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Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

1 December - Quick Picks

Study suggests that being too clean can make people sick

Young people who are overexposed to antibacterial soaps containing triclosan may suffer more allergies, and exposure to higher levels of Bisphenol A among adults may negatively influence the immune system, a new University of Michigan School of Public Health study suggests.
( Carpet bombing your personal biosphere may not improve your health. Who knew ? )

Members of the Citizens' Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America's Economic Future formally released their report earlier today with a declaration that the commission created by the White House to come up with a deficit-reduction plan is poised to make the economy worse.

Why Religious Believers Are So Desperate for the Atheist Seal of Approval



It wasn't until I left America that I started to realize how badly the American plutocrat owned media lies to the American people through its disinformation campaign.
Well today for a span of at least this one Daily Kos diary, you will get to see what the American plutocrat owned media never wants you to see, and that is how Europe in particular and the world in general has come to see America as a country in decline, whose people are so badly misinformed by the media, they actually don't realize that America is the only major industrialized nation in the world that by right of law does not offer universal medical access, paid sick leave, paid maternity leave and paid annual leave.



Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe

n its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A "confidential" April 17, 2009,cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.
The previous month, a Spanish human rights group called the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners had requested that Spain's National Court indict six former Bush officials for, as the cable describes it, "creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture." The six were former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; David Addington, former chief of staff and legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney; William Haynes, the Pentagon's former general counsel; Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy; Jay Bybee, former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and John Yoo, a former official in the Office of Legal Counsel. The human rights group contended that Spain had a duty to open an investigation under the nation's "universal jurisdiction" law, which permits its legal system to prosecute overseas human rights crimes involving Spanish citizens and residents. Five Guantanamo detainees, the group maintained, fit that criteria.




Why Religious Believers Are So Desperate for the Atheist Seal of Approval

If you hang around the online atheist world long enough, you'll notice an interesting pattern. Many religious and spiritual believers who engage with atheists seem very intent on getting atheists' approval for their beliefs.
Typically, these believers acknowledge that many religions are profoundly troubling. They share atheists' revulsion against religious hatreds and sectarian wars. They share our repugnance with religious fraud, the charlatans who abuse people's trust to swindle them out of money and sex and more. They share our disgust with willful religious ignorance, the flat denials of overwhelming scientific evidence that contradicts people's beliefs. They can totally see why many atheists are so incredulous, even outraged, about the world of religion.
But they think their religion is an exception. They think their religion is harmless, a kinder, gentler faith. They think their religion is philosophically consistent, supported by reason and evidence -- or at least, not flatly contradicted by it.
And they want atheists to agree.

Gratitude: Uniquely Human or Shared with Animals?

"Two chimps had been shut out of their shelter by mistake during a cold rain storm. They were standing dejeted, water streaming down their shivering bodies, when Professor Köhler chanced to pass." Upon opening the door for the two chimps, Dr. James Leuba recounts, "instead of scampering in without more ado, as many a child would have done, each of them delayed entering the warm shelter long enough to throw its arms around his benefactor in a frenzy of satisfaction."

Longevity Breakthrough: Scientists 'Activate' Life Extension in Worm, Discover Mitochondria's Metabolic State Controls Life Span


Belarus to Give Up Uranium Stockpile


After A Four Year Run, Firefox Is No Longer The Top Browser On TechCrunch — Chrome Is



  • Bury
Give this a try: Flash stutter in Firefox
note: write down current settings first
address bar type: about:config
locate filter: browser.sessionstore.interval
adjust default value of 10000 to 100000 ( or higher 140000 )
reload FFoxhttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/80205/

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Friday, November 19, 2010

19 November - Morning News Alerts

19 september 11, 2006Image by rafaelm via Flickr

 World Toilet Day?

Nov. 19. It's the brainchild of a nonprofit that wants to raise awareness of a global sanitation problem.

Nearly-homeless face 'hidden emergency'

  Some new tracking of people who are one step away from being homeless reveals a large population rife with mental illness, hunger and chronic health problems : approximately 400,000 people across Canada.

( 'New' ? The tracking may be new - the basic information certainly isn't )

UK coalition to downgrade scientific advice

Chi Onwurah MP, shadow minister for Business, Innovation and Skills ( Opposition )
The government has confirmed that the position of director general of science and research has been abolished, and the role of science research downgraded within the organisation.

Comet caught throwing basketball-sized snowballs 

Measurements made with an infrared spectrometer on the spacecraft suggest that the objects are not solid chunks of ice. Instead, they are porous clumps of microscopic ice grains. "What we are seeing are fluffy aggregates of very small pieces of ice," said team member Jessica Sunshine of the University of Maryland in College Park.

Fight Waterborne Disease "Die Hard" Style (VIDEO)

 Tarnished Earth street gallery - Birmingham Centenury Way Bridge

SEE A PREVIEW on the Tarnished Earth website - http://tarnishedearth.co.uk/see This is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EF...Image via Wikipedia

 

Radio for Pagans

Bill would give U.S. new power against foreign websites

Critics like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, have attacked it as "Internet censorship" that could harm the credibility of the United States as a steward of the global domain name system

( Copyright is blamed for stifling innovation wherever it is upheld - and for organized legal fraud based attacking innovators : organized crime which overloads the courts. Nor would one expect any pretense of impartiality.  )

 

After John Tyner: A Five-Step Plan to a Sane Airport Security System

( Where did the original initiative come from ? I'd rather give the boot to incompetent empire-builders intent on harassing the public than speculate on the way out of  unnecessary procedures which ignore who has the greatest stake in the safety of the aircraft they are on...and it's not the bureaucrats.  )

It’s Always Sunny at Kaplan Daily

While you dirty hippies and evil leftists are focusing on the lives destroyed, what you are overlooking is that if you put on your neocon warface, you’ll realize that when we bomb civilians, kill their family members and friends, destroy their homes, their crops, and their livestock, sure there may be some hard feelings. But let’s not overlook the value of the government meet and greet!

 Why is NYC Taking Away Bike Lanes...to Make Room for Cars?

What remains to be seen is how local cyclists react. Last winter, when 14 blocks of the bike lane on Brooklyn's Bedford Avenue were removed, outraged cyclists took the matter into their own hands, repainting the lane (and filming it). So keep an eye out for a guerrilla video from Staten Island in the near future.

 Why Do Republicans Oppose Food Safety? Looking north along Bedford Avenue at Parkside...Image via Wikipedia

( Comment #6 is mine - and refers to files available at this blog. Aug 13 2009 in Archives and Topical Index in sidebar Corporate Farming. 

I think the proposition that this is another way to harass small farmers/businesses more than reasonable - having been familiar with the destruction of 110 small cheese plants in Ontario years ago when Ault Foods / Kraft had laws regarding the time 'industrial' milk could  be held before processing changed - something that favoured continuously operating plants -themselves at risk from phage and other airborne organisms cultured by constantly available food.  

Shutdowns favoured starving the invaders and controlling them without chemicals!  It's another case of ignoring natural science and 'selling' specious argumentation which focuses attention on part of the picture cherrypicked to support an otherwise unreasonable argument. Salesmen and advertisers are not impartial advisors - ever.  )

E. coli O157:H7 and Campylobacter Infections may have long-term impacts on Heart and Kidneys

A prospective cohort study was set up in Walkerton, Ontario, Canada to investigate any long-term health problems following contamination of the town’s water supply in May 2000 with E. coli O157:H7 and Campylobacter.Escherichia coli O157:H7, cell with flagella, ...Image via Wikipedia

MIT researchers create super efficient 'origami' solar panels

Dolphins' Bubble Nets Inspire Better Sonar

When it comes to "bubbly areas" such as where waves break around reefs and shores, standard sonar doesn't work. Professor Leighton and his colleagues have developed a new sonar concept called twin inverted pulse sonar (TWIPS), which exploits the way that bubbles pulsate in sound fields. 

( That reminds me of the concepts underpinning binocular vision and depth perception. ) 

NATO summit looks at future in and out of Afghanistan
Prime Minister Stephen Harper joins U.S. President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders as they set the stage for a post-combat partnership with Afghanistan at a summit Friday and Saturday in Lisbon, Portugal.
Leaders of NATO's 28 member countries are poised to endorse a European missile defence system, embark on fat-cutting reforms and, along with non-NATO countries who've been pouring troops and money into Afghanistan for a decade, outline a transition plan from foreign troops to Afghan control over security by the end of 2014.
They are expected to adopt a "strategic concept" that gives the North Atlantic Treaty Organization a new mission of protecting European territory and populations from ballistic missile attacks.


Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/NATO+summit+looks+future+Afghanistan/3850413/story.html#ixzz15kXrdplg
( 'Star Wars'...the proposition for technologically impossible responses to an impotent 'enemy'. )
Endoume SunsetImage by marcovdz via Flickr

 

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Monday, October 11, 2010

11 October - First Op-Ed picks



Ballooning public service ranks about to burst: report

Growth in executive jobs reflects the growing complexity of government.  Executives are older and retiring at larger numbers and departments have to get the next generation ready to take over.



Canada trailing developing world in 'mobile revolution,' study suggests

( The article glosses over some glaringly obvious points, one being access to a computer workstation would tend to encourage one to move online access to it : another, that cellphone charges - and phone charges generally -  are a ripoff compared to fixed fee internet connection charges ).

The Globe and Mail
Veteran’s wife wants bureaucrats to pay for sharing medical info

The bureaucrats responsible for digging through veterans’ advocate Sean Bruyea’s medical files must be held accountable to stop such breaches of privacy from happening again, his wife said Sunday.
The privacy commissioner is launching a review of Veterans Affairs Canada.Mr. Bruyea, a Persian Gulf war veteran, is suing the federal government for $200,000.

Within days of testifying before the Senate in 2005 against the department’s plans to switch to a lump-sum compensation system for wounded veterans – which was ultimately adopted – he had trouble accessing his benefits, Mr. Bruyea said.He discovered he was no longer approved for visits to a psychologist or couples’ counselling under the system, he said, and the department demanded he undergo a psychiatric assessment at a hospital of its choosing.
“Something was being done with my medical file and it was clearly as a result of my advocacy for veterans,” he said.
Ms. Bruyea, who struggled to make ends meet while her husband was entangled with the government, said she had tried at times to dissuade him from speaking out, for fear of reprisals.

Afghanistan battles mental health issues

( It's all in your head !  What a travesty evading reporting real causes of stress : 'war' on the citizenry by foreign troops. Thank you LibroCons and NATO. )


Two-year colleges lack services to reduce unplanned pregnancies
Half of college-bound students go to community colleges, and fewer than one out of every four students who begin community college finish with a degree -- although some additional students transfer to four-year schools. As public officials talk about graduating an additional 5 million community college students, they neglect to champion one of the most significant things they could do: support efforts to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies.
( Comments  are interesting ) 


Voltaire
Geopolitics of Republican Italy 
Tiberio Graziani
Defeated during the Second World War, occupied by the United States after its liberation, integrated into NATO by force during the Cold War, compelled to dissolve into the European Union, Italy is today a prisoner of its past while international relations are speeding ahead. According to Tiberio Graziani, even though Rome may not yet be in a position to frame an independent foreign policy, the time is ripe to start contemplating an exit strategy in keeping with its historical and geographical characteristics. 

Today Italy, being an Euro-Mediterranean country subjected to the interests of the USA, finds itself in a tricky situation because, being a member both of the European Union and of the NATO, not only suffers from the tension between the USA and the Russia involving the European continent, especially in the central-east area (see the Polish question concerning the “security”, or the energy problem), but also suffers from the consequences of Washington’s political strategies in the Near- and Middle-East.
Moreover, the subjection of Italy to the USA, that - it is necessary to insist on this point - is clearly shown by the limited sovereignty of the Italian State, enhances the typical weakness of the peninsular regions (due to the tensions between the continental part, even if of limited extension as in the Italian case, and those parts that are properly peninsular and insular), increases the centrifugal dispersion, making difficult even the basic State management.

The recent changes in the global geopolitical frame produced some effects that could allow the “release” of most of the countries that belong to the so-called Western system from the control of the “American friend”. As a consequence of this new global context and according to it, Rome could possibly develop an own geopolitical doctrine. It is well known that the reaffirmation of Russia at the global level and the main roles played by China and India caused a new balance of the relationships between the great Powers and laid the foundations for a new order, based on geopolitical continental units obtained through strategic agreements rather than armed forces.
These changes manifested also in the southern part of the eastern hemisphere, formerly considered the yard of the USA, where the relationships between Brazil, Argentine and Venezuela with the above mentioned Euro-Asian Powers prompted the hypothesis of the South-American continental unit.
As far as the Mediterranean area is concerned, the most important new geopolitical factor is represented by the recent turnaround of Ankara in its foreign politics towards the Near- and the Middle-East regions. The separation of Ankara from Washington and Tel Aviv could act, in the middle term, as an important factor in the process aimed at the establishment of an Euro-Asian geopolitical system. In fact, it represents the first real event able to trigger the process of disunity (or contraction) of the eastern system starting from the Mediterranean basin.
Given the actual conditions, if Italy really wanted to get out of the North-American tutelage, it should pivot on the two geopolitical poles represented by Russia and Turkey.

A Surprise Boost for Euro from China 
by F. William Engdahl*
The embattled Euro has gotten a surprise boost from an unexpected quarter―China. The country with the world’s largest foreign exchange currency reserves, China, has pledged to support Greek debt as well as the Euro in what is clearly a geopolitical decision. In doing so, China has signaled it seeks to prevent the US financial warfare attack on Europe and to play the EU off against the USA in a geopolitical chess game of a fascinating dimension.

Wen Jiabao at a press conference early October in Athens when he stated, “‘China is holding Greek bonds and will keep buying bonds that Greece issues. We will undertake to support Eurozone countries and Greece to overcome the crisis.”
The last statement is far the most significant. It indicates that China has made a strategic decision to counter any future attempt by US-based hedge funds and banks to attack the weak countries of the Eurozone, including Ireland, Spain, Portugal or Greece. Early this year, as we noted at the time, Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs, working in tandem with the US-based credit rating agencies, Standard & Poors and Moodys and Fitch, exploded the Greece financial crisis at the precise time China and other major investors were beginning to have serious doubts about the fiscal stability of the United States and of the dollar.
Let me be clear. The Euro as it stands, the supranational European Central Bank and the EU approach to international financial stability is not merely a flawed construct. It is inherently programmed to crises. It was born as the product of flawed rotten political compromises in the 1990’s through the Treaty of Maastricht as an attempt by France and Italy and Britain to control an emerging German economic colossus after German unification.
However, the concerted attack by a group of New York hedge funds such as George Soros’ and others earlier this year, and the precisely timed credit downgrade of Greece to “junk” status were in my view clearly part of a concerted US strategy of financial warfare against that Eurozone, the only potential alternative to the dollar as world reserve currency. Should the US dollar lose its status as the world leading reserve currency—today it still counts for some 65% of central bank currency reserves—the United States would be ultimately doomed as world sole Superpower.
As if specially timed, US hedge fund speculator, George Soros, who is currently appealing a French court conviction for insider trading, [1] has come out publicly blaming the German government of Angela Merkel for austerity measures he says will lead the Euro Zone into a “deflation spiral,” demanding instead more of a US-style fiscal stimulus. Given the respect accorded to words from Soros in financial markets, the effect of his comments is likely to have a negative impact on the Euro-dollar trade.
The US-based credit rating agencies, Moodys and Standard & Poors also played a critical role in weakening the Euro earlier this year. At the time the EU governments announced agreement in principle on a Greek bailout package in order to stabilize the speculative attacks on the euro, on April 27, Standard & Poors announced an unprecedented rating downgrade of Greek government debt by three-levels to “junk grade.” That move insured that pension funds and other investors would be forced to panic sell Greek bonds, a move that greatly exacerbated the pressures on the Euro.


Venezuelan Journalist Alicia Herrera Denounces Bombing of Cubana Civilian Aircraft 
I cannot avoid the pain and anger that invades me every October by the impunity of the criminals whose names I cannot pronounce; and whose terrorist actions have continued, thanks to the protection given to them by the millionaire extreme right wing Cuban American elements and US intelligence services.

“It is indignation to know that terrorists like Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles are free and continue their plans of destruction and death, while five Cubans have remained in prison for the last 12 years for protecting the Cuban people from criminal attacks.
“We must permanently mobilize to demand justice for the Cuban Five that are incarcerated in the US”, and justice for the victims of the bombing of the Cubana airliner in 1976.

Obama administration fingerprints on Ecuador coup attempt 
by Wayne Madsen*
With Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama, coups against unaccommodating Latin American leaders would appear to be back in style. After Honduran President Zalaya’s overthrow in June 2009, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa was the latest target. An outspoken member of ALBA and Hugo Chávez close ally, Correa had been giving Washington a tough time. Behind the abortive coup, Wayne Madsen’s investigation not only unveils the modus operandi of the CIA, but also lays bare Mossad’s murky activities inside Ecuador.
Using the standard CIA playbook on toppling democratically-elected governments in Latin America, the Obama administration, which was not happy with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa’s moves to increase state control over oil companies in the nation and his decision to oust the United States military from its airbase at Manta, appears to have suffered a major defeat in the failed coup attempt in Ecuador by police officers and Air Force personnel who were backed by rightist elements in the National Assembly and business community. Correa was re-elected with an overwhelming majority last year after he gave the U.S. military its walking papers from the Manta airbase. The Pentagon and CIA have been working to topple Correa ever since by pumping money into opposition political parties and other groups through NGOs funded by the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.



Pentagon partners with NATO to create Global Cyber Warfare System

by Rick Rozoff
U.S. Cyber Command is scheduled to be activated this month, in the words of a Reuters dispatch "ready to go to war in cyberspace" with full operational capability.
Cyberspace has proven equal and just as important as air, sea, land and space as a domain. It's clear that it must be defended and operationalized." [1]
His characterization of cyber space as the fifth military domain is consistent with the standard use of that trope by Pentagon officials, a variant of which is fifth battlespace. [2] When the leaders of the mightiest military in the history of the world discuss adding a new dimension to the traditional ones of infantry, air force, navy, marine, and satellite and missile operations, they are planning not only for an extension of warfare preparations to a new realm but into one which is related to and in many ways dominates the others.
The first commander of CYBERCOM, General Keith Alexander, said two weeks after his appointment and CYBERCOM's launching on May 21 that the Pentagon "depends on its networks for command and control, communications, intelligence, operations and logistics" and that the mission of his command is to "deter, detect and defend against emerging threats against our nation in cyberspace."
The general, who is simultaneously head of the Defense Department's National Security Agency, also said that "clear rules of engagement" need to be defined for cyber warfare and that "We have to look at it in two different venues - what we're doing in peacetime and in wartime." [3]
In his first public comments since assuming his new command, Alexander was already speaking of its role within a war context.
A few days before, Strategic Command chief Chilton and Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn also asserted that CYBERCOM's next priority is "to develop the rules of engagement of cyber warfare.



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Saturday, October 9, 2010

9 October - Op-Ed Picks

Ma'alot massacre (15/05/1974) victims on Zefat...Image via Wikipedia

Becoming a GSS state (Yossi Gurvitz)

The government is considering a Terror Bill, which is rather a newfangled thing: at the moment we have that cherished British heirloom, the Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945, and some bits and pieces of it haphazardly passed into law. Unfortunately, the suggested bill is likely to make the already unhealthy Israeli democracy even more moribund. I wish to thank ACRI for their definitive guide to the bill (both are Hebrew PDF files).
The bill is problematic in many ways. The destruction of “government symbols” (pg.6) will be considered a terrorist act – i.e., if you burn an Israeli flag, you become a terrorist; an act of legitimate protest will not only put you behind bars, it will put you there for a particularly long time, since one of the main goals of the bill is to lengthen the prison terms of “terrorists.”
Another point is that the Minister of Security is empowered, using his own judgment, to declare an organization as a terror organization (pg. 9). He is supposed to do so at the request of a service chief, presumably the GSS (General Security Services) chief, and the latter has to provide the support of the Counsel General; but it is an administrative act, not a judicial one, and the members of the organization in question have no way to defend themselves. In fact, the first time an organization may hear it’s actually a terror organization is when the Minister declares it so.

 This bill won’t have much to do with military organizations; it specifically (pg. 2) refers to the Da’wa organizations, Hamas’ charity societies and associations. And who is to say whether a charity is in fact a Hamas front? Why, the GSS. Suddenly, a charity finds itself on the wrong side of the law. Its bank account is frozen, its name is libeled. When they make it to the Supreme Court, to appeal the decision, they appear before the Court as the representatives of a society already declared to be a terror organization – and the judges, who happen to be mortal, will consider them to be such.

A third point is that the law creates a circle of terror capable of almost infinite enlargement. Let’s assume, for the sake of the argument, that a person donates to some society. That society happens to support Palestinian education facilities; some of those, things being what they are, will be Hamas facilities. Bang! The society, and the donor, have suddenly become terrorists.
Fourthly, once a person becomes suspect of terrorism, there’s a lot of unpleasant and irregular things that may happen to him. They ought to be enumerated, because they are, in a large sense, the core of this bill.

1 Israeli security forces practice dealing with “riots following populations exchange”, mass detentions of Israeli-Palestinians
By Noam SheizafPublished October 8, 2010

As Budrus opens in US, film hero is denied exit from West Bank
By Noam SheizafPublished October 7, 2010
Haaretz front page, 5 Oct 2010
Between the Lines (5 Oct): Yom Kippur war protocol revealed
By +972blogPublished October 5, 2010

1 IDF humiliation clip: Eden Abergil, the musical
By Dimi ReiderPublished October 5, 2010
Maariv front page 4 October 2010
Between the lines (4 Oct): Europe on alert; IDF misbehaving
By +972blogPublished October 4, 2010

1 Between the lines (3 October): beyond the settlement freeze
By +972blogPublished October 3, 2010
Yedioth Aharonoth front page 1 October 2010
2 Between the lines: summary & analysis of Israel’s weekend newspapers (1-2 Oct)
By +972blogPublished October 2, 2010

Video: Israeli guard lied about shooting that led to E Jerusalem riots
By Noam SheizafPublished September 28, 2010

Nabi Saleh marks Int’l Peace Day; faces military siege
By Joseph DanaPublished September 27, 2010
Mohamed Abu Sarah (photo: Panet)
2 NGO demands that police investigate toddler’s death from tear gas
By Lisa GoldmanPublished September 26, 2010
  

Read the Internet, Speak English

In case you didn't know, reality is science fiction.
If you doubt me, read the news. Read, for example, this recent article in the New York Times about Carnegie Mellon's "Read the Web" program, in which a computer system called NELL (Never Ending Language Learner) is systematically reading the internet and analyzing sentences for semantic categories and facts, essentially teaching itself idiomatic English as well as educating itself in human affairs. Paging Vernor Vinge, right?
Additional Resources:
NELL's mind-blowing Twitter feed
Nell (the movie)
Book: Semantic Web For Dummies
Book: A Semantic Web Primer, 2nd Edition (MIT Press)
Book: Programming the Semantic Web (O'Reilly)
Tim Berners-Lee on The Semantic Web, from Scientific American (PDF)
Populating the Semantic Web by Macro-Reading Internet Text, from Proceedings of the International Semantic Web Conference (PDF)
Toward an Architecture for Never Ending Language Learning (PDF)
Frequently Asked Questions about the Semantic Web, from W3C
The Semantic Web Revisited, from IEEE Intelligent Systems

 OhMyNews International

Facebook as a Check on Police Power?

The Laguna police in the Philippines has created a Facebook page for citizens to upload video of crimes being committed or of police and people in authority behaving badly. This truly cuts out the mainstream middleman in a pure act of citizen journalism.

How to be a data journalist

Data journalism is huge. I don't mean 'huge' as in fashionable - although it has become that in recent months - but 'huge' as in 'incomprehensibly enormous'. It represents the convergence of a number of fields which are significant in their own right - from investigative research and statistics to design and programming. The idea of combining those skills to tell important stories is powerful - but also intimidating. Who can do all that?
The reality is that almost no one is doing all of that, but there are enough different parts of the puzzle for people to easily get involved in, and go from there.

 

Debtors' prisons rise again in the South

The Brennan Center for Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union released reports this week documenting the growing problem of criminal justice debt and the considerable costs it's imposing on communities, taxpayers and indigent people convicted of crimes. The following figures come from those reports, titled respectively "Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry" and "In for a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtor Prisons." 

 

Jeffrey Smith, founder of the Institute for Responsible Technology, is leading the movement to eliminate genetically modified foods in the United States.

Here, Smith offers an update on this important mission to protect your health, and that of your children and grand-children.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/10/09/jeff-smith-interview-gmo-week.aspx

 

GMO Detection method Database (GMDD)
2 years ago
GMO Detection method Database (GMDD) 
http://gmdd.shgmo.org/
The aim of our database is to provide detailed information of GMO detection methods, and also information of gene insert. These information will be very useful in the developement and standardization of GMO detection methods.
GMO Detection Laboratory, Shanghai Jiaotong University

Establishment Starting to Take Notice of Right Wing's Extremism 

by: Ted Frier 

Two trends bear watching. The first is the growing intensity (if that is even possible) of the right wing's attempt to portray President Obama and Democrats as dangerous radicals who personify one of several scary "isms." And you can take your pick which one, because historical or ideological accuracy does not seem to be the overriding motivation here.  Hysterical fear-mongering is, which as I said seems to be picking up in intensity, reflecting perhaps desperation, or maybe just inertia. The second trend, which is more encouraging, is the gradual willingness of our established institutions in the media and politics to notice this growing extremism on the right and to comment on it. 

 
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