... The Fed?!

Submitted by Tyler Durden: The case for ultra easy monetary policies has been well enough made to convince the central banks of most Advanced Economies to follow such polices. They have succeeded thus far in avoiding a collapse of both the global economy and the financial system that supports it. Nevertheless, it is argued in this stunningly accurate paper via none other than the Dallas Fed (and BIS economist William White), that the capacity of such policies to stimulate “strong, sustainable and balanced growth” in the global economy is limited. Moreover, ultra easy monetary policies have a wide variety of undesirable medium term effects - the unintended consequences. They create malinvestments in the real economy, threaten the health of financial institutions and the functioning of financial markets, constrain the “independent“ pursuit of price stability by central banks, encourage governments to refrain from confronting sovereign debt problems in a timely way, and redistribute income and wealth in a highly regressive fashion. While each medium term effect on its own might be questioned, considered all together they support strongly the proposition that aggressive monetary easing in economic downturns is not “a free lunch”. Absolute must read!