Category: Corruption

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Stephen E. Arnold: Google as (Manipulative) Fact Deliverer

Commerce, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, IO Impotency
Stephen E. Arnold
Stephen E. Arnold

Google as a Fact Deliverer

Posted: 31 May 2013 06:17 AM PDT

I read “Google Adds Nutrition Info for over 1,000 Foods to Search Results.” According to the write up, “Google is incorporating nutrition data into search; beginning today, results will include “extensive” details on calories, carbohydrates, proteins, sugars, and other relevant food info.” How significant is the fact delivery adjustment? I think it is pretty important. Google can shape content based on its numerical recipes to advance an agenda via search results. Just as Google is influencing the perception of self driving vehicles and commercially sponsored connectivity in the US and Africa, Google’s ability to push buttons and spin dials in the information world will have interesting consequences.

Stephen E Arnold, May 31, 2013

Sponsored by Xenky

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Google as (Manipulative) Fact Deliverer”

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Michelle Monk: Monsanto Being Crushed Everywhere EXCEPT USA

01 Agriculture, 07 Health, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government
Michelle Monk
Michelle Monk

A good trend.

S. Korea Joins Japan Blocking Monsanto Modified Seed

By , INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Shares of Monsanto (MON) dropped again Friday after South Korea joined Japan in suspending importation of genetically modified wheat sourced to the crop seed company.

The moves came after the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday that it found genetically engineered wheat, never approved for sale and thought to have been shelved, growing on a farm in Oregon.

. . . . . . . .

Japan earlier canceled plans to buy more wheat from the U.S. Other Asian countries said they're mulling similar moves.

Meanwhile, Monsanto plans to quit lobbying for acceptance of its genetically modified seed in Europe, where it's met with strong resistance. Everyone from French wine producers to German crop growers has objected to its modified seed.

. . . . . . . .

Last year, GM crops accounted for 88% of all corn in the U.S., 94% of cotton and 93% of soybeans, according to USDA figures. In Europe, they're estimated to account for less than 1% of crops.

Read full article

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Berto Jongman: DARPA Weaponizes (Sort Of) the Internet — Has the Time Come to Close DARPA?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, Commerce, Corruption, DoD, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Military
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

The article is long and certainly worth reading, with many links.  Below are two comments that capture the hacker view of this initiative.

This Pentagon Project Makes Cyberwar as Easy as Angry Birds

By Noah Shachtman

WIRED Magazine, 28 May 2014

Read full article.

EXTRACT (Comments):

BillStewart2012 ErikasBulbasaur • 3 days ago

Yes, it's the camo-colored-hat skript k1dd13 tool.  And is it going to check whether it has the required warrants or legal authorization before launching an attack on a target, or just fire away? I've got some guesses..

. . . . . . . .

endus • 3 days ago

Leave it to the government to turn the internet into the next battlefield and to weaponize technology. Any new frontier we explore, the first priority is to figure out how the hell we are going to fight wars in it, because wars are what life is all about.

I work in infosec and I'm not saying passivity is an option, but this is the same idiotic mentality that causes so many problems in the “real world” today. Half the problems they talk about with the vulnerability of our infrastructure are totally avoidable if companies and agencies were willing to take basic security precautions, but that would be too easy and too cheap…how would the defense contractors make their money? Why make it about simple actions which can protect networks and computers and keep issues from spreading, when you can keep doing all the stupid ignorant stuff you were doing all along and find a way to escalate the conflict?

It's wonderful that they're trying to dumb down the technology so that people with no understanding of how this stuff actually works can command it too. We know from documentaries like “This is what winning looks like” and the book The Outpost just how well military bureaucracy functions. I can totally understand why we need to simplify the technology to a point where the brilliant minds that brought us Afghanistan and Iraq can work their magic in cyberspace too. If there's one thing we need on the internet it's the input of bloated, corrupt, out of date government agencies.

Someday humankind will figure it out…if we don't destroy ourselves first, that is. We're allowing the worst and most corrupt elements of our society to lead the way, and then we wonder why everything is so screwed up. I get that the rest of the world has equally corrupt and evil people running it, but is the best answer to that problem really to appoint our own legion of corrupt sheisty assholes to combat them?

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Owl: Rendition Flights Database Updated & Persistent

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, Corruption, Government
Who? Who?
Who? Who?

“Rendition Flights Database has been compiled in collaboration with Reprieve, and represents the world's largest set of public flight data relating to those aircraft suspected of involvement in the global network of renditions, secret detention and torture. The interactive here has been produced in collaboration with Craig Bloodworth from The Information Lab, and allows users to search for, and visualise, renditions flights from the underlying database…We hope that by bringing together the data into one place, researchers across the globe will be able to help build a clearer picture of the movements of aircraft associated with the renditions network. In particular, we hope to identify those flights which can be linked to known or suspected detainee transfers between secret detention sites, or which may have played a subsidiary role in servicing the global system of secret detention and interrogation.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

The Rendition Flights Database currently contains flight data on 122 US-registered civilian aircraft, as well as some military flights into Guantanamo Bay. In total, the current version of the database contains over 11,000 individual flights, many of which have been logged by more than one source of data. Of particular importance have been the results of a Freedom of Information project by Access Info Europe and Reprieve, that has unearthed significant new flight data on renditions aricraft. This has not been integrated before now, and sits in our Database alongside data from Eurocontrol, Council of Europe and European Parliament investigations, and a range of other sources. As the project develops, new data will be integrated as it is released into the public domain.”

Rendition Flights Database

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Berto Jongman: Amy Goodman on Obama’s Sledgehammer

09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Being read (and heard in podcast form) in Europe.

Hammond, Manning, Assange and Obama’s Sledgehammer Against Dissent

By Amy Goodman

One cyberactivist’s federal case wrapped up this week, and another’s is set to begin. While these two young men, Jeremy Hammond and Bradley Manning, are the two who were charged, it is the growing menace of government and corporate secrecy that should be on trial.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Amy Goodman on Obama's Sledgehammer”

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Paul Craig Roberts: The Social Cost of (Predatory) Capitalism — What Prostituted Economists Will Not Address

03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government
Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts

The Social Cost of (Predatory) Capitalism

When I was a graduate student in economics, the social cost of capitalism was a big issue in economic theory. Since those decades ago, the social costs of capitalism have exploded, but the issue seems no longer to trouble the economics profession.

Social costs are costs of production that are not born by the producer or included in the price of the product. There are many classic examples: the pollution of air, water, and land from mining, fracking, oil drilling and pipeline spills, chemical fertilizer farming, GMOs, pesticides, radioactivity released from nuclear accidents, and the the pollution of food by antibiotics and artificial hormones.

Some economists believe that these traditional social costs can be dealt with by well defined property rights. Others think that benevolent government will control social costs in the interests of society.

Today there are new social costs brought by globalism. For developed countries, these are unemployment, lost consumer income, tax base, and GDP growth, and rising trade and current account deficits from the offshoring of manufacturing and tradable professional service jobs. The trade and current account deficits can result in a falling exchange value of the currency and rising inflation from import prices. For underdeveloped countries, the costs are the loss of self-sufficiency and the transformation of agriculture into monocultures to feed the needs of international corporations.

Continue reading “Paul Craig Roberts: The Social Cost of (Predatory) Capitalism — What Prostituted Economists Will Not Address”

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Josh Kilbourn: YouTube (1:19:38) Seeds of Death – Monsanto GMO Destroys Human Organs, Causes Infertility

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, 12 Water, Commerce, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, Officers Call, YouTube
Josh Kilbourn
Josh Kilbourn

Published on May 24, 2013

In preparation of the global March Against Monsanto, you are invited to watch our award-winning documentary Seeds of Death free.

http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/

The leaders of Big Agriculture–Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta–are determined that world's populations remain ignorant about the serious health and environmental risks of genetically modified crops and industrial agriculture. Deep layers of deception and corruption underlie both the science favoring GMOs and the corporations and governments supporting them.

This award-winning documentary, Seeds of Death, exposes the lies about GMOs and pulls back the curtains to witness our planet's future if Big Agriculture's new green revolution becomes our dominant food supply.

A Question and Answer fact sheet deconstructing Monsanto's GM claims and Big Agriculture's propaganda to accompany the film is available online:

http://prn.fm/2013/05/24/gary-null-an…

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