Found and then lost again in cyberspace….a blogger responds to the question, “Why is Google evil?”
1) They are actively collaborating with NSA and CIA
2) They are focused on exploiting all information with zero privacy controls
3) They are a variation of the Microsoft error–they focus on hacking digital trash instead of empowering humans to make sense–Microsoft focused on “owning” the desktop while shutting out all third party vendors of sense-making through Application Program Interfaces (API) that served as toll booths.
4) They are not open source. I cannot stress this enough. Entire governments (Norway, China) are understanding this now. If it is not open source, it is not suitable for the public domain.
I think we can all agree that this best thing about this site is the collective knowledge and wisdom of its members. As such, last week I commissioned “CaliforniaLawyer” to research and author a “guest post” that would deal with the travesty and threat that is the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Fortunately for us, he obliged and his work is presented below.
“All Hail King Obama [Gingrich, Romney, et al.] – New National Defense Authorization Act Renders Constitutional Bill of Rights Mere “Tradition”
Is anyone concerned about the lawlessness and unconstitutionality of the movement to grant the President the power to detain, without trial or representation or due process of law, any citizen that is capriciously perceived to represent a threat to the United States?
Mr. Ferguson is. I am. I know you are, too.
Let’s get right to the issue. The authors of this bill claim that the bill would not enlarge the universe of detainees eligible for indefinite detention in military custody. FALSE. The current Authorization for Use of Military Force, that is, the OLD LAW, confines the universe to persons implicated in the 9/11 attacks or who harbored those who were. The detainee provision in the NEW LAW would expand the universe to include any person said to be “part of” or “substantially” supportive of al-Qaida or Taliban.
“What is keeping us from thriving?” asks the new movie, Thrive. The answer it gives is “the global elite,” the people who control the financial system that in turn controls everything else. Operating through the power institutions of our society, this elite pursues a conscious agenda of total world dominance, purposely suppressing anything that would disrupt their power: from clean energy to alternative cancer cures.
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If there ever was an Illuminati orchestrating world events, it has lost control. Today, the atmosphere among the financial elite fluctuates between panic and resignation. They cannot be bothered to suppress films like Thrive, like What on Earth, like Moon Rising, magazines like Infinite Energy, and all the information freely available on the Internet that is accelerating the shift of consciousness away from separation and scarcity.
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Despite its flaws, in its invocation of evil and in its appeal to technological salvation, Thrive arouses our conviction that the world isn't supposed to be this way, and that a much better world is closer than we dare think. Even if it wrongly ascribes the source of the problem and misidentifies the essence of the solution, still it will stimulate people to deepen their questioning of the boundaries of consensus reality. This is a good thing. Once the questioning starts, it will not stop until we arrive at a new story aligned with the spirit being born today.
I was surprised to see this HRRR forecast model prediction of tonight's Northeast snow showing no snow for Harrisburg and York, PA, and showing the axis of heaviest snow (4-8″) over or west of State College, PA. This disagreed with overnight AccuWeather and NWS forecasts that showed it further east. This storm will be a good test of last minute “nowcasting” by the new higher-resolution models that we have access to this winter season. I thought I'd “crowdsource” this forecast on the WeatherMatrix Facebook page so my readers could weigh in.
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This is an example of how Social Media is revolutionizing weather forecasting, something I'll be writing about in WeatherWise magazine‘s Jan-Feb. 2012 issue, and it's not at all unseen here at AccuWeather — when our company was started 50 years ago, our founder Joel Myers noted that the average consensus forecast of his entire meteorology class would always beat the best daily forecasters – which is why we have a twice-daily map discussion here at HQ to get all of the meteorologists on the same page – an internal crowdsourcing if you will.
Berlin, 1 December 2011 – Corruption continues to plague too many countries around the world, according to Transparency International’s 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index released today. It shows some governments failing to protect citizens from corruption, be it abuse of public resources, bribery or secretive decision-making.
Transparency International warned that protests around the world, often fuelled by corruption and economic instability, clearly show citizens feel their leaders and public institutions are neither transparent nor accountable enough.
The United States Report summarizes and analyzes 73 bribery demands in the U.S. reported anonymously to TRACE’s online Business Registry for International Bribery and Extortion (BRIBEline) between July 11, 2007 and November 15, 2011.
A key finding from the United States report is the prevalence of bribe solicitations made in exchange for an undue advantage. Over one-third of bribe demands in the United States – the highest rate among countries studied to date by BRIBEline – are premised on an improper quid pro quo, such as winning new business (25% of all reported demands), agreeing to attempt to influence a government official in exchange for a bribe (5%) or receiving inappropriate favorable treatment, such as a favorable court ruling (4%).
Phi Beta Iota: Both recommended for a full reading (neither is very long).
“A new concept is coming out from the fogs of the present situation: a right to insolvency. We’ll not pay the debt.
The European countries have been obliged to accept the blackmail of debt, but people are refusing the concept that we have to pay for a debt that we have not taken. Anthropologist David Graeber, in his book Debt the first 5000 years, (Melville House, 2011), and philosopher Maurizio Lazzarato, in La fabrique de l’homme endetté (editions Amsterdam, 2011), have started an interesting reflection on the cultural origin of the notion of debt, and the psychic implications of the sense of guilt that the notion of debt brings in itself. And, in his essay, Recurring Dreams The Red Heart of Fascism, the Anglo-Italian young thinker Federico Campagna locates the analogy between the post Versailles Congress years and the present in the debt-obsession:
Phi Beta Iota: Gripping. Mankind is at a philosophical turning point. Organized people are confronting organized money, and the integrity of humanity is in the balance.
