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POPSThe Problem Is Capitalism, Not Just the Banks This article is based on the Deutscher Lecture which Rick Kuhn, Reader in Political Science at the ANU, will deliver in London on 7 November. Dr. Kuhn's book Henryk Grossman and the Recovery of Marxism won the 2007 Deutscher prize.
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POPSThe GREATEST Ad EVER and its making It's one of the 2 biggest banks in Turkey, belong to "Sabanci Group", the wealthiest corp in Turkey and well-integrated into international finance-capital world. The TV ad was done by computer generated characters and broadcasted intensely during the World Cup games.
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POPSClipcasts & The Shape of the Net to Come It's amazing how the press out there, and most of the public, seems to have missed the big picture of what's going on here. They think this is about social networking and internet advertising. They are dead wrong. We're all involved in a much bigger game now, and the pieces are the very building blocks of society's future. I've clipped a few of the puzzle pieces together to make my point: 1. Cold War: Open v. Closed software ...leads to... 2. Show down between Cloud computing vs. PC software ...meanwhile... 3. Microsoft (PC OS) muscles in on Facebook (Internet Platform for Web Apps.) ...and on the other side... 4. Google (the world's leading search engine) muscles in on Firefox (the world's leading alternative web browser.) ...and then... 5.) Clipmarks, total wild card, leapfrogs over facebook into decentralized internet platforms with Clipcasts! Something VERY VERY BIG is afoot!
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POPSConfidence game - The science of Trustworthiness Researchers have discovered that surprisingly small factors - where we meet someone, whether their posture mimics ours, even the slope of their eyebrows or the thickness of their chin - can matter as much or more than what they say about themselves. We size up someone's trustworthiness within milliseconds of meeting them, and while we can revise our first impression, there are powerful psychological tendencies that often prevent us from doing so - tendencies that apply even more strongly if we've grown close.
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POPSAn Immoral Philosophy
More: It must be about philosophy, because it surely isn't about cost. One of the plans Mr. Bush opposes, the one approved by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the Senate Finance Committee, would cost less over the next five years than we'll spend in Iraq in the next four months. And it would be fully paid for by an increase in tobacco taxes. So what kind of philosophy says that it's O.K. to subsidize insurance companies, but not to provide health care to children? So his philosophy says that the government must be prevented from solving problems, even if it can. In fact, the more good a proposed government program would do, the more fiercely it must be opposed. denying basic health care to children whose parents lack the means to pay for it, simply because you're afraid that success in insuring children might put big government in a good light, is just morally wrong. it seems, more basic decency in the hearts of Americans than is dreamt of in Mr. Bush's philosophy.
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POPSSometimes We Becme Prisioners To Our Material Choices Of course this is not taking into account the fastest growing debt here in the US which is for necessities such as medical care, food, and gasoline. You know, the ones who simply cannot be helped because they enjoy being poor. Thanks to GW the poor and moderate income families now have much more difficulty using bankruptcy protection. It's called tough s***, whoops, love. On the other hand, compassion flows for corporations like milk and honey. This clip is dedicated to those who get in credit card debt for their wants, not their needs. It's quite easy to become prisoners to our material choices.
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POPSProp 8maps exposes A big ethical debate. A college professor from the University of California, San Francisco, wrote a $100 check in support of Proposition 8 in August, because he said he supported civil unions for gay couples but did not want to change the traditional definition of marriage. He has received many confrontational e-mail messages, some anonymous, since eightmaps listed his donation and employer. One signed message blasted him for supporting the measure and was copied to a dozen of his colleagues and supervisors at the university, he said. “I thought what the eightmaps creators did with the information was actually sort of neat,” the professor said, who asked that his name not be used to avoid becoming more of a target. “But people who use that site to send out intimidating or harassing messages cross the line.” Many civil liberties advocates, including those who disagree with his views on marriage, say he has a point.
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POPSStudy: Bush Tax Cuts Cost More Than Twice As Much As Dems' Health-Care Bill In contrast, President Bush and his allies in Congress never even attempted to replace the revenue lost as a result of their enormous tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts were deficit-financed, which increased the national debt and resulted in greater interest payments on that debt, as already explained. These figures make clear that costs cannot be the real concern of lawmakers who oppose the House health care legislation and yet supported the Bush tax cuts. Their position seems to be that showering benefits on the wealthiest five percent of taxpayers and leaving the bill for future generations is preferable to making health care available for all at a much lower cost and paying that cost up front. That demonstrates a different set of priorities than most Americans have, but it doesn’t demonstrate much concern about costs.
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POPSTrading Algorithms Profit from Mood Swings If other traders are being aggressive – for example, by attempting to undercut others – it raises its game to trade even more aggressively. If trading is less competitive, the software acts less aggressively and calmly aims for the biggest profits available. Secondly, the software can also use past market trends to try to forecast future conditions. If a period of volatility seems likely, the software changes its behaviour more frequently, meaning it is more likely to be ready to exploit any sudden switches in conditions. "The majority of share trading in Europe is now handled by algorithms," says Richard Balarkas, CEO of Instinet Europe a leading algorithmic trading firm. Trading software that is able to read and respond to market behaviour like a human is very desirable, he says
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POPSWhy no outrage over foreclosures? Why do we automatically assume the buyers are at fault? Did they risk other peoples' money? Did they know we were in a housing bubble? Was it explained that the ARM would default if their home value declined? Why do we let professional sales-people make money leading people into the largest purchase in their lives without issuing precautions that first-time homebuyers often do not understand? And why is the homebuyer the loser, rather than the shyster that sold them a loan they could not possibly have understood? Why do we let them take our homes away?
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POPSCongrats Team Clipmarks, Forbes is here!!!!!!! You've attracted Forbes!!!! Well Forbes guys (and gal) I hope you have a good stay here at Clipmarks and I look forward to your clips! Eric, remember my suggestion on AIM sometime ago for Clipmarks. Looks like they're seeking you, not the other way!
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POPSClipmarks - Supergranular Version More reviews of clipmarks: One from Yahoo Finance (via Business Wire) and one from Webware. I loved Rafe Needleman's review at Webware and the "supergranular version" naming. :-)
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POPSSenator to-be Franken picks up 87 votes. Republicans still obstructing Democracy. Democratic Rep. Jim Oberstar, meanwhile, has been one of the most vocal critics of Coleman's legal strategy, saying this past week that the former Senator and national GOP "is playing not just with fire, but with dynamite ... this thing is going to blow up in their face." Former Republican Sen. Dave Durenberger has said that the party leadership in Washington does not have "Coleman's best interests in mind." "If Norm had to finance this recount on his own, he never could have gone through it," he said. "Norm couldn't afford to put a nickel into this thing, but John Cornyn could." GOP = Grand Obstructionists Party
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POPSRight, so tell me again how the "free market" is the best way to manage health-care delivery An editorial from 2007 shows how research into three promising anticancer drugs has been abandoned. The reason is that the compounds on which the drugs are based cannot be patented (melatonin, for example), which means that pharma companies are unlikely to turn a profit. Understandable, from the perspective of the pharma companies, but unconscionable, from the perspective of cancer patients.
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