The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
US government warns over vulnerable control systems
The US government has told thousands of companies to beef up protection of computers which oversee power plants and other utilities.
The action comes after a survey revealed that thousands of these systems can be found online.
The survey was carried out via a publicly available search engine that pinpointed computers controlling critical infrastructure.
In total, the survey uncovered more than 500,000 potential targets.
Huh?
Aaron Swartz, Precocious Programmer and Internet Activist, Dies at 26
John Schwartz
New York Times, 12 January 2013
Aaron Swartz, a wizardly programmer who as a teenager helped to develop a computer code that provided a format for delivering regularly changing Web content and in later life became an unwavering crusader to make that information free of charge, died in New York on Friday, a family member said.
Mr. Swartz was 26, and his death was due to suicide. His body was found by his girlfriend in his apartment in New York, his uncle, Michael Wolf, said on Saturday. He had apparently hanged himself, Mr. Wolf said.
As a 14-year-old, Mr. Swartz helped create RSS, the nearly ubiquitous software that allows people to subscribe to information from the Internet. But as he reached adulthood, Mr. Swartz became even more of an Internet folk hero to many because of his online activism to make many Internet files open to the public for free.
Huh?
Phi Beta Iota: It has come to Phi Beta Iota's attention that too many people are searching for Mini-Me daily, rather than reading that day's postings.
Mini-Me is just one of over 25 contributing editors, each committed to the truth — public intelligence in the public interest.
Below are a couple of posts not by Mini-Mi that are Mini-Me-esque in nature. Bottom line: Mini-Me is one of many important contributors, do not neglect the others, please. We will no longer use Mini-Me to improve dissemination of Mongoose, Owl, or others, they are each a “brand” in their own right.
Berto Jongman: Sandy Hook Reprise — What? + Plus Lack of Truth in USA RECAP
Berto Jongman: US to Fund Rare Earths Institute — Doing the Wrong Thing Righter Once Again
Dolphin: How Are Terrorists Like Submarines? How is the US IC Like the Maginot Line?
Michel Bauwens: Economic Value of Nature – Priceless — AND Irreplacable
Mongoose: BIll Clinton Wrong on Mass Shootings
Mongoose: Connecticut Discrepancies List (32+)
See Also:
Nature is not a drag on growth – its protection is an unavoidable prerequisite for sustaining economic development
Tony Juniper
The Guardian, 9 January 2013
One of the greatest misconceptions of our time is the idea that there is somehow a choice between economic development and sustaining nature. The narrative developed by the chancellor, George Osborne, since the 2010 general election provides a case in point. He says environmental goals need to be scaled back to promote more growth.
The reality we inhabit is somewhat different, however. One hundred per cent of economic activity is dependent on the services and benefits provided by nature. For some time, and during the last decade in particular, researchers have investigated the dependence of economic systems on ecological ones, and in the process have generated some striking conclusions. I tell the stories behind their findings in my new book, What has nature ever done for us?
While many mainstream economists suffer from the kind of delusions that make it perfectly rational for them to accept to liquidate natural systems in the pursuit of “growth”, different specialist studies reveal the huge economic value being lost as decisions and policies that are geared to promoting economic activity degrade the services provided by nature.
For example, as we struggle to cut emissions from fossil fuels, one study estimates that the value of the carbon capture services which could be gained through halving the deforestation rate by 2030 is around $3.7 trillion. And the wildlife in the same forests has huge value too – about 50% of the United States' $640bn pharmaceutical market is based on the genetic diversity of wild species, many of which were found in forests. And it's not only the genetic diversity in wildlife that brings economic benefits.
Among other things, wildlife also helps to control pests and diseases. The cost of losing India's vultures has been estimated at $34bn, largely because of the public health costs associated with their demise, including increased rabies infections. The annual pest-control value provided by insectivorous birds in a coffee plantation has been estimated as $310 per hectare while the annual per hectare value added from birds controlling pests in timber-producing forests has been put at $1,500. Great tits predating caterpillars in a Dutch orchard were found to improve the apple harvest by 50%.
The services provided by animals, such as bees, doing the pollination work that underpins about one trillion dollars-worth of agricultural sales has been valued at $190 billion per year.
See Also:
Crowdsourcing our economic recovery
Van Jones
CNN, 8 January 2012
Editor's note: Van Jones, a CNN contributor, is president and founder of Rebuild the Dream, an online platform focusingon policy, economics and media. He was President Obama's green jobs adviser in 2009. He is also founder of Green for All, a national organization working to build a green economy.
(CNN) — We are not living up to the promise of the American Dream.
Even now, our leaders are talking about cutting, instead of creating jobs to grow our way out of the deficit. Congress is ignoring big problems, congratulating itself on avoiding a fiscal cliff of its own creation. The federal budget props up broken parts of our economic system — big banks, big polluters and big defense contractors — instead of investing in areas such as education and infrastructure that would benefit everyone.
Now, a new breed of companies is leveraging the power of networks and sharing — and showing us what a more sustainable, prosperous future can look like.
One of the most well-known examples is Zipcar. Its tagline, “wheels when you want them,” pretty much sums up the company. Zipcar was just bought by rental giant Avis Budget Group for nearly $500 million as part of Avis' push to compete with Hertz's and Enterprise's new car-sharing services. The demographics of car-sharing customers holds promise for future growth as younger, tech-savvy consumers tend to prefer sharing services.
Then there is Mosaic, a new addition to the share economy. Mosaic just launched the first online clean energy investment marketplace.
AUDIO Published on Jan 12, 2013
A talk between John Xenakis and Warren Pollock recorded in August of 2012. This is being re-posted because some of the points we talked about five months ago are first gaining traction in the press, and then they are getting spun incorrectly.
Sunni Shi-ite War in Middle East? Turkey and Kurdish conflict?
Sorcha Faal is a known fabricator with a gift for connecting sources that are worth studying.
Obama Drug Cartel Moves To Destroy Jewish Gun Empire In US
A shocking new Federal Security Services (FSB) report on the Obama regimes accelerated plan to disarm his countries citizens, claims that the US President is being supported in his efforts by the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, both of whose “main target” is the powerful and feared Jewish-American billionaire Steve Feinberg [photo 2nd left], who controls nearly 85% of all private weapons manufacturing in the United States.
According to this report, Obama, shortly after taking office in 2009, signed a secret agreement with the Sinaloa Cartel, and which is described by the United States Intelligence Community as “the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world.”
This sinister organization is a drug-trafficking and organized crime syndicate based in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, with operations in the Mexican states of Baja California, Durango, Sonora and Chihuahua, and with thousands of guns provided to them by the Obama regime, in an operation called “Fast and Furious,” unleashed a war upon rival gangs that, to date, has killed over 60,000.
Even worse, this report continues, under both the Bush and Obama regimes, the Sinaloa Cartel was allowed to transport tonnes of drugs to Chicago for distribution throughout the United States, while at the same time being protected by both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
This astounding FSB allegation was confirmed this past summer when a high-ranking Mexican drug cartel operative named Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla [photo 3rd left], known as the Sinaloa Cartel’s “logistics coordinator,” stated in US Federal Court that the Obama regimes “Fast and Furious” operation “wasn’t about tracking guns, it was about supplying them — all part of an elaborate agreement between the US government and Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa Cartel to take down rival cartels.”
