11 Society – Page 173 – Public Intelligence Blog

3 things are here to stay: Women, the Internet and human rights

By Claudia Calvin

Yahoo Business & Human Rights Program, Friday, September 28th, 2012

Change Your World (Cambia Tu Mundo), Yahoo!’s Business & Human Rights Summit that took place on September 12th and 13th in Mexico City is an excellent example of what I mean. For a day and a half, women from different countries, backgrounds and experiences in Latin America shared their dreams, lives, challenges and proved that new technologies and the Internet are incomparable tools of empowerment.

I won´t go over the event’s program nor the participants. (Links to them are available her e and here). What I want to do is highlight the wonderful lessons I learned after participating in Change Your World.

1. Women are a driving force towards equality in the world. Yes, women represent not only 50% of the world population, they represent half of the idea and proposal creators. Many don´t know it, but new technologies can help them be heard and allow their proposals and ideas to be included in the development and prosperity of their communities, countries…. and therefore… of the planet.

2. Digital literacy of women in Latin America must be considered a priority for policy makers. Even though Spanish is the third most important language on the Internet with 182,379,220 users, there is lack of content created and written in it. If you add the lack of women´s voices as content creators in the region, the figures are worrisome. We cannot allow nor permit the addition of this marginalization to the many other kinds of marginalization women face (education, health, financial, justice and so on).

3. Women and the Internet can be a creative explosion. Throughout the sessions one thing was absolutely clear: the participants demonstrated in various and creative ways how the Internet can be used to support not only good causes, but very practical economic, social and political outcomes. The Internet can be a democratization tool to help build and consolidate new realities where women´s interests and needs can be not only expressed but included.

Continue reading “Yoda: Women & The Internet — The Force is Strong”

2013/02/242013/02/24

Berto Jongman: Endocenes as Ground Zero in Anthropocene Impact on BioSphere

01 Agriculture, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society

Global assessment of the state-of-the-science of endocrine disruptors

Detailed Table of Contents and Preface

Book is Free Online

1.1 Purpose and Scope of Document

The last two decades have witnessed growing scientific concerns and public debate over the potential adverse effects that may result from exposure to a group of chemicals that have the potential to alter the normal functioning of the endocrine system in wildlife and humans. Concerns regarding exposure to these EDCs are due primarily to 1) adverse effects observed in certain wildlife, fish, and ecosystems; 2) the increased incidence of certain endocrine-related human diseases; and 3) endocrine disruption resulting from exposure to certain environmental chemicals observed in laboratory experimental animals. These concerns have stimulated many national governments, international organizations, scientific societies, the chemical industry, and public interest groups to establish research programs, organize conferences and workshops, and form expert groups and committees to address and evaluate EDC-related issues.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Endocenes as Ground Zero in Anthropocene Impact on BioSphere”

2013/02/242013/02/24

Marcus Aurelius: Utah Sheriff’s to White House – Our Loyalty Belongs to Those Who Elected Us

09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Ethics, Law Enforcement, Officers Call

Download Single Page Slide: 2013-02-24 Utah Sheriff Letter

Phi Beta Iota: BRAVO ZULU Huazzaah to the Utah Sheriff's. Oath Keepers is doing its job. This is law enforcement ethics at its best. We must all transfer our money to local credit unions and community banks, and being by-passing the federal government's corruption (as well as state and local corruption), and work to reassert the sovereignty of the individual citizen and the security and prosperity of the individual neighborhoods. Resilience is the goal, intelligence with integrity is the method.

2013/02/24

SchwartzReport: Corrupt and Inept US Government Allows Rampant Food Substitution and Mislabeling — As High as 52% — California and New York City the Worst

03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society

Today's issue is a selection of the many stories I have found showing the results arising from the efforts of the Theocratic Right to shape the world as they wish it. I want to be clear that this is only a selection. I could have picked 10 other stories.

Because many of these efforts are either esoteric assaults on regulatory agencies, or programs at the state level, and they get little national discussion, I don't think most people quite realize how pervasive these efforts have been.

This all gets down to voting. All of us who want our country to choose a compassionate and life-affirming course must not only vote, we must take on the responsibility of counseling and assisting others of like mind to vote.

We have to take this very seriously.

— Stephan

ONE STORY ONLY:

Seafood Fraud Study By Oceana Reveals Widespread Mislabeling Nationwide

Oceana, an international ocean advocacy group, has released a report on national seafood fraud [pdf], and the results are disconcerting. The report, which is one of the largest on seafood fraud to date, found that one-third of fish was mislabeled.

Oceana performed DNA testing from 2010 to 2012 on 1,215 fish samples from 674 retail outlets in 21 states. In this study, Oceana found seafood fraud everywhere it tested, with rates hitting as high as 52 percent in Southern California. Here are the full results:

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Corrupt and Inept US Government Allows Rampant Food Substitution and Mislabeling — As High as 52% — California and New York City the Worst”

2013/02/22

Berto Jongman: The Terror Courts – An Inside Look at Rough Justice, Torture — and the Military Prosecutor Who Refused Illegal Orders — at Guantanamo, Cuba

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Military

“The Terror Courts”: An Inside Look at Rough Justice, Torture at Guantánamo Bay

Wall Street Journal journalist Jess Bravin reports on the controversial military commissions at Guantánamo. Describing it as “the most important legal story in decades,” Bravin uncovers how the Bush administration quickly drew up an alternative legal system to try men captured abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks. Soon evidence obtained by torture was being used to prosecute prisoners, but some military officers refused to take part. We speak to Jess Bravin, author of The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay, and to Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, a former Guantánamo prosecutor featured in the book. [includes rush transcript]

Headline Links to Video. Book Links to Amazon.

Soon after the September 11 attacks in 2001, the United States captured hundreds of suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and around the world. By the following January the first of these prisoners arrived at the U.S. military’s prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they were subject to President George W. Bush’s executive order authorizing their trial by military commissions. Jess Bravin, the Wall Street Journal’s Supreme Court correspondent, was there within days of the prison’s opening, and has continued ever since to cover the U.S. effort to create a parallel justice system for enemy aliens. A maze of legal, political, and moral issues has stood in the way of justice—issues often raised by military prosecutors who found themselves torn between duty to the chain of command and their commitment to fundamental American values.

While much has been written about Guantanamo and brutal detention practices following 9/11, Bravin is the first to go inside the Pentagon’s prosecution team to expose the real-world legal consequences of those policies. Bravin describes cases undermined by inadmissible evidence obtained through torture, clashes between military lawyers and administration appointees, and political interference in criminal prosecutions that would be shocking within the traditional civilian and military justice systems. With the Obama administration planning to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators at Guantanamo—and vindicate the legal experiment the Bush administration could barely get off the ground—The Terror Courts could not be more timely.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: The Terror Courts – An Inside Look at Rough Justice, Torture — and the Military Prosecutor Who Refused Illegal Orders — at Guantanamo, Cuba”

2013/02/22

Berto Jongman: Lessons from the Failed War on Drugs

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Government, Law Enforcement

Our Right to Poison: Lessons from the Failed War on Drugs

By Jochen-Martin Gutsch and Juan Moreno

SpiegelOnline. 22 February 2013

The global war on drugs has cost billions and taken countless lives — but achieved little. The scant results finally have politicians and experts joining calls for legalization. Following the journey of cocaine from a farm in Colombia to a user in Berlin sheds light on why.

EXTRACT

Popeye is a pale, 50-year-old man with a shrill voice — a psychopath who doesn't count his kills.

The longer Popeye talks — about his murders, the drug war and the havoc he and Escobar wreaked and that is currently being repeated in Mexico — the less important my prepared questions about this war become. I realize that I might as well throw away my notepad, because it all boils down to one question: How can we stop people like you, Popeye?

He pauses for a moment before saying: “People like me can't be stopped. It's a war. They lose men, and we lose men. They lose their scruples, and we never had any. In the end, you'll even blow up an aircraft because you believe the Colombian president is on board. I don't know what you have to do. Maybe sell cocaine in pharmacies. I've been in prison for 20 years, but you will never win this war when there is so much money to me made. Never.”

I'm sitting face to face with a killer: Popeye, an evil product of hell. And I'm afraid that the killer could be right.

The drug war is the longest war in recent history, underway for more than 40 years. It is a never-ending struggle against a $500 billion (€378 billion) industry.

Read full article (5 Screens)

2013/02/182013/02/18

Yoda: Understanding Governance — Without Money, Righteous; With Money Corrupt

03 Economy, 11 Society, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Economics/True Cost, Ethics

Confused, force is.

First the good.

Stigmergic Governance Via the Web

In My piece, The End of Entropy I propose the following:

With a central website, in forum style, to address major issues – divided into local sections, regional sections and global sections, with “votes” at a certain level elevating the problems and solutions to the next level to be voted on by a greater number – we can collectively coordinate to solve the issues of this planet. Social responsibility will be seen as spending 15 minutes a day (or more) reviewing the issues on this site. This seed parameter will see an emergence of human unity as a race and as a planet.

What is there proposed is a stigmergic governance – a way to govern society without a governMENT. In a system with no money or need for exchange, stigmergic governance will work – as long as there are money interests, it is unlikely to, with votes bought, up or down, and other disruptive aspects. This is what I propose in a free energy/robot system where no money is needed (read The End of Entropy for a picture of how this works). If You are unfamiliar with the term, stigmergy, a good place to get a handle on the term is here.

A very good illustration of stigmergy is Linux. In this case, one Individual created a basic program and offered it freely in open source. Others came along and began to improve upon it, create software to run on it, and so on. There was no “leader” in this group – those who wanted to get involved did so – and from the initial basic program, a whole creative “empire” came to be…all entirely free and freely.

Read full post.

and now the bad.

Continue reading “Yoda: Understanding Governance — Without Money, Righteous; With Money Corrupt”