While senior Pentagon officials resort to bluster in hopes of preventing the WikiLeaks website from posting any more secret Afghan war documents on the Internet, security experts say there is a lot the U.S. military could have done to prevent the classified documents from being leaked in the first place.
Steps range from the sophisticated — installing automated monitoring systems on classified networks — to the mundane — disabling CD burners and USB ports on network computers.
“The technology is available” to protect highly sensitive information, said Tom Conway, director of federal business development at computer security giant McAfee. “The Defense Department doesn’t have it, but it is commercially available. We’ve got some major commercial clients using it.”
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(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 Japanese company Blest has developed one of the smallest and safest PLASTIC-to-OIL conversion machines out on the market today. It's founder and CEO, Akinori Ito is passionate about using this machine to change the way people around the world think about their plastic trash. From solving our landfill and garbage disposal issues to reducing our oil dependancy on the Middle East, his machine may one day be in every household across Japan.
While holding up a bag of trash, he states, “It's a waste to throw away, isn't it? This is a treasure.”
Comment: a comment from a YouTube viewer asking the energy-use of this machine is highly relevant, especially for poorer regions and it would have been better to have included much more info in the video. However, it's interesting to think that those in the trash recycling business may have received a new economic prospect.
The contest between coal-fired energy production and water demand is a mismatch. Mining and burning coal accounts for half of all water withdrawals in the United States, which is the same amount of water that pours over Niagara Falls in five months. Burning coal in power plants also is the source of more climate-changing carbon emissions than any other industrial sector. Here’s a look at the economically essential and ecologically damaging accord between coal and water.
While people in the US and elsewhere have been reacting to the release by Wikileaks of classified US documents on the Afghan War, Chinese bloggers have been discussing the event in parallel with another in their own country. On July 21 in Beijing, four days before Wikileaks published its documents, Chinese President Hu Jintao convened a high-level meeting to discuss ways to prevent leaks from the archives of the Communist Party of China.
In emails, tweets, and web postings, Chinese bloggers, both inside China and overseas, began listing key episodes in recent Chinese history that have remained shrouded in mystery and for which they would love to see archives opened:
1. The famine during the Great Leap Forward in 1959-62. Somewhere between 20 and 50 million people died because of bad policy, not “bad weather.” What exactly happened? What policies caused the famine and what policies suppressed information on it? How much grain was in state granaries while people starved? Is it true that Mao sold grain to the Soviet Union during those years in order to buy nuclear weapons?
Social epidemiologist Paula Lantz reveals what actually leads to premature deaths among Americans. Obesity? No. Poverty? Yes.
By Tom Jacobs (Aug 11, 2010)
So why is being poor hazardous to your health?
Paula Lantz: Stress processes probably play a role. Chronic stress is not good for immune function. [Difficulties with] housing, transportation, income security — all those factors can produce stress. Do you have friends and family — people who can actually help you get to the doctor? Is your community organized in such a way that it provides the resources you need?
Miller-McCune: Do you think the health care reform bill that recently passed will have an impact in terms of lessening the disparities in health in this country?
PL: The bill that passed is a big beast. The main thing it does is extend health insurance coverage to a greater number of Americans. That’s a good thing, a necessary thing, but it’s not sufficient to reduce disparities. There is funding in the bill for more community-based prevention. That’s a good start. There is recognition within the bill that health and health care are not the same thing.
M-M: What factors are you looking at as this new system begins to take shape?
PL: I’m worried that the focus will be on the health insurance exchanges and expanding Medicaid, while the broader mission of public health will be subsumed. In public health, we talk about primary prevention — let’s stop diseases before they occur.
by Katherine Gustafson (Aug 17, 2010)
…a patient with a poor diet and little money will be much more interested in eating right if he or she gets a doctor's slip worth $1 a day to be redeemed only at a farmers' market. Not only does the doctor's intervention let patients know that their health is threatened by diet-related issues, the free cash will motivate a corrective action.
This concept was originally pioneered by the Boston-area healthcare foundation CAVU Foundation (Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited) as part of its Healthy Weight Initiative. The organization's efforts were on a limited and local scale, though, so this year the charity is partnering with Wholesome Wave to pilot the “Fruit and Veggie Rx” program. At a recent meeting of all of Wholesome Wave's partners, a breakout meeting with CAVU representatives drew a large crowd of enthusiastic folks from farmers' markets and food-related foundations around the country. A spirited discussion ensued, in which it was clear that many in the circle felt this type of program could produce a massive positive change in eating habits if implemented broadly.
Phi Beta Iota: The above articles reinforce our holistic analytic model on Global Threats based on the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges & Change which states that poverty is the #1 Global Threat, even in the United States. Below are links to a few of our graphics representing our unique holistic view on analytics.
I have a confession. I have an ambitious goal for the book: to meet today's needs in the way The Fifth Discipline did 20 years ago. And you can help make that happen.
