The future of the internet: A virtual counter-revolution | The Economist

The future of the internet: A virtual counter-revolution | The Economist: "

It is telling that net neutrality has become far more politically controversial in America than it has elsewhere. This is a reflection of the relative lack of competition in America’s broadband market. In Europe and Japan, “open access” rules require network operators to lease parts of their networks to other firms on a wholesale basis, thus boosting competition. A study comparing broadband markets, published in 2009 by Harvard University’s Berkman Centre for Internet & Society, found that countries with such rules enjoy faster, cheaper broadband service than America, because the barrier to entry for new entrants is much lower. And if any access provider starts limiting what customers can do, they will defect to another.

America’s operators have long insisted that open-access requirements would destroy their incentive to build fast, new networks: why bother if you will be forced to share it? After intense lobbying, America’s telecoms regulators bought this argument. But the lesson from elsewhere in the industrialised world is that it is not true. The result, however, is that America has a small number of powerful network operators, prompting concern that they will abuse their power unless they are compelled, by a net-neutrality law, to treat all traffic equally. Rather than trying to mandate fairness in this way—net neutrality is very hard to define or enforce—it makes more sense to address the underlying problem: the lack of competition.
It should come as no surprise that the internet is being pulled apart on every level. “While technology can gravely wound governments, it rarely kills them,” Debora Spar, president of Barnard College at Columbia University, wrote several years ago in her book, “Ruling the Waves”. “This was all inevitable,” argues Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, under the headline “The Web is Dead” in the September issue of the magazine. “A technology is invented, it spreads, a thousand flowers bloom, and then someone finds a way to own it, locking out others.”
Yet predictions are hazardous, particularly in IT. Governments may yet realise that a freer internet is good not just for their economies, but also for their societies. Consumers may decide that it is unwise to entrust all their secrets to a single online firm such as Facebook, and decamp to less insular alternatives, such as Diaspora.
Similarly, more open technology could also still prevail in the mobile industry. Android, Google’s smart-phone platform, which is less closed than Apple’s, is growing rapidly and gained more subscribers in America than the iPhone in the first half of this year. Intel and Nokia, the world’s biggest chipmaker and the biggest manufacturer of telephone handsets, are pushing an even more open platform called MeeGo. And as mobile devices and networks improve, a standards-based browser could become the dominant access software on the wireless internet as well.

The danger is not that these islands become physically separated, says Andrew Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota. There is just too much value in universal connectivity, he argues. “The real question is how high the walls between these walled gardens will be.” Still, if the internet loses too much of its universality, cautions Mr Werbach of the Wharton School, it may indeed fall apart, just as world trade can collapse if there is too much protectionism. Theory demonstrates that interconnected networks such as the internet can grow quickly, he explains—but also that they can dissolve quickly. “This looks rather unlikely today, but if it happens, it will be too late to do anything about it.” "

Technology changes — Society changes

How we communicate has always had a profound effect on both the structure of our societies and our personal opportunities. Freer, wider communication gives us power to improve and damage the institutions that affect our lives and livelihoods, even in societies that tightly regulate speech and behavior.

For example, without direct dialing, there would have been no Montgomery bus boycott and probably no Southern Christian Leadership Conference without Martin Luther King's resulting prominence. Civil Rights in the United States would have progressed on a different, likely slower, path. The shape of legislation would differ. Court decisions would happen later and happen in different order.
Would Barack Obama be President? Or even a Senator?




Can we afford to let a few corporations control how far and whom our voices reach? Control how much we have to say? How often? How loud?

I don't think so. How about you?
– Al Ingram
http://www.economist.com/node/16941635

Mideast Peace? Bulldozed Pieces

Israel: New Peak in Arbitrary Razing of Palestinian Homes | Human Rights Watch: "Israeli authorities destroyed 141 Palestinian homes and other buildings in July 2010, the largest number in any month since at least 2005, and have already carried out dozens of demolitions in August.

'While Israel is demolishing more and more Palestinian homes, it continues to subsidize the Jewish settlements nearby,' said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. 'Israel has flouted international law not only by supporting settlements on occupied territory, but also by erasing longstanding Palestinian communities next door.'"

The talks haven't started, but the grounds for failure are in progress. House by house, village by village.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/08/19/israel-new-peak-arbitrary-razing-palestinian-homes?tr=y&auid=6892591

Is Microsoft a Platform Dancer?t

If you watched Charlie Rose last night,

…you heard the common assumption that Microsoft is lagging because it spends too much time protecting Office and Windows. I say that's myopic. Microsoft treats developers like royalty. It nurtures 5hem from beginner to expert. Their great innovation is to turn curious people with problems into innovators or connect them with solution providers. Office and Windows aren't products. They're platforms. The Cloud will make them platforms in hyper-drive. If Google had spent half the energy nurturing Wave developers  The Vista of collaboration would be evolving into its Windows 7.

Related articles by Zemanta

• RightScale: Windows now 'usable' in cloud (zdnet.com)

Why do republicans rely on bad-faith accounting?

Op-Ed Columnist - Attacking Social Security - NYTimes.com:

“ Social Security’s attackers claim that they’re concerned about the program’s financial future. But their math doesn’t add up, and their hostility isn’t really about dollars and cents. Instead, it’s about ideology and posturing. And underneath it all is ignorance of or indifference to the realities of life for many Americans.

About that math: Legally, Social Security has its own, dedicated funding, via the payroll tax (“FICA” on your pay statement). But it’s also part of the broader federal budget. This dual accounting means that there are two ways Social Security could face financial problems. First, that dedicated funding could prove inadequate, forcing the program either to cut benefits or to turn to Congress for aid. Second, Social Security costs could prove unsupportable for the federal budget as a whole.

But neither of these potential problems is a clear and present danger. Social Security has been running surpluses for the last quarter-century, banking those surpluses in a special account, the so-called trust fund. The program won’t have to turn to Congress for help or cut benefits until or unless the trust fund is exhausted, which the program’s actuaries don’t expect to happen until 2037 — and there’s a significant chance, according to their estimates, that that day will never come.

Meanwhile, an aging population will eventually (over the course of the next 20 years) cause the cost of paying Social Security benefits to rise from its current 4.8 percent of G.D.P. to about 6 percent of G.D.P. To give you some perspective, that’s a significantly smaller increase than the rise in defense spending since 2001, which Washington certainly didn’t consider a crisis, or even a reason to rethink some of the Bush tax cuts.

So where do claims of crisis come from? To a large extent they rely on bad-faith accounting. In particular, they rely on an exercise in three-card monte in which the surpluses Social Security has been running for a quarter-century don’t count — because hey, the program doesn’t have any independent existence; it’s just part of the general federal budget — while future Social Security deficits are unacceptable — because hey, the program has to stand on its own.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16krugman.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Greenspan Calls for Repeal of Bush Tax Cuts - NYTimes.com

Greenspan Calls for Repeal of Bush Tax Cuts - NYTimes.com:

“I’m in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money,” Mr. Greenspan, 84, said Friday in a telephone interview. “Our choices right now are not between good and better; they’re between bad and worse. The problem we now face is the most extraordinary financial crisis that I have ever seen or read about.”

"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/business/economy/07greenspan.html?ref=us

Are These The Real Republican Principles?

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com:

"The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

 In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

 “They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

 That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/opinion/31herbert.html?th&emc=th 

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


linkholder

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


linkholder

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


linkholder

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


linkholder

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


linkholder

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


linkholder

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


linkholder

Amazon Says E-Books Now Top Hardcover Sales - NYTimes.com

Amazon Says E-Books Now Top Hardcover Sales - NYTimes.com:

"Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest booksellers, announced Monday that for the last three months, sales of books for its e-reader, the Kindle, outnumbered sales of hardcover books.

In that time, Amazon said, it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no Kindle edition.

The pace of change is quickening, too, Amazon said. In the last four weeks sales rose to 180 digital books for every 100 hardcover copies. Amazon has 630,000 Kindle books, a small fraction of the millions of books sold on the site.”

I've been reading more e-books, but I don't own a Kindle, or an iPad. They're just fine on my laptop's screen. I still prefer paper, but money and shelf space are both in short supply.

All my e-books are nonfiction. None are about art or graphics, though my shelf is loaded with art and graphics. On my laptop graphic articles, but not books.

Yesterday, I downloaded Street Fighting Mathematics from M.I.T. Press. I've got the C# Pocket Reference, How To Use Twitter For Business, Sexy Web Design ( Preview), The PHP Anthology, Windows 7 Tips & Tricks. Just one design book and it's technical.

Do you read e-books? What's your pattern?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/technology/20kindle.html?th&emc=th

America Speaks to BP

A fraction of this made the airwaves Friday on the PBS Newshour. Watch Mr. Dudley carefully. Learn to avoid without appearing to avoid
‘’


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Book Review - The Facebook Effect - By David Kirkpatrick - NYTimes.com

Book Review - The Facebook Effect - By David Kirkpatrick - NYTimes.com: "THE FACEBOOK EFFECT
The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World
By David Kirkpatrick
Illustrated. 372 pp. Simon & Schuster"

“ According to “The Facebook Effect,” Facebook is the second-most-visited Web site on earth (after Google). The average member spends almost an hour there each day. It has more than 400 million active users — over 20 percent of everyone on the Internet — and is growing by 5 percent a month.

But according to David Kirkpatrick, who for many years was a technology editor at Fortune, Facebook is more than big. It’s a “platform for people to get more out of their lives,” a “technological powerhouse with unprecedented influence across modern life” and an “entirely new form of communication.”

No wonder he has written what amounts to two books about it: the first and second halves of “The Facebook Effect.” The first part is a fascinating but flawed corporate history, starring Facebook’s reticent creator, the Harvarddropout Mark Zuckerberg; the second is a thoughtful, evenhanded analysis of the Web site’s impact.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/books/review/Pogue-t.html?nl=books&emc=booksupdateema3&pagewanted=all

The Invisible Bond Vigilante and The Confidence Fairy.

Op-Ed Columnist - Myths of Austerity - NYTimes.com: "So the next time you hear serious-sounding people explaining the need for fiscal austerity, try to parse their argument. Almost surely, you’ll discover that what sounds like hardheaded realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy, on the belief that invisible vigilantes will punish us if we’re bad and the confidence fairy will reward us if we’re good. And real-world policy — policy that will blight the lives of millions of working families — is being built on that foundation."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/opinion/02krugman.html?ref=opinion

Dick Cheney, Exploding Uderwear, Undisclosed Locations

nImage via Wikipedia

I can't.

I really can't.

I just can't get the image out of my head.

On a beautiful clear September 11th, firefighters are running up the stairs of the burning twin towers. At the Pentagon wounded are helping those worse wounded to evacuate. Over Pennsylvania the passengers of the last hijacked plane give their lives, saving lives.

Dick Cheney is hiding in his undisclosed location. Right there and right then, the first case of  terrorist caused exploding underwear in the United States happens.  It's just an image I see every time I hear him whine, Air freshener please.

Look at New Audience Values to Rethink Future of Local News

"Local news has become commoditized by the incessant coverage and
promotion of cheap, easy-to-find crime and mayhem. As a result, every newscast
across the country looks and sounds very similar. Is that really a winning
strategy for local news? In effect, local news has become a national network of
disconnected minor mayhem, and as a result has swapped its credibility with
local audiences over the long term for short-term gains in audience ratings for
a particular month -- but masking the long-term decline of audience share
overall."

John Lansing:

News has to get beyond stenography and recording to tell us thungs search engines don't. News must concentrate on "how" and "why."


http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=175085

So do you still eat hot dogs?

When I was much younger, I had the misfortune of reading a document that specified how many rat hairs and other loathsome contaminents were allowed in a frankfurter. It was years before I was able to eat a hot dog again. the weird thing was that back then chicken wasn't allowed, but rat hair (and other leavings) below a certain amount were.

Watching Lieberman and Nelson during the course of these negotiations, brings back those memories and the disgust. Did they ban chicken while alowwing rat leavings?

Will reconciled with the House Bill will it turn our stomachs?

Will it save lives?

in reference to: Negotiating to 60 Votes, Compromise by Compromise - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Older Workers Face New Challenges in Tough Job Market | PBS NewsHour

looking for work may be a fulltime job, but the pay sucks.

Recovery?

In some places every other family suffers job loss. This seems to be the real tipping point on the path to every family in a neighborhood suffering. We started tolerating this inequality under Reagan. A generation now grown knows no other way to survive except to hope that spme of the value they produce will tridkle down from the advantaged people. Less and less does as time passes. Less and less will.

in reference to:

"A recent survey for the policy institute found that one in four families had been hit by a job loss during the past year and 44 percent had suffered either the loss of a job or a reduction in wages or hours worked. Economic insecurity has spread like a debilitating virus through scores of millions of American families. What kind of recovery are we talking about if blue-collar workers, and men and women without college degrees, and large percentages of ethnic minorities and the young and the poor are not part of it? And how can any recovery be sustained if economic insecurity is a permanent feature of even middle-class life?"
- Op-Ed Columnist - A Recovery for Some - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Along With Layoffs, Recession’s Cost Can Be Seen in Pay Cuts - NYTimes.com

Along
With Layoffs, Recession’s Cost Can Be Seen in Pay Cuts - NYTimes.com

:

"The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track pay cuts, but it suggests
they are reflected in the steep decline of another statistic: total weekly pay
for production workers, pilots among them, representing 80 percent of the work
force. That index has fallen for nine consecutive months, an unprecedented
string over the 44 years the bureau has calculated weekly pay, capturing the
large number of people out of work, those working fewer hours and those whose
wages have been cut. The old record was a two-month decline, during the
1981-1982 recession.

“What this means,” said Thomas J. Nardone, an assistant
commissioner at the bureau, “is that the amount of money people are paid has
taken a big hit; not just those who have lost their jobs, but those who are
still employed.”"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/business/economy/14income.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all

Villains Hate Being called Villains

There shouldn't beany surprises here. All the insurace companies ever really supported was an expansion of their market. Even this is less an effort to derail reform, than a rationale for steply raising rates after reform's passage. They may even succeed in further weakining already weak cost sontrols.

in reference to: Democrats Call Insurance Industry Report Flawed - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

The Clear and Future Danger

Op-Ed Columnist - The Uneducated American - NYTimes.com

“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States economy lost 273,000 jobs last month. Of those lost jobs, 29,000 were in state and local education, bringing the total losses in that category over the past five months to 143,000. That may not sound like much, but education is one of those areas that should, and normally does, keep growing even during a recession. Markets may be troubled, but that’s no reason to stop teaching our children. Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Chicago School Violence Plan Focuses on Potential Victims - NYTimes.com

Chicago School Violence Plan Focuses on Potential Victims - NYTimes.com

“”

Really complex problems tempt us to favor solutions that are simple, straightforward, and don't, won't and can't work.

We label schoolchildren thugs. (Remember super predators?)

We never ask how our economy, schools and politics, somehow combine to create so many desparate kids who don't value their own lives (or anyone else's).

I live on the streets where these kids die. They go to schools in my neighborhood. I'm 59, almost 60. I had jobs after school. They don't even have the memory of after school jobs. These kids have post traumatic stress.

Society at large wishes they would disappear, and they know it.

Their teachers don't believe they can learn, and they know it.

They're viewed as criminals, whether or not they've ever committed a crime, and they know it.

We've taught them some lessons well.

Adult's can't be counted on.

Don't expect help.

We'll record their trouble, upload it to YouTube, shake our heads in disgust, but never even try to stop the fights.

There were plenty of adults there when Derrion Albert died.

Police were there, before Derrion Albert died.

That honor student, that good kid looked too much like the kids they labled thugs. So nobody bothered to stop them from killing him.

If he hadn't been an honor student, he';d have never made the news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/us/07chicago.html?hp

Six Online Resume Tools Reviewed by Webware

Job hunting is a stressfull way of life in the current economy. Cnet's Webware introduces six tools that relieve some of that stress by making it easier to build and make available resumes.

in reference to: Get that job: Six online resume tools | Webware - CNET (view on Google Sidewiki)

Don't Underestimate Searchwiki

I think you're all underestimating this tool. You can simultaneously pubish poste to Blogger and share Published posts via Twitter, Faxebook, or your Graduating Class' Google Or Yahoo Group. Ignore at your own risk.

in reference to:

"However, it should be noted that not everyone is going to download the browser toolbar and see the comments. Out of that subset of the population, fewer of them will actually place comments or participate in the discussions."
- Google Force Feeds Social Media On The World | Social Media Explorer (view on Google Sidewiki)

A Great Rant About Twitter's Suggested User List

I consider this a must read. Scoble's at the top of his game. Twitter's got some 'splainin to do, but don't hold your breath while waiting.

in reference to: You’re not on Twitter’s suggested user list but you are in good company: (view on Google Sidewiki)

Unwanted Software from Apple

For a long time now, I've wasted time unchecking items that are useless to me. I've never owned an ipod or iphone. I don't need mobileme, safari, for most of the time apple has pushed it has been a security problem in Windows, but that hasn't slowed apple down. Not one bit

in reference to: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

We're in a service war

This is Bings attempt to differ from other engines by making life easier for the searcher. Booble has already begun to respond. For the casual searcher, Bing might be more useful. Definitely more usable.
in reference to: Bing - Deep Links Makes Life As A New Mom Easier - Search Blog - Bing Community (view on Google Sidewiki)

Deeper Links in the Chain of Competition

Competition is a beautiful thing. Bing uses deep links as a standard feature. Google shows more deep links in varied contexts and formats. May the user win.

in reference to: Yes, Google Is Showing Deeper Sitelinks In Different Formats (view on Google Sidewiki)

Israel: Stop Demolishing Palestinian Homes | Human Rights Watch

Israel: Stop Demolishing Palestinian Homes Human Rights Watch:
"Israeli authorities destroyed the homes and property of 18 shepherd families in the northern Jordan Valley on June 4, 2009, displacing approximately 130 people, after ordering them on May 31 to evacuate because they were living in a 'closed military zone.' Some of the families whose homes and property were destroyed had been living in their village since at least the 1950s.

'Giving families less than a week to evacuate their homes, without any opportunity for review or appeal, is as heartless as it is unfair,' said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. 'Israel should have given these people due process to contest their displacement.'

At 7:30 a.m. on June 4, witnesses said, around 20 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) jeeps, three bulldozers, and several white cars belonging to the Israeli Civil Administration Authority arrived and blocked off the dirt access roads to the shantytown of ar-Ras al-Ahmar. The demolition operation began at 8 a.m. and destroyed 13 residential structures, 19 animal pens, and 18 traditional, underground ovens, according to the UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The 18 displaced families included 67 children, the agency reported. Israeli soldiers also confiscated a tractor, a trailer, and a portable water tank that residents used to truck in water, witnesses said.Under an Israeli military order from 1970, the government may evict persons living in a "closed military zone" without any judicial or administrative procedures. Section 90 of the order states that "permanent residents" can remain in an area later designated as closed, and that eviction orders cannot change their status as permanent residents. However, the Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled that because the shepherds in the area are pastoralists, the term "permanent residents" does not apply to them.

Residents say that ar-Ras al-Ahmar and al-Hadidiyya date from at least the 1950s. The Israeli settlement of Ro'i was built between the two villages in 1978. The two communities and Ro'i lie within "Area C" of the West Bank, over which Israel retains near-total control under the Oslo Agreements of 1995.
"It's astonishing to see Israel evict Palestinians from their villages in the West Bank, yet again violating the rights of the occupied population, while allowing a settlement which by law should never have been built in the first place, to remain," said Whitson.

On June 9, Jabarin said, the Israeli High Court of Justice temporarily enjoined the state from further demolitions against the people remaining in ar-Ras al-Ahmar. In al-Hadidiyya, Jabarin said, seven families who received stop-construction orders will have the chance to appeal and to apply for building permits at the hearing.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in December 2006, the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a petition against earlier demolition orders for al-Hadidiyya, because the affected buildings were in an area defined as agricultural in master plans from the British Mandatory period and posed a security threat to the nearby Ro'i settlement. Israeli authorities demolished homes in al-Hadidiyya in February and March 2008, displacing about 60 people in all. Some of the displaced families returned to the area later, but due to repeated evictions over the years, more than a dozen households from al-Hadidiyya have been permanently displaced.

While Israel, as the occupying power in the West Bank, may in some cases lawfully require residents to leave their homes, it must not do so arbitrarily and must afford affected persons meaningful due process. Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), among other treaties to which Israel is a party that apply in the West Bank, prohibits arbitrary or unlawful state interference with anyone's home."


It's strange that the closed military zone is only dangerous to Palestinians while remaining perfectly safe for illegal jewish settlers. Natural growth isn't legal unless you're illegal,and jewish. Palestinians have no rights a Jewish state feels bound to consider. Which is why Israel's right to exist as a state is one thing and its desire to be recognized as a Jewish state is something totally different and unacceptable. As unnacceptable as a White Christian state, about as democrastic as apartheid in South Africa.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/06/12/israel-stop-demolishing-palestinian-homes

The Definitive Definition of Genocide

Op-Ed Columnist - Holding On to Our Humanity - NYTimes.com:

“ ‘They said to us: ‘If you have a baby on your back, let us see it.’ The soldiers looked at the babies and if it was a boy, they killed it on the spot [by shooting him]. If it was a girl, they dropped or threw it on the ground. If the girl died, she died. If she didn’t die, the mothers were allowed to pick it up and keep it.’

The woman recalled that in that moment, the kind of throbbing moment when time is not just stopped but lost, when it ceases to have any meaning, her grandmother had a boy on her back. The grandmother refused to show the child to the soldiers, so both she and the boy were shot.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/opinion/30herbert.html?ref=opinion

What's Sauce for Palestinians Must Apply to Israelis

In an interview with Army Radio on Monday, Ehud Barak, the defense minister and leader of the center-left Labor Party, gave a hypothetical example of a family of four that originally moved into a two-room home in a settlement. “Now there are six children,” he said. “Should they be allowed to build another room or not?”

Not when a Palestinian's home is bulldozed for merely adding a room or a floor. Not when Palestinians lose not only the land the settlement expands to, but also the land for roads they're not allowed to travel on, and land for checkpoints so the settlers can feel protected while Palestinians are prevented from going to schools, hospitals, or just to work.

“The Israeli government wants to reach understandings with the Obama administration that would allow some new construction in West Bank settlements, an Israeli official said, despite vocal American and Palestinian opposition.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is expected to focus on the issue of settlement expansion in his meeting with President Obama in their meeting scheduled for Thursday in Washington. Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders see no point in resuming stalled peace negotiations without an absolute settlement freeze.
President  Obama and other senior American officials have called on the government of Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud Party to halt all settlement activity.
Dan Meridor, the Israeli minister of intelligence, and other senior Netanyahu aides returned on Wednesday from meetings in Europe with President Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, and other American officials. The purpose was to continue discussing issues raised in last week’s Netanyahu-Obama meeting, including that Mr. Obama’s objections to settlement expansion.

Close to 300,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem, dominating a Palestinian population of some 2.5 million. Most of the world considers the settlements a violation of international law.

Mr. Netanyahu says that his government will not build any new settlements and will take down a number of outposts erected in recent years by settlers without proper government authorization. But he insists that his government will allow building within existing settlements to accommodate what he termed “natural growth,” essentially continuing the policy of the last few Israeli governments.
Israel claims understandings with the Bush administration — some formal, some informal and some tacit — on building within settlements. Construction was limited in small settlements but tolerated in large ones in areas that Israel intends to keep under any deal with the Palestinians.

“We want to work to reach understandings with the new administration” that are “fair” and “workable,” said the Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the issue was still under discussion.

Obama's administration wants a settlement freeze to create an environment for peace-making, encouraging gestures toward normalizing ties with Israel from Arab governments, and buttressing a coalition of countries opposed to Iran developing nuclear weapons.

In an effort to show goodwill, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak have been underscoring their willingness to take down 22 small outposts that are illegal under Israeli law, and which were supposed to have been removed under the 2003 American-backed peace plan known as the road map. That plan specified that Israel should halt “all settlement activity (including natural growth).”

Mr. Barak has said he will try to remove the small outposts by agreement with the settlers, and if agreement is not reached, then by force. Settlers have vowed to rebuild any outpost that is removed and to create more.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the police removed some sheds and a tent from two tiny outposts in the Hebron area.

Another small outpost was demolished in the Ramallah region last week, but new shacks have already appeared there. None of the three outposts were on the list of 22, but the measures against them prompted furious reactions from the hard right.

Many religious Jewish nationalists say it is their right to settle in the biblical heartland of the West Bank, which they refer to as Judea and Samaria. Others cite security reasons for holding on to the areas captured in the 1967 war. Settling occupied territory is a violation of international law.

A rather sore point of contention between the Israeli government and the Obama administration is Mr. Netanyahu’s refusal to publicly endorse a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a cornerstone of American policy. ”


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/world/middleeast/28mideast.html?ref=worldThere seems to be no desire toreach fair and workable understandings with the Palestinian Authority.

US Passport Security Procedures Fail Under GAO Test - Security Watch

US Passport Security Procedures Fail Under GAO Test - Security Watch:

"If you have applied for a US passport in recent years you would have noticed that you have to bring a fair amount of documentation. But that doesn't mean you can't scam the process. A recent series of tests of the security of the passport application process by the US GAO (Government Accountability Office) showed that the measures to prove identity of the people applying for passports falls short of the mark:

• Four genuine US passports were obtained using counterfeit or fraudulently-obtained documents.
  
• One passport was obtained using counterfeit documents and the social security number of a man who died in 1965.
  
• Counterfeit documents for a 53 year old man were used to obtain a passport using the genuine social security number of a 5 year old.
  
• In none of the 4 undercover test cases were the fraudulent methods discovered.
  

It's hard to argue with results like this and the State Department is said, in the report, to agree that the problems are serious.

The problems described here might be addressed if the State Department actually verified the documents they demanded. But that doesn't solve all the problems in passport identity, as those documents themselves are not especially secure. And nothing to make passport application significantly more onerous will be sellable politically."

http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2009/04/us_passport_security_procedure.php

A Face Only a Lender Would Love ‎(demo dirt)‎

A Face Only a Lender Would Love ‎(demo dirt)‎:

"Need a loan? All things being equal—employment history, credit rating—you had better have a trustworthy face. Appearance counts when seeking a loan and lenders are more likely to do business with clients whose faces evoke feelings of trust, say researchers Jefferson Duarte of Rice University, Stephan Siegel and Lance Young, both of the University of Washington."

Galia Myron reports on a study from Rice and the University of Washungtin that seems to show that “lenders are more likely to do business with clients whose faces evoke feelings of trust.”

No surprise there.

After controlling for factors like race, age, sex, physical attractiveness, financial information, weight, perceived social status, and other potential confounding variables, the researchers discovered that there was a correlation between physical appearance and perceived trustworthiness. Even more surprising, potential borrowers who were deemed to have more trustworthy faces, were in fact more creditworthy than their peers who had been considered less so on appearance alone.

I just can't get the image of trustworthy appearing embezlers out of my mind.

You know who I mean. All those men and women who were put into positions of authority at charities, but used the funds for themselves. Or have you forgotten the epidemic back in the late nineties of greedy, but perfectly honest looking CEO's severely damaging the national United Way and other charities. Did you notice that the people who run Ponzi schemes tend to look trustworthy too. The longer the schemes last, the longer it taked for the embezzlement to become intolerable, the more trustworthy the perp's appearance.

I have no doubt that trustworthy appearance influences creditworthiness, but does it reflect a persons intrinsic tendency to make good on a debt, or is it how our society's lenders manifest unintentional, unconscious prejudice?

Trustworthy appearing then creditworthy? Chicken or egg? Post hoc ergo propter hoc?

http://www.demodirt.com/us-demographic-trends/a-face-only-a-lender-would-love090325

New Search Technologies Mine the Web More Deeply - NYTimes.com

New Search Technologies Mine the Web More Deeply - NYTimes.com:

“One day last summer, Google’s search engine trundled quietly past a milestone. It added the one trillionth address to the list of Web pages it knows about. But as impossibly big as that number may seem, it represents only a fraction of the entire Web.

Beyond those trillion pages lies an even vaster Web of hidden data: financial information, shopping catalogs, flight schedules, medical research and all kinds of other material stored in databases that remain largely invisible to search engines.

The challenges that the major search engines face in penetrating this so-called Deep Web go a long way toward explaining why they still can’t provide satisfying answers to questions like “What’s the best fare from New York to London next Thursday?” The answers are readily available — if only the search engines knew how to find them.

Now a new breed of technologies is taking shape that will extend the reach of search engines into the Web’s hidden corners. When that happens, it will do more than just improve the quality of search results — it may ultimately reshape the way many companies do business online.

Search engines rely on programs known as crawlers (or spiders) that gather information by following the trails of hyperlinks that tie the Web together. While that approach works well for the pages that make up the surface Web, these programs have a harder time penetrating databases that are set up to respond to typed queries.

“The crawlable Web is the tip of the iceberg,” says Anand Rajaraman, co-founder of Kosmix (www.kosmix.com), a Deep Web search start-up whose investors include Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon.com. Kosmix has developed software that matches searches with the databases most likely to yield relevant information, then returns an overview of the topic drawn from multiple sources.

“Most search engines try to help you find a needle in a haystack,” Mr. Rajaraman said, “but what we’re trying to do is help you explore the haystack.”

That haystack is infinitely large. With millions of databases connected to the Web, and endless possible permutations of search terms, there is simply no way for any search engine — no matter how powerful — to sift through every possible combination of data on the fly.

To extract meaningful data from the Deep Web, search engines have to analyze users’ search terms and figure out how to broker those queries to particular databases. For example, if a user types in “Rembrandt,” the search engine needs to know which databases are most likely to contain information about art ( say, museum catalogs or auction houses), and what kinds of queries those databases will accept.

That approach may sound straightforward in theory, but in practice the vast variety of database structures and possible search terms poses a thorny computational challenge.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/technology/internet/23search.html?th&emc=th

In Turnabout, Children Take Caregiver Role - NYTimes.com

In Turnabout, Children Take Caregiver Role - NYTimes.com:

Experts say that in the United States, the issue is often hidden.

"Some children develop maturity and self-esteem. But others grow anxious, depressed or angry, sacrifice social and extracurricular activities and miss — or quit — school.

“Our society thinks of children as being taken care of; it doesn’t think of children as taking care of anybody,” said Carol Levine, director of families and health care at United Hospital Fund, a health services organization that studied child caregivers.

“Kids who do it well gain confidence,” Ms. Levine said, but “they may be resentful, not do as well in school and feel limited because their role is to be the caregiver.”

Health organizations are increasingly “realizing the extent of what children are doing,” said Nancy Law, an executive vice president of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. “Everything from children who become overly responsible” to “the kid who totally rebels and gets into trouble.”

“This is an issue that’s growing,” she said.

A 2005 nationwide study suggested that about 3 percent of households with children ages 8 to 18 included child caregivers. Experts say they expect the numbers to grow as chronically ill patients leave hospitals sooner and live longer, the recession compels patients to forgo paid help and veterans need home care.
Recently, programs have been formed to help children find support. Several Florida schools now have classes and meetings regarding caregiving.

Other countries do more. In Britain and Australia, the census counts child caregivers, and many of them have rights to participate in patient-care discussions and to ask agencies for help or compensation.

Hundreds of programs help them, said Saul Becker, a sociology professor at the University of Nottingham. “It’s such a big issue."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/health/23care.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all

The Inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama

“”

Israeli Rights Groups Call for War Crimes Inquiry - NYTimes.com

Israeli Rights Groups Call for War Crimes Inquiry - NYTimes.com:

“This kind of fighting constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of warfare and raises the suspicion, which we ask be investigated, of the commission of war crimes,”

"JERUSALEM — Nine Israeli human rights groups called on Wednesday for an investigation into whether Israeli officials had committed war crimes in Gaza since tens of thousands of civilians there have nowhere to flee, the health system has collapsed, many are without electricity and running water, and some are beyond the reach of rescue teams.

“This kind of fighting constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of warfare and raises the suspicion, which we ask be investigated, of the commission of war crimes,” the groups said in their first news conference on the 19-day-old war.

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, who spent Tuesday in Gaza City, agreed that the situation with civilians was dire but said the principal hospital was making do with medical supplies, and doctors, working around the clock, were mostly coping with the flow of injured.

“In general they did not complain about the lack of equipment or material,” he said at separate a news conference in Jerusalem.…

The Israeli human rights groups that called for an investigation said that while they believed it was legitimate for Israel to bomb military installations, it was a violation of international law for it to hit civilian sites like government buildings that contained no weapons or missiles.

Last week, the Red Cross issued an unusually harsh condemnation of Israel for failing to allow its personnel into Gaza to rescue people trapped in battle.

The group included the Israel section of Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Gisha and Physicians for Human Rights — Israel.

Mr. Kellenberger of the Red Cross said Israel had facilitated his trip to Gaza and added that he had seen no evidence of the use of white phosphorous, an obscurant used in military conflicts that can be dangerous for civilians under certain circumstances and that Palestinians say Israel is firing.

Last week, the Red Cross issued an unusually harsh condemnation of Israel for failing to allow its personnel into Gaza to rescue people trapped in battle. On Wednesday, Mr. Kellenberger said that although the situation remains critical, rescue missions had not been entirely shut down. The organization rescued 100 people trapped in Jabalya, north of Gaza City, on Tuesday.

The Red Cross representative in Israel, Pierre Wettach, added that he now believed Israel was trying hard to facilitate his group’s access to the wounded.

“At this stage, they want as far as possible that these things work,” he said, referring to rescue missions.

The military operations continued apace in southern Gaza with the Israeli military reporting that its warplanes carried out three dozen bombing raids, striking rocket launchers and smuggler tunnels. Still, with the cease-fire talks gaining ground and Israeli leaders concerned about sending their troops into the heart of Gaza City, Israel held off on expanding its war to the next phase.…"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/world/middleeast/15mideast.html?hp

CSIS Reports - The War in Gaza - Center for Strategic and International Studies

CSIS Reports - The War in Gaza - Center for Strategic and International Studies:

Andrew Cordesman states

…the growing human tragedy in Gaza is steadily raising more serious questions as to whether the kind of tactical gains that Israel now reports are worth the suffering involved.

"No one should discount … tactical gains, or ignore the fact that Hamas’ rocket and mortar attacks continue to pose a threat. Nearly 600 rounds hit Israeli territory between December 7th and January 9th. It is also clear that there are no good ways to fight an enemy like Hamas that conducts attrition warfare while hiding behind its own women and children. A purely diplomatic response that does not improve Israel’s security position or offer Palestinians hope for the future is equivalent to no response at all.

As of the 14th day of the war, nearly 800 Palestinian have died and over 3,000 have been wounded. Fewer and fewer have been Hamas fighters, while more and more have been civilians.

The fact remains, however, that the growing human tragedy in Gaza is steadily raising more serious questions as to whether the kind of tactical gains that Israel now reports are worth the suffering involved. As of the 14th day of the war, nearly 800 Palestinian have died and over 3,000 have been wounded. Fewer and fewer have been Hamas fighters, while more and more have been civilians.

These direct costs are also only part of the story. Gaza’s economy had already collapsed long before the current fighting began and now has far greater problems. Its infrastructure is crippled in critical areas like power and water. This war has compounded the impact of a struggle that has gone on since 2000. It has reduced living standards in basic ways like food, education, as well as medical supplies and services. It has also left most Gazans without a productive form of employment. The current war has consequences more far-reaching than casualties. It involves a legacy of greatly increased suffering for the 1.5 million people who will survive this current conflict.

It is also far from clear that the tactical gains are worth the political and strategic cost to Israel. At least to date, the reporting"

http://www.csis.org/index.php?option=com_csis_pubs&task=view&id=5188

Self-Defense or Mass Murder?

By Greg Mitchell

Published: December 27, 2008 11:59 PM ET updated 7:00 PM ET

“NEW YORK (Commentary) In the usual process, the U.S. government -- and media here -- are playing down questions about whether Israel overreacted in its massive air strikes on Gaza, while the foreign press, and even Haaretz in Israel, carries more balanced accounts. The early reports on Sunday already reveal the bombing of a TV station and mosque and preparations for an invasion.

A new analysis at Haaretz: "A million and a half human beings, most of them downcast and desperate refugees, live in the conditions of a giant jail, fertile ground for another round of bloodletting. The fact that Hamas may have gone too far with its rockets is not the justification of the Israeli policy for the past few decades, for which it justly merits an Iraqi shoe to the face."

Another opinion piece in Haaretz -- titled, "Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again" -- by Gideon Levy: "Israel embarked yesterday on yet another unnecessary, ill-fated war. On July 16, 2006, four days after the start of the Second Lebanon War, I wrote: 'Every neighborhood has one, a loud-mouthed bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger... Not that the bully's not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction!' Two and a half years later, these words repeat themselves, to our horror, with chilling precision. Within the span of a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, the IDF sowed death and destruction on a scale that the Qassam rockets never approached in all their years, and Operation 'Cast Lead' is only in its infancy."

Also from Haaretz, Zvi Barel writes: "Six months ago Israel asked and received a cease-fire from Hamas. It unilaterally violated it when it blew up a tunnel, while still asking Egypt to get the Islamic group to hold its fire."

Amira Hass, the paper's correspondent in Gaza, reports: "There are many corpses and wounded, every moment another casualty is added to the list of the dead, and there is no more room in the morgue. Relatives search among the bodies and the wounded in order to bring the dead quickly to burial. A mother whose three school-age children were killed, and are piled one on top of the other in the morgue, screams and then cries, screams again and then is silent."

From the lead Haaretz editorial: "[T]he inherent desire for retribution does not necessarily have to blind us to the view from the day after....Israel's violation of the lull in November expedited the deterioration that gave birth to the war of yesterday. But even if this continues for many days and even weeks, it will end in an agreement, or at least an understanding similar to that reached last June."

The Independent, a major daily in London has an eyewitness account, ending with: "These bombs were launched by Israel, as we had known they would be. The world watched the situation simmer then boil over, but did nothing. There are some who believe that hell is divided into different classes. The ordinary people of Gaza have long been caught in the tormenting underworld. Now, if the world does not heed what has happened here, our situation will worsen. We will be trapped in the first class of hell."…”

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003925316&imw=Y

Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about - Haaretz - Israel News

Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about - Haaretz - Israel News: "By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent

Tags: Hamas, Israel, Gaza

Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces 'Cast Lead' operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning.

The disinformation effort, according to defense officials, took Hamas by surprise and served to significantly increase the number of its casualties in the strike.

Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well. Barak gave orders to carry out a comprehensive intelligence-gathering drive which sought to map out Hamas' security infrastructure, along with that of other militant organizations operating in the Strip.

This intelligence-gathering effort brought back information about permanent bases, weapon silos, training camps, the homes of senior officials and coordinates for other facilities.

The plan of action that was implemented in Operation Cast Lead remained only a blueprint until a month ago, when tensions soared after the IDF carried out an incursion into Gaza during the ceasefire to take out a tunnel which the army said was intended to facilitate an attack by Palestinian militants on IDF troops.

On November 19, following dozens of Qassam rockets and mortar rounds which exploded on Israeli soil, the plan was brought for Barak's final approval. Last Thursday, on December 18, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the defense minister met at IDF headquarters in central Tel Aviv to approve the operation.

However, they decided to put the mission on hold to see whether Hamas would hold its fire after the expiration of the ceasefire. They therefore put off bringing the plan for the cabinet's approval, but they did inform Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of the developments.

That night, in speaking to the media, sources in the Prime Minister's Bureau said that "if the shooting from Gaza continues, the showdown with Hamas would be inevitable." On the weekend, several ministers in Olmert's cabinet inveighed against him and against Barak for not retaliating for Hamas' Qassam launches.

"This chatter would have made Entebe or the Six Day War impossible," Barak said in responding to the accusations. The cabinet was eventually convened on Wednesday, but the Prime Minister's Bureau misinformed the media in stating the discussion would revolve around global jihad. The ministers learned only that morning that the discussion would actually pertain to the operation in Gaza.

In its summary announcement for the discussion, the Prime Minister's Bureau devoted one line to the situation in Gaza, compared to one whole page that concerned the outlawing of 35 Islamic organizations.

What actually went on at the cabinet meeting was a five-hour discussion about the operation in which ministers were briefed about the various blueprints and plans of action. "It was a very detailed review," one minister said.

The minister added: "Everyone fully understood what sort of period we were heading into and what sort of scenarios this could lead to. No one could say that he or she did not know what they were voting on." The minister also said that the discussion showed that the lessons of the Winograd Committee about the performance of decision-makers during the 2006 Second Lebanon War were "fully internalized."

At the end of the discussion, the ministers unanimously voted in favor of the strike, leaving it for the prime minister, the defense minister and the foreign minister to work out the exact time.

While Barak was working out the final details with the officers responsible for the operation, Livni went to Cairo to inform Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, that Israel had decided to strike at Hamas.

In parallel, Israel continued to send out disinformation in announcing it would open the crossings to the Gaza Strip and that Olmert would decide whether to launch the strike following three more deliberations on Sunday - one day after the actual order to launch the operation was issued.

"Hamas evacuated all its headquarter personnel after the cabinet meeting on Wednesday," one defense official said, "but the organization sent its people back in when they heard that everything was put on hold until Sunday." …"


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050426.html

Israeli Gaza Strike Kills More Than 225 - NYTimes.com

Israeli Gaza Strike Kills More Than 225 - NYTimes.com:

"GAZA — Waves of Israeli airstrikes destroyed Hamas security facilities in Gaza on Saturday in a crushing response to the group’s rocket fire, killing more than 225 — the highest one-day toll in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades."

Make no mistake. This is Ehud Barak's campaign to become Prime minister shifted into high gear. Just as the over reaction to rock throwing Palestinians after Sharon's visit to the Al Aqsa moaque was designed to keep him inthat office though it failed. Mr. Bsrak seems to know of only one way to run for office. So expect the body count to increase while he claims to not be campaigning.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/world/middleeast/28mideast.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

Who Wants to Kick a Millionaire? - Not Paulson

Op-Ed Columnist - Who Wants to Kick a Millionaire? - NYTimes.com

Or The S.E.C., Not Bush. If this was a song the title should be - Money for (Absolutely) Nothing.

Under both Clinton and Bush, that supposed watchdog agency ignored repeated and graphic warnings of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme as studiously as
Bush ignored Al Qaeda’s threats during the summer of 2001.

“Just when we thought that reality couldn’t hit a new bottom it did with Bernie Madoff, a smiling shark as sleazy as the TV host in “Slumdog.” A pillar of both the Wall Street and Jewish communities — a former Nasdaq chairman, a trustee at Yeshiva University — he even victimized Elie Wiesel’s Foundation for Humanity with his Ponzi scheme. A Jewish financier rips off millions of dollars devoted to memorializing the Holocaust — who could make this stuff up? Dickens, Balzac, Trollope and, for that matter, even Mel Brooks might be appalled.

Madoff, of course, made up everything. When he turned himself in, he reportedly declared that his business was “all just one big lie.” (The man didn’t call his 55-foot yacht “Bull” for nothing.) As Brian Williams of NBC News pointed out, the $50 billion thought to have vanished is roughly three times as much as the proposed Detroit bailout. And no one knows how it happened, least of all the federal regulators charged with policing him and protecting the public. If Madoff hadn’t confessed — for reasons that remain unclear — he might still be rounding up new victims.

There is a moral to be drawn here, and it’s not simply that human nature is unchanging and that there always will be crooks, including those in high places. Nor is it merely that Wall Street regulation has been a joke. Of what we’ve learned about Madoff so far, the most useful lesson can be gleaned from how his smart, well-heeled clients routinely characterized the strategy that generated their remarkably steady profits. As The Wall Street Journal noted, they “often referred to it as a ‘black box.’ ”

In the investment world “black box” is tossed around to refer to a supposedly ingenious financial model that is confidential or incomprehensible or both. Most of us know the “black box” instead as that strongbox full of data that is retrieved (sometimes) after a plane crash to tell the authorities what went wrong. The only problem is that its findings arrive too late to save the crash’s victims. The hope is that the information will instead help prevent the next disaster.

The question in the aftermath of the Madoff calamity is this: Why do we keep ignoring what we learn from the black boxes being retrieved from crash after crash in our economic meltdown? The lesson could not be more elemental. If there’s a mysterious financial model producing miraculous returns, odds are it’s a sham — whether it’s an outright fraud, as it apparently is in Madoff’s case, or nominally legal, as is the case with the Wall Street giants that have fallen this year.

Wall Street’s black boxes contained derivatives created out of whole cloth, deriving their value from often worthless subprime mortgages. The enormity of the gamble went undetected not only by investors but by the big brains at the top of the firms, many of whom either escaped (Merrill Lynch’s E. Stanley O’Neal) or remain in place (Citigroup’s Robert Rubin) after receiving obscene compensation for their illusory short-term profits and long-term ignorance.

There has been no punishment for many of those who failed to heed this repeated lesson. Quite the contrary. The business magazine Portfolio, writing in mid-September about one of the world’s biggest insurance companies, observed that “now that A.I.G is battling to survive, it is its black box that may save it yet.” That box — stuffed with “accounting or investments so complex and arcane that they remain unknown to most investors” — was so huge that Washington might deem it “too big to fail.”

Sure enough — and unlike its immediate predecessor in collapse, Lehman Brothers — A.I.G. was soon bailed out to the tune of $123 billion. Most of that also disappeared by the end of October. But not before A.I.G. executives were caught spending $442,000 on a weeklong retreat to a California beach resort.

There are more black boxes still to be pried open, whether at private outfits like Madoff’s or at publicly traded companies like General Electric, parent of the opaque GE Capital Corporation, the financial services unit that has been the single biggest contributor to the G.E. bottom line in recent years. But have we yet learned anything? Incredibly enough, as we careen into 2009, the very government operation tasked with repairing the damage caused by Wall Street’s black boxes is itself a black box of secrecy and impenetrability.

Last week ABC News asked 16 of the banks that have received handouts from the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program the same two direct questions: How have you used that money, and how much have you spent on bonuses this year? Most refused to answer.

Congress can’t get the answers either. Its oversight panel declared in a first report this month that the Treasury is doling out billions “without seeking to monitor the use of funds provided to specific financial institutions.” The Treasury prefers instead to look at “general metrics” indicating the program’s overall effect on the economy. Well, we know what the “general metrics” tell us already: the effect so far is nil. Perhaps if we were let in on the specifics, we’d start to understand why.

In its own independent attempt to penetrate the bailout, the Government Accountability Office learned that “the standard agreement between Treasury and the participating institutions does not require that these institutions track or report how they plan to use, or do use, their capital investments.” Executives at all but two of the bailed-out banks told the G.A.O. that the “money is fungible,” so they “did not intend to track or report” specifically what happens to the taxpayers’ cash.

Nor is there any serious accounting for executive pay at these seminationalized companies. As Amit Paley of The Washington Post reported, a last-minute, one-sentence loophole added by the Bush administration to the original bailout bill gutted the already minimal restrictions on executive compensation. And so when Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson’s Wall Street alma mater, says that it is not using public money to pay executives, we must take it on faith.

In the wake of the Madoff debacle, there are loud calls to reform the Securities and Exchange Commission, including from the president-elect. Under both Clinton and Bush, that supposed watchdog agency ignored repeated and graphic warnings of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme as studiously as Bush ignored Al Qaeda’s threats during the summer of 2001. ”

What part of "You get more of what you reward." don't they understand? Why are they surprised when markets move towards the highest margins instead of sustainable ones? Reward what you want produced, because you get what you reward. Aren't we finally tired of variations of Al Dunlop and Kenneth Lay? Don't we want products and services, instead of schemes? Apparently not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21rich.html?th&emc=th

I learned to love type working letterpress after school

FireFly Letterpress from ilovetypography.com on Vimeo.“”

http://vimeo.com/ilt?pg=embed&sec=699250