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Archive for the 'Politics' Category
History: Niall Ferguson – The 6 killer apps of prosperity
We finally found some time to watch Niall Ferguson’s Ted Talks presentation with the “killer applications” he also describes in his latest book “Civilization The West and the Rest”
Niall Ferguson starts his presentation outlining his playing field, pointing us to the facts that more than 106 billion people have walked this planet and 94% of those are already dead. Out of those 106 billion 60% were or are Asian and most of them were or are very poor (shortening their life span / economic output). He then bridges over to explain the concept of the “Great Divergence“, that the majority of today’s wealth (US$195 Trillion) was made after 1800 by so-called Westerners and till today 66% of the world’s wealth is owned by these Europeans, North-Americans and Austral-Asians that only make up 19% of the world’s population…
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Humor: Stephen Colbert is preparing them
In response to what was said by Mitt Romney during his “victory speech” on Tuesday in Florida, Stephen Colbert created the hashtag #PrepareThem on Twitter. As we all know Stephen will always try to help out when it comes to support the GOP with finding the perfect candidate…
The best quotes we’ve seen so far:
(Comedy alert — Comedy alert – politicians and yaysayers there is nothing to see here – carry on looking the other way)
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Opinion: ACTA – speaking out the unspeakable
Kader Arif, the Rapporteur for the ACTA agreement in the European Parliament has today resigned over the issues he sees with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (AKTA). To express his views and issues as a member of the European Parliament he issued the following statement on his blog (in French – English translation below) …
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Happy Australia Day – Ms Gillard
Life is full of surprises and not all girls that loose one shoe at a party will be rescued and married by a prince later.
We do understand that Ms Gillard and her buddies would like to turn the clock back in Australia to pre-Howard times. But maybe this time the Aborigines and others will not take it all standing down watching how their land, their children, their lives, their religion and resources are stolen or otherwise been taken away from them.
So, happy Australia day, Ms Gillard or as the people who were there before you called it – Happy Invasion day.
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Quote of the day: Internet regulations are like witchcraft
The fact that there is no such thing as witchcraft didn’t stop them from burning a lot of “witches”. By the same token the ineffectiveness of the “remedy” is actually worse for us. It’s like the “five-year-plan” that produces no wheat that yields an even more drastic “five-year-plan” that also produces no corn …
Cory Doctorow @ 28C3 28-December-2011
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Internet: The Great Firewall of the USA – Stop SOPA before it is too late
On November 16th, Congress is holding hearings on the first American Internet censorship system.
If this bill passes it certainly will be the worst piece of Internet legislation in American history. The House of Representatives opens hearings on SOPA soon, but has rejected all submissions and testimony from public interest groups and others who oppose the bill.
If this bill passes, the Internet and free speech will never be the same. And so will U.S. society and the Internet industry as a whole. In the U.S. where this industry in total is larger than energy, agriculture, communication, mining or utilities, this bill will put innovation and thousands of small to mid-size companies at risk….
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