When patients visit a physician or hospital, they know that anyone involved in providing their health care can lawfully see their medical records. But unknown to patients, an increasing number of outside vendors that manage electronic health records also have access to that data, and are reselling the information as a commodity. …
According to several recent articles – “Senate Panel to Examine Sale of Diebold Voting Machine Division” http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/diebold-antitrust-2/ and “Your electronic vote in the 2010 election has just been bought” http://www.truthout.org/092509I – the largest voting machine company in the country, Election Systems and Software (ES&S), has just bought out its most infamous competitor – Diebold's e-voting division, Premier Election Solutions. This leaves ES&S in control of a significant majority of the voting machines (68%) and potential votes (about 80%) in the United States. This is an extraordinary concentration of power.
This is not, by far, the only problem with the U.S. electoral system, but it is one of the most dangerous and most readily addressed. It is dangerous because it increases the possibilities for direct and untraceable manipulation of the votes in the vast majority of states. Such election fraud is accomplished by electronically changing a voter's vote, adding imaginary voters, or tweaking the total tally, real possibilities demonstrated by, among others, scientists at Princeton and Stanford ( http://bit.ly/m4uXo ) . And in recent U.S. elections, there were some non-random, inexplicable and unprecedented divergences between exit polls and election results. (Exit polls are often used by international observers to monitor fair elections.)
Phi Beta Iota: If democracy is to survive, local control of paper ballots with strong public oversight is a non-negotiable first step. The two-party tyranny is corrupt to the core; benefit of the doubt must be given to public concerns over validity rather than political claims of efficiency. Click on title above for complete discourse and all links.
STOCKHOLM – Americans Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson won the Nobel economics prize on Monday for their work in economic governance.
Ostrom was the first woman to win the prize since it was founded in 1968, and the fifth woman to win a Nobel award this year — a Nobel record.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Ostrom “for her analysis of economic governance,” saying her work had demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by groups using it.
Williamson, the academy said, developed a theory where business firms serve as structures for conflict resolution.
“Over the last three decades, these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention,” the academy said.
The economics prize was the last Nobel award to be announced this year. It's not one of the original Nobel Prizes, but was created by the Swedish central bank in Alfred Nobel's memory.
Phi Beta Iota: The Nobel gang got this one right. What the media is not stating with enough emphasis is that she is a pioneer in collective governance of common resources. Below are direct links to some of her notable works.
The State of the Ummah is both a re-mixed Internet film for which a non-US citizen has been held at Guantanamo for years, and a concept of community that explicitly includes Jews and pagans.
Wiki Simplified View
The main graphic shows relative distribution. This smaller graphic to the right shows the “divide” between East and West in starker terms.
Text reports are available–an Executive Summary and a Full Report. What they do not properly address are three facts:
1. Sunnis everywhere, Shi'ites in the minority and severely persecuted to the point of genocide. Note: the rough estimate of Shi'ites is 10-13% of the total, the bulk of them in Iran and southern Iraq.
2. Vulernability of Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar) to encroachment.
3. The lack of religious counterintelligence and security campaign plans in any country, not just in relation to Muslims, but also dual Israeli citizens, Opus Dei, Mormons, etcetera. As states fail, so do loyalties. In our view, the terrorist-criminal nexus will be followed by the religious-criminal nexus. This makes poverty in predominantly Muslim areas the number one flash point for the future of global stability, in our view.
There are six big issues in the United STATES of America that the media is ignoring. Among the Members of Congress, only one, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX-22), speaks publicly and coherently about these issues. Here they are:
1) The Power to Wage War. This is vested in Congress and has been abdicated to the Executive.
2) The Power of the Purse. This is vested in Congress and has been abdicated to the Executive.
3) Consent of the Senate. This is the new issue, that of “czars” unconfirmed by the Senate who have broad powers (or are merely very bad impotent theater, depending on your perspective).
4) Of, By, and For the People I. Corporate Personality and the legitimacy–or illegitimacy–of corporate spending on campaigns combined with the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the two-party tyranny, demand scrutiny by the public and finally–decades late–concerted public decision on how “it is supposed to be” in order to be consistent with the vision of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution of the United STATES of America.
A part-time Census Bureau field worker was found hanged in Kentucky Sept. 12 with the word “fed” scrawled across his chest, according to a law enforcement source. Bill Sparkman, 51, who was white, was found at the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky, the Associated Press first reported Wednesday night.
Summary of Book
Summary of Book
Phi Beta Iota: The Washington Post was among the early casualties in the new business. They don't read a lot, just replay the hand-outs from government, so something that is an eye-opener to them is old news to the rest of us. This story is note-worthy because it is the first story we have seen that a politician in Washington might actually read. To better understand the Legitimate Grievances of all Americans against the “out of control” Federal Government that has–with the best of intentions and really rotten intelligence–combined with the Federal Reserve (neither Federal nor a Reserve) to destroy the pension funds and the life savings of the vast majority of the public, see the two reviews behind the two covers, and contemplate some of the other books accessible via the Reviews menu. We spoke in 19 small towns and cities across America after 9/11 and that was our own eye-opener. The anger against the Federal Government across the land cannot be exaggerated, and is co-equal with the elitist obliviousness to the plight of the people. The public is losing its mind because the government has lost its soul.
The backlash is sharp as voters learn that Obama is not the man they thought he was.
By Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online, September 18, 2009
No one imagined that Barack Obama, during his first nine months in office, would be falling in the polls even faster than George W. Bush did prior to 9/11. We all knew what Obama’s weaknesses were as he came into office — a lack of experience in foreign affairs, little knowledge of how private business works, and poor judgment concerning the extremist company he had kept in the past.
Instead, the real anger from independents arises over disappointment, false merchandising, and hypocrisy. It is real and deep — as is true of any animosity that arises from a sense of betrayal of former trust.
