What Collective Intelligence Knows About Us

The knowledge obtained by our use of the computer network is a powerful tool. Trillions of key clicks from the daily decisions of millions of people in the course of their everyday lives, builds a bank of data that can be analyzed and tracked.

This bank of information is often called collective intelligence. In fact, harnessing this intelligence through analyses of patterns and correlations is enabling more accurate predictions about our preferences and behaviors.

Human decisions involved in using a computer like purchases and keyword searches are the kinds of activities that can be stored and in aggregate analyzed for knowledge. If you are a user of Amazon.com or use Google Zeitgeist you probably already know what this means.

Amazon.com examines patterns of retail behavior using hundreds of variables to recommend future purchases for us to consider. All future purchases are based on buyer behavior involved in previous purchase decisions. Meanwhile, Google Zeitgeist uses collective intelligence to graph search terms used throughout the year to track what topics mattered most to people.

Thomas Malone (Center for Collective Intelligence- MIT) thinks opportunities exist in “prediction markets,” where humans, with the computational help of computers, predict things with greater accuracy than single experts, in many different areas, from electoral politics to medical diagnostics.

Recently, Google announced that it will launch a new tool that will help federal officials "track sickness". Its called "Flu Trends" and it uses search terms that people put into Google. The geographic location of these searches will be used to predict where influenza is heating up, and Google will notify the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in real time.

Engineers will capture keywords and phrases related to the flu, including thermometer, flu symptoms, muscle aches, chest congestion and others. The information will be used to predict flu outbreaks more than one week ahead of time.

So what does collective intelligence now know about us? In the next few months, it can recommend a book that we will surely want to read as we receive our emergency inoculation to avoid that serious flu outbreak predicted to afflict our neighborhood in the next week.

Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive vows: "From a technological perspective, it is the beginning." Indeed, lets just hope that collective intelligence doesn't mean that our own individual privacy will become compromised in the end.

A Veterans Day Reminder From The Drawings Of Auschwitz

A few days ago, a German Daily newspaper called Bild obtained drawings of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp layout, including gas chambers. The paper placed several images on its website and in its daily publication.

The newspaper said twenty eight yellowing documents, drawn by a concentration camp prisoner and dated 1941-43, were a sensational new historic discovery found in a Berlin apartment that was being cleared out.

In addition, Hans-Dieter Kreilkam, the director of the German Federal Archive, told reporters he thought the material was new and that it provided additional proof of the chronology of the "Final Solution."

However, historian Robert Jan van Pelt, an expert on Auschwitz, said he had checked the "so-called 'new' material" on the Web site of Bild, and found that "the drawings that are on their site are all old material, perfectly known" and published by himself and others in the 1990s.

The importance of these Nazi Death Camp Plans at Auschwitz is not whether its new material or old. It really does not matter if its an original or a copy. The truth is that everyone should understand the horror of what happened in Nazi Germany more than six decades ago.

There is no need for any additional historical verification. No, the real importance of these documents is the knowledge that they exist and a reminder of the horror of fascism and tyranny that our veterans have fought against on the military battlefield throughout the years.

This year's Presidential Veterans Day Proclamation states it best: "From the fields and forests of war-torn Europe to the jungles of Southeast Asia, from the deserts of Iraq to the mountains of Afghanistan, brave patriots have protected our Nation's ideals, rescued millions from tyranny, and helped spread freedom around the globe".

"America's veterans answered the call when asked to protect our Nation from some of the most brutal and ruthless tyrants, terrorists, and militaries the world has ever known. They stood tall in the face of grave danger and enabled our Nation to become the greatest force for freedom in human history. Members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard have answered a high calling to serve and have helped secure America at every turn".

Unfortunately, many members of the military have never return home. In World War 2 an estimated 406000 made the ultimate sacrifice with another 600,000 wounded in battle. An estimated 112000 Americans died in World War 1. 33000 Americans would die in Korea while 58000 never returned home from Vietnam.

Those drawings from Auschwitz are an historical testament to the horror of fascism and tyranny. They act as a vivid reminder of the sacrifice of the brave men and women of the American military. Indeed, it's the reason the country honors its veterans on the eleventh day of November each year.

A World Of Mismanagement And Corruption At The U.N.

The United Nations internal Task Force investigating procurement will come to an end on December 31, 2008 due to a lack of funding.

In the strange world of the U.N., the elimination of an internal task force is the best evidence of its effectiveness. In fact, in just the last three years, the U.N. Procurement Task Force, has uncovered 630 billion dollars worth of contracts tainted by fraud, corruption or mismanagement.

In addition, the Task Force is still investigating 150 cases of which one third involve fraud and corruption. These cases will never be completed before December 31, 2008, but may represent another billion dollars in suspect contracts.

The Procurement Task Force headed by former U.S. federal prosecutor Robert Appleton and staffed with eighteen legal professionals plan to focus on only eight more cases before the task force ends its investigations by the start of the new year.

Still, it was just two weeks ago, that the Task Force announced that it had uncovered five more cases of fraud and mismanagement. These new cases total 20 million dollars of U.N. contracts according to the unit's annual report to the U.N. General Assembly. These recent cases involve air charter services in the Congo, office supplies in Kenya, consulting jobs in Greece, and payroll services in New York.

Last year, the Procurement Task Force issued a series of reports that highlighted the fact that corruption had spread from United Nations headquarters to its peacekeeping efforts. It identified ten significant instances of fraud and corruption with an aggregate value of 610 million dollars. The task force also cast a spotlight on United Nations officials that were allowed to carry out criminal schemes in one U.N. mission after another.

These Task Force findings confirmed comments made by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker in 2006 about the findings of mismanagement and corruption in the United Nations corrupt oil for food program. Volker said at the time that the United Nations suffered from a "culture of inaction".

Of course, rampant fraud and corruption is nothing new for United Nations peacekeeping missions. In the early 1990's corruption was widespread in Cambodia, Somalia and the Balkans. The Procurement Task Force focused it most recent peacekeeping corruption allegations on Haiti and the Congo.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon reportedly has begun a campaign to lead the U.N. for a second term. It may have been the reason that his communications director recently told reporters that United States President elect Barack Obama "is a U.N. person."

The history of the United Nations shows it to be a dubious world of mismanagement, fraud and corruption. A lack of oversight is where much of the problem begins. If Barack Obama is really a "U.N. person" then he should withhold American dues until more U.N. reform and oversight begins.

Indeed, if Barack Obama wants to deal with the current U.N. he should at least insist on somebody with the proper experience to lead it. There is only one clear choice to run this corrupt bureaucracy. Tony Soprano for Secretary General is the appropriate choice for the U.N. in its current form.

Also Read : No United States Dues For The United Nations on eWorldvu.com

Man-Made Global Warming's Defeat At The Polls

In June, an Ipsos MORI poll, found that 60 percent of British citizens remained skeptical that humans are contributing to climate change." In addition, a further 40 percent said that "I sometimes think climate change might not be as bad as people say."

According to a recent survey from ABC News, Planet Green and Stanford University, fewer than half (47 percent) of Americans consider global warming an important issue to them personally. The percentage had dropped from 52 percent in April 2007. The survey also showed that only 30 percent of ABC News respondents said they trust what scientists have to say about the environment "completely" or "a lot."

The media is not widely reporting it, but the public's increasing man-made global warming skepticism was in evidence at the polling booth in California on election day. Two green initiatives went down in overwhelming defeat.

Proposition Seven would have required utilities to generate 40 percent of their power from renewable energy by 2020 and 50 percent by 2025. It lost by a huge margin - 65% to 35%.
Proposition Ten would have created $5 billion in general obligation bonds to help consumers and others purchase certain high fuel economy or alternative fuel vehicles, and to fund research into alternative fuel technology. It went down to defeat by a total margin of 60% to 40%.

Martin Durkin, the producer of the documentary: "The Great Global Warming Swindle" has said of the proponents of environmentalism:

"It is transparently obvious that they sit squarely in the tradition of Romanticism. Like the romantics, they hate industry, love nature, idealise peasant life, they think capitalism is wicked, they think people in modern society lead depraved shallow lives and have forgotten the true value of things, they don’t like cars or supermarkets or lots of proles taking cheap long-haul holidays."

Of course, it isn't just romanticism or idealistic lifestyle that drives the climate change agenda. It is also a huge global business with an insatiable appetite for green, as in the color of money. The fact is that more than 50 billion dollars spent on research throughout the last decade has still not produced any evidence that global warming is man-made.

Still, romanticism and big business have nothing to do with evidence and actual science. As the climate cools, the voting public is becoming increasingly skeptical of all the dire global warming claims. This weeks defeat of Proposition 7 and Proposition 10 at the polls in California is only a preview of things to come.

Also Read: Man-Made Global Warming Left Out In The Cold on eworldvu.com.

The End Of The Campaign Of John McCain

There were many excuses for the Republican Electoral College debacle last night. It was not very close and it had not been for two months.

In fact, all the public opinion polls were very consistent. There was only one day after the conventions when a single poll indicated John McCain was ahead in the 2008 Presidential campaign .

The excuses for the McCain defeat are many. He was outspent by Barack Obama four to one and he had the unpopular Geoge Bush to run away from. As a result, there never was a blue state from the last election in play and his attempt to defend every red state in a Democratic year was not going to win the day.

Certainly, the timing of the current economic mess did not help his cause. In addition, a recent Pew Research study reported negative media coverage of McCain's campaign outpaced his opponent nearly three to one.

So, it can be argued that these obstacles were the reason for his lopsided defeat. There is no doubt they were a contributing factor but the loss in this election is really due to the candidate and his dubious campaign.

Remember that John McCain won his Party's nomination months before Barack Obama did. However, despite a Republican advantage of months of political time, the Obama campaign was better financed, better organized, and had more paid staff in all the battleground states on Election day.

Consider that McCain's response to the economic crisis in September was incoherent. He first said that the fundamentals of the economy were sound. Next, he suspended his campaign for several days to return to Washington because of the economic crisis. He would participate in the first debate after restarting his campaign, without any explanation behind these actions. It made him look erratic and indecisive in the economic crisis.

McCain's advanced age was always an issue for voters. His energy and campaign schedule were very light especially early in the campaign. Meanwhile, the inexperience of Sarah Palin did not provide comfort for voters, since in a McCain Presidency, she would be only a heartbeat away from becoming Commander and Chief.

Overall, the McCain campaign message was muted and subject to change. A campaign of experience would become a campaign of change. Until Joe The Plumber, McCain could not even explain how his tax policy was different from that of the Obama campaign.

Indeed, it was striking how Barack Obama stayed true to his message while John McCain's campaign was unfocused. A thirty year insider and Senator, running as a maverick, on a theme of change, would prove to be to difficult to sell to many 2008 voters.

In his gracious speech last night, John McCain said that the "failure is mine." His lasting legacy will be as a war hero, Senator and as a losing Presidential candidate that in his concession speech did not lie.

An Election Day 2008 Prediction In Rhyme

Election Day 2008 is finally here.
An end to the campaign of change and hope is now near.
Its also the end of debates, polls, rallys and smear.
Voting today will elect a man who will serve for four years.

It can't end soon enough since I am trying to avoid all those media ads that we constantly hear.
So, who will be the choice when all the votes are counted and the final Electoral College tally appears?
It seems that this is a big Democratic year. Increasing seats in Congress will make the Dems grin from ear to ear.

Raising income taxes never did bring voter fear.
So, high voter turnout will leave republicans in the rear.
We think the choice will make the media cheer, since Barack Obama will be the President Elect next year.
"Mac is back" was a slogan that not enough voters held dear.
It may not be a landslide but the final results will be clear.

For Republican's though all is not lost even though today they will pay a high cost.
The next election may make the Republicans boss.
The fact is that in American politics, winning is often followed by loss.

A Bounty Of Death For Pirates In Somalia

The M.V. Iran Deyanat was a dead weight tonnage bulk Carrier in a very big hurry. The ship owned by a state run company controlled by the Iranian military set sail from Nanjing, China in late July.

The Iranian vessel had a twenty eight member crew including two Russians,two Pakistanis and a Syrian. Its manifest describes a plan to unload Iron Ore and other products in Rotterdam and proceed to the Gulf of Aden. However, its arrival in the Gulf was unusual because the ship was several days early.

Speed was also a priority as the vessel next moved in a westerly direction toward the Suez Canal. At that point, it was attacked by 40 Somali pirates in high speed boats, all armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.

The Iran Deyanat was captured by the pirates of Somalia and the ship was taken to Eyl, a fishing village off the northeastern coast . The pirates issued a two million dollar ransom demand for the ship and its crew. It was a ransom demand that would extract a heavy price.

In the days that followed, as the pirates attempted to assess their bounty, things would take a terrible turn. Upon opening one of the ship's seven heavily-secured containers, they found it filled with a "gritty, sand-like" substance. In the next several days, a number of the pirates suffered severe skin burns and loss of hair, and within two weeks sixteen pirates were dead.

Today, the ship remains in Eyl and there is a international bidding war underway to purchase the ship and understand its contents. The ship has been sanctioned and Iran cannot access the vessel while the United States Navy as well as the French are sitting off of the coast to seize the ship if it should get underway.

So, the mystery of the M.V. Iran Deyanat continues. The question is what caused the bounty of death for those pirates in Somalia? As of now, it is impossible for anyone to say. However chemical experts indicate that the pirates symptoms sound inconsistent with chemical poisoning, but may well be the effects of an exposure to radiation.

Meanwhile, Russian sources make an ominious claim. They describe the ship as "an enormous floating dirty bomb, intended to detonate after exiting the Suez Canal. The detonation would have been in close proximity to the coastal cities of Israel, sending a deadly radioactive cloud onshore.

If this explanation turns out to be true, its an act of war by Iran against Israel and the world's first known attempt at a dirty bomb attack. Indeed, a bounty of death for Pirates in Somalia needs to be watched closely, since it may eventually become the biggest international news story of the year.