The modern world has become a multi-strata layering of bullshit in the form of propaganda. The layers are so multiple and piled so deep that everyone seems to have forgotten where they put the truth. I was going to say that it's like a train of propaganda, where each individual car acquires mass from being linked to every other car. But even that understates it. Rather than a linear train of propaganda, it more like a network of propaganda that spreads out in every direction, creating a fog of illusion that even the best of us have difficulty completely seeing through.
His decision on Catholic charities makes Romney's big gaffe look trivial.
What a faux pas, how inept, how removed from the essential realities of America. Yes, I'm referring to President Obama. But let's do Mitt Romney first.
. . . . . .
EXTRACT:
But the big political news of the week isn't Mr. Romney's gaffe, or even his victory in Florida. The big story took place in Washington. That's where a bomb went off that not many in the political class heard, or understood.
But President Obama just may have lost the election.
The president signed off on a Health and Human Services ruling that says that under ObamaCare, Catholic institutions—including charities, hospitals and schools—will be required by law, for the first time ever, to provide and pay for insurance coverage that includes contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization procedures. If they do not, they will face ruinous fines in the millions of dollars. Or they can always go out of business.
In other words, the Catholic Church was told this week that its institutions can't be Catholic anymore.
Hacking network Anonymous has released a recording of a conference call between the FBI and UK police in which they discuss efforts against hacking.
The call, said to have taken place last month, covers the tracking of Anonymous and similar groups, dates of planned arrests and evidence details.
Anonymous also published an email, apparently from the FBI, showing the email addresses of call participants.
The FBI confirmed the intercept and said it was hunting those responsible.
The loose collective Anonymous have targeted a number of big institutions in recent years
“The information was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained. A criminal investigation is under way to identify and hold accountable those responsible,” it said in a statement.
London's Metropolitan Police's central e-crime unit said the matter was being investigated but that no operational risks had been identified.
A comment on one of the Twitter accounts linked to Anonymous, AnonymousIRC, said: “The FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now.”
Phi Beta Iota: This is too funny for words. Hackers and Phi Beta Iota have been very clear for over 20 years that most law enforcement systems are easy to hack into, especially now that they are all digital and controlled by a server where no one has had the brains to change the factory installed root password. What is really happening now is that government incomtence in security is being “outed.” CIA has worked overseas for decades, pretending to be clandestine when in fact all case officers have been known to local liaison. Similarly, government “security” is an oxymoron. On the one hand, it does not exist, and on the other we are spending tens of billions on the well-intentioned but ignorant threatics of the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) and the world's most expensive coffee klatch, the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC). This is what you end up with when a government of arrogant “experts” and even more arrogant politicians refuse to listen to both insider iconoclasts and outsider “loyal opposition” minds that actually know what they are talking about and see these things 20 years before the “leaders” at the top, who are really nothing more than clerks fighting for budget share, without a strategic bone in their bodies.
As companies resolve these issues, management styles will evolve. The days when a leader can confidently say “I know best” will come to an end. Managers will no longer be able to communicate with just a small circle of trusted advisers — they'll be expected to interact digitally with a much broader range of people both inside and outside the company.
Not every company will be pleased by this turn of events, of course, but those that embrace it will have new competitive opportunities. With knowledge flowing more freely throughout the organization and decisions being made more quickly, the company will be able to react more nimbly to the ever-increasing pace of change.
Phi Beta Iota: Stewart Brand, founder of the Co-Evolution Quarterly and then Whole Earth Review, knew all this in the 1960's and 1970's. Herman Daly, Paul Hawken and many others got it in the 1980's. What we are seeing here is a fascinating extension of the ignorance in place timeline. It used to be that the “avant guard” was 20 years ahead of the mainstream. Now we see them a half-century ahead o fthe mainstream. What this really tells us is that the 1% have held off constructive change to the bitter end, and we are now about to see a clash of cultures–Epoch A top down because I said so versus Epoch B bottom up because it makes sense to all of us. The US Government generally, and the US intelligence community specifically, have wasted a quarter-century of time–the one strategic variable that cannot be bought nor replaced–because of their refusal to abandon the secrecy paradigm for the openness paradigm. Intelligence, not. Integrity, not. It's called collective intelligence – integrity comes inside.
Do you think anthropogenic global warming is a hoax? Are you unconvinced that your ancestors had more in common with Cheetah than with Tarzan? Have you any doubts about the official version of how 9/11 went down? Then you, according to Evgeny Morozov, are part of a “kooky” “fringe movement” whose growth must be checked by forcing you to read “authoritative” content whenever you go looking for information on such topics on the Internet.
Morozov is a visiting scholar at Stanford University, a contributing editor to Foreign Policy magazine, and a former fellow at George Soros’ Open Society Institute — in other words, a reliable bellwether of globalist establishment thinking. His musings in Slate — in which he argues that while outright censorship of the web may not be possible, getting browsers and search engines to direct people to establishment-approved opinions would be an excellent idea — offer “proof of how worried the bad guys are about popular disbelief in State pieties, and about sites … that stoke it,” Lew Rockwell averred, citing his own website as an example. The New American undoubtedly would fall under that rubric as well.
The problem, as Morozov sees it, is that people who “deny” global warming or think vaccines may cause autism — opinions that conflict with those proffered by governments, the United Nations, and other globalist organizations — can post anything they want on the Internet with “little or no quality control” over it. As a result, he says, there are “thousands of sites that undermine scientific consensus, overturn well-established facts, and promote conspiracy theories.”
In addition, Morozov worries that those searching for information on a disputed topic will, because of the way search engines are structured, tend to find sites giving the politically incorrect version of events first and may never get around to reading the “authoritative” sources on the subject. “Meanwhile,” he argues, “the move toward social search may further insulate regular visitors to such sites; discovering even more links found by their equally paranoid friends will hardly enlighten them.”
Then comes the big question with the foreordained answer: “Is it time for some kind of a quality control system?” Morozov, not surprisingly, replies strongly in the affirmative. Since dissuading those already committed to these outré views may be impossible, he thinks “resources should go into thwarting their growth by targeting their potential — rather than existent — members.” “Given that censorship of search engines is not an appealing or even particularly viable option” — note that he doesn’t say he opposes censorship per se — Morozov argues for changes to browsers and search engines that would notify users that they are about to see something that the self-appointed arbiters of acceptable opinion have deemed unfit for human consumption and, if possible, direct them elsewhere.
. . . . . .
Morozov’s concerns about the Internet’s openness to anti-establishment views are not new among the power elite. As far back as 1998, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton bemoaned the lack of a “gate-keeping function” that allows anyone to post anything on the web. Morozov’s proposed solutions to this perceived problem are not exactly original, either, as Paul Joseph Watsonobserved at Infowars.com:
[Morozov’s contention] represents a similar argument to Cass Sunstein’s “cognitive infiltration,” an effort by Obama’s information czar to slap government warnings on controversial websites (including those claiming that exposure to sunlight is healthy). In a widely derided white paper, Sunstein called for political blogs to be forced to include pop ups that show “a quick argument for a competing view.” He also demanded that taxes be levied on dissenting opinions and even suggested that outright bans on certain thoughts should be enforced.
Indeed, notes Watson, “Morozov’s rhetoric is merely one aspect of the wider move to turn the Internet into an echo chamber of establishment propaganda.” We can, therefore, expect calls for Internet censorship to continue and even become more pronounced. Many people thus have good reason to fear that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a back door to government censorship of the web.
Clearly the globalist establishment is running scared. As the anti-SOPA blackout and the popularity of Ron Paul attest, the Internet is enabling individuals to see through the smokescreen of propaganda emanating from Washington and to mobilize effectively against threats to their liberties. In fact, that very free flow of information on the web may be the one thing standing between the elites and their dreams of — as Watson put it — “Chinese-style thought control.”
Alexa: When AIDS was discovered, it was determined by the government and other authoritive agencies, that it was impossible for HIV to be transmitted through blood. As a result many people were infected through transfusions provided by the Red Cross. If we had listened to a Morozov perspective, thousands or millions more people would have been infected because of donated blood. The people who discovered the real source of the problem would be considered kooks in Morozov's eye. Also, the world would still be flat and the sun would be revolving around the earth. Questioning conventional wisdom reveals truth.
Phi Beta Iota: In the Real World Order (RWO), control is a delusion and also a fraud – it introduces friction that accelerates entropy. You have to give up direct control in order to re-establish inherent controls that can only be actualized by freedom and liberty of all. The magic of the cosmos is that it is self-actualizing.
Open Access (OA) to scientific publications could provide more effective dissemination of research and thus increase its impact.
The costs and benefits of different models of providing OA to publications need to be considered if a comprehensive shift to OA is to be financially sustainable.
OA to research data could enable others to validate findings and re-use data to advance knowledge and promote innovation.
Sharing data openly requires effective data management and archiving. It also presents challenges relating to protecting intellectual property and privacy.
Expanding access to scientific information requires researchers, librarians, higher education institutions, funding agencies and publishers, to continue to work together.
