“53-year-old Elton Simmons has been a Sheriff’s Deputy for Los Angeles County for just over 20 years. In that time Simmons has made more than 25,000 traffic stops and surprisingly, has not received a single complaint. Simmons says his motto is ‘Do good, be good, treat people good’, and receiving a ticket from him might actually make your day.”
“More than 100 women in the southern Mexican town of Xaltianguis have taken up arms to protect their community from organized crime groups, a local self-defense force official said Monday. The women signed up over the past four days with the Union of Peoples and Organizations of Guerrero State, or UPOEG, Xaltianguis community self-defense force commander Miguel Angel Jimenez told reporters. ‘We have an average of nine groups’ of community police, with each one made up of 12 women who will work in the daytime in the neighborhoods of Xaltianguis, located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the resort city of Acapulco, Jimenez said.”
http://teapartyeconomist.com/2013/08/23/100-outgunned-mexican-women-join-self-defense-league/
“They live off the grid for the most part, with only minimal services. They homestead abandoned buildings, applying their love and labor to make the structures functional and livable. They do accept donations to help them rebuild the abandoned structures. They also run a neighborhood bicycle collective and use vacant lots for urban farming. They appear to communicate that there has been no bureaucratic resistance to their homesteaded community. That is what makes Detroit so special right now – a lack of political officialdom in these areas of blight, allowing a spontaneous order to root and thrive.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/detroits-anarcho-progressive-homesteaded-community/
“From food to toilet paper, and drugs to weapons – everything is available on the Internet and, increasingly, purchases are paid with virtual currencies such as bitcoin. The German Finance Ministry has recently recognized bitcoin as a currency unit and as private money, subjecting holdings of bitcoins to German tax laws. The move has somewhat polished up bitcoins still dubious image, putting Internet trading in the currency on a legal footing and allowing the exchange of the virtual currency into real dollars or euros. Online currency conversion sites determine the value of Bitcoins according to supply and demand.”
http://www.dw.de/germany-lends-real-value-to-bitcoin-virtual-money/a-17038675
“Vermont has become the most recent state to take a stand against the federal government and nullify the federal ban on hemp cultivation. Governor Shumlin signed the new bill into law in June. Vermont is actually the 9th state to lift the ban on hemp, and 20 states have introduced industrial hemp legislation for the 2013 legislative season. However, what makes Vermont unique is that the new law does not hold a stipulation or amendment requiring the federal government to first lift the ban on hemp cultivation. Much like Colorado, Vermont will proceed regardless of the federal law banning hemp cultivation.”
http://benswann.com/vermont-completely-nullifies-federal-hemp-ban/
“Gun advocates, who want to roll back certain restrictions on firearms, plan on holding a demonstration in Fort Smith on Saturday. Arkansas Carry is a nonprofit organization that supports gun owners, promotes the Second Amendment, and backs efforts to remove bans on the open carry of handguns in the state. Steve Jones is the chairman of the group. He says Act 746, which was passed by the legislature this year and went into effect last Friday, allows owners to openly carry guns in the state.”
http://www.ualrpublicradio.org/post/gun-owners-promote-open-carry-demonstration-fort-smith
“Four decades after President Richard Nixon ushered in the modern war on drugs, fewer than one out of 20 Americans think it is being won, according to a new poll. A Rasmussen Reports poll released on Sunday found that only 4% of respondents believe that the US is ‘winning’ the war on drugs. Some 82% said it is ‘losing.’ ‘Americans continue to overwhelmingly believe that the so-called war on drugs is failing, but they are more divided on how much the United States should be spending on it,’ Rasmussen concluded. The Rasmussen poll also revealed a public deeply divided over what to do about it.”
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2013/aug/20/poll_finds_few_think_were_winnin
“New York City Comptroller John Liu Wednesday released a report calling for the legalization, regulation, and taxation of marijuana. Doing so would reduce the harms generated by marijuana prohibition and generate more than $400 million a year in taxes to pay for higher education, Liu said. Liu estimated the size of the city’s marijuana market at $1.65 billion a year and proposed using tax revenues from the legalized trade to cut tuition at the City University of New York (CUNY) by up to 50%. ‘In this way, we’ll invest in young people’s futures, instead of ruining them,’ he said.”
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2013/aug/15/nyc_comptroller_says_legalize_an
“China is on the verge of rolling back its infamous one-child policy. When it does – likely later this year or early next year – a modern baby boom will erupt. The Chinese birth rate will ratchet higher as Chinese families are finally free to have a second child, and a spending wave will wash across the Middle Kingdom that will spawn potentially massive profits for those who invest in this demographic wave. Thus it is that China’s future is your chance to go back in time and own the kinds of stocks – McDonald’s, J.C. Penney, Coca-Cola and others – that generated fortunes for investors as they moved into their explosive growth phase because of the boomers.”
http://sovereign-investor.com/2013/08/12/a-second-shot-at-historys-greatest-investment-trend/
“Barry Breeman, Caribbean Property Group Cofounder, discusses the tax laws in Puerto Rico and the push to make the commonwealth a tax haven. He speaks on Bloomberg Television’s ‘Market Makers.'”