Category: Collaboration Zones

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The Criminal Insanity of Both US Parties–Borrow One Trillion a Year, Debate About Tax Increases

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency

Dem plan for millionaire surtax intended to soften GOP

By Alexander Bolton 05/18/11

The Hill

Senate Democrats are using their proposal to raise taxes on millionaires as a stalking-horse to force Republicans to accept other tax increases.

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Phi Beta Iota: The Hill is letting us down when it fails to provide context.  This “debate” over tax cuts is either criminal insanity or insanely criminal.  As long as the federal government is BORROWING one trillion dollars a year “in our name,” any discussion that does not begin with “stop borrowing” is unconstitutional, illegitimate, and grounds for the impeachment of every member now serving in the Senate and the House, including Ron Paul if he does not bring this basic fact forward in public.

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Rick Santorum Mindless Mouse

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, IO Impotency
Mindless Mouse vs. Lion

Santorum: What does McCain know about torture?

The presidential hopeful claims torture survivor John McCain simply doesn't understand how torture works

Justin Elliott, Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Salon.com

Phi Beta Iota: To understand this mindless mouse, Rick Santorum, see the book below.

Review (Guest): Idiot America — How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

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Ninth Circuit Court Says Veterans Administration, Congress and President Seriously Screwed Up

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call
Sgt. Jacob Blaylock, seated left, one of four in his Guard unit to commit suicide, at the grave of Sgt. Brandon Wallace Photo: Clinton Gill - NY Time

Ninth Circuit Court Says VA, Congress and President Seriously Screwed Up

Tim King, 12 May 2011

Salem-News.com

Court decision will radically change VA's approach to Veteran's health treatment.

(SALEM, Ore.) – Never in my life have I read words so supportive of veterans.

Read entire article….

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A Social Network for Making Future Plans

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence

A Social Network for Making Future Plans

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER, May 17, 2011

New York Times

Most social networking services are for sharing what you’ve done in the past or what you’re doing right now. A new one, WhereBerry, is for sharing what you want to do in the future.

On WhereBerry, which opens to the public Tuesday, people post activities they want to do someday, like restaurants they want to try, movies they hope to see or events they plan to attend. Their friends can comment and make plans.

“We’re giving people a single place for all these ideas that float around for people to do,” said Nick Baum, who founded WhereBerry with Bill Ferrell. They are former Google engineers. “If you put them here, you won’t forget about them and the combination of things will make you do a lot more stuff.”

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Phi Beta Iota: WhatBerry should be along right behind this.  As a collective aggregator this appears to have vastly more potential than its current narrow focus.

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The World Economic Order, Circa 2025

Commercial Intelligence

The World Economic Order, Circa 2025

By MOTOKO RICH, May 17, 2011

New York Times

With China overtaking Japan as the world’s second-largest economy last year, there can be no doubt that emerging markets are becoming increasingly powerful.

A new report from the World Bank predicts that by 2025, China, along with five other emerging economies — Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Russia — will account for more than half of all global growth, up from one-third now.

The report, “Global Development Horizons 2011 — Multipolarity: The New Global Economy,” also anticipates that the dollar will be joined by the euro and the renminbi as dominant international currencies. The Chinese government is already easing currency controls and has taken other steps to help the renminbi become a fully convertible reserve currency, which would make it easier for foreign companies to finance projects in China.

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First Habitable Planet Confirmed by French

08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Academia, Earth Intelligence, Strategy

Greg Tito | 17 May 2011

Escapist Magazine

French scientists believe that a planet orbiting the red dwarf star Gliese 581 could sustain life similar to Earth.

Twenty light years away is a small red star. Orbiting this sun are six planets that range in size from slightly smaller than Earth to about the size of Neptune. Several of these planets fall within the star's “Goldilocks” zone, neither too hot from proximity to the star nor too cold from being too far. If a planet is too hot, all water would be steam but if its too cold then it would be ice, neither of which can support life. Luckily, a group of astronomers from the National Centre for Scientific Research in France believe that the fourth planet – unimaginatively labeled Gliese 581d – is just right.

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Amazon’s Broken User Experience

03 Economy, 04 Education, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, IO Sense-Making
Jon Lebkowsky Bio

Doc Searls has posted a slideshow explaining how Amazon’s user experience is broken, in the context of a discussion about vendor relationship management (VRM), which is about evolving a world where customers have at least symmetry in the power relationship of customer and vendor. The slides are old (January 2010) and things might have changed, but I don’t think they’ve changed as much as they should’ve, because I still experience similar frustrations when I visit Amazon.

Phi Beta Iota: Amazon is a great company with an extraordinary cloud offering and enormous potential they have chosen to leave unattended.  They rejected a 2007 proposition (Amazon as the Hub of the World Brain) that would have seen them create a markeplace for informed relationships and knowledge by  the call or page, and they have rejected all suggestions for enabling buyers, readers, and reviewers to “co-create” the Amazon experience.  It's a pity mostly because the world need multiple forms of M4IS2 hybrids, and this is something Amazon could have provided as a service of common concern, with both the cloud for melded shared information and the authors and their readers as the human intelligence component.