Screw Microsoft! you have failed on me too many times!
0 Dismantle The Corrupt Ruling Elite
Highly recommend watching this...
FromTube Info:
Just reflecting on the current situation in the UK:- corrupt elite and treasonous politicians, and evolution v's revolution, etc... so I know there is lots more to cover but this was just impromptu.
Part 1/2
Part 2/2
0 Linguists crack 300-year-old occult code
Cryptologists have cracked a mysterious code used by a German Freemason-like group, opening what they describe as a window on the history of secret occult societies 300 years ago.
The “Copiale Cipher”, a 105-page pamphlet bound in gold and green brocade paper, is thought to be at least 300 years old, and contain the secrets of an underground group obsessed with eye surgery and ophthalmology, although the members are not thought to have been eye doctors.
The hand-written pamphlet contains 75,000 characters - a mix of abstract symbols and Roman and Greek letters. It was found in the East Berlin Academy after the end of the Cold War, and was then bought by a private collector.
An international research team including experts from Uppsala University in Sweden and the University of Southern California (USC) in the United States, managed to get access to the cipher and have cracked it – after going up at least one blind alley.
Kevin Knight, from the USC said in a statement that he and the team had initially focussed on the Roman and Greek lettering, isolating them from the abstract figures and running their patterns through a computer.
“When you get a new code and look at it, the possibilities are nearly infinite. Once you come up with a hypothesis based on your intuition as a human, you can turn over a lot of grunt work to the computer,” he said.
But after trying 80 languages, the team had got nowhere. “It took quite a long time and resulted in complete failure,” said Knight.
They then realised the familiar letters were ‘nulls’ – meaningless figures added to the real code to confuse would-be code-crackers.
The next hypothesis to be tested was that the abstract symbols with similar shapes represented the same letter or groups of letters and eventually the first meaningful words appeared – suitably spooky phrases such as “Ceremonies of initiation” and “Secret section”.
“This opens up a window for people who study the history or ideas and the history of secret societies,” said Knight.
“Historians believe that secret societies have had a role in revolutions, but all that is yet to be worked out, but all that is yet to be worked out and a big part of the reason is because so many documents are enciphered.”
Knight said he is using similar techniques to try to crack other messages, including some by the Zodiac Killer, a serial killer who terrorised California in the 1960s and 70s while sending messages to the media. He was never caught.
External link: Learn more about the secret code »
External link: Learn more about the secret code »
0 7 Billion People: Press Conference
PRI President Steve Mosher speaks at the Welcome 7 Billion People press conference, National Press Club, October 31, 2011.
0 Overpopulation: The Making of a Myth
The pilot episode of PRI's POP 101 series, this video takes a fresh, humorous approach to the demographic issues facing the world today.
Be sure to watch the sequel here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBS6f-JVvTYVisit www.overpopulationisamyth.com and spread the word: the world is not overpopulated!
0 The Guardian readers' editor on… averting accusations of antisemitism
The Guardian has always had a strong commitment to reporting on the Middle East. That means a lot of news reporting, as well as comment and analysis, on the Israel-Palestine situation. It is one of the world's most contested conflicts, in which thousands of people have died or have been displaced. As a newspaper the Guardian has been critical of all sides, but it is seen as being especially critical of the Israeli government and its actions. And that has led to complaints that the Guardian, in print or online, is carrying material that either lapses into language resonant of antisemitism or is, by its nature, antisemitic.
It also leads to the much more rare allegation of Islamophobia. In this column I intend to address the former rather than the latter, because recently there has been a preponderance of such complaints.
This is not a fresh concern. It is a particularly sensitive issue for a core of the Guardian's Jewish readers because CP Scott held strong Zionist sympathies, as did WP Crozier, who came after him as editor. In the Guardian's archives is a letter of thanks from the first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, thanking Scott for his help in securing the Balfour declaration, the 1917 statement by the British government approving the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
A shift in attitudes came after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, as Daphna Baram outlines in her book Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel, published in 2004. So, it's not new. But there has been an increase in complaints of antisemitism within the last few months.
As the web has widened the debate, so it has also enabled more opportunities for articles and comments to be questioned. Individuals and organisations monitoring the Guardian's coverage examine the language in articles – and the comments posted underneath them online – as closely as the facts.
For antisemitism can be subtle as well as obvious. Three times in the last nine months I have upheld complaints against language within articles that I agreed could be read as antisemitic. The words were replaced and the articles footnoted to reflect the fact. These included references to Israel/US "global domination" and the term "slavish" to describe the US relationship with Israel; and, in an article on a lost tribe of Mallorcan Jews, what I regarded as a gratuitous reference to "the island's wealthier families".
Two weeks ago a columnist used the term "the chosen" in an item on the release of Gilad Shalit, which brought more than 40 complaints to the Guardian, and an apology from the columnist the following week. "Chosenness", in Jewish theology, tends to refer to the sense in which Jews are "burdened" by religious responsibilities; it has never meant that the Jews are better than anyone else. Historically it has been antisemites, not Jews, who have read "chosen" as code for Jewish supremacism.
One reader wrote of the column: "The despicable antisemitic tone of this rant is beyond reason or decency."
An important feature of the Guardian online is that the comment threads are post-moderated: a team of moderators check almost half a million comments a month posted on the site for language that breaches the community guidelines across a whole range of issues – not just antisemitism. They are experienced in spotting the kind of language long associated with antisemitic tropes such as Jews having too much power and control, or being clannish and secretive, or the role of Jews in finance and the media.
Newspapers have to be aware that some examples involve coded references. They need to ask themselves, for example, if the word Zionist is being used as a synonym for Jew.
I have been careful to say that these examples may be read as antisemitic because I don't believe their appearance in the Guardian was the result of deliberate acts of antisemitism: they were inadvertent. But that does not lessen the injury to some readers or to our reputation. The Guardian should not be oppressed by criticism – some of the language used by our critics is abusive and intimidatory – or retreat into self-censorship. But reporters, writers and editors must be more vigilant to ensure our voice in the debate is not diminished because our reputation has been tarnished.
• This article will be open for comments at 9am on Monday (UK time).
It also leads to the much more rare allegation of Islamophobia. In this column I intend to address the former rather than the latter, because recently there has been a preponderance of such complaints.
This is not a fresh concern. It is a particularly sensitive issue for a core of the Guardian's Jewish readers because CP Scott held strong Zionist sympathies, as did WP Crozier, who came after him as editor. In the Guardian's archives is a letter of thanks from the first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, thanking Scott for his help in securing the Balfour declaration, the 1917 statement by the British government approving the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
A shift in attitudes came after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, as Daphna Baram outlines in her book Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel, published in 2004. So, it's not new. But there has been an increase in complaints of antisemitism within the last few months.
As the web has widened the debate, so it has also enabled more opportunities for articles and comments to be questioned. Individuals and organisations monitoring the Guardian's coverage examine the language in articles – and the comments posted underneath them online – as closely as the facts.
For antisemitism can be subtle as well as obvious. Three times in the last nine months I have upheld complaints against language within articles that I agreed could be read as antisemitic. The words were replaced and the articles footnoted to reflect the fact. These included references to Israel/US "global domination" and the term "slavish" to describe the US relationship with Israel; and, in an article on a lost tribe of Mallorcan Jews, what I regarded as a gratuitous reference to "the island's wealthier families".
Two weeks ago a columnist used the term "the chosen" in an item on the release of Gilad Shalit, which brought more than 40 complaints to the Guardian, and an apology from the columnist the following week. "Chosenness", in Jewish theology, tends to refer to the sense in which Jews are "burdened" by religious responsibilities; it has never meant that the Jews are better than anyone else. Historically it has been antisemites, not Jews, who have read "chosen" as code for Jewish supremacism.
One reader wrote of the column: "The despicable antisemitic tone of this rant is beyond reason or decency."
An important feature of the Guardian online is that the comment threads are post-moderated: a team of moderators check almost half a million comments a month posted on the site for language that breaches the community guidelines across a whole range of issues – not just antisemitism. They are experienced in spotting the kind of language long associated with antisemitic tropes such as Jews having too much power and control, or being clannish and secretive, or the role of Jews in finance and the media.
Newspapers have to be aware that some examples involve coded references. They need to ask themselves, for example, if the word Zionist is being used as a synonym for Jew.
I have been careful to say that these examples may be read as antisemitic because I don't believe their appearance in the Guardian was the result of deliberate acts of antisemitism: they were inadvertent. But that does not lessen the injury to some readers or to our reputation. The Guardian should not be oppressed by criticism – some of the language used by our critics is abusive and intimidatory – or retreat into self-censorship. But reporters, writers and editors must be more vigilant to ensure our voice in the debate is not diminished because our reputation has been tarnished.
• This article will be open for comments at 9am on Monday (UK time).
0 Cyprus Central Bank chief says taxes may have to rise
 |
| Athanasios Orphanides |
CYPRUS MAY need to raise taxes to help it pull out of an economic crisis, central bank Governor Athanasios Orphanides said yesterday, a day after Moody's warned the island would probably need to seek emergency funding at some point.
Moody's downgraded Cyprus's credit rating by two notches to Baa3, one level above junk, on Friday, forecasting the government would have to bail out its banks next year due to their exposure to Greek debt. As the government has lost access to international capital markets, it would probably need to seek emergency funding from official sources, the ratings agency said.
The downgrade was the latest blow to the Mediterranean island, which has been hammered by ratings agencies and financial markets in the past year because of its banks' exposure to Greek debt and fiscal slippage, which has seen runaway deficits nudging 6.5 to 7.0 per cent of gross domestic product.
Orphanides, who is also a member of the European Central Bank's Governing Council, said the authorities were slow to address signs of stress.
An austerity package cutting salaries in the civil service and plans to trim spending were a step in the right direction but more was needed, he said.
"In the position we are in right now, we cannot rule out that an increase in tax may be warranted," Orphanides told a conference at the University of Cyprus.
"We need to convince the world that we are reliable enough to overturn this situation."
Cyprus, the third smallest member of the euro zone, recently secured a loan from Russia for 2.5 billion euros to help finance debt maturing in 2012
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