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Sean McBride › Comments
Google Knowledge Graph – The secret ingredient behind voice search | Fusion Unlimited - http://www.fusionunlimited.co.uk/blog...
"Enter knowledge graph. This has turned voice search into something which is useful and something end users can use every day. The knowledge graph has transformed voice search into conversational search and it has worked, even in the early days of the transition. Conversational search can start with something simple but will impress you with the complexity of what it knows."
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
term; conversational search
- Sean McBride
Key intersecting research fronts: conversational search, lifelogging, smart personal assistants, recommender systems, voice search
- Sean McBride
Google Now & Its Magical Predictive Search Assistant: The Leap Into The Future | Search Engine People | Toronto - http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog...
"The magic of Google Now and the heart of this service is the "predictive" search assistant that works on my behalf and anticipates my every need, sometimes even before I know I need it. The key word here, after all, is "assistant" and this amazing assistant uses multiple sources of data to help build a collection of preferences just for me. Google knows me, it knows my friends (Gmail) it knows my every step (GPS) it knows who I see (Google Calendar) and what I read (Google Search) and it pulls all this data together to help me in a most ingenious way. I LOVE it!"
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
But how much of this sensitive personal data is going to end up in the hands of government agencies or hackers working for criminal enterprises?
- Sean McBride
Six ways to say that Doug Cutting is the creator of Hadoop in NML (Notes Markup Language)
1. c; Hadoop creator; Doug Cutting {c; *category; *instance} {c; *creation creator; *creator}
- Sean McBride
2. Doug Cutting /creator-of Hadoop {*object /*property *value}
- Sean McBride
3. f; Doug Cutting created Hadoop. {f; *fact} // expressed as a single simple sentence
- Sean McBride
4. f; Hadoop was created by Doug Cutting. {f; *fact} // expressed as a single simple sentence
- Sean McBride
5. Hadoop /creator Doug Cutting {*object /*property *value}
- Sean McBride
6. i; Doug Cutting; Hadoop creator {i; *instance; *category} {i; *instance; *creation creator}
- Sean McBride
China’s Economic Growth And Its Environmental Impact | On Point with Tom Ashbrook - http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013...
"Smelly foam oozing from the streets of Beijing. Smog so thick, you can’t see the next block. China is home to one fifth of humanity. It produces a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and receives almost half of all the coal burned on earth. And, its appetite for energy won’t peak for years. How did the air, water, wildlife and dirt in China get so bad? What can be done to fix it? Our guest today warns of global environmental disaster and he’s in the thick of it. This hour, On Point: China’s assault on Planet Earth."
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
An issue of vastly greater strategic importance than political unrest in Syria.
- Sean McBride
Meet the contractors analyzing your private data - Salon.com - http://www.salon.com/2013...
"One of NSA’s most important contractors may be Narus, a subsidiary of Boeing that makes a key telecommunications software that allows government agencies and corporations to monitor huge amounts of data flowing over fiber-optic cables. According to Bill Binney, one of four NSA whistle-blowers who’ve been warning about NSA’s immense powers, one Narus device can analyze 1,250,000 1,000-character emails every second. That comes to over 100 billion emails a day."
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
Israeli financial daily: Ben Bernanke may replace Stanley Fischer as head of Israel Bank | +972 Magazine - http://972mag.com/nstt_fe...
"Israel’s largest financial daily, Calcalist, reports today [Heb] on rumors that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, will replace Stanley Fischer as head of the Israel Bank. Amnon Atad, a veteran reporter who is known for his extensive behind the scenes knowledge of the Bank of Israel, discusses the possible “mother of all surprises” that Prime Minister Netanyahu may be preparing."
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
"Ben Shalom Bernanke is very much a “Fischer compatible.” He’s also a well known and experienced economics professor, Jewish, and speaks Hebrew."
- Sean McBride
fischer was bernanke's thesis advisor at mit, and bernanke was housemates with lloyd blankfein at harvard.
- pepsi
Interesting facts to know in the way of social network analysis and the understanding of tribal and power elite networking. But keep in mind that all groups do it.
- Sean McBride
Putin denies stealing super bowl ring: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013...
NE Patriots owner Kraft is a super fan of Israel and US wars to protect Israel. He's on the board of his buddy Les Moonves' CBS and is a prospective buyer of the Boston Globe. I suspect this tale about Putin is related to Syria escalation and a taste of what Putin can expect if he doesnt stand down and let Assad fall.
- pepsi
when the globe editorial page published a 'courageous' editorial defending bds as legitimate, i suspected it was a sales tactic to persuade kraft to buy the paper.
- pepsi
the patriots also just signed evangelical christian super celebrity Tim Tebow. Outspoken Tebow support for Israel would be a PR coup, especially if Tebow gets on the field to maintain his exposure and the media circus around him.
- pepsi
The Putin/ring and Tebow stories -- weird. Is Kraft the kind of person who would be skilled at playing mind games? Probably -- he's krafty (oops).
- Sean McBride
Google needs to build a new system from the ground up that provides powerful encryption and privacy by default.
That wouldn't be in their best interest (targeted advertising). And how would you know there wouldn't be back door access to the data.
- Stephan Planken
from iPhone
An open source system that is continuously auditable by independent experts would solve the backdoor problem. If leading Internet services refuse to build these systems, perhaps they will go out of business.
- Sean McBride
Google and Auditable by anyone else other than Google? Dude.. keep smoking whatever it is.. You obviously must be reading different things about Google than the rest of the world.
- Me
I think Google going forward is going to be intensely preoccupied with maintaining the trust of its users.
- Sean McBride
There is a potential for upstart Internet services with a dedication to privacy issues to pull the rug out from under today's leading Internet services. Watch and see.
- Sean McBride
Possibly, hopefully. But the people concerned with this will be such a small group that big players like google may not care.
- Stephan Planken
from iPhone
The general public may begin to understand how Big Data mining and profiling methods can be abused in a wide variety of scary ways -- and start scrambling towards secure Internet services.
- Sean McBride
I don't know how this would work. Let's take gmail for example. If the encryption is end to end, where only the browser gets to decrypt, then you can't index the emails on the server, and the search doesn't work. Then gmail becomes mostly useless. If the encryption is on the server side, then search works again, but government agencies are going to be able to get to the data. Do you have a third proposal?
- Amit Patel
I do -- but I am still working out the concept. Stay tuned.
- Sean McBride
Every particular and detail in the universe can be precisely situated on branches of the World Tree.
branch=a particular sequence of chained semantic triples
- Sean McBride
Branches of chained triples are Lego building blocks for the Supreme Semantic Tree.
- Sean McBride
neocon op /i FPI (Foreign Policy Initiative) /founder William Kristol /affiliation Weekly Standard /writer Reuel Marc Gerecht {chained triples}
chain; neocon op [instance] FPI (Foreign Policy Initiative) [founder] William Kristol [affiliation] Weekly Standard [writer] Reuel Marc Gerecht
- Sean McBride
{chain; *object [*property] *value/*object [*property] *value/*object+}
- Sean McBride
chained triples with dozens, hundreds, thousands or millions of elements
- Sean McBride
sort chains between *object1 and *object2 by importance
- Sean McBride
sort *number-link chains between *object1 and *object2 by importance
- Sean McBride
Two groups of people in the world: 1. those obsessed with controlling the behavior of others 2. those focused on their creative work.
Control freaks vs. creators. Creators generally thrive in chaos and rule-breaking -- that is almost the definition of creativity.
- Sean McBride
Control freaks are dry holes -- they have abundant free time and energy to worry about monitoring and controlling the behavior of others because little of interest is going on in their minds.
- Sean McBride
Chemical Weapons Experts Still Skeptical About US Claim That Syria Used Sarin - http://truth-out.org/news...
"Chemical weapons experts voiced skepticism Friday about U.S. claims that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad had used the nerve agent sarin against rebels on at least four occasions this spring, saying that while the use of such a weapon is always possible, they’ve yet to see the telltale signs of a sarin gas attack, despite months of scrutiny."
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
Iraqi WMDs all over again -- same game.
- Sean McBride
Daily Kos: Glenn Greenwald Sums It Up In One Paragraph - http://www.dailykos.com/story...
"How can anyone think that it's remotely healthy in a democracy to have the NSA building a massive spying apparatus about which even members of Congress, including Senators on the Homeland Security Committee, are totally ignorant and find "astounding" when they learn of them? How can anyone claim with a straight face that there is robust oversight when even members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are so constrained in their ability to act that they are reduced to issuing vague, impotent warnings to the public about what they call radical "secret law" enabling domestic spying that would "stun" Americans to learn about it, but are barred to disclose what it is they're so alarmed by? Put another way, how can anyone contest the value and justifiability of the stories that we were able to publish as a result of Edward Snowden's whistleblowing: stories that informed the American public - including even the US Congress - about these incredibly consequential programs? What kind of person would think that it would be preferable to remain in the dark - totally ignorant - about them?"
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
What kind of person? -- someone who intends to rule over and benefit from a turnkey totalitarian state.
- Sean McBride
How To Make a Mint: The Cryptography of Anonymous Electronic Cash http://prsm.tc/bjojA6 via @prismatic
Fortunes could be made by developing state-of-the-art point-to-point encrypted systems for all areas of Internet activity -- open source systems that are auditable on a regular basis by independent experts.
- Sean McBride
Opt out of PRISM, the NSA’s global data surveillance program - PRISM BREAK - http://prism-break.org/
Has it really come to the point where we can't use any products or services from AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Paypal and Yahoo? Have the turnkey totalitarians ruined the mainstream Internet industry?
- Sean McBride
RT @ggreenwald: Bruce Schneier on PRISM denials: "Everyone is playing word games, No one is telling the truth." http://bigstory.ap.org/article...
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9/11 was the perfect catalyst.
- Stephan Planken
from iPhone
That was probably the plan from the beginning -- starting long before 9/11.
- Sean McBride
I'm not understanding exactly what role ssl plays. Articles keep referring to, for example, bank transactions. So all a 3rd party would know is that there is a connection between two parties. Am I missing something? Also, I wish encryption (like pgp) would be supported by the default mail app on ios.
- Stephan Planken
from iPhone
Here's The Latest Threat To Oracle's Database Empire http://prsm.tc/QfmoTM via @prismatic
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eslr liked this
It's noSQL.
- Sean McBride
"The biggest companies in the world keep their most valuable data in Oracle databases."
- Sean McBride
"Until recently, makers of noSQL databases said their tech didn't really compete with Oracle's because it fits different needs. "Traditional relational databases are not going to go away," Dwight Merriman, cofounder of the noSQL company 10gen told Business Insider in November. 10gen makes a popular noSQL database called MongoDB. Now 10gen's competitor, Jonathan Ellis, is challenging...
more...
- Sean McBride
trend; MongoDB+ Cassandra+ Oracle- {trend; *object(*, +|-)+} // MongoDB and Cassandra are uptrending; Oracle is downtrending
- Sean McBride
MongoDB has so many issues, it becomes a bit of a pain in the ass pretty quickly; it's primary use case is prototyping or smaller apps, but you have to prepare for a rewrite if you need to sustain growth. Cassandra has a limited use case, that's been gradually eaten into by the likes of HBase & Hive. Honestly, PostrgreSQL and MySQL(MariaDB) are still great, stable, and well known. I...
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- Jimminy
Jimminy -- great and well-informed comment! When all this gets sorted out, I do think that Oracle will face extinction.
- Sean McBride
The only threat to Oracle is Oracle's incompetence (mainly lack of respect for developers.)
- Jimminy
Perhaps Larry Ellison is more preoccupied with spending his wealth these days than in developing innovative technologies -- and who could blame him.
- Sean McBride
With the new release Cassandra is very attractive and it must be scary for Oracle that they can't be bought.
- Todd Hoff
Relational databases are not optimized for handling unstructured data, and unstructured data is the future.
- Sean McBride
Unstructured data is a mess, and the majority of the time means nobody even attempted to structure it. Then again, a lot of "unstructured" data is internally structured, so it's not that hard to unroll.
- Jimminy
That's the point: to develop slick methods for dealing with and organizing the mess for advanced data mining.
- Sean McBride
Researchers in natural language processing have been wrestling with these problems for decades -- it's a slow slog, but progress is being made. Natural language texts are as messy as it gets.
- Sean McBride
sort [Cassandra, CouchDB, HBase, Hive, MongoDB, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Redis, Riak] by (*, downtrend, number of users, percentage increase in number of users for the past year, uptrend)
- Sean McBride
RT @gregmitch: Niall Ferguson on Maher show making fool of self live instead of just in print.
Appalling performance -- arrogant, obnoxious, bullying, ignorant, etc. -- pure neocon.
- Sean McBride
# object; Cassandra; *property; *value
0. *property 1. article 2. book 3. category 4. competitor 5. creator 6. date 7. expert 8. note 9. topic 10. T Score 11. tutorial 12. video 13. website
- Sean McBride
Is Obama now in total political free fall?
It looks that way.
- Sean McBride
Interesting item on Santorum in politico. http://www.politico.com/story... He has it right and the Republicans really are the stupid party not to have seen that opening.
- Berthe
There was an item the other day about Kaiser Permanente's proposed premiums under the new law and how high they will be. That is the story that is coming next year: What will the Obama bill do to premiums. Saw another story about Congressional staffers planning to leave because of the amendment Grassley attached to that bill requiring members and staff to be under Obama' bill, not the...
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- Berthe
The problem with Rick Santorum -- he's part of the anti-science/religious fundamentalist crowd. The GOP needs to dump that stupid baggage before it can get back on its feet.
- Sean McBride
My insurance premiums have already gone way up, and no one in my family has any special issues. Obama may be in a free fall, but it doesn't seem that anyone wants to take advantage of the situation.
- Todd
Sorry about your insurance premiums. It's my fault. I previously couldn't get insurance and now I have some. As we unhealthy people get added to the pool everyone else's insurance rates will go up…
- Amit Patel
Amit, the Obama bill will turn out to be a bad way to do it. There must have been better ideas for covering pre-existing conditions than this "comprehensive" bill. I am wary of anything "comprehensive." I did see an article on the idea of the federal government sponsoring insurance for people with pre-existing conditions and wonder why that is not as logical as flood insurance for areas...
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- Berthe
I'll send you a bill, Amit. :)
- Todd
The 40 Biggest Economies In The World - Business Insider - http://www.businessinsider.com/largest...
1. United States 2. China 3. Japan 4. Germany 5. France 6. Brazil 7. Britain 8. Italy 9. Russia 10. India 11. Canada 12. Spain 13. Australia 14. Mexico 15. South Korea 16. Indonesia 17. Netherlands 18. Turkey 19. Switzerland 20. Saudi Arabia 21. Sweden 22. Poland 23. Belgium 24. Norway 25. Argentina 26. Austria 27. South Africa 28. UAE 29. Taiwan 30. Thailand 31. Denmark 32. Colombia 33. Iran 34. Venezuela 35. Greece 36. Malaysia 37. Finland 38. Hong Kong 39. Chile 40. Nigeria
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
For people who become overfocused on Israel and "the Jews," it's important to keep the big picture in mind.
- Sean McBride
Israel doesn't even appear on the list of the world's top 40 economies.
- Sean McBride
Counter-perspective: 1. Jews are greatly overrepresented among the world's billionaires compared to other ethnic and religious groups. 2. Jews exert considerable financial, political and cultural influence on the world's biggest economy: the United States. 3. Therefore, Israel's impact on the world is much greater than its GDP would suggest.
- Sean McBride
Israel would be #41. Chile and Nigeria are very close. Israel would follow as its GDP is close to Nigeria's. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/nigeria...
- MRW_8
Isn't this a cooler interface than Facebook or Twitter? I think so. But few people seem to agree. Mysteries abound. There is no accounting for taste.
Micah, Stephan Planken, Russian Space Lizard and 2 other people liked this
I like how uncluttered it is.
- Kelli H.
Uncluttered, clean, flexible.
- Sean McBride
See How PRISM May Work — in This Infographic - http://mashable.com/2013...
Nils Sandin and .LAG liked that liked this
"Thanks to documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, we learned last week about a secret NSA program called PRISM. The program allegedly allows the U.S. government to access the data of foreign users using services like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo. But how does the program really work?"
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
At least they use secure ftp.
- Todd Hoff
PRISM Is Just Part Of A Much Larger, Scarier Government Surveillance Program - http://www.businessinsider.com/prism-i...
"Often there was no easy way to tell if the information belonged to foreigners or Americans. So much data was changing hands that one former Microsoft employee recalls that the engineers were anxious about whether the company should cooperate. Inside Microsoft, some called it "Hoovering" — not after the vacuum cleaner, but after J. Edgar Hoover, the first FBI director, who gathered dirt on countless Americans."
- Sean McBride
"This frenetic, manual process was the forerunner to Prism, the recently revealed highly classified National Security Agency program that seizes records from Internet companies. As laws changed and technology improved, the government and industry moved toward a streamlined, electronic process, which required less time from the companies and provided the government data in a more standard format."
- Sean McBride
"[I]nterviews with more than a dozen current and former government and technology officials and outside experts show that, while Prism has attracted the recent attention, the program actually is a relatively small part of a much more expansive and intrusive eavesdropping effort."
- Sean McBride
Peter Beinart’s Bias Against Me, Cory Booker, and Israel - The Daily Beast - http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...
Is it possible to take seriously someone who describes himself as the "personal emissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe"? And would Boteach object if we took a close look at the cult belief system of said Rebbe -- particularly his attitudes towards non-Jews?
- Sean McBride
On the operations of the Israel lobby: "I introduced Cory to the leadership of AIPAC and arranged for him to lecture to AIPAC throughout the United States and introduced him for his lectures to AIPAC on many occasions (the videos are available on YouTube). I also arranged for Cory to be briefed at my home by Howard Kohr, the Executive Director of AIPAC, and its President, David Victor...."
- Sean McBride
"I took the Rev. Al Sharpton to Israel right after the 9/11 attacks...."
- Sean McBride
"When I ran for Congress last year, I emerged as one of the country’s foremost advocates for American intervention in Syria...."
- Sean McBride
"Today, evangelical Christians have emerged as Israel’s most vociferous friends and defenders and I salute their uncompromising friendship."
- Sean McBride
"As far as the people of Hebron are concerned, I absolutely believe that the settlers of Hebron are peaceful."
- Sean McBride
"What confused apologists like Peter don’t understand is that Israel is a great blessing not just to Jews but especially to Arabs."
- Sean McBride
Boteach's rhetorical style (in his own words): biased, cowardly, craven, deeply libelous slur, disgusting, malicious lie, nauseating, prejudiced, etc.
- Sean McBride
Boteach comes across as a manipulative con man supreme, overflowing with false sentiments, false sentimentality and false flattery -- all driven at the core by his messianic self-absorbed ethno-religious nationalism. He makes one laugh out loud -- the ranting self-righteousness and towering moral outrage. Who can't see through it? Cory Booker, for one.
- Sean McBride
Cults that are immersed in weepy and overwrought group "enthusiasm" and "idealism" -- they never pan out. They're delusional. They lie to themselves. They specialize in self-hypnosis. Often they claim to be on a mission from God to save the world.
- Sean McBride
Boteach is a perfect example of the campaign among many Jewish leaders to fuse Judaism and Zionism into a single messianic ideology -- with absolutely no regard for the almost certain disastrous consequences for both Judaism and Israel.
- Sean McBride
Judaism was always a messianic ideology centered around the return to jerusalem and rule over the world's goyim. Am i mistaken? 'campaign among many Jewish leaders to fuse Judaism and Zionism into a single messianic ideology'
- pepsi
According to the Jewish establishment itself these days -- including the Jewish religious establishment -- Zionism -- Jewish ethnic nationalism -- is a natural, organic and inevitable expression of ancient Judaism. If they don't know what they are talking about on this issue, who does?
- Sean McBride
Organic too, huh? Isn't that a loaded word? I guess it would be anti-Semitic to suggest that neocon and progressive Jews often seem to use similar tactics, and seem to be on the same side.
- Todd
This is a discussion that Mondoweiss writers and editors for the most part are unable to pursue and explore -- they are even unable to acknowledge that the issue exists. But it is by far the most important topic at the heart of all of Zionism's problems and bizarre self-destructive self-contradictions.
- Sean McBride
Many progressive Jews have been heavily indoctrinated in the same religion-based ethnic exceptionalist thinking as Likud Zionists -- that is the best way to understand "progressives" like Anthony Weiner.
- Sean McBride
"This is a discussion that Mondoweiss writers and editors for the most part are unable to pursue and explore -- they are even unable to acknowledge that the issue exists." Who is holding a gun to their heads? Seriously, with all of the moral posturing that Weiss has done over the years concerning the wrongs of other groups, why not delve further? Isn't that sort of questioning supposed to be a characteristic of Jewish intelligence and culture?
- Todd
Perhaps he is afraid that if he went too far down the path of honest questioning, his entire ground of being would crumble beneath his feet.
- Sean McBride
Sean, I don't think there is a person on earth who is truly honest with himself down to a bare bones level. Is it even possible? I don't hold that or Weiss' love of his Jewish identity against him. However, I think Weiss' issue is hypocrisy and a love of Jewish power and Jewish supremacy that he would claim to abhor in other groups..
- Todd
Zionism is Judaism, judaism is zionism. Judaism has always had disasterous consequences for judaism. If they weren't skillfully provoking and alienating the entire world from israel, they'd be doing it from somewhere else. Even a supremacist israel within its legal boundaries would have been tolerated and even embraced (as it was for decades) by most of the world. Jewish religion and...
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- pepsi
Why do homosexuals have an easier time accepting themselves and coming out of the closet than jews have accepting themselves as non-mystically superior?
- pepsi
to realize you are non-mystical/unexceptional is more earth shattering than to realize you are not straight?
- pepsi
I was heavily indoctrinated by Roman Catholicism as a child and took it very seriously. By my mid-teens I was reading the complete works of Nietzsche and Emerson, and had deconstructed my religious programming -- deprogrammed myself. I don't have much patience for otherwise smart people who can't apply their critical and independent minds to breaking out of these ideological boxes for themselves. I can easily relate to Gilad Atzmon -- he has that kind of mind.
- Sean McBride
But: Jewishness is much more than an abstract theological system which one can easily deconstruct and toss away: it's a rich and complex culture with many dimensions -- not so easy to discard -- perhaps impossible to discard for those have been immersed in it from infancy. One may find Judaism to be ridiculous, but still feel greatly attached to Jewish culture and Jewish civilization.
- Sean McBride
Jewishness is as much a set of mental attitudes, personality traits and cultural traditions as it is a commitment to particular theological beliefs.
- Sean McBride
9 Former NSA Employees Speak Out -- Daily Intelligencer - http://nymag.com/daily...
"The debate unleashed by Edward Snowden's revelations about the NSA has been fascinating, but we felt it would be improved if more actual NSA employees were involved. Unfortunately, it's pretty much impossible to get an NSA employee to speak on the record. So, instead, we did the next best thing: We reached out to former NSA employees, offering them 100 words to share their thoughts on the controversy. We didn't tell them what to write about and promised not to edit their passages in any way. While they may not have had firsthand experience with PRISM or the phone metadata program specifically, they do have unique insights into the agency and the issues it confronts. Here's what they had to say:"
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
The 40 Biggest Economies In The World - Business Insider - http://www.businessinsider.com/largest...
1. United States 2. China 3. Japan 4. Germany 5. France 6. Brazil 7. Britain 8. Italy 9. Russia 10. India 11. Canada 12. Spain 13. Australia 14. Mexico 15. South Korea 16. Indonesia 17. Netherlands 18. Turkey 19. Switzerland 20. Saudi Arabia 21. Sweden 22. Poland 23. Belgium 24. Norway 25. Argentina 26. Austria 27. South Africa 28. UAE 29. Taiwan 30. Thailand 31. Denmark 32. Colombia 33. Iran 34. Venezuela 35. Greece 36. Malaysia 37. Finland 38. Hong Kong 39. Chile 40. Nigeria
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
Obama's Syria Moves Threaten Foreign Policy Legacy - US News and World Report - http://www.usnews.com/news...
"By ramping up involvement in the ongoing Syrian conflict, President Barack Obama risks involving the United States in yet another prolonged Middle East conflict and undermining the foreign policy legacy he has tried to create, experts say."
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
The neocon "anti-terrorism" lobby considers Americans to be its greatest threat.
What did we do now?
- Berthe
:)
- Todd
We live; we breathe; we're savage beasts and supernal refuse.
- Sean McBride
RT @jayrosen_nyu: Clay Shirky on Edward Snowden, limitless executive power and the national security state. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment...
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ufuk, Greg GuitarBuster and Nils Sandin liked this
The founding fathers were so worried about designing to handle factions that they didn't realize the real danger would be around coalitions.
- Todd Hoff
"Beyond the leaks themselves, Snowden has exposed how the US government enforces secrecy in the very act of spying on us"
- Sean McBride
Ron Wyden: "When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they are going to be stunned, and they are going to be angry … many members of Congress have no idea how the law is being secretly interpreted by the executive branch, because that interpretation is classified. It's almost as if there were two Patriot Acts, and many members of Congress have not read the one that matters."
- Sean McBride
Surprise, surprise, member of Congress didn't read the bill. I heard a radio interview with a NH Senator (Ayotte) yesterday. She is a Republican and she announced she was voting for the immigration bill. The interviewer obviously opposed the bill so he asked good questions. She rambled on and on trying to chew up time and most of what she said was incorrect. This stuff has been in the...
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- Berthe
The American people in general are responsible for the massive dumbing down of Congress, don't you think? Why do they keep electing representatives who know so little about what is going in the world?
- Sean McBride
I don't agree with the view that Americans are responsible for the dumbing down of congress. My state and local leaders are generally much better than my national leaders, and it's not uncommon for national leaders to say one thing to the constituents and vote an entirely different way. There is a big difference between the state and national Republicans where I live, and it is clear...
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- Todd
One gets the impression that Americans are being steamrollered from the top down on immigration issues. You may be right on that. Who is behind that program and what motivates them?
- Sean McBride
But most Americans do *not* understand the current state of Big Data mining and automated social network analysis, and their potential abuses.
- Sean McBride
I'm sure that I don't know much about Big Data mining, but how much do I have to know to see the obvious threat? The first time I read about Echelon in the 90s, red flags went up. Then again, many people who would never allow their diaries to be posted online reveal their entire lives on Facebook. I would also guess that most people would refuse to allow a phone company employee to...
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- Todd
The top down steamrolling on the issue of immigration is blatant. There is no one reason or group that pushes the issue, but I would guess that there is a dominant force among the pro-immigration groups that is doing the heavy lifting. The demand for cheap labor is an obvious issue. I would also say that demographic change on the part of minority groups who dislike whites is an issue,...
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- Todd
The politician I most associate with "diversity" is our former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman. I can still hear her saying that word. Of course, she came from a life of total privilege. I think her father was head of the RNC in Eisenhower's time and her husband was a Wall Street millionaire. In other words, she would personally sacrifice nothing for "diversity." When it came to showing...
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- Berthe
Apparently, Congress has quietly decided to take up the Dream Act again. I don't see a reason to legalize a person just because his parents brought him to the U.S. illegally. To me that just means that the parents broke more than one immigration law. There is no good reason to allow these people to stay in the U.S., and I'd be willing to bet my own passport and citizenship that...
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- Todd
The Congress should not pass anything immigration-wise. None of it is an improvement and there is no crisis. They are just encouraging more to come. This is a must-read article, IMO: http://online.wsj.com/article... I remember when Clinton was touting "national service" as the way people would pay for college the...
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- Berthe
Few things ever turn out the way politicians claim. I agree with your view on immigration. The U.S. is certainly not a better place after the 86 amnesty, and it's no coincidence that wages have not risen when measured against inflation since. For entry-level and low pay jobs, wages have dropped. Before immigrants started moving into my hometown, fast food restaurants were advertising...
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- Todd
"One gets the impression that Americans are being steamrollered from the top down on immigration issues. You may be right on that. Who is behind that program and what motivates them?" - Sean McBride Who do you think is behind the push for immigration, Sean? I assume that almost every American has a opinion on this issue.
- Todd
I'm not sure -- I haven't taken a close look. The Democratic Party, seeking easy recruits to boost its numbers and political power? Corporations seeking cheap labor? Particular minority groups focused on identity politics seeking to increase their numbers and power vis-a-vis majority ethnic groups? Most Americans do not benefit from massive illegal immigration. This is a volatile topic: merely questioning large-scale illegal immigration can lead one to being attacked as a racist. Crazy stuff.
- Sean McBride
The Reagan and Nixon landslides probably have something to do with the situation for Democrats, but the 64 immigration act was well before democrats worried about losing elections in landslides. Either way, radically altering the nation and largely destroying the rule of law for votes is far closer to treasonous than anything Edward Snowden has done. Labor did the same thing in Britain,...
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- Todd
Public opinion in Britain may start moving in Hitchens' direction -- you can feel it in the air. Too much multiculturalism too fast simply can't work.
- Sean McBride
Re Immigration and earlier discussion about which side has the stupidest female politicians - Did you see this about Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) "A smart fence, which is what Senator McCain and I want to build--since he’s from Arizona, I think he knows more about this than the Senator from South Dakota who only has a border with Canada and that is quite different,” Landrieu said. What does she think the "South" refers to if not some other Dakota on top of that one?
- Berthe
The US Congress seems to be a magnet for the least bright people in America -- with a few notable exceptions. That is why it is held in such contempt by most Americans. But we vote these people into office.
- Sean McBride
As to why the politicians have been bringing in massive third world immigration by hook or by crook for the last 50 years, I honestly think they hate Americans. As I understand it, 50 years ago those farm jobs in CA and elsewhere provided summer work opportunities for teenagers and now thats all gone. You'd be afraid to apply. Only Mexicans and other "hispanics" get that work now. Next...
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- Berthe
But do members of mainstream and majority ethnic groups want those jobs?
- Sean McBride
They always used to want them. Kids still want those fast food jobs to earn some money. Not all kids have parents who give them everything. After fast food will be supermarket jobs. I read a comment recently about Mexican truckdrivers and the fracking industry and a local calling ICE about it. Suddenly, the Mexicans are gone, replaced by people here legally. Whether they are here...
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- Berthe
Isn't a key issue here that many Americans -- including many Republicans and members of majority ethnic groups -- are eager to exploit cheap immigrant labor for their own immediate economic benefit?
- Sean McBride
Yeah, and thats also part of hating Americans because they know damned well that theres a huge expense to the taxpayers for social services. We are subsidizing those cheap wages. Its the point Todd made about local and state politicians being OK but when they get to the national level, they have some totally different constituency than the people who vote for them. The only thing left...
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- Berthe
Boehner can kill this bill out right. Its what Pelosi would do with a bill from a Republican senate that did away with some welfare program. There is no reason for the Republicans in the House to pass any bill at all and if they pass ANYTHING, even just border security, it goes to conference and amnesty will come out of it. Boehner should just kill it and if he doesn't, the Republicans should lose the House.
- Berthe
Wow, this thread really went off topic and then off the rails. Snowden leaked a Powerpoint presentation, now that's scary. Our security depends on Powerpoint.
- Greg GuitarBuster
Greg, many comments were made related to the original topic and then some of us saw a more interesting topic to discuss. While we've still got some freedom of speech, thats nice.
- Berthe
https://twitter.com/Economi... Unemployment far outstrips number of jobs available.
- Berthe
Some of the most interesting threads wander far afield from the original topic. Regarding the issue of massive illegal immigration -- it generates a great deal of emotion on all sides.
- Sean McBride
Actually, Sean, the immigration topic generates a great deal of DEMAND on one side and the other side is simply not going along with the demand. I see that other current issues. If you don't give someone what he wants, you are oppressing him. "Gay" marriage, affirmative action, come to mind. Children use that kind of argument ("You're mean!")
- Berthe
Berthe: regarding massive illegal immigration: I've been looking into the best polls on the subject over the last few days -- a large majority of Americans strongly oppose it. Politicians who are trying to excuse, paper over or even enable this trend are wildly out of sync with their fellow Americans. These politicians are delegitimizing themselves and the entire American political system.
- Sean McBride
So then they cook their own polls! There was one on Politico the other day http://www.politico.com/story... "In each state the poll described . . . in accurate but positive terms . . ." Yes, well people generally do support things that are described with positive terms. I can imagine people were told that the illegals would "have...
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- Berthe
And to reiterate once again: I strongly support a generous and enlightened *legal* immigration policy -- one which encourages the best talent from all over the world to come to America. That is a policy which promotes the American interest.
- Sean McBride
Amnesty will simply encourage and greenlight the rapid acceleration of massive illegal immigration -- something that should be strongly discouraged by every means available.
- Sean McBride
Its disappeared from the web but on my honor I saw an OpEd from a math professor at Clemson University about American STEM graduates being very much harmed by this bill. Policies that discourage the best American talent are a big mistake and downright hateful, IMO. How about their "dreams?" No, I don't think the politicians CAN serve two masters, the elites who want cheap labor and...
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- Berthe
I would love to see many new legal immigrants come to America from Europe, India, China, etc., armed with advanced high tech degrees. The more, the better.
- Sean McBride
I would love to see America concentrate on educating our own children. That should be the nation's top priority. And just because someone has an advanced degree, it doesn't mean that that person is loyal or even likes America or Americans. The Chinese spying over the last 25 years alone should serve as a warning. Education for the masses is like border enforcement in that it is...
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- Todd
"Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans," Bush said. "Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity." That's a Jeb Bush quote which goes to show the sort of dishonesty, stupidity and ignorance average Americans are up against. Many...
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- Todd
Todd -- American economic prosperity is dependent on recruiting all the best minds we can find -- no matter from what national, ethnic or religious backgrounds.
- Sean McBride
With no regard for anything else, Sean? There is validity to the points I made. Relying on imported brains is the cheap and easy way out for the elites and is killing the rest of America.
- Todd
Todd -- many American nativists still haven't figured out what the transnational knowledge economy is all about -- and they are anxious about their ability to compete in that economy. They want to hunker down and pretend it will all go away -- but it won't. The good old days, in which stable agrarian and manufacturing bases provided security, are gone forever. History inexorably moves on.
- Sean McBride
Nativism: "A sociopolitical policy, especially in the United States in the 19th century, favoring the interests of established inhabitants over those of immigrants."
- Sean McBride
Nativism: "the revival or perpetuation of an indigenous culture especially in opposition to acculturation"
- Sean McBride
"But do members of mainstream and majority ethnic groups want those jobs?" Of course Americans have always been willing to do the jobs that immigrants are taking. Immigrants are just willing to do many jobs for much less, and fewer protections. Most kids I knew worked in high school doing jobs that adult immigrants with families largely do now. I did landscaping and restaurant work and...
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- Todd
Most young Americans I know are ambitious to move into lucrative professions, as soon as possible.
- Sean McBride
Sean, do you look down on people who do certain jobs? Seriously, that's a big part of the problem. I know people who started out at the bottom as construction workers, plumbers or landscapers and later started their own businesses, only to have the rug pulled out because they couldn't afford a nice home, retirement funds, insurance for themselves or their employees and send their kids...
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- Todd
I don't look down upon anyone -- I am simply observing that there has been a major cultural and socioeconomic revolution in American life over the last half century -- young Americans tend to have high expectations about their career paths.
- Sean McBride
"Education for the masses is like border enforcement in that it is something that is subverted by the elites. " I think this is very true and also very obvious and very . . . weird. Why do we put up with it?
- Berthe
"Why do we put up with it?" -- because elites in all societies can usually outwit the masses. Thus has it always been and thus will it always be.
- Sean McBride
Regarding living 3 families to a house and no regard for education --- thats very removed from my own life but I know it impacts Americans who are struggling because it is so bad for THEIR neighborhoods and THEIR schools. Just throw some of 'em another "program" and scare the black people that white people are all out to get them.
- Berthe
My points are valid, whether you call them nativist or not. Everyone can't achieve at the highest levels, and that's a fact. But there is no shame at all in being a plumber, a builder or a landscaper. Society obviously needs those people, otherwise we wouldn't be importing their replacements.
- Todd
Berthe, many cities in my state have started enforcing laws about the number of occupants in a house, or the number of cars in a driveway because many immigrants tend to pack as many people as they can into one space. My father's friend lived next to a house that was bought by a rental agency and was busted for having people sleeping in the crawlspace under the house. You just can't compete with people who live that way.
- Todd
Sean, I wouldn't say that the elites have outwitted anyone. The threat of force is their big weapon, and has been for some time.
- Todd
And you know what happens when they are packed in like that? The men sit outside at night drinking beer and listening to loud music and then they get into fights and people end up in emergency rooms. Or worse. Thats real life and we all know it.
- Berthe
Todd, I gotta disagree on education. We go along with it. Probably 90% of kids hate Phys. Ed. class; it accomplishes nothing (see the child obesity "crisis") and its main purpose is to justify and mask the expense of sports teams. But theres no movement to get rid of it. Foreign language requirement --- 50 year experiment with no results but if anything they talk about increasing the...
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- Berthe
It requires considerable intelligence (or cunning) to acquire control of the supreme instruments of force, coercion and control in any society. It's an elite pursuit.
- Sean McBride
Sean, the average American has no knowledge of who acquires control in the background, as those things are largely out of sight. Few people are fooled on issues like immigration or government corruption, and it is the threat of force and personal destruction that keeps most people in line, not great intelligence and cunning applied to extraordinary planning. That's not what the thugs in charge of America are all about. Why else are they spying on everyone?
- Todd
Well, our current elite is spying on everyone because apparently quite a few members of that elite are terrified of Americans. How many times have we heard neocons try to smear their political opponents as terrorists or terrorist sympathizers? They are crazy with hysteria -- ultra-paranoid about the entire world. Thus their program to build a total surveillance state under their control.
- Sean McBride
In other words, they are thugs.
- Todd
Worse than thugs.
- Sean McBride
Mass murder is definitely worse than thuggery. A better way of stating my point is that brutality and force are their tools rather than finesse.
- Todd
"Todd, I gotta disagree on education. We go along with it..." Education is definitely less black and white than immigration and official corruption, but I don't think that many people are happy with the state of education, or the overwhelming cost. There are certainly people who don't care, but a basic education is usually all they want for their children. I think that the issue for...
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- Todd
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