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Stephen E. Arnold: News TidBits from Circa — Can You Spelled Dumbed Down?

Cultural Intelligence, Media
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Stephen E. Arnold
Stephen E. Arnold

Turn to Circa for News Tidbits

Is the effort to know and understand what is happening in this huge, complex world just too much to squeeze into the day? Lifehacker points us to another concession to the modern reader in, “Circa News Dishes Out Bite-Sized News Bits to Keep You up to Date.” The app, available for both iPhones and Android-based devices, lets users quickly catch up with news stories they are interested in. Well, the broad strokes, anyway. Writer Thorin Klosowski summarizes:

“Circa is a curated list of news on a variety of topics. It has its own editorial team that uses a wide variety of sources, and those sources are collated into very quick, short news bits with just the essential facts, quotes, or photos about each topic. If you find a story interesting, you can click the follow button and Circa will point you to new information when it’s available. It’s by no means enough information for serious news junkies, but if you’re looking to keep up with what’s happening in the world while waiting in line for a cup of coffee, Circa News is a worth a look.”

I see how this can have its uses. I just hope users will, when they have a little more time and attention, turn to the more comprehensive articles on their subjects of interest. After all, most folks realize that there is more to every story than can be absorbed while waiting for a latte to be prepared. Right?

Cynthia Murrell, December 02, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

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SchwartzReport: Truths That Matter

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
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schwartzreport newWith tens of thousands of young men and women suffering from PTSD, I find a story like this completely immoral. It is a trend and, after I read it, I thought how many of these wounded warriors will face an even more painful and complicated future with “Christians” like this.

Right-Wing Evangelicals Claim ‘Good Christians' Can't Get PTSD
ROB SHRYOCK – AlterNet (U.S.)

This story suggests, on good evidence, that there may be another major financial crisis just down the timeline resulting from the fact that the Obama Administration did not choose to prosecute and exercise appropriate oversight over the malfeasance of the financial industry. Click through to see the excellent maps which will aid your understanding of these issues.

How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme-Again
LAURA GOTTESDIENER – Mother Jones

How can a democracy possibly survive when 94 per cent of the citizens of the country have nothing but contempt for the Congress. ‘Only 10 percent of Democrats, 7 percent of Republicans, and 3 percent of independents approve of Congress.”

New Low for Congress: Just 6 Percent Approve, Finally Lower Than Car Salespeople
PAUL BEDARD – The Washington Examiner

Phi Beta Iota: see also 2008 Legitimate Grievances (US Citizens versus US Government) ELECTION 2008 – Lipstick on the Pig (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

A great deal of the misery being caused in the U.S. today traces back to these six people whose exorbitant wealth allows them to project their limitations and pathologies on the entire country.

Six of the Top Ten US Billionaires Are Kochs and Waltons
Truthout

This is part of the growing trend of anti-Americanism for which we have no one but ourselves to blame.

World Fights Back Against the Biggest Brother in History
SONALI KOLHATKAR – Truthdig

Phi Beta Iota: see also 2008 Legitimate Grievances (Foreign vs USA) ELECTION 2008 – Lipstick on the Pig (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

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Review (Guest): Who Really Killed Kennedy? 50 Years Later – Stunning New Revelations About the JFK Assassination

5 Star, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
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Amazon Page
Amazon Page

Jerome R. Corsi

5.0 out of 5 stars The New Bush/Dulles Free Trade World Order and the Assassination of JFK, December 1, 2013

Herbert L. Calhoun

Introduction

On page 317, of this book, “Who Really Killed Kennedy 50 years later: Stunning new revelations about the JFK assassination,” the author, Jerome R. Corsi, summarizes the consequences of a nation willing to sit idly by and accept as a permanent fait accompli, having their elected leader shot down in cold blood, as follows:

“After fifty years of US government disinformation and deliberate stonewalling, researchers are just at the edge of discovering the truth about how and why JFK was assassinated in one of the greatest crimes in US history — a coup d'etat in which rogue groups, including the highest intelligence services in the land, conspired to remove JFK from the presidency and to place LBJ in the White House. The consequence of this conspiracy are immeasurable, if only because a group of traitors successfully flouted the constitution and got away with it.”

Corsi goes on to say that: ” … History will need to be rewritten to condemn those responsible as traitorous criminals. While prosecutions may no longer be possible simply because so many of the involved parties have already died, justice can be served by setting the historical record straight. At this late date, any attempt by the US government to withhold from the public documents pertaining to the JFK assassination should be deemed by Congress to be a continuation of the traitorous act that killed JFK.”

Continue reading “Review (Guest): Who Really Killed Kennedy? 50 Years Later – Stunning New Revelations About the JFK Assassination”

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Jean Lievens: Demonetization – Replacing Transactions with Social Relationships

Cultural Intelligence
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Jean Lievens
Jean Lievens

The Demonetization Agenda – replacing transactions with social relations

Republished from Stefan Meretz:

“The question of how we deal with and act within the given monetary environment is crucial for the commons movement, since the monetary logic and the commons logic are opposites. Contrary to the claims of mainstream economics, money is not neutral or simply an informational means for mediating transactions. Thus, replacing currencies with alternative currencies of different designs basically does not change the underlying monetary logic. It amounts to changing the tools while keeping the workshop.

The core element of the monetary logic is equivalent exchange and a codified set of social power relationships. It demands that »you get something only if you give something back.« This underlying logic creates relationships of guilt and subordination, as anthropologist David Graeber has convincingly shown in his history of credit over the course of human history.

The demonetization approach aims at reducing the necessity of using money both within our own commons relations and with respect to the outside »normal« market logic. It aims at strengthening social relationships instead of improving transactions, as Silke Helfrich has put it. While transactions always enforce direct reciprocities that link giving with taking, commons is about commoning – a more open, flexible system for freely determining the rules of interaction and distribution of the wealth we produce.

Continue reading “Jean Lievens: Demonetization – Replacing Transactions with Social Relationships”

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Stephen E. Arnold: Google Letting Us All Down?

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

Why Google is Letting People Down

Some people might say that Google abandons and starts projects on a whim. In the past, the search giant makes provided explanations for projects that could not be completed and promises they were unable to keep. But has the abandonment mentality and prideful hot hair stopped this habit? Marketing Land’s Danny Sullivan further explores this question in, “Google’s Broken Promises And Who’s Running The Search Engine?”

What promises has Google broken? Google Shopping was supposed to index prices of items across the Web, but it only displays results from paying vendors. Google once fought against shopping search engines that only included shopping results, but not the company claims that is the only way to get viable information.

Google also promised it would keep its searches banner free. Guess what they are doing now? Google stated that they are only conducting a US banner tests to allow advertisers to add images to relevant search queries.

Why Google is doing this may be that the company has had to adapt, but it goes against Google’s original philosophy:

“You’d think they caused some internal debate. Was there anyone at Google saying that if giant graphical units at the top of search results are useful to searchers, then maybe Google should be offering those for free, to ensure a consistent experience for those searchers? Was there anyone at Google saying that maybe a shift to paid inclusion was a bad move for shopping and other search products, because it opens up every search product to that possibility?”

Google is not sharing explanations with the public, however. In my opinion, the root of the problem is that no one is officially assigned to run search products. The company is instead focusing on other areas and neglecting its star. What is even worse is that the fuzzy management holds no one accountable for the broken promises. Google’s main search focus is making money and not providing accurate results.

Since Google is the biggest search player, what does this mean for other search components like SEO? Will paid results dwarf SEO? It also begs the question if SEO focuses on search? Money makes the world go around I guess.

Whitney Grace, December 01, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

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Marcus Aurelius: Restore the Draft to Save America

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Military, Peace Intelligence
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Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

Article below appears in today's WaPo.  Certainly a controversial issue, but one that should not be dismissed out of hand without a deliberate consideration of issues such as following:

  • What would be the official purpose of conscription?
  • What would we ((DO)) with all those people if we had them?  Do we have a bunch of simple, shovel-ready projects standing by, awaiting manpower?   Do we have enough unpopulated areas in the Nation to support another Civilian Conservation Corps?
  • Generally speaking, military professionals don't want to deal with conscripts.
  • What would be the associated financial costs in each of the major force programs?
  • Where would the money come from?  What money would be reprogrammed?  Would tax increases be required?
  • Would draftee pay and benefits be same as volunteers?
  • Do we want to put DoD in a domestic societal reclamation role?
  • Do we waive military entry standards to facilitate conscription?  Currently, only about 25% of military-age cohort can qualify due to intelligence, derogatory personal information, obesity, physical unfitness, attention deficit disorder, and other causes.
  • Do we have adequate remaining base structure to accommodate draftees?
  • What would be the positive and negative impacts on readiness of the Joint Force to conduct global full spectrum operations?
  • How would we accommodate acquisition of essential professionals such as physicians, lawyers, etc?  Temporary deferments followed by conscription into commissioned ranks?
  • Are we prepared to socially and legally stigmatize a significant fraction on the population with adverse discharges, particularly in the early years, since many of today's military cohort would likely prove unable or unwilling to meet military standards of performance and conduct?

 

If, after coming to terms with considerations such as those I list above, the Nation were to decide we want to try grand experiment, I propose tasking the Marine Corps to provide the “common core general military subjects” portion of all Services' Initial Entry Training programs.  No rose gardens, just making men and women of Johnnie and Janie, fixing what Mommy, Daddy and the American education system failed to accomplish in 18 or so years.

 

 

 

 

Save America: Restore the draft

By , Published: November 29

At this time of Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for the U.S. military — not just for the usual reason that it protects us from our foes but also because it has the potential to save us from ourselves.

As I make my rounds each day in the capital, chronicling our leaders’ plentiful foibles, failings, screw-ups, inanities, outrages and overall dysfunction, I’m often asked if there’s anything that could clean up the mess.

My usual answer is a shrug and an admission that there’s no silver bullet. There are many possibilities — campaign spending limits, term limits, nonpartisan primaries, nonpartisan redistricting, a third party — but most aren’t politically or legally feasible, might not make much of a difference or, as with Harry Reid’s rewriting of Senate rules, have the potential to make things even worse.

But one change, over time, could reverse the problems that have built up over the past few decades: We should mandate military service for all Americans, men and women alike, when they turn 18. The idea is radical, unlikely and impractical — but it just might work.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Restore the Draft to Save America”

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SchwartzReport: Truths That Matter

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence
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schwartzreport newJ. Edgar Hoover, a semi-closeted gay man, with a penchant for dressing in drag, used recordings he surreptitiously made of Martin Luther King arranging for and engaging in extra-marital sex with the explicit goal of discrediting him. It's what authoritarian surveillance regimes always do. That's why all the cackle about Constitutional safeguards is nothin! g but blather. The power of compromising an enemy through his weaknesses is just too overpowering to resist, when bureaucrats have no oversight and unlimited power. That's why the NSA needs to be cut back severely and subjected to strict public oversight. Only the cleansing unguent of embarrassment keeps peeping toms in line.

The NSA's Porn-Surveillance Program: Not Safe for Democracy
CONOR FRIEDERSDORF – Reader Supported News/The Atlantic

Here is a very ingenious project that represents the possibility of very good news.

Wastewater Cleaning From Pilus Energy ‘Bactobots,” Followed By Electricity Production!
HEATHER CARR – Clean Technica