8.1 Sergey Brin wears Google Glass on New York subway
8.2 The Future is Now
8.3 Jobless Rate Edges Up to 7.9%
8.4 The decline of the West?
8.5 Supreme Court takes up historic gay marriage battle
8.6 The moral environment on Wall Street is "pathological"
8.7 The U.S. economy is 3 percent bigger than we thought
8.8 $2 Trillion Underground Economy May Be Recovery's savior
8.9 Neanderthals Went Extinct Because Of Their Large Eyes
8.10 Louisiana is the world's prison capital
8.11 Working moms are now main breadwinners in a record 40 percent of U.S. households with children
8.12 Gunman kills six in California spree
8.13 WHO Finds Violence Against Women Is 'Shockingly' Common
8.14 Higher Education?
8.15 Are Smartphone A Hidden Drag On The Economy
8.16 The rights of indigenous people (An interesting problem)
8.17 Does higher education man lower joy on the job?
8.18 Claude shannon: Reluctant Father of the Digital Age
8.19 Edward Snowden explains himself
8.20 "Stack Ranking"?
8.21 Redefining Jobs
8.22 Happier and wealthier the city, higher the suicide rate
8.23 Apple iPhone fingerprint scanner hacked
8.24 Citizen Scientists
8.25 The Origin of 'The World's Dumbest Idea'
8.26 The Golden Age of Management
8.27 Researchers have shrunk a particle accelerator down to microchip size
8.28 Law and Order
8.29 The Nobel Committee has lost a historic opportunity
8.30 Telling Lies
8.31 A model for the media
8.32 Clueless About Market Economy
8.33 Fiddle-faddle disguised as eloquence
8.34 Girls need to stop being a sport
8.35 Crime-hardened Brazil?
8.36 Rewarding whistle blowers
8.37 The war on democracy
8.38 Johnson & Johnson Cough Up $2.2 Billion
8.39 Fiddle-faddle disguised as eloquence
8.40 AIDS proves stubborn in Europe as new HIV infections rise
8.41 Uncontacted tribes
8.42 'Oscars of science'
8.43 Bitcoins
8.44 The power of corporates
8.45 Rewarding Whistle blowers
8.46 Preserving human dignity
8.47 How the notion of retirement for workers took root
8.48 World consumption graph
8.49 Population growth rate / doubling of population
------------------
8.1 Sergey Brin wears Google Glass on New York subway (21/1/2013)
Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, has been spotted testing out his Google Glass augmented reality spectacles on the New York subway.
. Containing a battery, a tiny computer running Android, a camera and wireless link, the glasses work as a “heads up display”, with the intention that they will be used to access the web and communicate. Owners will be able to control them with voice commands, it's planned.
...................
We badly need technologies which will help people keep their heads up, extending from students in a class room to users of modern communication devices. One thing to keep in mind is that looking down in an improper way will impede breathing and interfere with the functioning of the brain.
Selvaraj
8.2 The Future is Now (23/1/2013)
IT companies forced to slow hiring:
...
The main reason that moderation in hiring is a sign of things to come
is that more will be done by fewer people as the grunt work is left to
machines.
Kurien compared it to the efficiency improvements that defined the manufacturing industry in the United States. From supporting about 85 million manufacturing jobs in the 1970s, the sector has just about 17 million employees now. While part of it was because of work being outsourced to lower-cost destinations such as China, a lot of it was jobs eliminated because of productivity gains.
Kurien compared it to the efficiency improvements that defined the manufacturing industry in the United States. From supporting about 85 million manufacturing jobs in the 1970s, the sector has just about 17 million employees now. While part of it was because of work being outsourced to lower-cost destinations such as China, a lot of it was jobs eliminated because of productivity gains.
THE FUTURE IS NOW:
NEW YORK
— Five years after the start of the Great Recession, the toll is
terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class jobs have been lost in
developed countries the world over.
And the situation is even worse than it appears.
Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market. What’s more, these jobs aren’t just being lost to China and other developing countries, and they aren’t just factory work. Increasingly, jobs are disappearing in the service sector, home to two-thirds of all workers.
They’re being obliterated by technology.
And the situation is even worse than it appears.
Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market. What’s more, these jobs aren’t just being lost to China and other developing countries, and they aren’t just factory work. Increasingly, jobs are disappearing in the service sector, home to two-thirds of all workers.
They’re being obliterated by technology.
...
The numbers startle even labor economists. In the United States, half
of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession paid
middle-class wages, ranging from $38,000 to $68,000.
But only 2 percent of the 3.5 million jobs gained
since the recession ended in June 2009 are midpay. Nearly 70 percent are
low-paying jobs; 29 percent pay well.
The enemy within
Candidates for U.S. president last year never tired of telling Americans how jobs were being shipped overseas. China, with its vast army of cheaper labor and low-value currency, was easy to blame.But most jobs cut in the U.S. and Europe weren’t moved. They vanished. And the villain in this story — a clever software engineer working in Silicon Valley or the high-tech hub around Heidelberg, Germany — isn’t so easy to hate.
8.3 Jobless Rate Edges Up to 7.9% (1/2/2013)
Only those who are actively looking for work are counted as unemployed, so if the labor force participation stays low, even modest job growth can cause the unemployment rate to fall quite a bit.
“The decline in the labor force participation rate brought the unemployment rate down much faster than anyone would have thought, given the jobs numbers,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics. “The aging of America accounts for a little bit of it, but you’d still expect that job searches would go up and participation would rise as opportunities are opening up.”For the long-term unemployed — who now represent 40 percent of all jobless workers — the opportunities still seem few and far between. Millions have exhausted their unemployment benefits and many more will roll off the government’s system in the coming months with no viable options in sight.
... “Who are these people who are getting jobs? Where are they? I don’t know them,” said Karen Duckett, 51, who was laid off from her job as director of housekeeping at a retirement community in late 2011. She recently received a letter saying that her benefits would end in two weeks because the unemployment rate in Maryland, where she lives, has fallen below 7 percent and so the state no longer qualifies for the third tier of federal emergency benefits.
“I am just so angry right now,” said Ms. Duckett, who has been invited for only two interviews despite submitting dozens of applications. “How do you expect for me to find a job in two weeks if I haven’t been able to find one in a year and a half?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
..................
It is absolutely frightening that we are not engaging with the problem of 'evaporation' of jobs due to increased automation, computerisation and improved efficiency. Even the jobs that remain are probably hugely aided by automation and so are no longer as physiologically and psychologically satisfying as they used to be.
Social innovation at this juncture is more important than the invention of more and more smart machines. As I had suggested earlier, one way out of this catch 22 situation to 1) Define a community so that we can be more tribal in our day to day dealings and 2) Redefine what we called work.
For 1 -------> Redesign Cities, Towns and Villages in 1Km x 0.5 Km format, with powered vehicles being allowed to ply only on the periphery.
For 2 -------> Spend only half the working time in 'normal' work, spend the other half in doing social work (including agriculture).
We need to start experimenting, or we will end up with social upheaval in many places.
Selvaraj
8.4 The decline of the West? (14/3/2013)
The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice to Italian Ambassador Daniele Mancini and restrained him from leaving the country without its permission, taking exception to Italian government's refusal to send back marines charged with the killing of two fishermen. http://www.hindustantimes.com/
----------------
For
the last more than 100 years the developing world has looked to the
West in wonder and envy, wanting to emulate them in everything. Indeed
inadvertently the developing world put the West on a pedestal, not
realizing that they are human after all.
This
incidence is simply unfortunate, and is likely to reverberate in future
dealings that the developing world will have with the West. The ability
of the West to lead has been compromised by this incidence.
Let
us hope that Italy will soberly rethink this issue. It will be a great
loss for humankind and our collective future if that does not happen.
Selvaraj
8.5 Supreme Court takes up historic gay marriage battle (26/3/2013)
Its
proponents, they argue, "have never identified a single harm that they,
or anyone else, would suffer as a result of allowing gay men and
lesbians to marry."
Banning
same-sex marriage "does not increase the likelihood that opposite-sex
couples capable of procreating will decide to get married, nor would
permitting gay men and lesbians to marry decrease that likelihood," they
say.
----------------
The
above assertions are patently untrue. Humans are basically social
animals, what a group of people do will definitely influence others.
The assertion that only some people who are genetically different are
homosexuals is also probably untrue. It is possible to become a
homosexual simply by influence - unless scientists can prove that there
is a clear cut biological test to determine a homosexual.
Since
the issue is not trivial it is important that decisions are not taken
in haste. It is ironic that when heterosexuals are living outside the
ambit of marriage in 'live in' arrangements, the homosexual community
finds it necessary to obtain the legal sanction and sanctity of
marriage.
Selvaraj
8.6 The moral environment on Wall Street is "pathological" (21/4/2013)
The moral environment on Wall Street is “pathological”
http://americablog.com/2013/
8.7 The U.S. economy is 3 percent bigger than we thought (23/4/2013)
First,
some basics: GDP aims to capture the value of goods and services
produced within U.S. borders in a given periods. The Bureau of Economic
Analysis generally does this by measuring the value of goods purchased
by consumers. The logic goes like this: When you buy a washing machine,
the price you pay captures the value of the work of everybody in that
chain of labor and materials that went into creating that washing
machine: The sales clerk who sold it to you, the trucker who delivered
it to the store, the factory worker who assembled it, the marketing
person who designed the logo, the steel and copper that are the raw
materials for the machine, and the chief executive of the company that
made it. Instead of trying to measure each of those inputs from the
ground up, they are all encapsulated in the “personal consumption
expenditure” that takes place when you buy the washing machine.
But
when the washing machine company invests in long-lasting assets—a
factory, for example, or a package of accounting software—it contributes
to GDP through a second column, for fixed investment.
Investment—spending money on things expected to have a payoff over a
long period of time—are treated differently than the routine expenses
involved in making something.
Which brings us to George Lucas .....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/8.8 $2 Trillion Underground Economy May Be Recovery's savior (26/4/2013)
The growing underground economy may be helping to prevent the real economy from sinking further, according to analysts.
The
shadow economy is a system composed of those who can't find a full-time
or regular job. Workers turn to anything that pays them under the
table, with no income reported and no taxes paid — especially with an
uneven job picture.
..
But the dangers of a shadow economy go beyond dollars and cents,
analysts said. Workers who aren't on the books don't get Social Security
or health benefits, and worse.
"People
who do these types of jobs run the risk of getting exploited with lower
pay or not being paid at all," Gonzalez said. "There could be more
exploitation if more people are forced into this type of economy."
"Some
income is better than none, but there is a reason we have certain
regulations in place to protect workers and what they do," McHenry said.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/8.9 Neanderthals Went Extinct Because Of Their Large Eyes (26/4/2013)
Scientists know that early Humans (Homo sapiens) and Neanderthals (H. s. neanderthalensis)
coexisted for a short time before the latter eventually became extinct.
While it was understood that humans had better developed brains than
their more primitive counterparts, it was generally not well-known why
these early ancestors made a grand exit.
A new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B,
suggests one reason the Neanderthals went by the wayside was because of
their large eyes, which were much larger than those of our own species.
As a result of these large oculars, more of their brain was devoted to
seeing in the long, dark nights than for high-level processing.
...
Since the Neanderthal brain didn’t grow to compensate for the larger
eyes and visual cortices, the team suggests their brain regions were
organized much differently than our own. Neanderthal noggins likely
didn’t have the appropriate accommodations to host large-scale social
structure or increased cognition, according to the team.
These
lacks of function could have limited their ability to cope with
environmental change and competition from the more advanced early H. sapiens,
added the study authors. In the end, this would have ultimately led to
their extinction, especially if no other factors were at play.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/8.10 Louisiana is the world's prison capital (11/5/2013)
Louisiana is the world's prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly five times Iran's, 13 times China's and 20 times Germany's.
... One
in 86 adult Louisianians is doing time, nearly double the national
average. Among black men from New Orleans, one in 14 is behind bars; one
in seven is either in prison, on parole or on probation. Crime rates in
Louisiana are relatively high, but that does not begin to explain the
state's No. 1 ranking, year after year, in the percentage of residents
it locks up. ...
http://www.nola.com/crime/8.11 working moms are now main breadwinners in a record 40 percent of U.S. households with children (29/5/2013)
WASHINGTON — America’s working mothers are now the primary breadwinners in a record 40 percent of households with children — a milestone in the changing face of modern families, up from just 11 percent in 1960.
... But
recent changes in the economy, too, have played a part. Big job losses
in manufacturing and construction, fields that used to provide high pay
to a mostly male workforce, have lifted the relative earnings of married
women, even among those in mid-level positions such as teachers, nurses
or administrators. The jump in working women has been especially
prominent among those who are mothers — from 37 percent in 1968 to 65
percent in 2011 — reflecting in part increases for those who went
looking for jobs to lift sagging family income after the recent
recession.
... At
the same time, marriage rates have fallen to record lows. Forty percent
of births now occur out of wedlock, leading to a rise in single-mother
households. Many of these mothers are low-income with low education, and
more likely to be black or Hispanic.
----------------------
...
And of course there is little we can do about this. The magic of the
market economy must be allowed to play out, even if it destroys us and
our planet in the process.
Selvaraj
8.12 Gunman kills six in California spree (8/6/2013)
(Reuters) - A gunman dressed in black killed at least six people in a string of shootings through the seaside California town of Santa Monica on Friday before he was shot dead by police in a community college library, law authorities said.
..
Earlier, a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol had told
Reuters that officers received a report of a man armed with multiple
weapons, including a shotgun, firing at passing cars and a bus at two
locations near the college campus just west of Los Angeles.
------------------------------
Do people need an entire arsenal to protect themselves? Evidently there is a need to enforce gun control laws.
Selvaraj
8.13 WHO Finds Violence Against Women Is 'Shockingly' Common (21/6/2013)
Thirty-five
percent of women around the world have been raped or physically abused,
according to statistics the World Health Organization released
"For me personally, this is a shockingly high figure," says Karen Devries, an epidemologist from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "The levels of violence are very high everywhere."
http://news.wgcu.org/post/who-8.14 Higher Education? (16/6/2013)
From May27-June 9, 2013 issue of Business India:
-
Number of *US college students* who were working as astronomers,
physicists, chemists, mathematicians or Web developers, as of mid -
2012: 216000
- Number of Us college students who were working as bartenders, as of mid-2012: 216,000
- Number out of 30 US occupations with largest projected growth rate over next decade that require a college degree: 4
-------------------------
The inevitable
consequences of a market economy in its present form, based on mass
marketing and mass production, supported by automation and
computerisation, supported by humongous use of fossil fuels.
The
remedy: Spend half your time in a conventional economy and the other
half in a socially motivated, scientifically driven, local economy.
Selvaraj
8.15 Are Smartphone A Hidden Drag On The Economy (8/7/2013)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/
8.16 The rights of indigenous people (An interesting problem) (11/7/2013)
The rights of indigenous people (An interesting problem):
8.17 Does higher education mean lower joy on the job? (18/7/2013)
"Something about college is taking people further away from doing what they're best at … as opposed to bringing them closer to it," he says.
8.18 Claude shannon: Reluctant Father of the Digital Age (11/8/2013)
Pick up a favorite CD. Now drop it on the floor. Smear it with your fingerprints. Then slide it into the slot on the player - and listen as the music comes out just as crystal clear as the day you first opened the plastic case. Before moving on with the rest of your day, give a moment of thought to the man whose revolutionary ideas made this miracle possible: Claude Elwood Shannon.
Shannon, who died in February 2001 after a long illness, was one of the greatest of the giants who created the information age. John von Neumann, Alan Turing and many other visionaries gave us computers that could process information. But it was Claude Shannon who gave us the modern concept of information - an intellectual leap that earns him a place on whatever high-tech equivalent of Mount Rushmore is one day established.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Whj_nL-x8
8.19 Edward Snowden explains himself (18/8/2013)
Edward Snowden explains himself:
http://video.ft.com/
8.20 "Stack Ranking"? (26/8/2013)
"Stack Ranking"?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/
8.21 Redefining Jobs (29/8/2013)
Jobs
paying less than $14 an hour in fast food, retail, home health care and
other fields made up one of every five jobs lost in the recession, but
they account for three of every five new jobs in the recovery, according
to NELP..
8.22 Happier and wealthier the city, higher the suicide rate! (2/9/2013)
------------
We
need to redefine what we mean by a job. No doubt people will be
required to do dumb jobs; these jobs need to be shared and a person
should preferably not spend more than 50% of his working hours doing
such jobs.
There should be a definite move to introduce more
variety in jobs in general. Because of the sedentary nature of many
jobs, many people will benefit if they spend a day in a week doing jobs
that require some movement.
Selvaraj
The higher suicide rate
among white people and men reflects their greater wealth and freedom, just as
the lower rate among women and people of color reflects their limited social
choices. Just as Derkheim did a century ago, we can see general sociological patterns
in the personal actions of particular individuals.
Oddly enough Greenland is the suicide capitol of the world[1] with an average of 108.1 suicides for every 100,000
inhabitants versus the USA’s 12.1. Studies have shown that suicide tends to be
higher in poorly populated areas. If you know anything about Greenland you know
its the worlds largest Island and is the least densely populated
country on the planet. The lowest in the world may or may not surprise you. It
consist of mostly poor countries like the Philippines (2.1), Peru (1.1),
Guatemala (3.6) and even Mexico beats us with a 4.0!
In a U.S. city by
city comparison data shows that the happier and wealthier the city
the higher the suicide rate ..
… Writing this article has suddenly made me depressed since I’m a single,
white, unmarried, self-employed male who is moving to Portland. Can’t be any
worse than where I live now- want to guess where?
CCC,
one the world's largest and most respected hacking groups, posted a
video on its website that appeared to show somebody accessing an iPhone
5S with a fabricated print. The site described how members of its
biometrics team had cracked the new fingerprint reader, one of the few
major high-tech features added to the latest version of the iPhone.
The group said they targeted Touch ID to knock down reports about its "marvels," which suggested it would be difficult to crack.
"Fingerprints should not be used to secure anything. You leave them
everywhere, and it is far too easy to make fake fingers out of lifted
prints," a hacker named Starbug was quoted as saying on the CCC's site.
http://in.reuters.com/article/8.24 Citizen Scientists (25/9/2013)
In total, citizen scientists made 16 million morphological classifications of
304,122 galaxies. That represents about 57 million computer clicks, or
about 30 years of a single researcher’s work, the scientists said.
Zooniverse
is based on the premise that computers, if adroit data crunchers, are
not quite as subtle as the human brain. While a computer might toss out
an errant galaxy, or one that doesn’t quite meet its programmed
patterns, as galactic garble, a human would plot that odd galaxy as a
compelling data point: is something amiss with what we think we know
about galaxies?
http://www.csmonitor.com/8.25 The Origin of 'The World's Dumbest idea' (27/9/2013)
So for a time, it looked as though the magic of shareholder value was working. But once the financial tricks that were used to support it were uncovered, the underlying reality became apparent. The decline that Friedman and other sensed in 1970 turned out to be real and persistent. The rate of return on assets and on invested capital of US firms declined from 1965 to 2009 by three-quarters, as shown by the Shift Index, a study of 20,000 US firms.
The
shareholder value theory thus failed even on its own narrow terms:
making money. The proponents of shareholder value and stock-based
executive compensation hoped that their theories would focus executives
on improving the real performance of their companies and thus increasing
shareholder value over time. Yet, precisely the opposite occurred. In
the period of shareholder capitalism since 1976, executive compensation
has exploded while corporate performance declined.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/8.26 The Golden Age of Management (28/9/2013)
his management rejects the traditional sharp dichotomy between those activities that are commercial, calculating, manipulative, insufferably dull and tolerated only because they are thought to be either useful or lucrative, and those activities that actively generate genuine human pleasure, such as dance, poetry, music, art and drama. This management aims to be both financially and spiritually profitable, by generating widespread delight, joy, and happiness. It seeks to inspire both those who do work and those for whom work is done. It aspires to uplift the human spirit and unleash the creativity latent in every human being while also achieving more disciplined execution than traditional management. It is as passionately romantic as it is relentlessly operational, specific and practical.
Our era will thus, in time, come to be seen as one in which management underwent a paradigm shift. As Don Tapscott told me recently,
“this is not a time for tinkering: this is a time of fundamental
change.” This will be seen as a time when the shelf-life of the once
self-evident truths of 20th Century management finally expired, to be replaced by a set of principles that lay the basis for a Creative Economy that can generate widespread and enduring economic well-being...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/8.27 Researchers have shrunk a particle accelerator down to microchip size (30/9//2013)
The researchers used a laser to accelerate electrons to 10 times the rate that modern technology allows in a vessel smaller than a grain of rice, a SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory press release reported.
... "We
still have a number of challenges before this technology becomes
practical for real-world use, but eventually it would substantially
reduce the size and cost of future high-energy particle colliders for
exploring the world of fundamental particles and forces," Joel England,
the SLAC physicist who led the experiments, said. "It could also help
enable compact accelerators and X-ray devices for security scanning,
medical therapy and imaging, and research in biology and materials
science."
http://www.hngn.com/articles/8.28 Law and Order (6/10//2013)
Libya has collapsed into the control of a patchwork of militias since
the ouster of the Qaddafi government in 2011. Somalia, the birthplace of
the Shabab, has lacked an effective central government for more than
two decades.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
------------
The future looks dark. With constraints on
energy and resources, Central Governments worldwide will find it
increasingly difficult to project their reach and power. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
------------
8.29 The Nobel Committee has lost a historic opportunity (12/10//2013)
LONDON — Urging the destruction of an “entire category” of unconventional weapons, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 2013 Peace Prize on Friday to a modest and little-known United Nations-backed organization that has drawn sudden attention with a mission to ensure that Syria’s stocks of chemical arms are eradicated.
Swedish sociology professor Steven Svallfors has nominated Edward Snowden for
the Nobel Peace Prize. In his nomination letter, Svallfors highlighted
Snowden's "heroic effort at great presonal cost," and emphasized that
the whistleblower's actions showed that "individuals can stand up for
fundamental rights and freedoms." Svallfor also argues that
this nomination will help restore some of the Peace Prize's lost
credibility after it prematurely awarded the Prize to Barack Obama in
2009. According to Svallfor,
the awarding committee "would show its willingness to to stand up in
defense of civil liberties and human rights, even when such a defense
[could] be viewed with disfavor by the world's dominant military power."
------------------
The Nobel Committee has lost a historic opportunity. The actions of a
particular great country over the last fifty years is very questionable.
While using the worldwide media to promote itself, it has worked in
secret to promote exclusively its own interests. The world would have
been a much better place today if that had not happened.
Going
forward we look forward to a more open society. It will be impossible
for us to solve the huge number of problems we have created
(inadvertently? Quite possibly deliberately, under a regime of secrecy)
unless we do so.
Selvaraj
8.30 Telling Lies (14/10//2013)
A reader writes:
Not
America, THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND THE WORLD BANKING
INSTITUTIONS. They have American's trapped as well as other countries.
The multi-national corporations pollute the hell out of the US as well.
Everything! The people, the food, the water, the land, the air and
basically anything they touch. True Evil.http://www.theguardian.com/
8.31 A model for the media (18/10//2013)
Reconnecting city citizens with the environment - live chat roundup
Our panel of experts discussed how urban dwellers could better connect with the environment.
----------------
Dear All,
I find that the Guardian News Service (from UK) has a different model from that of all other news services in the world.
I hope that the Indian News Outlets will emulate this model.
Selvaraj
8.32 Clueless About Market Economy (14/11//2013)
CLUELESS ABOUT MARKET ECONOMY:
WASHINGTON — Facing dissent from his own party and growing pressure from anxious Congressional Democrats, President Obama is to propose on Thursday an administrative fix to a central element of his signature health care law, allowing Americans who are losing their health insurance coverage because of the Affordable Care Act to retain it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
------------------
I am sure that the world wishes America
well and that they will soon sort out the troubles with their ambitious
new Health Insurance Scheme. Yet one can only wonder whether the powers
that be who have forced Market Economy on to everyone - especially so
USA - have any idea about what they are doing.WASHINGTON — Facing dissent from his own party and growing pressure from anxious Congressional Democrats, President Obama is to propose on Thursday an administrative fix to a central element of his signature health care law, allowing Americans who are losing their health insurance coverage because of the Affordable Care Act to retain it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
------------------
8.33 Fiddle-faddle disguised as eloquence (21/11//2013)
Eloquence most flourished at Rome when the public affairs were in the worst condition — Michel de Montaigne.
What the French essayist wrote in the mid-16th century about Rome of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC is true for India of today, if one is to go by the absurd spectacle called channel discussion on prime time TV. Our public affairs are certainly in the worst condition but should we be subjected to such uncouth debates also?
What strikes most about these debates is the bankruptcy of thoughts and absurdity of ideas....
After watching a few such episodes, I’ve concluded it is better to skip the charade and use the time in a worthwhile manner. Reading even a paragraph of a good book is worth more than listening to the fiddle-faddle so dished out.
http://newindianexpress.com/
8.34 Girls need to stop being a sport (24/11//2013)
Because, females, of all ages, come with a built-in radar which tells them which men to avoid and which not to. By the time they’re 13, girls know which ‘uncles’ not to get caught alone in a room or—as it turns out—a lift, with. They know whom not to ride alone with in a car or sit next to in the dark hall while out for a movie with the extended family.
http://newindianexpress.com/
Surviving in politics without black money is like Dionysius living without wine. As the electoral glove game of 2014 gets dirty and malodorous, not a single player involved is extemporising on cleansing electoral economics.
http://newindianexpress.com/
8.35 Crime-hardened Brazil? (26/11//2013)
In Rio de Janeiro, cars drive through red lights at night. The drivers
don't stop for fear of being robbed. Brazilians rarely carry cash, using
debit cards even to pay for a cup of espresso. In Sao Paulo, criminal
"sweeps" of restaurants and bars are common. An armed gang moves through
in a matter of minutes, relieving patrons of all their valuables..
A reader writes:
I lived in a Muslim country for two years never heard of one incident of crime. My first two years in Brazil, they shot my best student in the back and he dies in his mother`s arm, my uncle was murdered, they kidnapped my wife and son, stole everything including my dog & house (yeah how do you steal a house - corrupt judge), stole my business. Lying , crime, jealousy, envy are all part of the daily life in Brazil
. From a recent survey only one country has more murders than Brazil (45,000 in 2011) INDIA 49,000 . India has triple the population of Brazil. Like Nigeria, Brazil has oil money which creates a lot of greed which in turn creates jealousy that turns into violence!! Be careful people who come to the World Cup.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/
A reader writes:
I lived in a Muslim country for two years never heard of one incident of crime. My first two years in Brazil, they shot my best student in the back and he dies in his mother`s arm, my uncle was murdered, they kidnapped my wife and son, stole everything including my dog & house (yeah how do you steal a house - corrupt judge), stole my business. Lying , crime, jealousy, envy are all part of the daily life in Brazil
. From a recent survey only one country has more murders than Brazil (45,000 in 2011) INDIA 49,000 . India has triple the population of Brazil. Like Nigeria, Brazil has oil money which creates a lot of greed which in turn creates jealousy that turns into violence!! Be careful people who come to the World Cup.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/
---------------
8.36 Rewarding whistle blowers (28/11//2013)
Microsoft is scrambling to encrypt its data centers' interlinks – after a fresh Snowden leak suggested the NSA and GCHQ tapped into the cables and intercepted sensitive network traffic.
Documents obtained by the Washington Post from the whistleblower show that Microsoft's Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger services and Passport communications were scanned by software called Monkey Puzzle, which was developed at the British snooping nerve-center GCHQ.
Reaching into the private unencrypted interlinks allows both intelligence agencies to effectively spy on Microsoft customers, and copy their messages and address books, it is claimed.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/
--------------------
There is evidently a conflict between National Interest and what servers the world community best. Due to this conflict it may be impossible for national governments in some cases to reward whistle blowers.
To overcome this problem, it is worth looking into the possibility of the World Court including this item in their agenda - to bring relief to whistle blowers; with the proviso that governments will respect the verdict of the World Court.
Selvaraj
The International Court of Justice (French: Cour internationale de Justice; commonly referred to as the World Court or ICJ) is the primary judicial branch of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. Its main functions are to settle legal disputes submitted to it by states and to provide advisory opinions on legal questions submitted to it by duly authorized international branches, agencies, and the UN General Assembly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
8.37 The war on democracy (30/11//2013)
The report by the Center for Corporate Policy (CCP) in Washington DC titled Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage against Nonprofit Organizations
draws on a wide range of public record evidence, including lawsuits and
journalistic investigations. It paints a disturbing picture of a global
corporate espionage programme that is out of control, with possibly as
much as one in four activists being private spies.
The report argues that a key precondition for corporate espionage is that the nonprofit in question:
... The FBI's involvement in corporate espionage has been institutionalised through 'InfraGard', "a little-known partnership between private industry, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security." The partnership involves the participation of "more than 23,000 representatives of private industry," including 350 of the Fortune 500 companies.
.... Ironically, many of the same companies spearheading the war on democracy are also at war with planet earth - just last week the Guardian revealed that 90 of some of the biggest corporations generate nearly two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions and are thus overwhelmingly responsible for climate change.
http://www.theguardian.com/
------------------
Since a large number of the best
educated work for corporates, the only way out of this Catch 22
situation is that we spend only 50% of our time working for corporates,
and spend the remaining time working for social organizations. How we
spend our time is very important. The report argues that a key precondition for corporate espionage is that the nonprofit in question:
"... impairs or at least threatens a company's assets or image sufficiently.".. Many of the world's largest corporations and their trade associations - including the US Chamber of Commerce, Walmart, Monsanto, Bank of America, Dow Chemical, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Chevron, Burger King, McDonald's, Shell, BP, BAE, Sasol, Brown & Williamson and E.ON - have been linked to espionage or planned espionage against nonprofit organizations, activists and whistleblowers."
... The FBI's involvement in corporate espionage has been institutionalised through 'InfraGard', "a little-known partnership between private industry, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security." The partnership involves the participation of "more than 23,000 representatives of private industry," including 350 of the Fortune 500 companies.
.... Ironically, many of the same companies spearheading the war on democracy are also at war with planet earth - just last week the Guardian revealed that 90 of some of the biggest corporations generate nearly two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions and are thus overwhelmingly responsible for climate change.
http://www.theguardian.com/
------------------
8.38 Johnson & Johnson Cough Up $2.2 Billion (5/11//2013)
The settlement with the federal government and 45 states ends a decade-long inquiry into Risperdal Consta, one of the company’s best-selling drugs approved by regulators to treat schizophrenia in adults. J&J allegedly tried to broaden the market a bit, pitching the drug as a treatment for symptoms triggered by afflictions ranging from dementia to anxiety. The case rests on a strange wrinkle in U.S. health-care rules: Physicians can prescribe a drug to treat unapproved medical conditions even though it remains illegal for the drugmaker to market its pills for those treatments.
.. The deal represents the government’s third-largest settlement with a pharmaceutical company, yet the deception may still have been worth it for J&J: It sold $24.2 billion of Risperdal from 2003 to 2010. In 2007 alone, Risperdal accounted for 6 percent of all sales for the company. Patent protection expired in 2008, so the drug is now much less critical to J&J’s financial health.
http://www.businessweek.com/
8.39 Fiddle-faddle disguised as eloquence (21/11//2013)
Eloquence most flourished at Rome when the public affairs were in the worst condition — Michel de Montaigne.
What the French essayist wrote in the mid-16th century about Rome of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC is true for India of today, if one is to go by the absurd spectacle called channel discussion on prime time TV. Our public affairs are certainly in the worst condition but should we be subjected to such uncouth debates also?
What strikes most about these debates is the bankruptcy of thoughts and absurdity of ideas....
After watching a few such episodes, I’ve concluded it is better to skip the charade and use the time in a worthwhile manner. Reading even a paragraph of a good book is worth more than listening to the fiddle-faddle so dished out.
http://newindianexpress.com/
8.40 AIDS proves stubborn in Europe as new HIV infections rise (27/11/2013)
(Reuters) - Some 131,000 people were newly infected with HIV in Europe and nearby countries in 2012, an 8 percent rise from a year earlier and a worrying reversal of a recent downward trend in AIDS cases in the West.
A report published by the World Health Organisation's (WHO) European office and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) showed a steady increase in new HIV cases over the last year, but by far the majority of cases were in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
"The high and increasing number of AIDS cases in the East is indicative of late HIV diagnosis, low treatment coverage and delayed initiation of life-saving HIV treatment," the ECDC/WHO report said.
Some 76,000 new HIV infections were reported in Russia alone, accounting for more than half the region's cases.
... Michel Kazatchkine, the United Nation's HIV/AIDS Special Envoy in Eastern Europe, told Reuters in an interview this month that HIV epidemics are becoming more concentrated in marginalized groups such as sex workers, drug users and gay men, and could defy global attempts to combat AIDS if no progress is made in turning them around.
http://www.reuters.com/
8.41 Uncontacted tribes (5/12//2013)
It
is to be noted that the market for timber is mainly in the developed
countries. It is no coincidence that the developed world has turned a
Nelson's eye to the destruction of our forests (and also our seas - a
huge area; very little part of which is kept out of bounds for fishing).
Selvaraj
8.42 'Oscars of science' (8/12/2013)
Perhaps not surprisingly, Milner's prizes have come under some criticism
from scientists and even a few Nobel prizewinners, who claim they
benefit the egos of their founders more than anything else. They are,
says one physicist quoted in Nature magazine, "buying the
prestige of Nobel". After scientist Alexander Polyakov received his
orb-like Fundamental Physics prize from Morgan Freeman last March, and
instantly became a millionaire, he told Nature backstage that it was all an "interesting experiment. Such big prizes could have a positive impact," he added, "or they can be very dangerous."
http://www.theguardian.com/
------------------------------
The best tribute to Science and Scientists would be for the media
to go back to the pre Nobel Prize days, when they reported independently
and got people fired up about the 'science' .... the scientists behind
the 'science' only indirectly.http://www.theguardian.com/
------------------------------
Selvaraj
8.43 Bitcoins (9/12//2013)
Created in 2009 by a programmer using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is an Internet technology standard that runs across a wide number of servers around the world for regulating the creation and trading of bitcoins. It is not controlled by any nation, governing body or business.
The original computer code established the number of bitcoins in circulation and tracks ownership of the currency. The absence of government or corporate interference made bitcoin popular among technophiles with strong libertarian streaks.
But over the last four years, the currency has been elbowing its way from the digital ether into popular use — simply because people, companies and organizations have decided to believe that it has value as a currency. Indeed, bitcoin is only the most notable of many virtual currencies that have begun to proliferate worldwide.
http://www.latimes.com/
8.44 The power of corporates (13/12//2013)
Tobacco companies are pushing back against a worldwide rise in
antismoking laws, using a little-noticed legal strategy to delay or
block regulation. The industry is warning countries that their tobacco
laws violate an expanding web of trade and investment treaties, raising
the prospect of costly, prolonged legal battles, health advocates and
officials said.
.. Administration officials say they want the new treaty to raise standards for public health. They single out tobacco as a health concern, wording that upset the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, which said that the inclusion would leave the door open for other products, like soda or sugar, to be heavily regulated in other countries.
... In the early 1990s, the American government used to pressure countries to open their markets to American tobacco companies. As smoking rates in some of these countries rose, outrage grew, and President Bill Clinton issued an executive order in 2001 that banned the United States government from lobbying on the industry’s behalf.
... Even developed countries like Canada and New Zealand have backed away from planned tobacco laws in the face of investment treaty claims, Mr. Bollyky said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/.. Administration officials say they want the new treaty to raise standards for public health. They single out tobacco as a health concern, wording that upset the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, which said that the inclusion would leave the door open for other products, like soda or sugar, to be heavily regulated in other countries.
... In the early 1990s, the American government used to pressure countries to open their markets to American tobacco companies. As smoking rates in some of these countries rose, outrage grew, and President Bill Clinton issued an executive order in 2001 that banned the United States government from lobbying on the industry’s behalf.
... Even developed countries like Canada and New Zealand have backed away from planned tobacco laws in the face of investment treaty claims, Mr. Bollyky said.
8.45 Rewarding Whistle blowers (14/12//2013)
Tobacco companies are pushing back against a worldwide rise in
antismoking laws, using a little-noticed legal strategy to delay or
block regulation. The industry is warning countries that their tobacco
laws violate an expanding web of trade and investment treaties, raising
the prospect of costly, prolonged legal battles, health advocates and
officials said.
.. Administration officials say they want the new treaty to raise standards for public health. They single out tobacco as a health concern, wording that upset the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, which said that the inclusion would leave the door open for other products, like soda or sugar, to be heavily regulated in other countries.
... In the early 1990s, the American government used to pressure countries to open their markets to American tobacco companies. As smoking rates in some of these countries rose, outrage grew, and President Bill Clinton issued an executive order in 2001 that banned the United States government from lobbying on the industry’s behalf.
... Even developed countries like Canada and New Zealand have backed away from planned tobacco laws in the face of investment treaty claims, Mr. Bollyky said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/.. Administration officials say they want the new treaty to raise standards for public health. They single out tobacco as a health concern, wording that upset the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, which said that the inclusion would leave the door open for other products, like soda or sugar, to be heavily regulated in other countries.
... In the early 1990s, the American government used to pressure countries to open their markets to American tobacco companies. As smoking rates in some of these countries rose, outrage grew, and President Bill Clinton issued an executive order in 2001 that banned the United States government from lobbying on the industry’s behalf.
... Even developed countries like Canada and New Zealand have backed away from planned tobacco laws in the face of investment treaty claims, Mr. Bollyky said.
8.46 Preserving human dignity (19/12//2013)
He said Khobragade had been "fully searched" by a female deputy
marshal after her arrest. "This is standard practice for every
defendant, rich or poor, American or not," said Bharara, who was born in
India, raised in New Jersey and has built a reputation as "The Sheriff
of Wall Street" for his prosecution of insider trading cases.
http://www.financialexpress.
---------------
USA probably needs to
review how it treats prisoners. There is after all something called
commonsense and preserving human dignity. http://www.financialexpress.
---------------
.. The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/
8.47 How the notion of retirement for workers took root (29.12/2013)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Work until you die — or until you can't work anymore.
Until the late 19th century, that was the old-age plan for the bulk of the world's workers.
Only in 1889 did German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduce modern pensions. Bismarck wasn't really motivated by compassion for the plight of the working class. He wanted to pre-empt a growing socialist movement in Germany before it grew any more powerful...
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/
8.48 World consumption graph (30/12//2013)
World consumption graph:
http://public.wsu.edu/~mreed/
(The data is from 2008)http://public.wsu.edu/~mreed/
---------------------------
8.49 Population growth rate / doubling of population (31/12//2013)
The U.S. economy is picking up steam—but not enough, apparently, to nudge up the nation’s population that much.
America’s population grew just 0.72%, or 2,255,154 people, between July 2012 and July 2013, to 316,128,839, Census said on Monday. That is the weakest rate of growth since after the Great Depression, according to an analysis of Census data by demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution.
Separately, Census also said Monday it expects the population to hit 317.3 million on Jan. 1, 2014, a projected increase of 2,218,622, or 0.7%, from New Year’s Day 2013.
Growth in the U.S. population has been muted in recent years thanks in part to the 2007-2009 recession and slow recovery, which made America less attractive to immigrants looking for work and discouraged people from having children or moving across state lines.
The latest government reports suggest state-to-state migration remains modest. While middle-age and older people appear to be packing their bags more, the young—who move the most—are largely staying put. And demographers are still waiting to see an expected post-recession uptick in births as U.S. women who put off children now decide to have them.
“We’re still stuck in the aftermath of the recession—leading to diminished immigration, low fertility and below-normal movement across state lines to prosperous areas,” Mr. Frey said.
The U.S. population grew only 0.74% between 2011 and 2012 and 0.73% between 2010 and 2011. Those rates are well below the average of 1.2% seen during the economic boom of the 1990s—and indeed, since the end of World War II. In the 1950s, to give you a sense, the population grew about 1.8% a year on average.
http://blogs.wsj.com/
-----------
Looks like economists, who like to see growth in everything, are not too happy with the U.S. population growth figures :-)
Even with the miserly growth rate of 0.72%, the U.S. population will double in about 90 years. At 1.2% growth rate the doubling time will be 58 years.
For our (Indian) population growth rate of 1.3%, the doubling time is 54 years. In other words if we continue in the same trajectory, in another 54 years we will be 2.4 billion strong!
(Evidently our educational system is doing a poor job of teaching maths)
https://www.google.co.in/#q=
Population growth rate as seen in this graph seems to be leveling out for India and China. At 0.5% growth rate for China, their population will double in 140 years.
There is no escaping the exponential function. The rational thing for us to do is to calculate the safe human population for planet earth and collectively aim to achieve that figure. Will make life difficult for the next two or three generations, but will be a gift to the generations that come later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Selvaraj
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