A major downside to the legalization of Marijuana is being missed by mainstream commentators & it’s an issue of critical importance. We explain our position from ground zero.

Plus the tragic shooting in France, another look at the falling price of oil, the Sony hack & of course much, much more!

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A photo posted by Jupiter Broadcasting (@jupiterbroadcasting) on Jan 1, 2015 at 8:18pm PST

News

Police hunt three Frenchmen after 12 killed in Paris attack | Reuters

Police are hunting three French nationals, including two brothers from the Paris region, after suspected Islamist gunmen killed 12 people at a satirical magazine on Wednesday, a police official and government source said.

The hooded attackers stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a weekly known for lampooning Islam and other religions, in the most deadly militant attack on French soil in decades.

French police staged a huge manhunt for the attackers who escaped after shooting dead some of France’s top cartoonists as well as two police officers. About 800 soldiers were brought in to shore up security across the capital.

The three men being sought include two brothers aged 32 and 34 as well as a man aged 18 from the area of the northeastern city of Reims, the government source told Reuters.

• Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris | Informed Comment

The horrific murder of the editor, cartoonists and other staff of the irreverent satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, along with two policemen, by terrorists in Paris was in my view a strategic strike, aiming at polarizing the French and European public.

The Gasoline Price Crash Continues

CRUDE INVENTORIES:

Crude oil inventories decreased by 3.1 million barrels to a total of 382.4 million barrels. At 382.4 million barrels, inventories are 24.5 million barrels above last year (6.8%) and are well above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year.

**GASOLINE INVENTORIES: **

Gasoline inventories increased by 8.1 million barrels to 237.2 million barrels. At 237.2 million barrels, inventories are up 10.2 million barrels, or 4.5% higher than one year ago.

Former US cybersecurity official gets 25 years for child porn charges

On Monday, a federal judge in Nebraska sentenced the former acting director of cybersecurity for the US Department of Health and Human Services to 25 years in prison on child porn charges.

Timothy DeFoggi, who was convicted back in August 2014, is the sixth person to be convicted in relations to a Nebraska-based child porn Tor-enable website known as PedoBook. That site’s administrator, Aaron McGrath, was sentenced to 20 years last year by the same judge. McGrath famously did not have an administrator password, a mistake that federal investigators were easily able to make use of.

US Airstrikes against ISIS Destroy 184 Humvees and 58 Tanks

At least 184 Humvees, 58 tanks and nearly 700 other vehicles have been destroyed or damaged in the more than 1,600 airstrike missions that have hit more than 3,200 ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria since bombing began last Aug. 8, the U.S. Central Command said Wednesday.

In addition, a total of 26 MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles and armored personnel carriers, 79 artillery and mortar positions, and 673 infantry fighting positions were destroyed, CentCom officials said.

On Tuesday, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said that the cumulative effects of the airstrikes had put ISIS on the defensive and severely restricted the terror group’s ability to communicate and maneuver. The airstrikes have averaged about 11 daily since President Obama authorized them to begin on Aug. 8.

FBI reveals ‘sloppy’ mistakes that connect North Korea to Sony hack

Comey added that the hackers behind the attack, who referred to themselves the Guardians of Peace, made a key “mistake” multiple times when sending emails to Sony employees and publishing leaked data from Sony online.

“Several times they got sloppy,” Comey said at a cybersecurity conference in New York City. “Either because they forgot or they had a technical problem, they connected directly and we could see them. And we could see that the IP addresses that were being used to post and to send the emails were coming from IPs that were exclusively used by the North Koreans.”

“They shut it off very quickly once they saw the mistake,” he added. “But not before we saw where it was coming from.”

• FBI explains how it linked North Korea to the Sony Pictures hack

FBi director: "Some serious folks suggested we have it wrong" on #SonyHack "They don't have the facts that I have hey don't see what I see"

— Kaja Whitehouse (@kajawhitehouse) January 7, 2015

Comey isn’t willing to spill the beans on everything since it might show how the US collects intelligence, but he’s quick to chide critics who suggest the hack came from somewhere else (such as an inside job) based solely on the publicly available details. “They don’t see what I see,”

Schneier on Security: Did North Korea Really Attack Sony?

I am deeply skeptical of the FBI’s announcement on Friday that North Korea was behind last month’s Sony hack. The agency’s evidence is tenuous, and I have a hard time believing it. But I also have trouble believing that the US government would make the accusation this formally if officials didn’t believe it.

Clues in the hackers’ attack code seem to point in all directions at once. The FBI points to reused code from previous attacks associated with North Korea, as well as similarities in the networks used to launch the attacks. Korean language in the code also suggests a Korean origin, though not necessarily a North Korean one, since North Koreans use a unique dialect. However you read it, this sort of evidence is circumstantial at best. It’s easy to fake, and it’s even easier to interpret it incorrectly. In general, it’s a situation that rapidly devolves into storytelling, where analysts pick bits and pieces of the “evidence” to suit the narrative they already have worked out in their heads.

No, North Korea Didn’t Hack Sony – The Daily Beast

The FBI and the President may claim that the Hermit Kingdom is to blame for the most high-profile network breach in forever. But almost all signs point in another direction.

Taking a look at these addresses we find that all but one of them are public proxies. Furthermore, checking online IP reputation services reveals that they have been used by malware operators in the past. This isn’t in the least bit surprising: in order to avoid attribution cybercriminals routinely use things like proxies to conceal their connections. No sign of any North Koreans, just lots of common, or garden, internet cybercriminals.

It is this piece of evidence—freely available to anyone with an enquiring mind and a modicum of cyber security experience—which I believe that the FBI is so cryptically referring to when they talk about “additional evidence” they can’t reveal without compromising “national security”.

Essentially, we are being left in a position where we are expected to just take agency promises at face value. In the current climate, that is a big ask.

If we turn the debate around, and look at some evidence that the North Koreans might NOT be behind the Sony hack, the picture looks significantly clearer.

1. First of all, there is the fact that the attackers only brought up the anti-North Korean bias of “The Interview” after the media did—the film was never mentioned by the hackers right at the start of their campaign. In fact, it was only after a few people started speculating in the media that this and the communication from North Korea “might be linked” that suddenly it did get linked. My view is that the attackers saw this as an opportunity for “lulz”, and a way to misdirect everyone. (And wouldn’t you know it? The hackers are now saying it’s okay for Sony to release the movie, after all.) If everyone believes it’s a nation state, then the criminal investigation will likely die. It’s the perfect smokescreen.

2. The hackers dumped the data. Would a state with a keen understanding of the power of propaganda be so willing to just throw away such a trove of information? The mass dump suggests that whoever did this, their primary motivation was to embarrass Sony Pictures. They wanted to humiliate the company, pure and simple.

High Note

Mother: Medical marijuana is a ‘miracle drug’ for my son

At least three bills are expected to be before lawmakers in Olympia during the upcoming legislative session that could provide clarity to the legal gray area surrounding medical marijuana.

Right now, medical marijuana is largely unregulated in Washington state. Recreational stores complain that medical retail shops aren’t required to pay taxes or jump through the same administrative hoops. Without legal clarity, medical marijuana stores face the threat of being shut down.

Medical Marijuana a Challenge for Legal Pot States – NYTimes.com

A year into the nation’s experiment with legal, taxed marijuana sales, Washington and Colorado find themselves wrestling not with the federal interference many feared, but with competition from _medical marijuana_or even outright black market sales.

In Washington, the black market has exploded since voters legalized marijuana in 2012, with scores of legally dubious medical dispensaries opening and some pot delivery services brazenly advertising that they sell outside the legal system.

And the number of patients on Colorado’s medical marijuana registry went up, not down, since 2012, meaning more marijuana users there can avoid paying the higher taxes that recreational pot carries.

They’re looking at reining in their medical systems and fixing the big tax differential between medical and recreational weed without harming patients.

“How can you have two parallel systems, one that’s regulated, paying taxes, playing by the rules, and the other that’s not doing any of those things?” said Rick Garza of the Washington Liquor Control Board, which oversees recreational pot.

The difficulty of reconciling medical marijuana with taxed recreational pot offers a cautionary tale for states that might join Washington and Colorado in regulating the adult use of the drug.

Seattle officials have signaled that they intend to start busting delivery services that flout the law and recently sent letters to 330 marijuana businesses warning them that they’ll eventually need to obtain state licenses or be shut down.

Tacoma has also announced plans to close dozens of unregulated pot shops.

• Legal pot shops crippled by black market, medical marijuana – Mashable
• Legal Marijuana In Washington And Colorado Hasn’t Gotten Rid Of The Black Market – Business Insider
• Legal weed states have lessons to share | www.kirotv.com

Key lawmaker’s proposal: medical pot shops without dried pot

A bill being filed this week by Sen. Ann Rivers would create licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries and require product testing that’s at least as strict as what the state requires in its recreational marijuana stores. But the medical stores could only sell edibles and marijuana concentrates, such as oil — no dried bud. The products would be sales-tax-free.

The bill makes a wide array of changes. Among them: creating a registry of medical marijuana patients and providers, and tightening restrictions on health professionals who authorize medical use. It would have the state Health Department determine what levels of THC, marijuana’s main psychoactive compound, and what ratio of THC to other compounds would be OK for products sold in medical outlets.

It would also strictly limit cooperative gardens. Under current law, such gardens can have up to 10 patients or 45 plants, but there’s no limit on how many cooperative grows are allowed on one property. That loophole has been cited as a reason for the proliferation of medical grows serving hundreds or thousands of patients.
Under Rivers’ bill, cooperative gardens would be limited to four people, one garden per tax parcel

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