SchwartzReport: Solar Traps Game Changer — and US Allows Seven Toxic Food Practices Banned in Europe

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 05 Energy, 07 Health, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Ethics, Government

schwartz reportHere is another potential game changer in the transition to non-carbon energy. More and more breakthroughs are popping up. One can only wonder what it would have been like if we had put the trillions we have spent on war into eliminating carbon energy, and transitioning to energy technologies that were non-polluting.

Inventor Claims Solar Energy Discovery That Is Game-changer
GREG GORDON – Idaho Statesman

This is the difference between the U.S. and European food systems. It is not a pretty picture.

Seven Dangerous Food Practices Banned in Europe But Just Fine in America
TOM PHILPOTT – AlterNet (U.S.)/Mother Jones

Stephen E. Arnold: Bloomberg Exposed for Surveillance & Two-Way Exploitation of All Bloomberg Terminals

Commerce, Corruption
Stephen E. Arnold
Stephen E. Arnold

Bloomberg and Alleged Two Way Systems

Just a small thing, the Bloomberg privacy breach allegations. There are far weightier matters in search; for example, are evaluations and ratings of search vendors objective? Someone on the LinkedIn Enterprise Search Engine Professional Group even raised the possibility that vendors “pay” for coverage in some consultants’ evaluations of technology.

Well, on to the smaller thing which is labeled this way in the New York Times: “Privacy Breach on Bloomberg’s Data Terminals.” You can located the story in the May 11, 2013, edition of the newspaper. If you look online at http://goo.gl/oeMqA you may be able to view the news story. (Google, no promises because I know how you want every blog post to have continuously updated links, but that’s another issue.)

The main idea seems to have originated with a real journalism operation called The New York Post. This point appears in paragraph six, so it is definitely a subordinate point.

As I understand the allegation, Bloomberg tradition terminals had a function which allowed “journalists to monitor subscribers were promptly disabled.” I think that Bloomberg terminals generate some sort of report which allegedly allowed a journalist to determine if someone had used the terminal. The idea is that no use of a terminal suggests that the person has either moved on, lost his or her hands, or experienced an opportunity to find his / her future elsewhere.

image

How secure are secure systems. Image source: Sandia.gov at http://goo.gl/NaEBE. Modern methods for accessing digital information are difficult to depict. Paper is tangible. Digital data are just “out there.” Humans assume that if it cannot be seen, the problems associated with what’s “out there” are no big deal. Is this an informed viewpoint?

The Atlantic Wire covered the alleged breach in a story called “Why Billions Are at Stake in the Bloomberg Terminal Privacy Problem.” What I found interesting was that the Atlantic Wire pointed out that the breach allegedly allowed a journalist to determine the “news habits” of Bloomberg terminal users. Is this similar to the type of information which online services extract from users’ Web search histories?

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Bloomberg Exposed for Surveillance & Two-Way Exploitation of All Bloomberg Terminals”

Paul Craig Roberts: How Elites and Media Minimize Dissent and Bury Truth

Commerce, Corruption, Media
Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts

How Elites and Media Minimize Dissent and Bury Truth

Over the last several years I have watched the rise of an important new intellect on the American scene. Ron Unz, publisher of The American Conservative, has demonstrated time and again the extraordinary ability to reexamine settled issues and show that the accepted conclusion was incorrect.

One of his early achievements was to dispose of the myth of immigrant crime by demonstrating that “Hispanics have approximately the same crime rates as whites of the same age and gender.” You can imagine the uproar, but Unz won the debate.

Unz provoked and prevailed in another controversy when he concluded that Mexican-Americans have approximately the same innate intelligence as whites, with their lower IQs being due to transitory socio-economic deprivation.

He next surprised by showing the connection between the declining real value of the minimum wage (about one-third less than in the 1960s) and immigration. Americans cannot survive on one-third less minimum income than four decades ago, and the unfilled jobs are taken by Hispanics who live many to the room. A higher minimum wage, Unz pointed out, would cure the illegal immigration problem as American citizens would fill the jobs.

I wrote about some of Unz’s remarkable findings. One of my favorites is his comparison of the responsiveness of the Chinese and US governments to their publics. I found his conclusion convincing that the authoritarian one-party Chinese government was more responsive to the Chinese people than democratic two-party Washington is to the American people.

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SchwartzReport: US Tops in Brain Diseases, GMO Foods Use More Water and Contaminate Water Not Used

01 Agriculture, 07 Health, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government

schwartz reportThis is not good news. And guess which country is number one in this category? Do you think this might be the result of the toxins and hormones in our environment, food, and water? This is exactly what one would expect to see in large animal studies designed to study the process of disease.

Brain Diseases Affecting More People and Starting Earlier Than Ever Before
Science Daily

Additional unintended consequences of GMOS resulting from a view of the earth that values only profits, with no consideration as to wellness at any level.  Click through to see the relevant charts.  A fully referenced and illustrated version of this article is posted on ISIS members website and is otherwise available for download: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/login.php?location=GM_Crops_and_Water_a_Recipe_for_Disaster.php

GM Crops and Water – A Recipe for Disaster
Institute of Science in Society

4th Media: Banking = Legalized Crime Short Explanation

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Corruption, Government
Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

The Basel Committee and the Global Banking Mafia

Valentin Katasonov

4th Media| Friday, May 10, 2013

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (hereinafter – the Committee) is closely associated with supranational organisations like the Bank for International Settlements in Basel (BIS), which is often called the «club», the «headquarters» of central banks or the «Central Bank of Last Resort». The Committee’s office is situated in the BIS building.

At the end of 1974, following the disequilibrium of international currencies and banking markets caused by the collapse of the Herstatt Bank in West Germany, the heads of central banks in the G10 countries established the Committee under the auspices of the BIS to develop common international rules with regard to banking supervision.

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Berto Jongman: Africa Being Plundered — Loses Twice as Much to Corruption as Receives from Donors

03 Economy, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Kofi Annan: Africa plundered by secret mining deals

Tax avoidance, secret mining deals and financial transfers are depriving Africa of the benefits of its resources boom, ex-UN chief Kofi Annan has said.

BBC 10 May 2013

Firms that shift profits to lower tax jurisdictions cost Africa $38bn (£25bn) a year, says a report produced by a panel he heads.

“Africa loses twice as much money through these loopholes as it gets from donors,” Mr Annan told the BBC.

It was like taking food off the tables of the poor, he said.

Under-pricing deprives Africa of much-needed money, the report says
Under-pricing deprives Africa of much-needed money, the report says

The Africa Progress Report is released every May – produced by a panel of 10 prominent figures, including former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Graca Machel, the wife of South African ex-President Nelson Mandela.

African countries needed to improve governance and the world's richest nations should help introduce global rules on transparency and taxation, Mr Annan said.

The report gave the Democratic Republic of Congo as an example, where between 2010 and 2012 five under-priced mining concessions were sold in “highly opaque and secretive deals”.

This figure was equivalent to double DR Congo's health and education budgets combined, the report said.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Africa Being Plundered — Loses Twice as Much to Corruption as Receives from Donors”