It is hard for me, an alumnus of both the London School of Economics (LSE) and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), not to juxtaposition their announcements on recent international news.
Meanwhile, I received the following alert in my inbox from LSE with a link to a full announcement. The LSE Student Union has successfully pushed out the Director after protesting his ties to Libya.
It is with great regret that I am writing to inform you, as an alumnus/alumna of LSE, that the LSE Council has accepted the offer of resignation of Sir Howard Davies as Director. This follows an extraordinary meeting of the LSE Council yesterday evening. Sir Howard has, at the behest of the Council, agreed to continue to serve as Director whilst arrangements for succession are resolved.
At the same meeting, Council also resolved to commission an independent external inquiry into the School’s relationship with Libya, to be Chaired by Lord Woolf.
Sir Davies now says his decision to accept £300,000 from the son of Col Gaddafi has “backfired” as he has lost the confidence of the student body.
There were risks involved in taking funding from sources associated with Libya which should have been weighed more heavily in the balance, he concluded in his resignation letter.
He said the decision to accept the British government’s invitation to become an economic envoy to Libya had “muddled” his personal position and his role at the LSE.
A former head of the Financial Services Authority and deputy governor of the Bank of England, Sir Howard gave advice to the Libyan Investment Authority.
He said he was offered a $50,000 (£30,700) fee for doing so, but asked that it be used for a scholarship at the LSE.
The LSE Student Union also has successfully redirected the £300,000 amount from Gaddafi into scholarships for North African students.
This perhaps illustrates the irony of the political history of these two London schools. LSE, which was a liberal institution of social change, has come to serve and represent some of the most conservative voices in the world while SOAS, once an institution of military/colonial intelligence and training, has evolved into a liberal thought leader for students of the developing world.
Provocative title? Although I originally am from Kansas I spent several years working and living in Wisconsin so I know the area fairly well. Remember the book called “What’s the Matter with Kansas” by Thomas Frank? It seems like he might want to publish a new edition that takes a look at the roots of the current crisis in Madison.
…the rules were developed after years of research and public input, including extensive stakeholder input from farmers, municipal water treatment systems, manufacturers, food processors, local governments and environmental groups. Organizations that supported passage of the rules included the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, the Dairy Business Association, the Potato and Vegetable Growers Association, the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association, the Wisconsin Corn Growers Association, the Wisconsin Pork Association, the Wisconsin Cattlemen’s Association, the Municipal Environmental Group (representing local wastewater systems), Clean Wisconsin, Midwest Environmental Associates, the Wisconsin Association of Lakes, the Wisconsin River Alliance, Wisconsin Environment, and the Sierra Club.
[DNR Secretary Matt] Frank added, “We are currently working with all stakeholders on implementation guidelines as well as the design of a pollutant trading system that will lower the cost of compliance even further.”
Wow, that’s a broad-base of industry and organizations who have taken a careful and long-term approach to managing risk. Frank offers this explanation for the popular support.
“Wisconsin’s lakes and rivers are the foundation for our economy, our environment and our quality of life. Stakeholder groups came together to preserve that foundation by addressing phosphorus pollution comprehensively. Under this rule, Wisconsin can look forward to cleaner beaches, more swimmable lakes, improved public health, healthier fisheries and wildlife habitat.
Cleaning up waters polluted by excessive phosphorus is crucial to protecting our $12 billion tourism economy and our $2.75 billion fishing industry. Reducing phosphorus will protect private property values and local tax base, as shown by state and national research linking higher property values with water clarity.
Ok, the quality (safety) of water is essential to the state economy. This is not just based on conjecture and theory. Milwaukee has had a host of water contamination issues from heavy metals to a catastrophic water crisis of 1993.
The massive outbreak of waterborne cryptosporidiosis in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1993 is an example of how contaminated water distributed through a municipal water system can lead to a major public health crisis. As a result of the Cryptosporidium contamination, an estimated 403,000 Milwaukee residents developed diarrhea reflecting an attack rate of 52% of the population with more than 4,000 requiring hospitalization. Cryptosporidiosis was listed as the underlying or contributory cause of death in 54 residents following the outbreak, severely impacting susceptible populations most at risk. An estimated 725,000 productive days were lost as a result of the water contamination event and more than $54 million in lost work time and additional expenses to residents and local government resulted from the waterborne disease outbreak
So Wisconsin has some very real and local data on the harm from a failure to protect their water supplies, which include death and economic disaster. The 2010 Water Quality Report shows warnings for mercury and industrial contaminants for most of the state and shows how regulations have helped document, assess and reduce risk.
It all makes sense so far. Here’s the problem: Republicans in both the House and Senate of Wisconsin recently have tried to kill a bill that regulates phosphorous pollution in their water — a bill wanted by industries to protect and preserve water quality.
Believe it or not, despite the data and analysis I quote above, the Republicans argue that protecting water is too expensive a burden to the economy. They think municipal governments can not afford the security.
But their analysis fails on two very obvious and simple points:
It is far more expensive and disruptive to clean up pollution in the environment than to prevent it.
The state has developed their own localized approach after careful study and time for comment and feedback. A failure to follow-through will set themselves up for hasty and less palatable reaction to a disaster (e.g. 1993). A federal approach may also become necessary. An unwillingness to solve obvious health risks at the state level will not make solutions any easier or less expensive.
Perhaps the real reason they are intent on stopping state regulation is because they do not fear #2. They believe there will not be any federal investigation or regulation to prevent the next water quality crisis because of recent legal decisions, such as Rapanos vs. the United States in 2006, that block the government from testing for contamination in “non-navigable” water.
New York’s Assistant Commissioner for Water Resources James M. Tierney told The New York Times that the court decision creates a big problem. “There are whole watersheds that feed into New York’s drinking water supply that are, as of now, unprotected.” The EPA says that over 100 million Americans are drinking water that comes from unguarded sources.
Gov. Scott Walker has proposed exempting a parcel of Brown County wetlands owned by a Republican campaign donor from water quality standards.
The donor is said to seek the Governor’s assistance with relaxation of state security standards because he intends to fill in 2 acres of wetlands and build…a Bass Pro Shops store to sell fishing supplies. Really.
WTF is wrong with Wisconsin?
The Governor seems to think that ruining the security and economic base of the state by ignoring long-term damage from the contamination and destruction of resources is a good business plan. That’s like lighting your store on fire and then charging admission to watch it burn down. Not the best business strategy. You might end the day with a few more dollars in your pocket, but then what?
Applying just a tiny bit of common sense would make fishing store developers want to preserve and protect natural resources. I mean perhaps the Governor could use the same emphasis he has put into halting wind energy innovation (supposedly based on concern for the purity of the environment) and just apply it to water?
Originally Posted by graf_chokolo
February 23, 2011 at 11:52 am
Guys, SONY was today at my home with police and got all my stuff and accounts. So be careful from now on.
The suspect soon after released all his work to the public and into torrents.
Originally Posted by graf_chokolo
February 23, 2011 at 12:26 pm
Guys, i don’t joke, it’s serious.
And to prove it, i kept my word and uploaded all my HV reversing stuff.
Upload it everywhere so SONY couldn’t remove it easily. Grab it guys, it contains lots of knowledge about HV and HV procs.
Here is my HV bible: Sendspace.com upload.com 2shared.com < - Coolstuff.rar [164mb]
So, SONY you failed again, you took my equipment but my mind is still free and you canot control it. You failed again. They are just tools, i can get new ones and will continue my HV reversing and bringing back PS3 Linux which you took from us. If you want me to stop then you should just kill me because i cannot live without programming, HV and Linux kernel hacking You know who am i and where i live, so come and get me !!!
Sony has been fighting this war for many years. A brief history of important battles was recently posted on Make.
I couldn’t find one location that documented Sony’s all-out war on makers, hackers, and innovators, so I started my own (and it isn’t pretty). The talented artists, designers, and engineers who work at Sony deserve better, and their customers deserve better. Don’t worry, I’m not just going to spank Sony. I’m going to give Sony some ideas to right this ship and also let them know it’s time to reconsider suing George “geohot†Hotz, the Playstation 3 hacker Sony is dragging to court for unlocking his PS3 to run his own software on it.
I find it interesting that the alternative approach that Make advocates is to emulate none other than a company founded by the son of a powerful lawyer who openly despised hobbyists and hackers — Microsoft
Sony should take a page from Microsoft’s playbook and develop a PlayStation SDK for innovators with Hotz. Microsoft saw all the amazing projects and hacks with the Xbox Kinect, and they embraced it.
Bill Gates’ Open Letter to Hobbyists in January 1976 perhaps has more significance now than ever. He not only was proven completely wrong in his assertions about quality in code, but his company has completely and utterly reversed itself; it has embraced hobbyists as innovators and partners to help increase the appeal and expand the market for their products.
Note the tone of this message on Twitter from a Microsoft product manager.
It is yet to be seen whether these fights significantly influence consumer. Microsoft certainly has not fared well in the market when compared with companies that have found a way to turn themselves into media content license warehouses. For what it’s worth, after watching the above events unfold I decided to donate my PS3 to those less fortunate and order Microsoft’s Xbox as a replacement.
Charles Bukowski once wrote “The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.” Cynical, no? This came to mind when I watched Donald Rumsfeld on the air with Jon Stewart. They discussed why Americans trusted their elected officials in the decision to go to war with Iraq. More specifically, they debated how and why the US President decided the timing of when to go. I found it not only confirms what I wrote in 2007 about Curveball, but adds a whole new dimension to the debate. Here is my quote from Vagabond Scholar in 2007.
Psychologists have long known that typically, human beings tend to look for evidence to support their views, not for evidence to contradict them. This dynamic makes the thorough vetting of critical intelligence all the more crucial.
The synopsis of Wilde’s theory is that if you perceive a change will make you safer, then you actually may be prone to take more risk, thus negating the actual risk reduction. However, if you want to be safer than you will make real tangible reductions in risk.
Today I can point you to Rumsfeld himself who talks about his October 15, 2002 “Parade of Horribles memo” (see part 2 below). He openly admits that while the President and his men were full of uncertainty in private, they felt Bush was required to put on the appearance of certainty for the public…so certainty was provided to the public for the purpose of appearing to have certainty. Rumsfeld says this is the need for a leader to show confidence. I agree with the last step in his argument, a leader should show confidence. However, I strongly disagree that a leader should show confidence only for the purpose of showing confidence. The missing link to private confidence seems to be lost on Rumsfeld.
In all fairness, Rumsfeld is stuck in a tough logical corner. If he argues there was confidence in private, then he makes the Administration look like fools for being wrong and believing bad intelligence information. The German intelligence experts and many in the CIA, for example, were not so easily fooled. That clearly would be a tougher position to defend. Thus, he takes the other argument. They had no confidence in private. Now he has the tough job of explaining why they were so confident in public. Saying it was a requirement of the role is weak. He needs a better explanation. A democratic leader should never trade in false confidence, which is basically where his story ends up. This leads Stewart to continually ask why the Administration worked so hard to get Americans to believe that Iraq was in possession of WMD.
Rumsfeld’s response to Stewart centers around the point that he and the Administration did not “rush” in their decision. That fits well with his argument about their private lack of confidence. Unfortunately, while he may say there was no rush, it just begs the question why they acted when they did. Who set the time line to decide, if not President Bush? A no-rush decision means to me they could have taken far more time evaluating the risks before advocating a decision to invade.
Updated to add: A new investigative story says a US Army General gave orders to troops to direct propaganda methods (designed to influence enemy combatants) against congressional delegations to get their support for the war…
The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in “psychological operations” to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.
I guess the General thought he found an easy way to skip Congress right past the voting and into taking orders.
