Group items tagged

Finally, countless Americans are, by world standards, vastly over-paid and have been found out. There is nothing a laborer in Manhattan can do that someone just as competent but living in El Salvador cannot do for perhaps one-fifth the price. It should be no surprise that 6% of the world's population can no longer enjoy 25% of the world's output -- there was no place to go but down.

Normally, the lack of a middle class would preclude a nation from being a world power, but the Anglo-American establishment was able to pay for American industrialization by borrowing British capital; from America’s inception until World War I, it was a debtor nation.

Unlike England, which prior to the welfare state of 1909, really did have a large middle class (roughly 40% of the population) America never did; for most of its history the middle class have never been more than 6% of Americans (probably less the 3% today). Middle Class values were the preserve of the WASP establishment, a small elite of German Jews, an even smaller elite of African-Americansand an assortment of assimilated white “ethnics”, but for the most part the American population was working class; focused on today, consuming all they produced.

Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. Cosmopolitanism may entail some sort of world government or it may simply refer to more inclusive moral, economic, and/or political relationships between nations or individuals of different nations. A person who adheres to the idea of cosmopolitanism in any of its forms is called a cosmopolitan or cosmopolite.[1] A cosmopolitan community might be based on an inclusive morality, a shared economic relationship, or a political structure that encompasses different nations. In its more positive versions, the cosmopolitan community is one in which individuals from different places (e.g. nation-states) form relationships of mutual respect. As an example, Kwame Anthony Appiah suggests the possibility of a cosmopolitan community in which individuals from varying locations (physical, economic, etc.) enter relationships of mutual respect despite their differing beliefs (religious, political, etc.).[2]

Cosmopolitanism can be traced back to Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 B.C.), the founding father of the Cynic movement in Ancient Greece. Of Diogenes it is said: "Asked where he came from, he answered: 'I am a citizen of the world (kosmopolitês)'".[3] This was a ground-breaking concept, because the broadest basis of social identity in Greece at that time was either the individual city-state or the Greeks (Hellenes) as a group.

In his 1795 essay Perpetual Peace, Immanuel Kant stages a ius cosmopoliticum (cosmopolitan law/right) as a guiding principle to protect people from war, and morally grounds this cosmopolitan right by the principle of universal hospitality. Kant there claimed that the expansion of hospitality with regard to "use of the right to the earth's surface which belongs to the human race in common" (see common heritage of humanity) would "finally bring the human race ever closer to a cosmopolitan constitution".[6]

The Lone Gunmen (TV series)

The Lone Gunmen was first broadcast in March 2001 and, despite positive reviews, its ratings dropped.[1]

The series revolved around the three characters of The Lone Gunmen: Melvin Frohike, John Fitzgerald Byers and Richard Langly, a group of "geeky" investigators who ran a conspiracy theory magazine. They had often helped FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files.

TIL That google offers free legal download of music in China, in a partnership with the largest record labels in the world (since 2009). All of this while they sue children for illegally sharing music in the western world. (self.todayilearned)

I have been watching the SOPA/PIPA drama unfold, so thought I would share something that perhaps not everyone of you may know of. It took me three years to realize that google offers a free legal way to download music for people located in China (since 2009): www.google.cn/music/ It is backed by Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group, Universal Music and the Warner Music Group. So much for the RIAA suing families and kids in the western world for illegally sharing music for free when they give it out legally and for free - at the same time - to China. Hope Google will do the same with the MPAA for TV shows and movies. Let's just say I've been downloading like a mad man lately - legally for free :) NY Times article from 2009

[–]NorsteinBekkler 419 points420 points421 points 6 months agosorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on1 - Set up a proxy that runs through a Chinese server. 2 - DOWNLOAD ALL THE THINGS. 3 - Tell the RIAA to go fuck themselves.

"They’ll say the IMF is arrogant. They’ll say the IMF doesn’t really listen to the developing countries it is supposed to help. They’ll say the IMF is secretive and insulated from democratic accountability. They’ll say the IMF's economic ‘remedies’ often make things worse – turning slowdowns into recessions and recessions into depressions. And they’ll have a point. I was chief economist at the World Bank from 1996 until last November, during the gravest global economic crisis in a half-century. I saw how the IMF, in tandem with the U.S. Treasury Department, responded. And I was appalled."

Initiative for Policy Dialogue In July 2000 Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), with support of the Ford, Rockefeller, McArthur, and Mott Foundations and the Canadian and Swedish governments, to enhance democratic processes for decision-making in developing countries and to ensure that a broader range of alternatives are on the table and more stakeholders are at the table.

Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System Stiglitz at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, 2009. In 2009, Stiglitz chaired the Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System which was convened by the President of the United Nations General Assembly "to review the workings of the global financial system, including major bodies such as the World Bank and the IMF, and to suggest steps to be taken by Member States to secure a more sustainable and just global economic order".[41] Its final report was released on 21 September 2009.[42][43]

SL is a Linux release put together by Fermilab, CERN, and various other labs and universities around the world. Its primary purpose is to reduce duplicated effort of the labs, and to have a common install base for the various experimenters.

Our main goal for the base distribution is to have everything compatible with Enterprise, with only a few minor additions or changes. Examples of items that were added are Alpine, and OpenAFS. Our secondary goal is to allow easy customization for a site, without disturbing the Scientific Linux base. The various labs are able to add their own modifications to their own site areas. By the magic of scripts, and the anaconda installer, each site is to be able to create their own distributions with minimal effort. Or, if a user wishes, they can simply install the base SL release.

Forget Mother Nature: This is a world of our making

Humans have transformed Earth beyond recovery – but rather than look back in despair we should look ahead to what we can achieve

o Mr Stiglitz, this inequality is the result of public policy being captured by a

To Mr Stiglitz, this inequality is the result of public policy being captured by an elite who have feathered their own nests at the expense of the rest. They have used their power to distort political debate, pushing through tax cuts to favour the rich and adjusting monetary policy to favour the banks. Many of the new rich are not entrepreneurs but “rent-seekers”, he says, who use monopoly power to boost profits. Mr Stiglitz's views are representative of clever, leftish America and Mr Stiglitz is (mostly) skilled at making his argument. Imagine, he says, what it would be like if the world had free movement of labour, but not of capital. “Countries would compete to attract workers. They would promise good schools and a good environment, as well as low taxes on workers. This could be financed by high taxes on capital.” The result would be a much more equal society. Mr Stiglitz's argument would benefit, however, from a better sense of history and geography. He points to the period between 1950 and 1980 as one where inequality was much reduced. But that was a highly unusual time. For much of recorded history there has been a huge gap between a wealthy landowning class and the rest; the Rockefellers and Carnegies were much richer (in real terms) than any modern plutocrat. Mr Stiglitz also views the housing boom and bust as another result of misguided American policy, but Spain and Ireland had property bubbles too—and they are much more equal societies.

When it comes to solutions to the inequality problem, Mr Stiglitz wants a top income tax rate of “well in excess of” 50%, targeted fiscal stimulus and greater bank regulation. Here, perhaps, he might have been more open about the trade-offs. Controls on bank leverage, caps on interest rates and greater protection for bankrupts are all likely to reduce bank lending at a time when there already is a credit squeeze. He admits that the 2009 fiscal stimulus was “not as well designed as it could have been”, but blithely hopes that the convoluted American budget-setting process will result in much better stimulus packages in future. Whether or not he has the right answers, Mr Stiglitz is surely right to focus on the issue. Across the developed world, the average worker is suffering a squeeze in living standards while bankers and chief executives are still doing very nicely. This dichotomy is bound to have social and political consequences.

Even the Buddhist ideal of having no desires, and hence no unsatisfied desires, is extremely difficult to achieve and maintain for a whole society – not least of all for younger people (who, Daleiden says, have less self control). Science of morality could never yield a utopia. Nevertheless, science of morality could greatly increase well-being for very many people.[54]

Daleiden's last factor in prosocial training, mental associations, is quite familiar: he says it has been traditionally understood as the conscience – where the student learns to feel empathy, and to feel regret for harming others. Unless an individual can, and begins to feel empathy, it may be unlikely that any amount of reasoning, or any coherent moral system will motivate them to behave very altruistically.

it should be the intention of adults to shape children, or presumably "indoctrinate" them, to think critically. He adds that the focus is on especially socially relevant values (e.g. kindness, sharing, reasoning) and not the more personal

We live in a world of too much information. With thousands of stories published each day, how can you find the best quality and the most compelling? We think the answer lies with people. We humans have an instinct for good stories, and we know the news stories worth sharing with our friends. So we’ve built a technology that tracks all the news shared on Facebook and Twitter each day, to find the fastest spreading, most shared, highest quality stuff, and reveal it to the world.

How it works NewsWhip's technology tracks all the news published by about 5,000 English-language sources –about 60,000 news stories each day. It gathers social data for each story – how many shares, likes, tweets and comments it has – at repeated intervals, building a live picture of how popular it is, right now. With this information, it calculates a social speed at which each story is travelling. The process is unique, new, and patent pending.

TIL we could cut the US defense budget in half ... spend an extra $150B per year on NASA, mail every person in the United States a check for $500 ... and still have the largest defense budget in the world by a factor of three.

Sullivan was hit by lightning on seven different occasions and survived all of them. For this reason, he gained a nickname "Human Lightning Conductor" or "Human Lightning Rod". Sullivan is recognized by Guinness World Records as the person struck by lightning more recorded times than any other human being.

The tallest of the tall is 379 feet 4 inches, 10 feet taller than the Giant. It's now called

"Hyperion

"its mass is equivalent to 15 adult blue whales, the largest animal on earth. Each year, this tree produces enough new wood to make a 90-foot-tall tree with a trunk 12 inches in diameter. If all of Del Norte Titan were cut into boards one foot wide, 12 feet long and one inch thick, the line of planks laid end to end would stretch over a hundred miles and could build 120 average-sized houses."

ources are reporting a strong improvement in Iceland's financial situation

Iceland

Electronic direct democracy It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with E-democracy. (Discuss) Proposed since December 2011. Electronic direct democracy (EDD), also known as Direct Digital Democracy (DDD)[22] or E-democracy[22], is a form of direct democracy which utilizes telecommunications to facilitate public participation. Electronic direct democracy is sometimes referred to by other names, such as open source governance and collaborative governance.[citation needed] EDD requires electronic voting or some way to register votes on issues electronically. As in any direct democracy, in an EDD, citizens would have the right to vote on legislation, author new legislation, and recall representatives (if any representatives are preserved).[citation needed]

EDD as a system is not fully implemented in a political government anywhere in the world, although several initiatives are currently forming. Ross Perot was a prominent advocate of EDD when he advocated "electronic town halls" during his 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns in the United States. Switzerland, already partially governed by direct democracy, is making progress towards such a system

The first mainstream direct democracy party to be registered with any country's electoral commission [checked against each country's register] is the UK's People's Administration Direct Democracy party. The People's Administration have developed and published the complete architecture for a legitimate reform to EDD [including the required Parliamentary reform process]. Established by musicians [including Alex Romane] and political activists, the People's Administration advocates using the web and telephone to enable the majority electorate to create, propose and vote upon all policy implementation. The People's Administration's blueprint has been published in various forms since 1998 and the People's Administration is the first direct democracy party registered in a vote-able format anywhere in the world - making transition possible through evolution via election with legitimate majority support, instead of potentially through revolution via violence.