A Higher Purpose

With so many YASNS (yet another social networking site) on the web, a Wiki for feeding your brain (not necessarily with facts), blogs and opinion/editorial sites, what is available for those who feel a higher purpose? Main stream media purports to bring you facts but instead they bring you biased speculations, circumstantial evidence and opinionated viewpoints while rarely producing any facts.

Google has stepped up to the plate to provide a venue for higher knowledge. The Knol. A knol is  a way for people (not Google) to put their reputations and facts on the line, unlike a wiki that is viewed as mostly facts, but edited by the general public with or without verifiable facts. The wiki encourages citations and verifiable sources and provides a means to help promote accuracy and policing of the facts, but this is not 100% guaranteed as is stated in the Wiki’s disclaimer.

The Knol’s purpose is not understood by many, such as those that seem to think it is a market place to their wares as depicted by Will Johnson and his knol here.

For a better explanation of the purpose of a knol, take a look at this one. Maybe with a concerted community effort, we can help the Google knol concept flush out the “opportunists” and garage salesmen from its pages. Fortunately knols provide a star rating system, comments section and if the author allows, the ability to edit or collaborate on a knol. What tools are available beyond the star rating really adds to the credibility and reputation of the author.

Judges have Bonified Brainfart – order thousands of Calif. inmates released

Special panel says there is no other way to improve poor prison conditions.

updated 9:32 p.m. ET, Mon., Feb. 9, 2009

AP – SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A special panel of federal judges tentatively ruled Monday that California must release tens of thousands of inmates to relieve overcrowding.

The judges said no other solution will improve conditions so poor that inmates die regularly of suicides or lack of proper care.

“There are simply too many prisoners for the existing capacity,” they wrote. “Evidence offered at trial was overwhelmingly to the effect that overcrowding is the primary cause of the unconstitutional conditions that have been found to exist in the California prisons.”

via Judges order Calif. inmates released – Life- msnbc.com.

I know California has a serious budget problem. OK,, lots of states do. California’s prisons are overcrowded, but then I am sure if they deported the illegal immigrant inmates, that would help a bit.

What really gets me is this solution. I don’t think I have ever heard anything as absurd as our prisons are overcrowded and we have a budget problem, so lets release thousands of criminals into the public streets.

Does anyone else see a problem with this brain storm? I laughed at the wording as well, that the overcrowding is the primary cause of unconstitutional conditions. Give me a flippin break. They are crooks, incarcerated and have no rights. They gave up their rights when they decided they didn’t want to be law abiding citizens.

I also saw a perfect solution in their statement “conditions so poor that inmates die regularly of suicides or lack of proper care.” And the downside to this is what? Let em die, let em kill each other, let em kill themselves. I see a huge cost savings and a big “good riddance” of the criminal element in our society.

Not to mention, what a great idea for deterrence. Maybe someone thinking of committing a crime will first think “wait, there is no room in prison, lack of health care, I might die in prison, I better not sell these drugs, or rape this person, or rob this bank, etc.”

I’d like to know what you think about this. Make a comment, take the poll.

Rep. Gary Ackerman D-NY Blasts the SEC into speechlessness (mostly by interupting answers)

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., was the first to raise the issue of corporate jets at the earlier Big 3 Auto hearing. He is very boisterous and animated at the Madoff Fraud Allegations [Ponzi Scheme] and Financial Markets Regulation hearing, yet he nailed the SEC to the wall. Mr Ackerman didn’t do this by himself, in fact he was just echoing Harry Markopolos, an independent financial fraud investigator and analyst.

I give Harry Markopolos a gold ribbon for working so hard on the behalf of Americans and I give Rep. Gary Ackerman a blue ribbon for appearing to be on the side of good in a great show at the hearing and publicly pinning the tail on the donkey. Our congressmen and congresswomen should be working for and representing the public interest in congress, being the voice of the public, not echoing the hard work of others such as Harry Markopolos.

Background of the SEC (Securities & Exchange Commission):

The mission of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.

This is based on the Securities Act of 1933 often referred to as the “truth in securities” law, the Securities Act of 1933 has two basic objectives:

• require that investors receive financial and other significant information concerning securities being offered for public sale; and
• prohibit deceit, misrepresentations, and other fraud in the sale of securities.

In the economy of today, with billions of dollars being handed out to Wall Street companies, banking and investment firms, mortgage companies, and big industry, we can not afford or tolerate our one government agency (SEC) assigned to protect our economy from fraud, to be paid for nothing.

In the videos below you will hear Merrill Lynch named and you will hear specifically how the SEC has failed to do what the tax payers are paying them to do.

YouTube – Markopolos: I gift wrapped and delivered the largest Ponzi scheme in history to the SEC.

Next is Rep. Gary Ackerman at the helm:

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