Clipmarks | Public confidence Clips

Media Literacy Crucial in the age of Internet News

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:55:53 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris
clipper's remarks: Why it is important to teach medial literacy to students

“There was a time when the only definition (of news) is whatever you read or see on TV or in the newspaper,” Mike Fancher, editor-at-large for The Seattle Times, said at a community forum held Tuesday at The News Tribune. That was when TV and newspapers were the news gatekeepers.

“Print (journalism) is like a term paper,” Brewster said at the forum. “A reporter does his research and presents conclusions.

“But online journalism is much more like a conversation: ‘I’ve found out some things and here they are. What do you think?’ Or: ‘What can you add?’”

He said that truth-seeking in online journalism is more conversational and collaborative. And because the exchange of information is public, in the thread of comments that follows the original report, it can “breed greater confidence in the open-mindedness of the journalism.”

Estonian press on Russian Georgian conflict

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:13:03 GMT

clipped by: tommy2balmy
clipper's remarks: These are clipped from Russian govt source-but are mostly very "right wing" (if you are into labels.)
More at site

Clip Source: en.rian.ru

ESTONIA

"The West will be blind unless it learns to make forecasts. What happened in Georgia might be re-enacted in our country. Foreign ministers of the European Union looked inane after meeting in Brussels. Russia has again succeeded in fragmenting common EU foreign policy and security into elementary particles based on sheer national interest." (Postimaes, August 14)

"Russia has made itself insoluble problems. Cuba alone supported its aggression. Even Iran, Venezuela, Uzbekistan and Belarus were conspicuously silent. Economically, Russia will lose confidence and direct investments. Oil and gas might provide a base for the regime - but not forever." (SL Ohtuleht, August 15)

"When it attacked Georgia, Russia renewed the fearsome public image of its army and demonstrated that guarantees made by the United States, which is stuck in the Middle East, are worth nothing. "(Postimaes, August 16)

Tags: estonia, russia, georgia, former soviet republic

He Saw It Coming

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:17:13 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: What economic developments does Roubini see on the horizon? And what does he think we should do about them? The first step, he told me in a recent conversation, is to acknowledge the extent of the problem. “We are in a recession, and denying it is nonsense,” he said.

The United States, Roubini went on, will likely muddle through the crisis but will emerge from it a different nation, with a different place in the world. “Once you run current-account deficits, you depend on the kindness of strangers,” he said, pausing to let out a resigned sigh. “This might be the beginning of the end of the American empire.”

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

On Sept. 7, 2006, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University, stood before an audience of economists at the International Monetary Fund and announced that a crisis was brewing. In the coming months and years, he warned, the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession.

The audience seemed skeptical, even dismissive.

At the time, unemployment and inflation remained low, and the economy, while weak, was still growing, despite rising oil prices and a softening housing market.

Over the past year, whenever optimists have declared the worst of the economic crisis behind us, Roubini has countered with steadfast pessimism.

As a result, Roubini, a respected but formerly obscure academic, has become a major figure in the public debate about the economy: the seer who saw it coming.

Spencer Before The Senate

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:27:37 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: A few days ago, Dr. Roy Spencer gave testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer. To say his testimony wasn't at all what she wanted to hear, would be an understatement.

Spencer doesn't descend to the level of many of his opponents and call Forster a 'denier' or a 'heretic'. Unlike them, apparently, he has some confidence in the soundness of the science backing his position. Obviously when that's the case, there's no real reason to resort to that sort of nonsense, is there?

Or, shorter version, "you politicians need to sit back and relax until the science is is complete on this, but there are indications enough to doubt the initial take on all of this and policy shouldn't be implemented that may be both costly and unnecessary".

Naturally Congress, which is up to its armpits in costly and unnecessary legislation is unlikely heed that warning unless enough of a ruckus is raised to make them.

Clip Source: www.qando.net

Regarding the currently popular theory that mankind is responsible for global warming, I am very pleased to deliver good news from the front lines of climate change research. Our latest research results, which I am about to describe, could have an enormous impact on policy decisions regarding greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite decades of persistent uncertainty over how sensitive the climate system is to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, we now have new satellite evidence which strongly suggests that the climate system is much less sensitive than is claimed by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Another way of saying this is that the real climate system appears to be dominated by “negative feedbacks” — instead of the “positive feedbacks” which are displayed by all twenty computerized climate models utilized by the IPCC.

At this point I can almost see Boxer, in my mind's eye, swallowing her tongue.

Tags: dr roy spencer, climate change research, greenehouse gas, u.n. ipcc, senate environment and public works, sen barbara boxer

Is Florida the Sunset State?

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:28:29 GMT

clipped by: LoPhatt
clipper's remarks: Florida was once a swampy rural backwater, the poorest and emptiest state in the South. But in the 20th century, air-conditioning, bug spray and the miracle of water control helped transform it into a migration destination for the restless masses of Brooklyn and Cleveland, Havana and Port-au-Prince.

I am a sixth generation Floridian, but I am told there are more than 4000 new people coming to live here every day.

Clip Source: www.time.com

Is Florida the Sunset State?

Water Crisis Mortgage Fraud Political Dysfunction Algae Polluted Beaches Declining Crops Failing Public Schools Foreclosures

Greetings from Florida, where the winters are great!

Otherwise, there's trouble in paradise. We're facing our worst real estate meltdown since the Depression. We've got a water crisis, insurance crisis, environmental crisis and budget crisis to go with our housing crisis. We're first in the nation in mortgage fraud, second in foreclosures, last in high school graduation rates. Our consumer confidence just hit an all-time low, and our icons are in trouble--the citrus industry, battered by freezes and diseases; the Florida panther, displaced by highways and driveways; the space shuttle, approaching its final countdown. New research suggests that the Everglades is collapsing, that our barrier beaches could be under water within decades, that a major hurricane could cost us $150 billion.

Congress Should Be Winding Fannie and Freddie Down

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:00:04 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: receivership and restructure them. This could take place without Congress having to pass a resolution explicitly guaranteeing all $5 trillion of the GSEs’ liabilities. That dreaded scenario would double the size of the public debt and drive the dollar to new lows.

This episode demonstrates how stupid and dangerous it is to allow any company to operate under the assumption that it keeps the profits while the taxpayers take the losses.

For now, the U.S. has to make clear that it is standing behind Fannie and Freddie and will not allow them to fail. But to prevent an even worse catastrophe in the future, Fannie and Freddie should be broken up or dramatically downsized. It may sound strange for conservatives to back a government takeover of any company, but a takeover aimed at restructuring, downsizing, and eventually reprivatizating the GSEs might be the least bad option if a run on them actually materializes.

Clip Source: article.nationalreview.com

The housing bill that passed the Senate Friday would create a new regulator for Fannie and Freddie that could force it to raise capital and could take over the companies if they become insolvent. But the bill would also raise the limits on the size of the mortgages that Fannie and Freddie are permitted to buy, allowing them to buy and securitize much bigger loans. Congress should be winding Fannie and Freddie down, not expanding the scope of their activities.

For its part, the Bush administration appears to be trying to reassure the markets while minimizing the risk to taxpayers. If Fannie and Freddie are not able to raise enough capital to reassure investors, Paulson’s plan would enable the government to buy billions in Fannie and Freddie stock to recapitalize them.

But if the credit markets lose confidence in Fannie and Freddie, even a capital injection of $100 billion or more isn’t likely to save them. In that case, it might be necessary for their new regulator to put them into

Tags: federal reserve, treasury sec hank paulson, senate bill, fannie and freddie, mortgages, buy/securitize much bigger loans, credit markets confidence

Bad Science: Testing the plausibility effect

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:49:39 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

we saw the Sunday Express claiming on its front page that an impressive government adviser called Dr Roger Coghill had performed a research study demonstrating that the Bridgend suicide cases all lived closer to a mobile phone mast than average. When I contacted Coghill it turned out he wasn't really a government adviser, he said the Express had made a mistake in calling him a doctor, he had lost the data, and he couldn't even explain what he meant by average.

Week in, week out, we see apparently scientific claims being made in the newspapers with great confidence, as if they were based on evidence, when in reality they are based on nothing more than authority, and often from one man. This is because science is communicated to the public by journalists, who sometimes have no understanding of what it means for there to be evidence for an assertion. They are impressed by enthusiasm, long words, by a PhD, a white coat, or a medical qualification

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Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:22:27 GMT

Clip Source: www.airsocom.com

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U.S. Confidence in Various Institutions

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:50:59 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, come on down! You've made history.

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

At the bottom of the heap, displacing HMOs as our worst institution, one finds the second branch of government, our Congress, at 12%. The Gallup folks noted it is "the worst rating Gallup has measured for any institution in the 35-year history of this question." Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, come on down! You've made history.

Hard to miss as well is that just below the military's high-confidence interval comes, of all things, the cops.

What the U.S. military and the police have in common is successful self-reform of their institutions.

Many institutions are caught between a divided politics pulling hard at opposite ends of the rope. The public's sourness is just a symptom of this tension. Peace of mind – assuming people truly want that – won't come until voters decide whether the future direction of their country should be set mainly by the institutions of the private sector or by institutions of the public sector.

Tags: economy, government, polls, opinion

Veteran climate scientist says 'lock up the oil men'

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:58:36 GMT

clipped by: rustajb

Clip Source: www.theregister.co.uk

Veteran climate scientist says 'lock up the oil men'

Hansen, who heads up Nasa’s Goodard Instritute for Space Studies, is credited with putting climate change squarely on the public agenda in the 1980s, mainly due to a speech to the House energy committee, in which he said: “Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationships between the greenhouse effect and the observed warming.”

Twenty years on, he did the rounds of the big papers last week ahead of a speech this week in which he will warn US lawmakers that it is almost too late defuse what he calls the global warming timebomb.

Hansen’s scientific approach twenty years ago has resulted in virtually no change to the fossil fuel industry’s hegemony in Washington. Congress is as wedded to fossil fuel cash as Americans are to their cars. In the meantime, an embattled Bill Clinton was sandwiched between two Bushes who were both inextricably tied into the oil industry.

Global Warming- NASA Science 20 Years Later

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:17:05 GMT

clipped by: klippety
clipper's remarks: Some time ago, in a congress far, far away...

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Years Later, Climatologist Renews His Call for Action

Twenty years ago Monday, James E. Hansen, a climate scientist at NASA, shook Washington and the world by telling a sweating crowd at a Senate hearing during a stifling heat wave that he was “99 percent” certain that humans were already warming the climate.

“The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now,”

“global warming time bomb.” He will offer a plan for cuts in emissions and also a warning about the risks of further inaction

Dr. Hansen said the natural skepticism and debates embedded in the scientific process had distracted the public from the confidence experts have in a future with centuries of changing climate patterns and higher sea levels under rising carbon dioxide concentrations. The confusion has been amplified by industries that extract or rely on fossil fuels, he said, and this has given cover to politicians who rely on contributions from such industries.

Tags: environment energy globalwarming politics

Poll: Most Britons Doubt Cause Of Climate Change

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:52:03 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: However Professor Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, said politicians and campaigners were to blame for over-simplifying the problem by only publicising evidence to support the case. 'Things that we do know - like humans do cause climate change - are being put in doubt,' said Lomborg. 'If you're saying, "We're not going to tell you the whole truth, but we're going to ask you to pay up a lot of money," people are going to be unsure.'

More than half of those polled did not have confidence in international or British political leaders to tackle climate change, but only just over a quarter think it's too late to stop it. Two thirds want the government to do more but nearly as many said they were cynical about government policies such as green taxes, which they see as 'stealth' taxes.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.

The results have shocked campaigners who hoped that doubts would have been silenced by a report last year by more than 2,500 scientists for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found a 90 per cent chance that humans were the main cause of climate change and warned that drastic action was needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

There is growing concern that an economic depression and rising fuel and food prices are denting public interest in environmental issues. Some environmentalists blame the public's doubts on last year's Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, and on recent books, including one by Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor, that question the consensus on climate change.

Tags: "climate change consensus", uk poll, ipcc, environmentalists, public sceptics, 'stealth' taxes

Grandfather builds Web browser for autistic boy

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:34:46 GMT

clipped by: boozich
clipper's remarks: the Zac browser

Clip Source: www.boston.com

boy has autism, and the whirlwind of options presented by PCs so confounded him

Zac Browser For Autistic Children in honor of his grandson, and is making it available to anyone for free

The Zac Browser greatly simplifies the experience of using a computer. It seals off most Web sites from view, to block violent, sexual or otherwise adult-themed material. Instead it presents a hand-picked slate of choices from free, public Web sites, with an emphasis on educational games

reduces the controls available for children like

Zackary, who finds too many choices overwhelming

"We're trying to avoid aggressive or very dark or complicated Web sites, because it's all about self-esteem,"

"If they're not under control, they will get easily frustrated."

Perhaps most tellingly, while he still acts out aggressively against the TV, she said, he doesn't try to harm the computer.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

approach of limiting distractions and using the software as a confidence-boosting tool "is a very good idea

http://www.zacbrowser.com

Mullahs Keep Fighting Us While Destroying Iran

Sat, 31 May 2008 10:27:20 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: against an official estimate of $45 billion. This sort of discrepancy typically occurs when capital flight is disguised as imports through fraudulent invoices and similar devices. A small current-account deficit would be of little concern for a nation with normal access to world capital markets, but Iran is unable to borrow.

There is indeed massive capital flight. As I wrote a couple of years ago, Gulf bankers told me that they can’t handle all the money pouring out of Iran. Wealthy Persians long since saw the doom of the Islamic Republic, and have been looting the country’s resources for their own gain.

They are printing money, further pauperizing Iranian workers–who are famously paid very late, if at all, as demonstrated by the ongoing demonstrations and strikes at government-owned companies–

The message Spengler delivers is that there is no way out of this war. Left to their own devices, the mullahs will destroy Iran, and, if they can, us as well.

Clip Source: pajamasmedia.com

I’m a big fan of “Spengler,” the elegant and cultured columnist for “Asia Times.” He’s just come out with a new think piece on Iran, which comes to the right conclusion (that is, the same one I have)

His central theme is that the Iranian economy is a basket case, that the country is facing hyperinflation, that there is a great lack of public confidence in the regime, and that the mullahs will (quite soon) have to choose between a Gorbachev-style surrender, or war. He thinks they have already chosen war. And he doesn’t think we can offer them anything that will produce Iran’s “giving up its nuclear ambitions and kenneling its puppies of war.”

He is certainly right about the economic diagnosis, which I have discussed at great length in “The Iranian Time Bomb.” He considers the very real possibility that Iran is running a current account deficit right now, despite the extraordinary runup in oil prices:

President Mahmud Ahmadinejad denied a report that Iran’s imports now exceed $60 billion,

Tags: ahmadinejad, mullahs, hyperinflation, funding terror, arming shi’ites, economic degradation

Americans Are Living (And Dying) In A Militarized Police State

Sun, 25 May 2008 11:59:01 GMT

clipped by: edj1963

Clip Source: www.americanchronicle.com

Today, police departments across the United States more closely resemble an occupying army than they do public servants responding to calls for help. Police officers can now be seen wearing helmets and body armor and carrying AR-15's, just to deliver simple warrants. The militarization of our police departments not only gives the appearance of a military dictatorship but places the public at great risk.

No less than 70 percent of U.S. cities now have SWAT teams. In cities with a population of 50,000 or more, 90 percent have SWAT teams.

SWAT teams were designed to deal with very violent individuals who represent a clear and present threat to the public. However, they are now being used to execute warrants on non-violent offenders and even those who have no prior criminal history at all. Turning our neighborhood cops into shock troops will do nothing but erode public confidence in the police and endanger the lives of innocent Americans

Did someone declare martial law?

Tags: nwo, police state, fascism