Category: Communities of Practice

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Mini-Me: NSA-Google-MIT Can Now Plant False Memories

Academia, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
Who? Mini-Me?
Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

MIT scientists implant a false memory into a mouse’s brain

Sometime soon, a lab mouse could wake up thinking he had snuggled up to a girl mouse the night before. But he hadn’t. The memory would be fake.

Scientists have successfully implanted a false memory into a mouse’s brain — a seemingly far-fetched idea reminiscent of a science fiction film.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

“If mice had Hollywood, this would be ‘Inception’ for them,” said one of the lead researchers, MIT neuroscientist Steve Ramirez, whose study was published online Thursday in the journal Science.

Ramirez and his colleagues tagged brain cells associated with a specific memory and then tweaked that memory to make the mouse believe something had happened when it hadn’t.

Read full article.

 

 

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Marcus Aurelius: Democratic Defense Play-Book — Truman Security Briefing Book Edition 5 — Idiocy Lite

Cultural Intelligence, Idiocy, Military
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

From Politico Morning Defense:

FIRST LOOK – THE STRONG-ON-DEFENSE PLAYBOOK: A leading national-security think tank is releasing the latest edition of its annual briefing book, which has become a kind of playbook for strong-on-defense Democrats. The Truman National Security Project, which spent more than $90,000 during the 2012 presidential campaign to help defeat Republican Mitt Romney, has been working to build a coalition of center-left members of Congress with strong records on defense – and its briefing book offers messaging strategies for countering Republican defense hawks.

The book, an advance copy of which was provided to Morning D, urges an increased emphasis on diplomacy and alliance-building and says the U.S. should remain committed to the international community as it withdraws from Afghanistan and cuts its defense budget. The group is scheduled to hold a launch event this evening in Washington attended by Doug Wilson, former assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs, who recently joined the think tank as a senior fellow. We've got the rundown, for Pros: http://politico.pro/1c226p4. And here's a first look at the full briefing book: http://bit.ly/18yag6a.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Democratic Defense Play-Book — Truman Security Briefing Book Edition 5 — Idiocy Lite”

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David Swanson: Cost of Compensated Emancipation versus War Over Slavery

Civil Society, Commerce, Ethics, Government

 

David Swanson
David Swanson

What Slavery Cost

As I head off to a rally for Trayvon Martin, I notice a column by Bob Koehler in which he says the unpaid work of slaves in the United States is now estimated at $1.4 trillion.  Oddly, that's not terribly far from the $1.2 trillion or so, possibly more now, that we spend each year preparing for and fighting wars.  If we abolished war we could perhaps afford to compensate descendants of those victimized by slavery.  If we abolished prisons, we'd have at least another $100 billion.  And, of course, we'd have all those savings again the next year and the next year and the next year.

I wrote a review recently of a film called Copperhead, and I brought up the idea of compensated emancipation.  Wouldn't it have been wiser, I asked, to have compensated the slave owners than to have fought the Civil War.  Since then, a number of readers have been sending me information on the extent to which compensated emancipation was discussed, proposed, or attempted — some of which I was unaware of.

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Owl: US Media Ignores Major Egyptian Protests Focused on Barack Obama & US Ambassador Specifically

Corruption, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Media
Who? Who?
Who? Who?

Egyptians in the Street Despise Obama and US Diplomat Anne Patterson

Curiously, a massive wave of anti-Obama sentiment in Egypt has been utterly ignored by vintage media, even though the protests may be the largest in all of human history.

15 Photos From the Tahrir Square Protests You'll Never See In Legacy Media. #Egypt #Morsi #Obama

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

Phi Beta Iota:  The many signs, both hung banners and neatly printed hand posters in perfect English, are clearly “organized” but they are also clearly what the protesters want to say.  As a general statement, the US Government and Obama and the US Ambassador are considered to be severely hypocritical and not at all supportive of any form of democracy.

Anne Wood Patterson
Anne Woods Patterson

Unlike many Ambassadors who bought their position with campaign contributions, Anne Woods Patterson is a professional who took 20 years to go from entry level to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs and has been an Ambassador to various countries for the past fifteen years.  She is considered by Egyptians to be too close to the Muslim Brotherhood.