"Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but, disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort."
Marshall Mcluhan
It would seem that our privacy and that of others around the world has been even more compromised that many had thought. The hacktivist team Anonymous acquired 70,000 emails from HBGary Federal concerning a government/private spying operation know as Romas/COIN and its replacement called Odyssey. Mostly targeting Arab countries but also citizens in this country.
The Federal Reserve appears ready to ease off the stimulus pedal that is pumping life into the US economy at a key meeting that opens Tuesday, despite signs of slowing growth.
Most economists expect the Federal Open Market Committee will signal the Fed's $600 billion asset purchase program will end as scheduled by June 30.
And few expect the quantitative easing, dubbed QE2, will be followed by additional stimulus.
A banker was gunned down in Puerto Rico on Wednesday and at least one Puetro Rican news agency suspects that it might have had something to do with an audit he had recently launched.
The banker, 56-year old Maurice J. Spagnoletti, was Doral Financial corporation's executive vice president of Mortgage and Banking Operations. He had only been working at Doral for 6 moths when he was killed.
There has been quite a bit of discussion lately on what is wrong with the system and what needs to be changed. Liz Berry has suggested in her current blog that the problem is political, that both political parties are indistinguishable and that a third party would fix this. I agree with her assessment but have serious doubts about the cure. Jeffroby has suggested organization of the poor and middle class for some political muscle. And I agree with the organization part though I do not agree with the political part. And OhioGringo sites Robert Reich on the WPA and CCC - government spending.
U.S. babies are dying at an increased rate. While the United States spends billions on medical care, as of 2006, the US ranked 28th in the world in infant mortality, more than twice that of the lowest ranked countries. (DHHS, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics. Health United States 2010, Table 20, p. 131, February 2011.)
When I was in Jr. High there was a fad. It was called Nosy Books. Usually a legal pad they we passed around and in which we wrote down sill little things about ourselves. We now currently have the high tech version of this called Twitter. Now I will admit that it has played an important roll in certain situations as a communications medium.
The sun unleashed a massive solar storm Tuesday in a dazzling eruption that kicked up a vast cloud of magnetic plasma that appeared to rain back down over half of the sun's entire surface, NASA scientists say.
Capitalism as a way to trade goods and services - which it is in it's most basic form - works pretty well in certain situations. Just look in any school cafeteria. You will see goods and services traded like crazy. And it anyone tries to cheat the system, they are generally dealt with - usually on the play ground.
And in most societies and countries for a long time this was pretty much the case. Where it did break down, it was caused either by some unforeseen natural occurrence - crop failures and the like - or because a few people got greedy and these were eventually dealt with. Sometimes quite brutally.
October 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the 2012 federal austerity budget. It is time to light the spark that sets off a true democratic, nonviolent transition to a world in which people are freed to create just and sustainable solutions. Read more.
It would seem that our privacy and that of others around the world has been even more compromised that many had thought. The 
