The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
September 16 @ 8:30am (breakfast will be served at 8:00am)
National Press Club
First Amendment Lounge
529 14th Street, NW
Washington, D.C.
Moderated by Miller-McCune Editor-in-Chief John Mecklin, the panelists are Rolf Lundberg, Jr., U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Craig Holman, Public Citizen; and Frank Baumgarter, co-author of Lobbying and Policy Change.
by Nahid Akhter (Aug 20, 2010)
(clipped from full article) Bangladeshi farmers have to go through numerous hardships. Natural calamities cannot be avoided. However, if the farmer knew when to expect one and thereby take appropriate preventive measures, maybe some of his crops could be saved. Besides natural calamities, he is always running the risk of crop infestations and rainfall that is either too low or too high, thereby producing poor yields. Due to poor education, many farmers may be following the practices of his fore-fathers blindly, without looking for better agricultural methods or practices.
Without proper information, a farmer whose crops have been infested by pests, for example, would think that this is the end and that his crops are only destined to die. This would mean a bad income that year, and no food for his family.
So what if this farmer was armed with easy access to the correct information at the correct time? This could lighten his load by ridding him of numerous uncertainties during his agricultural process and thereby raise his family's living standards. A better living standard for the farmers would mean a more developed Bangladesh.
BIID , with support from UNDP, has teamed up with Grameenphone by setting up Community Information Centres all over the country. In the pilot phase, 10 Centres had been opened in various locations, but the aim is to scale this up to more than 1000 locations in the country.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has a requirement to provide a secured, hosted environment that provides web-based access to geospatial visualization services and Open Geospatial Consortium complaint web service interfaces. The Schedule of Supplies/Services provides for the period of performance from 20 September 2010 through 19 September 2011 and two 12-month option years.
This acquisition is for Commercial Geospatial Visualization Services for NGA. Google is the only source that can meet the Government's requirement for worldwide access, unlimited processing, and Open Geospatial Consortium complaint web service interfaces. See Full National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Release
|
by John M. Simpson (Aug 15, 2010)
|
|
A comment on the Google wi-fi/wi-spy issue:
“Most of my sources say that Google and Facebook have been bankrolled by the NSA and CIA vendors and they are in complete collusion with each other. I believe Americans will live to regret their participation with Facebook and Google.” –Glen Woodfin (source)
|
|
Related:
+ 2009 Arnold Google: The Digital Gutenberg (also: The Google Legacy, Google 2.0: The Calculating Predator)
+ Inside Google
+ Google = King of Malware
+ Journal: Google, CIA Invest in ‘Future’ of Web Monitoring
+ Street views privacy issue
+ Time For Google to Grow Up: Open Wi-Fi Privacy Mistake Must Be The Last (EFF.org)
+ Seriously? Eric Schmidt Thinks There Should Be No Anonymity Online? (Forbes – Aug 11, 2010)
+ EFF Warns of Untrustworthy SSL, Undetectable Surveillance (Aug 16, 2010)
+ Google CEO: Young web users will need to escape online posts (Aug 20, 2010)
According to court documents, from as early as the mid-1990s until September 2006, Barclays knowingly and willfully moved or permitted to be moved hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system on behalf of banks from Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma, and persons listed as parties or jurisdictions sanctioned by OFAC in violation of U.S. economic sanctions.
Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Barclays Bank PLC Agrees to Forfeit $298 Million in Connection with Violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act
Mexico: BBC reported on 8 August police officers in Ciudad Juarez in northern Mexico detained their commander at gunpoint, accusing him of corruption and links to drug gangs. More than 200 federal police agents raided the hotel where their commander was staying and accused him of planting drugs on police officers to blackmail them into carrying out extortion. Some of the agents were injured when officers loyal to the commander defended him.
While some agents blocked off nearby streets to prevent their commander from escaping, others moved into the hotel where he was staying. They raided his room, where they say they found weapons and drugs. The federal officers allege that they were part of a stash, which their commander would plant on officers who refused to take part in his corrupt dealings. They say he would then blackmail the agents into carrying out extortion and other crimes.
The police officers held their commander captive until the Federal Police Commissioner General agreed to suspend him, pending an investigation. One of the policemen who took part in the protest told the Associated Press corruption in the higher ranks was putting them in danger. “We risk our lives, we leave families behind and it's the fault of those officers that we go down,” he said.
Phi Beta Iota: The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) has been a success story, despite some internal issues that are under investigation. What we are seeing across Central America, with El Salvador recently joining the fray, is the emergence of an anti-corruption culture that sees the value of self-policing. Four challenges remain:
Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extracts: Bottom-Up Anti Corruption”
In this fascinating exploration into the curious world of packaged foods, Twinkie, Deconstructed takes us from phosphate mines in Idaho to corn fields in Iowa, from gypsum mines in Oklahoma to oil fields in China, to demystify some of America’s most common processed food ingredients—where they come from, how they are made, how they are used—and why. Beginning at the source (hint: they’re often more closely linked to rocks and petroleum than any of the four food groups), Steve Ettlinger reveals how each Twinkie ingredient goes through the process of being crushed, baked, fermented, refined, and/or reacted into a totally unrecognizable goo or powder with a strange name—all for the sake of creating a simple snack cake.
Paper receipts also seen as source of BPA exposure
July 27, 2010 By LYNDSEY LAYTON. The Washington Post
WASHINGTON – As lawmakers and health experts wrestle over whether a controversial chemical, bisphenol-A, should be banned from food and beverage containers, a new analysis by an environmental group suggests Americans are being exposed to BPA through another, surprising route: paper receipts. The Environmental Working Group found BPA on 40 percent of the receipts it collected from supermarkets, automated teller machines, gas stations and chain stores. In some cases, the total amount of BPA on the receipt was 1,000 times the amount found in the epoxy lining of a can of food, another controversial use of the chemical. Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst with the environmental group, says BPA's prevalence on receipts could help explain why the chemical can be detected in the urine of an estimated 93 percent of Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Full article here
Concerned about BPA: Check your receipts
By Janet Raloff, Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Some — but not all — cash-register and credit-card receipts can be rich sources of exposure to BPA, a hormone-mimicking pollutant.
While working at Polaroid Corp. for more than a decade, John C. Warner learned about the chemistry behind some carbonless copy papers (now used for most credit card receipts) and the thermal imaging papers that are spit out by most modern cash registers. Both relied on bisphenol-A.
