statism watch

CBC News
October 23, 2008

The long-running inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse in Cornwall has been told to wrap it up and file a final report by next July.

The inquiry is looking into how authorities responded to a rash of allegations that children were being abused in Cornwall starting in the late 1950s and continuing for decades.

On Wednesday night, commissioner Normand Glaude received an amended schedule from the provincial government.

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Absolutely surreal. Greenspan’s too smart not to know better – plus he’s got that 1960s vintage essay in one of Ayn Rand’s political theory books, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, where he calls for abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to a gold standard, a good idea for any nation wishing to remain free in fact. So, here he is playing dumb:

CBC News
October 23, 2008

Alan Greenspan, who headed the U.S. Federal Reserve for more than 18 years, on Thursday called the current world financial crunch a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami” during testimony to the U.S. Congress.

Greenspan said he and others are in “shocked disbelief” because they assumed lending institutions would protect their shareholders from the credit market fallout.

In his prepared testimony for the House Oversight Committee, Greenspan blamed the problem on big demand for mortgage securities from investors who didn’t think the housing boom would end.

Greenspan noted the employment situation in the U.S. will likely get worse.

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Steve Watson, Infowars.net
October 23, 2008

The Pentagon has put out a request to contractors to develop teams of robots that can search for, detect and track “non-cooperative” humans in “pursuit/evasion scenarios”.

The request, which can be read on the Department of Defense Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program website here, calls for a “Multi-Robot Pursuit System” to be operated by one person.

The proposal describes the need to

“…develop a software/hardware suit that would enable a multi-robot team, together with a human operator, to search for and detect a non-cooperative human subject.

The main research task will involve determining the movements of the robot team through the environment to maximize the opportunity to find the subject, while minimizing the chances of missing the subject. If the operator is an active member of the search team, the software should minimize the chance that the operator may encounter the subject.”

It is seemingly important to the Pentagon that the operator should not have to come into contact with the person being chased down by the machines.

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Lee Bruno, The Guardian
October 23, 2008

The social networking landscape could change beyond recognition with technology that maps the skills and needs of users

A new startup is helping reshape the social networking landscape by using artificial intelligence to automate the process of identifying, finding and retrieving specific types of information locked within online communities.

Over the past decade, social networks have become a powerful new force for attracting internet traffic. In the UK, Facebook is currently the second most popular website followed by Google, according to Hitwise, an internet research firm.

It’s not surprising that the names of the various social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn have become common destinations for younger people as well as businesses.

But finding information and expert sources of knowledge quickly within social networks is neither easy nor efficient and valuable information is left buried within online communities.

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Will Canadian’s interest payments be deposited to their tax accounts?

Kevin Carmichael, The Globe and Mail
October 23, 2008

OTTAWA – Canada’s government has pledged to temporarily guarantee banks’ medium and longer term borrowing in a bid to keep pace with the multi-billion dollar financial rescues offered by other countries over the past couple of weeks.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Thursday that he will establish the Canadian Lenders Assurance Facility, which will offer financial institutions insurance on any debt they issue with terms greater than three months.

Canada’s decision to offer a backstop for interbank lending comes almost two weeks after it signed a pledge by Group of Seven nations to work together to restore confidence in the global financial system. At least a dozen other countries have already offered some form of backstop for the wholesale debt market, including the United States, Australia and most recently Sweden.

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When was the last time you heard a policy maker or thinktank talking head use the term ‘government’? Note that the term governance applies to any form of rule, representative, electoral governments being only one possibility. Consider the alternatives, and ask yourself: when was the last time you voted for any member of an international institution?

CBC News
October 23, 2008

Barroso urges new measures to address global financial crisis

Unprecedented measures are needed to deal with the global financial meltdown, says José Barroso, president of the European Commission.

The global economic turmoil will dominate discussions at the Asia-Europe meeting, Barroso said Thursday before the two-day, 43-nation summit, which begins Friday in Beijing.
Barroso said he expects the forum to help work toward consensus before the global financial crisis summit, which is being held in Washington on Nov. 15.

The world is facing its worst financial crisis in 70 years, Barroso said, adding it’s crucial for nations to “stick together or sink together.”

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