The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Have you seen the economic recovery? I haven’t either. But it is bound to be around here somewhere, because the National Bureau of Economic Research spotted it in June 2009, four and one-half years ago.
It is a shy and reclusive recovery, like the “New Economy” and all those promised new economy jobs. I haven’t seen them either, but we know they are here, somewhere, because the economists said so.
Continue reading “Paul Craig Roberts: Case of the Missing Recovery”
Climate Change 2013/2014 Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis
Computer Detection and Emergency Response Firms Merge
Conflict Prevention Priorities for 2014
Cyber Threats 2014: Darknets, Windows XP, Adobe Passwords, Bitcoin and More
Deception Detection for Interviewers
Fukushima: Dead sea creatures cover 98% of ocean floor off California up from 1% prior to Fukushima
Fukushima: TEPCO Quietly Admits Reactor 3 Could Be Melting Down NOW
Kudos to Citi and The Economist for this free downloadable white paper, 33 pages in length:
Competitiveness is a holistic concept. While economic size and growth matter, several other
factors determine a city’s competitiveness, including its business and regulatory environment, its institutions, the quality of human capital, cultural aspects and the quality of environmental governance. These factors not only help a city to
sustain high economic growth, but also secure its future competitiveness.
Phi Beta Iota: While the report includes clear-cut attention to Human Capital as well as Social and Cultural Capital, and it pays attention to education and telecommunications, “Digital Capital” is a category that is overdue for inclusion and not to be found in this report. A city's commitment to free Wi-Fi, for example, one of Montreal's strong points, is not covered by this report. On balance, this is still an economy of things report rather than an economy of ideas report.
See Also:
Here is some more good solar news.
Massive Solar Plan for Minnesota Wins Bid Over Gas
DAVID SHAFFER – Star Tribune
This would be an important well-researched essay no matter who wrote it. But it is doubly so because the author is a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. The point it makes challenges the integrity of Obama Administration Justice Department in a very fundamental way. The last five year's performa! nce under Attorney General Holder have, in my view, put the American judicial system in crisis. In case after case it is clear that there are two kinds of justice: justice for the rich and lack of justice for everyone else.
The Financial Crisis: Why Have No High-Level Executives Been Prosecuted?
JUDGE JED RAKOFF, United States District Judge – The New York Review of Books
Yesterday it was laptop searches, today it is the destruction of the instruments of an internationally renowned musician. This is all part of the rise of the American police state. And please note my comment of yesterday that this is problem that particularly afflicts darker complected individuals, particularly with Muslim sounding names.
Boujemaa Razgui, Musician, Says JFK Customs Officials Destroyed 13 Instruments
ZACHARY STIEBER – Epoch Times
The TED talks which at first I thought a wonderful idea have over time become, well, something considerably less. This report tells part of the story. But there is another issue which is not mentioned here: TED will not permit any presentations that deal with a non-reductionist materiali! st view of consciousness. It is straight-out prejudice and censorship.
It's a Recipe for Civilizational Disaster — TED Has Turned into an ‘American Idol' for Science, Philosophy
BENJAMIN H BRATTON – AlterNet (U.S.)/The Guardian (U.K.)
Yet another example of the Schism Trend that is separating us into two countries. (See my essay: At the Cost of Your Life: Social Value, Social Wellness. http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2813%2900249-8/fulltext) One aspect of this is that as time goes on the Red value states are literally becoming unhealthy compared to the Blue value states.
Doctors Are Now Referring to the Southeast As the ‘Stroke Belt'
AMANDA STEWART – The Atlanta Blackstar
10 predictions for open source in 2014
Jack Wallen lists 10 reasons why he believes 2014 will be a banner year for Linux and open source.
The year 2013 was a solid year for open source. There were plenty of highs and certainly a few lows. However, I believe that Linux — continuing to build on its solid groundwork — will have the best year yet in 2014.
Some of you may be shaking your heads at yet another prediction of world domination by a Linux zealot. But there are plenty of reasons for such a bold prediction. In fact, here are 10 reasons why I firmly believe 2014 will be a banner year for Linux and open source:
LIST ONLY
1. Open source will dominate corporate data
2. Valve will prompt OEM hardware developers to open up
3. The Linux tablet will finally see the light of day
4. GNOME 3 will become relevant again
5. KDE will release a major game-changing feature
6. MariaDB will begin to make inroads to usurping MySQL
7. Open source will lead the way for smart machines
8. Open source will re-define cloud management
9. Linux desktop will break double-digits in the market share
10. Linux pre-install sales will steadily increase
See Also:
Open Source Everything List & Book
China has been rejecting American GMO corn, and more rejections are anticipated. I basically take this as good news.
China Rejects GMO Corn In Distillers Grains From U.S.; More Rejections Expected
The Huffington Post/Reuters
This is a popular recap taken from a paper in Nature, the source citation can be found below. I have been publishing these reports in SR since 1991 — that's 23 years. None of this research every contradicts the original findings that climate change is occurring in large measure because of human activity. The papers just refine the understanding of the impact, and report a collapse of the timeline. That said, I doubt anything will be done in time to offset what is coming. Greed is simply too powerful.
Climate Change Vastly Worse Than Previously Thought
MARK JOSEPH STERN – SlateSOURCE: Steven C. Sherwood,
Sandrine Bony & Jean-Louis Dufresne. Spread in model climate sensitivity traced to atmospheric convective mixing. Nature. Nature 505, 37–42 (02 January 2014) doi:10.1038/nature12829.
Here is some good news about the madness of drug testing the poor essentially because they are poor and have no political power. As you read this think of the piece in yesterday's SR about Minnesota. Maybe we are finally going to see the end of these malicious policies created by the Theocratic Right.
Florida Law on Drug Tests for Welfare Is Struck Down
FRANCES ROBLES – The New York Times
I consider David Cay Johnston one of the few economists sophisticated in banking who actually tells the truth. It is rarely a happy truth, and this story is no exception. History is going to judge the Obama Administration very harshly concerning its protection of the Wall Street crooks.
JPMorgan Doesn’t Want to Talk About Bernie Madoff
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON – Newsweek
If you cross the borders in or out of the American national security state you should know that your electronic devices from phones, to tablets, to laptops are subject to searches and seizure. As with most things involving government security agencies it is largely a matter of racial or religious profiling done by low level agents.
Lawsuit Challenging Laptop Searches at US Border Is Dismissed by Federal Judge
KEVIN GOSZTOLA – Firedoglake
These books will be reviewed:
Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Vintage, 1992)
Katz, Bruce and Jennifer Bradley. The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy (Brookings, 2013)
McGahey, Richard and Jennifer Vey (eds). Retooling for Growth: Building a 21st Century Economy in America's Older Industrial Areas (Brookings, 2008)
Townsend, Anthony. Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia (W. W. Norton, 2013)
These books were noted with interest.
Barber, Benjanmin. If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities (Yale, 2013)
Campbell, Tim, Beyond Smart Cities: How Cities Network, Learn, and Innovate (Routledge, 2012)
Ehrenhalt, Alan, The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City (Vintage, 2013)
Goldstein, Brett. Beyond Transparency: Open Data and the Future of Civic Innovation (Code for America Press, 2013)
Jacobs, Jane. The Economy of Cities (Vintage, 1970)
