Liquor regulators may help oversee D.C. medical marijuana program

Washington Post | District liquor regulators will play a lead role in the city’s new medical marijuana program when it debuts Jan. 1, according to draft rules issued Friday by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D).

Draft Law Revives Practice of Soviets

New York Times | Draft law allows country’s intelligence service to warn citizens their activities could lead to a future violation of the law, reviving a Soviet-era KGB practice often used against dissidents.

ACTA treaty aims to deputize ISPs on copyrights

CNet News | Internet service providers could become copyright cops encouraged to block access to suspected pirate Web sites, according to a previously secret draft treaty made public on Wednesday.

EU Federal Economic Government Proposal Mirrors Nazi Plan For Fourth Reich

Paul Joseph Watson | German-French draft proposal to create continental government with financial control over member states apes how top Nazis foresaw preservation of fascist power in the 1940’s.

French husbands ‘may be tagged’

BBC | The proposal is part of a draft law on conjugal violence. It has cross-party support and is expected to pass easily.

Russia’s new military doctrine: more threats, smaller risks

Russia Today December 17, 2009 Russian military will have more options to use nuclear arms and see more potential threats to the country’s security when the new military doctrine comes into force. The document, which is expected to be put in place before the year’s end, will replace the version adopted in 2000. The draft document has been revealed to the media this week, reports Gazeta newspaper. Earlier, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, announced that Moscow will consider the nuclear weapons as a possible option in more situations than it used to. A pre-emptive nuclear strike with nuclear weapons will be a possible scenario, for example. The number of military threats listed in the document has also been enlarged, according to the 17-page draft document. Those will include other nation’s ignoring of Russia’s strategic security interests, attempts to tip the balance of power in the neighborhood of Russia and her allies, and moves to change the…

New Derivatives Legislation “Was Probably Written by JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs”

Washington’s Blog November 16, 2009 A d v e r t i s e m e n t As I have repeatedly written (see this and this ), the new derivatives legislation is so bad that it probably increases – rather than decreases – the risk to the financial system. William Greider has a great piece in The Nation pointing out : Who drafted this dubious piece of legislation? Bankers (or their lawyers) did. The leading sellers of derivatives are an exclusive club of five very large financial institutions–Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs–that hold 95 percent of the derivatives exposure among the largest banks (the total contract value exceeds $290 trillion). These are the same folks who toppled the global economy and compelled government to intervene with gigantic bailouts. Michael Greenberger, a University of Maryland law professor and veteran federal regulator, studied the House committee’s 187-page bill and detected the fine …