The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
On Aug 9, 2010, Wired carried the below chart of the evolution of Taliban attacks between 2004 and 2009. This chart was constructed from the now notorious Wikileaks data base by Drew Conway, a graduate student at NYU, using the open source statistical analysis program known as “R.”
Below these I provide three historical charts, and after my comments, a chart of the Mongol invasion, the only one with lasting influence–but also a failed invasion and occuption.
Rosalind S. Helderman, The Washington Post, Tuesday August 10, 2010
RICHMOND — Virginia officials reacted with bipartisan dismay on Monday to Defense Department budget shifts that will cost the state thousands of jobs in coming years and will dramatically impact the economies of the Norfolk area and Northern Virginia.
Most of the immediate reaction revolved around Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's proposal to close the U.S. Joint Forces Command. It is a major employer in Hampton Roads, including Norfolk and Virginia Beach, whose elimination could translate into the loss of 6,100 military, civilian and contractor jobs in the region.
Phi Beta Iota: SecDef is no fool–Virginia can win BIG. We need (and Virginia can provide):
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First Earth Battalion Field Manual Free (Display & PDF for Print or Download)
By Peter Eichenbaum and Margaret Collins – Mon Aug 02, 2010
AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile carriers, are planning a venture to displace credit and debit cards with smartphones, posing a new threat to Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., three people with direct knowledge of the plan said.The partnership, which also includes Deutsche Telekom AG unit T-Mobile USA, may work with Discover Financial Services and Barclays Plc to test a system at stores in Atlanta and three other U.S. cities that would let a consumer pay with the contactless wave of a smartphone, the people said. The carriers have been searching for a chief executive officer.The trial would be the carriers’ biggest effort to spur mobile payments in the U.S. and supplant more than 1 billion plastic cards in American wallets. Smartphones have encroached on tasks ranging from Web browsing to street navigation and now may help the phone companies compete with San Francisco-based Visa and MasterCard, the world’s biggest payments networks.“This is definitely a game-changer,” said industry consultant Richard Crone of San Carlos, California-based Crone Consulting LLC. The firm advises card networks, issuers and phone companies. The mobile carriers “are the biggest recurring billers in every market. They are experts at processing payments,” Crone said. Full article
Comment: We have been told that in Shanghai, it is common to see many instances of people–including children–using their cellphones to pay for goods and services, including mass-transit fares. Supposedly GlobalAgora was the first to penetrate the Chinese mobile market (2001) with the help of Nicholas Rockefeller.
Here it mentions a main technology was wireless internet WAP phones for mobile payments. On a wild side note, this video reveals interesting information from the now deceased Aaron Russo (film-maker of Trading Places, The Rose, Wiseguys, also managed Bette Midler) who was a former friend of Nick Rockefeller after Russo ran for governor of Nevada.
Posted by Izabella Kaminska on Aug 04, 2010
FT Alphaville missed this IMF paper when it first came out in April, 2010.
Continue reading “Smartphone Money (AT&T,Verizon) & Global Currency (IMF) Weak Signals”
By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 2, 2010
This summer, when Kellogg recalled 28 million boxes of Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops and Honey Smacks, the company blamed elevated levels of a chemical in the packaging.
Dozens of consumers reported a strange taste and odor, and some complained of nausea and diarrhea. But Kellogg said a team of experts it hired determined that there was “no harmful material” in the products.
Federal regulators, who are charged with ensuring the safety of food and consumer products, are in the dark about the suspected chemical, 2-methylnaphthalene. The Food and Drug Administration has no scientific data on its impact on human health. The Environmental Protection Agency also lacks basic health and safety data for 2-methylnaphthalene — even though the EPA has been seeking that information from the chemical industry for 16 years.
Fairfax County is seeking bidders for a new contract that injects private sector intelligence analysts into regional law enforcement and homeland security efforts.
The county began working with intelligence analysts five years ago, and the existing contract with Fairfax-based ManTech International Corp. is set to expire at the end of the year.
Under the agreement, the defense contractor has provided eight analysts who work to identify terrorist threats in the national capital region and also provide support for more bread-and-butter police work.
Continue reading “Journal: Fairfax County Intelligence Up for Bid”
Older Version of Updated Book Now Being Offered on Amazon
August 9, 2010
David Perkins
I was on the verge of buying this book when I realized that the author has a number of new books out, including Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education, which I have bought and will review in detail shortly, as well as the following four books that I am not buying, but certainly think are on a very important path toward educational revitalization and re-invention:
Smart Schools
The Eureka Effect: The Art and Logic of Breakthrough Thinking
The The Intelligent Eye: Learning to Think by Looking at Art (Occasional Paper Series)
Outsmarting IQ: The Emerging Science of Learnable Intelligence
