When we think of a military coup, the first image that comes to mind is a general, standing at a podium with a flag behind him, declaring the deposing of elected leaders and the institution of martial law.
Think again.
In AMERICAN COUP, William Arkin reveals the desk-bound takeover of the highest reaches of government by a coterie of “grey men” of the national security establishment. Operating between the lines of the Constitution this powerful and unelected group fights to save the nation from “terror” and weapons of mass destruction while at the same time modifying and undermining the very essence of the country. Many books are written about secrecy, surveillance, and government law-breaking; none so powerfully expose the truth of everyday life in this state of war.
Recommended by Berto Jongman. Pre-order now, release date 10 September 2013.
We're afraid of risk. It's a normal part of life, but we're increasingly unwilling to accept it at any level. So we turn to technology to protect us. The problem is that technological security measures aren't free. They cost money, of course, but they cost other things as well. They often don't provide the security they advertise, and — paradoxically — they often increase risk somewhere else. This problem is particularly stark when the risk involves another person: crime, terrorism, and so on. While technology has made us much safer against natural risks like accidents and disease, it works less well against man-made risks.
Three examples:
We have allowed the police to turn themselves into a paramilitary organization. They deploy SWAT teams multiple times a day, almost always in nondangerous situations. They tase people at minimal provocation, often when it's not warranted. Unprovoked shootings are on the rise. One result of these measures is that honest mistakes — a wrong address on a warrant, a misunderstanding — result in the terrorizing of innocent people, and more death in what were once nonviolent confrontations with police.
More evidence for the efficacy of Cannabis Oil (aka RSO) from Holland. Investigative Journalism with Integrity like this is necessary to help lay the foundation for the next great revolution in medicine.
Description: In this short documentary, Luke Rudkowski investigates medical cannabis oil use in Holland and the laws surrounding it. This video contains interviews with medical cannabis oil patients, a look into a manufacturer of cannabis oil and an exclusive interview with the 1st coffee shop owner in Holland the Pot Father.
Phi Beta Iota: But we still do not have 1:50,000 combat charts for everywhere (Somalia, for example) and we still cannot put a geospatial display with all-source data fusion at machine speed on ANY analyst's desk.
Phi Beta Iota: War profits the few, peace the many — the single fastest way to create a prosperous world at peace is to distribute free cell phones and free Internet access (i.e. free education one cell call at a time via call centers for the first couple of years) to the five billion poor. Earth Intelligence Network figured that out in 2006. Still no takers.
Open source is cutting across the world as solution revolution. It is making technology cheaper and more widely available. It could have positive far reaching consequences in education and aerospace technology, but all revolutions need a little help getting off the ground.
“Open source projects need all the help they can get. If not with funding, then with volunteers contributing to open source programming and free tools they can brandish. Search engines tuned with algorithms to find source code for programming projects are among the tools for the kit bag. While reusing code is a much debated topic in higher circles, they could be of help to beginner programmers and those trying to work their way through a coding logjam by cross-referencing their code.”
Makeuseof.com points to the article, “Open Source Matters: 6 Source Code Search Engines You Can Use For Programming Projects” that lists code search engines to help developers out in their projects. Ohloh Code is one of the largest code search engines with over ten billion code lines in its system. It allows users to search by different code classes, but currently it does not support regular expressions. SearchCode searches through open source communities such as Github, SourceForge, and CodePlex. Amazingly, a single person maintains it. For those who have code with special symbols, Google and other engines cannot cut it. That is where Symbol Hound sniffs around the Net for odd character.
There are a few more code search engines described in the article, but head on over to read it on your own. Code search engines are indicative of the open source mentality-share and spread the wealth.
Whitney Grace, September 06, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
