Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Quantum strategy offers game-winning advantages, even without entanglement
Enlarge
Experimental and theoretical results both show that
quantum gain - measured as the difference between the winning chances
for classical and quantum players - is highest under maximum
entanglement. Quantum gain remains even when entanglement disappears,
and approaches zero along with the discord. Image credit: Zu, et al.
©2012 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft
(PhysOrg.com) -- Quantum correlations have well-known
advantages in areas such as communication, computing, and cryptography,
and recently physicists have discovered that they may help players
competing in zero-sum games, as well. In a new study, researchers have
found that a game player who uses an appropriate quantum strategy can
greatly increase their chances of winning compared with using a
classical strategy.
In their study, the researchers focused on a two-player game called matching pennies. In the classical version of this game, each player puts down one penny as either heads or tails. If both pennies match, then Player 1 wins and takes both pennies. If one penny shows heads and the other shows tails, then Player 2 wins and takes both pennies. Since one player’s gain is always the other player’s loss, the game is a zero-sum game.
In the classical version of the game, neither player has any incentive to choose one side of the coin over the other, so players choose heads or tails with equal probability. The random nature of the players’ strategies results in a “mixed strategy Nash equilibrium,” a situation in which each player has only a 50% chance of winning, no matter what strategy they use.
But here, Zu and coauthors have found that a player who has the option of using a quantum strategy can increase his or her chances of winning from 50% to 94%. This quantum version of the game uses entangled photons as qubits instead of pennies. And instead of choosing between heads and tails, players use a polarizer and single-photon detector to implement their strategies. While the classical player can still choose only one of two states, the quantum player has more choices due to her ability to rotate a polarizer 360° before the single-photon detector. The researchers calculated that the quantum player can maximize his or her chances of winning by rotating the polarizer at a 45° angle.
“Each player can apply any operation to their qubit (or coin), and then measure it in computational basis,” Zu explained to PhysOrg.com. “For a classical player, the operation he can do is to flip the bit or just leave it unchanged. However, if a player has quantum power, he can apply arbitrary single-bit operations to his qubit. But the measurement part is the same for the quantum and classical players.”
The researchers found that the quantum advantage depends heavily on how correlated the original photons are, with a maximally entangled state providing the largest gain. The researchers were surprised to find that the quantum advantage doesn’t decrease to zero when entanglement disappears completely, since a different kind of quantum correlation – quantum discord – also provides an advantage. This finding may even be the most interesting part of the study.
“There is no wonder that quantum mechanics will lead to advantages in game theory, but the interesting part of our work is that we find out the quantum gain does not decrease to zero when entanglement disappears,” Zu said. “Instead, it links with another kind of quantum correlation described by discord for the qubit case, and the connection is demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally.”
He added that this finding could potentially be useful for making real-world strategies.
“Our work may help people to understand how quantum mechanics works in game theory (in some cases, entanglement is not necessary for a quantum player to achieve a positive gain),” he said. “It may also give a good example of people making strategies in a future quantum network.”
More information: C. Zu, et al. “Experimental demonstration of quantum gain in a zero-sum game.” New Journal of Physics, 14 (2012) 033002. DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/14/3/033002
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Tuesday, March 13, 2012
FCorp Boss Charged With CBT in 'Cowgate' scandal!
Day
in court: Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Salleh Ismail (above) leaving the
courthouse after being charged. Also present were his wife Datuk Seri
Shahrizat Abdul Jalil and their son Wan Shahinur Izmir Salleh (below). KUALA LUMPUR: The executive chairman of the National Feedlot Corporation Sdn Bhd has claimed trial at the Sessions Court here to two counts of committing breach of trust and two counts of violating the Companies Act 1965 involving RM49.7mil.
Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Salleh Ismail, 64, arrived in court at 2.15pm accompanied by his wife Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, their eldest son Wan Shahinur Izmir and other family members.
The charges were read to Dr Mohamad Salleh at 2.27pm before judge S.M. Komathy Suppiah in a packed courtroom.
The proceedings yesterday marked a new chapter in the NFCorp controversy which arose after the Auditor-General's 2010 Report highlighted the failure of the National Feedlot Centre to achieve its target, and which grew with revelations that the company had used the government-funded soft loan for purposes not related to cattle breeding.
Dr Mohamad Salleh was charged with dishonestly misusing funds amounting to RM9,758,140 through four cheques to partly finance the purchase of two units of One Menerung Condominium in Block B here for the National Meat and Livestock Corporation Sdn Bhd, which he owns with one of his sons.
According to the charge, he committed the offence in his capacity as an NFCorp director entrusted with control over the company's assets.
He is said to have committed the offence at CIMB Islamic Bank Bhd in Jalan Burhanuddin Helmi, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, here between Dec 1 and 4, 2009.
Dr Mohamad Salleh was charged under Section 409 of the Penal Code which carries a jail term of up to 20 years, a fine and whipping.
He is also accused under Section 132(2)(a) of the Companies Act 1965 of committing the offence without approval from an annual general meeting of NFCorp to gain profit directly.
He is also accused of transferring NFCorp's funds of RM40mil through a cheque into the National Meat and Livestock Corporation's account at the same bank from May 6 to Nov 16, 2009.
For this, he faces charges of criminal breach of trust and violating the Companies Act.
Deputy Public Prosecutors Dzulkifli Ahmad, Awang Armadajaya Awang Mahmud and Azimul Azami prosecuted while the defence was led by Badrul Munir Bukhari.
Pleading for a lower bail, counsel Badrul Munir said Dr Mohamad Salleh had given his full cooperation to the police and prosecution, and his client was in court to clear his name. He applied to release the accused on a RM50,000 personal bond for each charge.
Dzulkifli applied to the court under Section 165 of the Criminal Procedure Code for a single trial for all the charges.
Judge Komathy agreed to a single trial and set bail of RM500,000 with one surety for all four charges.
She also ordered Mohamad Salleh to surrender his passport pending mention of his case on April 13.
Wan Shahinur Izmir paid the bail.
Shahrizat was impassive in court and declined to speak to reporters after the proceedings.
Malaysian minister to step down in midst of 'Cowgate' scandal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, is greeted
by Malaysian Minister of Women, Family, and Community Development
Shahrizat Abdul Jalil before a town hall event at the International
Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010,
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (EVAN VUCCI / AP)
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A Malaysian minister said Sunday she will step down amid accusations that her family misused a 250 million ringgit ($83 million) government loan meant for a cattle project to purchase condominiums, vacations and a Mercedes.
The scandal, dubbed "Cowgate,'' has greatly embarrassed Prime Minister Najib Razak ahead of general elections widely expected to be called by June.
After months of resisting calls from critics to step down, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said she will resign as minister of women, family and community on April 8 once her term as senator ends.
Shahrizat said her decision had nothing to do with the cattle project run by her husband and three children but that she is stepping down as a "responsible member of the government.'' She will, however, stay on as chief of the women's wing of the ruling Malay party.
The scandal emerged last year after the auditor-general's annual report said the National Feedlot Center run by Shahrizat's family had not met its goal of making the country 40 per cent self-sufficient in beef production by 2010.
Since then, opposition parties have accused the company of using a government loan allocated for cattle rearing to purchase property including luxury condominiums in Malaysia and Singapore and other personal items. Shahrizat's family has denied any wrongdoing, saying the company was allowed to use the loan at its discretion and that the properties would earn it rental income.
Police have recommended that the company's directors be charged with criminal breach of trust but the attorney-general has asked police to conduct further investigations.
Najib said Shahrizat's resignation was a sacrifice in the interest of the government and party.
"Although there is no proof so far that she had committed any offence in terms of law, because the (project) has drawn controversy and dispute, she was willing to withdraw from the government,'' the national Bernama news agency quoted him as saying.
Analysts said Shahrizat's resignation wasn't surprising as Najib isn't likely to renew her senatorship.
"Cowgate is a big blow to Najib as it shows he is slow to act on allegations of high-level corruption,'' said James Chin, a political science lecturer at Monash University in Malaysia.
Najib's National Front coalition suffered its worst performance in 2008 polls, losing more than a third of Parliament's seats to a resurgent opposition amid widespread discontent over the government's handling of problems such as corruption and racial discrimination.
While the ruling coalition isn't expected to lose power in upcoming polls, scandals such as Cowgate make it tougher for Najib to consolidate his power. General elections are not due until 2013 but are widely expected in the next few months.
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Monday, March 12, 2012
Fukushima nuclear meltdown - one year later
GLOBAL TRENDS By MARTIN KHOR
As the world marks the first anniversary of Japan’s triple tragedy, lessons are still being drawn from the Fukushima nuclear accident and the dangers of nuclear power plants.
IT’S been
a full year since Japan’s triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and
nuclear meltdown, and the reverberations are still being felt.
The tsunami on March 11, 2011, caused around 19,000 deaths (16,000 known dead, 3,000 missing) and 320,000 were made homeless.
The nuclear disaster alone created 100,000 nuclear evacuees.
The lesson, only partially learnt in Japan itself and hardly learnt in other countries, is that natural disasters can come in many unexpected forms and governments must put aside considerable resources and facilities to prepare for and manage them.
The lesson usually becomes obvious when a disaster occurs.
After that, a pledge is made to be better prepared and much of that is not implemented until the next disaster and the cycle begins again.
While the tsunami caused the most immediate damage, it was the nuclear incidents at the Fukushima power plant that were the most shocking and may have the most long-term repercussions.
The nuclear disaster blew away a lot of myths.We now know, again, that nuclear power plants are not safe.
The claim by Tepco – the Japanese company operating the Fukushima plant – that the reactors were fail-safe and could withstand earthquakes, was proven to be wrong.
The ability of the regulatory authorities to monitor and check for risks and ensure safety was near absent.
An independent commission, which was set up by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation to investigate the nuclear incident, shows how close Japan came to a catastrophe.
Its chairman Yoichi Funabashi, in an article in last Saturday’s Financial Times, said that Japan was on the edge of an “existential crisis”.
As the tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant’s cooling systems, the Tepco president indicated his company’s intention to abandon the plant and evacuate its workers.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan personally intervened, ordering the company not to abandon ship and form a “death squad” to continue the battle and inject water into the reactor vessels.
A worst case scenario, prepared for the prime minister by the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, envisioned a hydrogen explosion, a succession of meltdowns and such extensive radiation that the whole of Tokyo would have to be evacuated.
Funabashi said: “The truth is that the imagined ‘worst-case scenario’ was closer than anyone would wish to admit; but for the direction of the wind (towards the Pacific, not inland, in the four days after the earthquake); but for the manner in which the gate separating the reactor-well and the spent-fuel pool in Unit 4 broke (presumably facilitating the transfusion of water into the pool). Luck was undeniably on our side.”
Funabashi’s commission found that the nuclear industry had become ensnared in its twisted myth of “absolute safety”, propagated by interest groups seeking to gain broad acceptance of nuclear power.
He also found that “Japan’s nuclear safety regulatory regime was phoney. Regulators pretended to regulate; utilities pretended to be regulated. In reality, the latter were far more powerful in expertise and clout”. He offers two lessons to be learnt.
First, is the need to overcome the myth of “absolute safety”, shatter the taboo that surrounds the concept of risks in the nuclear energy business and the need to prepare for the unthinkable and unanticipated.
Second, is the need for an independent regulatory body.
A major fallout from the Fukushima accident is the blow it has dealt to the nuclear industry.
It highlighted the danger a country faces when something goes wrong.
Of its 52 nuclear plants, Japan has now shut down 50 plants. The remaining two may also be shut down next month.
Although the government may try to reopen some of them, the public revulsion against nuclear plants could mean that their days are numbered.
There has also been a global backlash, with Germany, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland declaring that they will phase out their nuclear plants.
The situation in Asia, however, is mixed. China has suspended the building of new nuclear plants pending changes in safety standards.
India, Vietnam and Korea are going ahead with their nuclear power programmes.
“If more nuclear power plants are built in developing countries with little experience of operating a reactor, or bordering a region where terrorism is a concern, or without sufficient financial resources to import state of the art technology, then the chance of a major nuclear accident hitting the developing world will loom large in the coming decades,” said Kevin Tu, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Meanwhile The Economist magazine, in its latest cover story, “Nuclear Energy: The dream that failed” is pessimistic about the future of the nuclear industry.
Nuclear plants are costly to build and operate. British studies put the overnight cost of new power plants at US$2,233 (RM6,720) for every kilowatt of capacity in 2004 and US$3,000 (RM9,028)/kw in 2008, according to The Economist.
Capacity fired by gas turbines cost less than one-fifth of that. The cost of renewable energy (wind and solar, in particular) is, however, getting cheaper every year.
Perhaps, the most intractable problem is nuclear waste. As The Economist noted, building a nuclear plant that can last 100 years is one thing, but creating waste that will be dangerous for 100 times as long is another.
So far, countries have failed to create a long-term repository for nuclear waste.
As the public has become intensely more aware of the dangers of radiation, the resistance to locating nuclear plants in their neighbourhood has grown fiercer.
No doubt the Fukushima meltdowns and its aftermath have contributed to increased awareness and to the bad name that nuclear power has acquired.
P/S: We sympathize with Japan's sufferings from earthquake, tsunami caused by nature that resulted in Fukushima nuclear meltdown a year ago.
How Japan feels when we remember the victims of its Nanjing Massacre committed and occupied by Japanese troops on Dec 13, 1937, China's former capital city suffered a six-week massacre in which more than 300,000 Chinese were Killed, 20,000 Women Raped ... ?
Related posts:
Major nuclear accidents around the world, What ...
Japan's Nuclear Reactors threaten nuclear power's future!
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Major nuclear accidents around the world,What relationship & causes earthquakes & Tsunamis? Water to cool reactor in Japan!
Nanjing Massacre remembered!
Chinese Outraged by Denial of Nanjing Massacre by ...
Japanese Occupation survivors tell their stories
As the world marks the first anniversary of Japan’s triple tragedy, lessons are still being drawn from the Fukushima nuclear accident and the dangers of nuclear power plants.
The tsunami on March 11, 2011, caused around 19,000 deaths (16,000 known dead, 3,000 missing) and 320,000 were made homeless.
The nuclear disaster alone created 100,000 nuclear evacuees.
The lesson, only partially learnt in Japan itself and hardly learnt in other countries, is that natural disasters can come in many unexpected forms and governments must put aside considerable resources and facilities to prepare for and manage them.
The lesson usually becomes obvious when a disaster occurs.
After that, a pledge is made to be better prepared and much of that is not implemented until the next disaster and the cycle begins again.
While the tsunami caused the most immediate damage, it was the nuclear incidents at the Fukushima power plant that were the most shocking and may have the most long-term repercussions.
The nuclear disaster blew away a lot of myths.We now know, again, that nuclear power plants are not safe.
The claim by Tepco – the Japanese company operating the Fukushima plant – that the reactors were fail-safe and could withstand earthquakes, was proven to be wrong.
The ability of the regulatory authorities to monitor and check for risks and ensure safety was near absent.
An independent commission, which was set up by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation to investigate the nuclear incident, shows how close Japan came to a catastrophe.
Its chairman Yoichi Funabashi, in an article in last Saturday’s Financial Times, said that Japan was on the edge of an “existential crisis”.
As the tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant’s cooling systems, the Tepco president indicated his company’s intention to abandon the plant and evacuate its workers.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan personally intervened, ordering the company not to abandon ship and form a “death squad” to continue the battle and inject water into the reactor vessels.
A worst case scenario, prepared for the prime minister by the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, envisioned a hydrogen explosion, a succession of meltdowns and such extensive radiation that the whole of Tokyo would have to be evacuated.
Funabashi said: “The truth is that the imagined ‘worst-case scenario’ was closer than anyone would wish to admit; but for the direction of the wind (towards the Pacific, not inland, in the four days after the earthquake); but for the manner in which the gate separating the reactor-well and the spent-fuel pool in Unit 4 broke (presumably facilitating the transfusion of water into the pool). Luck was undeniably on our side.”
Funabashi’s commission found that the nuclear industry had become ensnared in its twisted myth of “absolute safety”, propagated by interest groups seeking to gain broad acceptance of nuclear power.
He also found that “Japan’s nuclear safety regulatory regime was phoney. Regulators pretended to regulate; utilities pretended to be regulated. In reality, the latter were far more powerful in expertise and clout”. He offers two lessons to be learnt.
First, is the need to overcome the myth of “absolute safety”, shatter the taboo that surrounds the concept of risks in the nuclear energy business and the need to prepare for the unthinkable and unanticipated.
Second, is the need for an independent regulatory body.
A major fallout from the Fukushima accident is the blow it has dealt to the nuclear industry.
It highlighted the danger a country faces when something goes wrong.
Of its 52 nuclear plants, Japan has now shut down 50 plants. The remaining two may also be shut down next month.
Although the government may try to reopen some of them, the public revulsion against nuclear plants could mean that their days are numbered.
There has also been a global backlash, with Germany, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland declaring that they will phase out their nuclear plants.
The situation in Asia, however, is mixed. China has suspended the building of new nuclear plants pending changes in safety standards.
India, Vietnam and Korea are going ahead with their nuclear power programmes.
“If more nuclear power plants are built in developing countries with little experience of operating a reactor, or bordering a region where terrorism is a concern, or without sufficient financial resources to import state of the art technology, then the chance of a major nuclear accident hitting the developing world will loom large in the coming decades,” said Kevin Tu, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Meanwhile The Economist magazine, in its latest cover story, “Nuclear Energy: The dream that failed” is pessimistic about the future of the nuclear industry.
Nuclear plants are costly to build and operate. British studies put the overnight cost of new power plants at US$2,233 (RM6,720) for every kilowatt of capacity in 2004 and US$3,000 (RM9,028)/kw in 2008, according to The Economist.
Capacity fired by gas turbines cost less than one-fifth of that. The cost of renewable energy (wind and solar, in particular) is, however, getting cheaper every year.
Perhaps, the most intractable problem is nuclear waste. As The Economist noted, building a nuclear plant that can last 100 years is one thing, but creating waste that will be dangerous for 100 times as long is another.
So far, countries have failed to create a long-term repository for nuclear waste.
As the public has become intensely more aware of the dangers of radiation, the resistance to locating nuclear plants in their neighbourhood has grown fiercer.
No doubt the Fukushima meltdowns and its aftermath have contributed to increased awareness and to the bad name that nuclear power has acquired.
P/S: We sympathize with Japan's sufferings from earthquake, tsunami caused by nature that resulted in Fukushima nuclear meltdown a year ago.
How Japan feels when we remember the victims of its Nanjing Massacre committed and occupied by Japanese troops on Dec 13, 1937, China's former capital city suffered a six-week massacre in which more than 300,000 Chinese were Killed, 20,000 Women Raped ... ?
Related posts:
Major nuclear accidents around the world, What ...
Japan's Nuclear Reactors threaten nuclear power's future!
World Energy Market Adjusting to Japan Nuclear Crisis
New power line could cool Japanese reactors
Major nuclear accidents around the world,What relationship & causes earthquakes & Tsunamis? Water to cool reactor in Japan!
Nanjing Massacre remembered!
Chinese Outraged by Denial of Nanjing Massacre by ...
Japanese Occupation survivors tell their stories
The dark side of Facebook; Link to socially aggressive narcissism
Our social networking pages are being policed by outsourced, unvetted moderators.
For most of us, our experience on Facebook is a benign – even banal – one. A status update about a colleague’s commute. A “friend” request from someone we haven’t seen for years (and hoped to avoid for several more). A picture of another friend’s baby, barely distinguishable from the dozen posted the day before.
Some four billion pieces of content are shared every day by 845 million users. And while most are harmless, it has recently come to light that the site is brimming with paedophilia, pornography, racism and violence – all moderated by outsourced, poorly vetted workers in third world countries paid just $1 an hour.
In addition to the questionable morality of a company that is about to create 1,000 millionaires when it floats paying such paltry sums, there are significant privacy concerns for the rest of us. Although this invisible army of moderators receive basic training, they work from home, do not appear to undergo criminal checks, and have worrying access to users’ personal details. In a week in which there has been an outcry over Google’s privacy policies, can we expect a wider backlash over the extent to which we trust companies with our intimate information?
Last month, 21-year-old Amine Derkaoui gave an interview to Gawker, an American media outlet. Derkaoui had spent three weeks working in Morocco for oDesk, one of the outsourcing companies used by Facebook. His job, for which he claimed he was paid around $1 an hour, involved moderating photos and posts flagged as unsuitable by other users.
“It must be the worst salary paid by Facebook,” he told The Daily Telegraph this week. “And the job itself was very upsetting – no one likes to see a human cut into pieces every day.”
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The invisible army policing Facebook has access to our most intimate secrets Photo: Reuters
For most of us, our experience on Facebook is a benign – even banal – one. A status update about a colleague’s commute. A “friend” request from someone we haven’t seen for years (and hoped to avoid for several more). A picture of another friend’s baby, barely distinguishable from the dozen posted the day before.
Some four billion pieces of content are shared every day by 845 million users. And while most are harmless, it has recently come to light that the site is brimming with paedophilia, pornography, racism and violence – all moderated by outsourced, poorly vetted workers in third world countries paid just $1 an hour.
In addition to the questionable morality of a company that is about to create 1,000 millionaires when it floats paying such paltry sums, there are significant privacy concerns for the rest of us. Although this invisible army of moderators receive basic training, they work from home, do not appear to undergo criminal checks, and have worrying access to users’ personal details. In a week in which there has been an outcry over Google’s privacy policies, can we expect a wider backlash over the extent to which we trust companies with our intimate information?
Last month, 21-year-old Amine Derkaoui gave an interview to Gawker, an American media outlet. Derkaoui had spent three weeks working in Morocco for oDesk, one of the outsourcing companies used by Facebook. His job, for which he claimed he was paid around $1 an hour, involved moderating photos and posts flagged as unsuitable by other users.
“It must be the worst salary paid by Facebook,” he told The Daily Telegraph this week. “And the job itself was very upsetting – no one likes to see a human cut into pieces every day.”
Derkaoui is not exaggerating. An articulate man, he described images of animal
abuse, butchered bodies and videos of fights. Other moderators, mainly
young, well-educated people working in Asia, Africa and Central America,
have similar stories. “Paedophilia, necrophilia, beheadings, suicides, etc,”
said one. “I left [because] I value my sanity.” Another compared it to
working in a sewer. “All the ---- of the world flows towards you and you
have to clean it up,” he said.
Who, one wonders, apart from the desperate, the unstable and the unsavoury, would be attracted to doing such an awful job in the first place?
Of course, not all of the unsuitable material on the site is so graphic. Facebook operates a fascinatingly strict set of guidelines determining what should be deleted. Pictures of naked private parts, drugs (apart from marijuana) and sexual activity (apart from foreplay) are all banned. Male nipples are OK, but naked breastfeeding is not. Photographs of bodily fluids (except semen) are allowed, but not if a human being is also shown. Photoshopped images are fine, but not if they show someone in a negative light.
Once something is reported by a user, the moderator sitting at his computer in Morocco or Mexico has three options: delete it; ignore it; or escalate it, which refers it back to a Facebook employee in California (who will, if necessary, report it to the authorities). Moderators are told always to escalate specific threats – “I’m going to stab Lisa H at the frat party” is given as the charming example – but not generic, unlikely ones, such as “I’m going to blow up the planet on New Year’s Eve.”
It is, of course, to Facebook’s credit that they are attempting to balance their mission “to make the world more open and connected” with a willingness to remove traces of the darker side of human nature. The company founded by Mark Zuckerberg in his Harvard bedroom is richer and more populated than many countries. These moderators are their police.
Neither is Facebook alone in outsourcing unpleasant work. Adam Levin, the US-based chief executive of Criterion Capital Partners and the owner of British social network Bebo, says that the process is “rampant” across Silicon Valley.
“We do it at Bebo,” he says. “Facebook has so much content flowing into its system every day that it needs hundreds of people moderating all the images and posts which are flagged. That type of workforce is best outsourced for speed, scale and cost.”
A spokesman for Twitter said that they have an internal moderation team, but refused to answer a question about outsourcing. Similarly, a Google spokesperson would not say how Google+, the search giant’s new social network, will be moderated. Neither Facebook nor oDesk were willing to comment on anything to do with outsourcing or moderation.
Levin, however, estimates that Facebook indirectly employs between 800 to 1,000 moderators via oDesk and others – nearly a third of its more handsomely remunerated full-time staff. Graham Cluley, of the internet security firm Sophos, calls Silicon Valley’s outsourcing culture its “poorly kept dirty secret”.
Lack of security
The biggest worry for the rest of us, however, is that the moderation process isn’t nearly secretive enough. According to Derkaoui, there are no security measures on a moderator’s computer to stop them uploading obscene material themselves. Despite coming into daily contact with such material, he was never subjected to a criminal record check. Where, then, is the oversight body for these underpaid global police? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Facebook itself is guarding them, according to a previous statement to which the Telegraph was referred. “These contractors are subject to rigorous quality controls and we have implemented several layers of safeguards to protect the data of those using our service,” it read. “No user information beyond the content in question and the source of the report is shared. All decisions made by contractors are subject to extensive audits.”
And yet in the images due for moderation seen by the Telegraph, the name of anyone “tagged” in an offending post – as well as the user who uploaded it – could be clearly discerned. A Facebook spokesman said that these names are shared with the moderators to put the content in context – a context sufficient for Derkaoui to claim that he had as much information as “looking at a friend’s Facebook page”. He admits to having subsequently looked up more information online about the people he had been moderating. Cluley is worried that Facebook users could be blackmailed by disgruntled moderators – or even see pictures originally intended for a small circle of friends pasted all over the web.
Shamoon Siddiqui, chief executive of Develop.io, an American app-building firm that employs people in the developing world for a more generous $7 to $10 an hour, agrees that better security measures are needed. “It isn’t wrong for Facebook to have an Indian office,” he says. “But it is wrong for it to use an arbitrary marketplace with random people it doesn’t know in that country. This will have to change.”
In Britain, for example, all web moderators have to undergo an enhanced CRB check. eModeration, whose clients range from HSBC to The X-Factor, pays £10 an hour and never lets its staff spend too long on the gritty stuff. They wouldn’t go near the Facebook account. The job, says Tamara Littleton, its chief executive, is too big, the moderating too reactive, and they couldn’t compete on cost with the likes of oDesk.
So, if no one can undercut the likes of oDesk, could they not be undermined instead? If Mr Zuckerberg will not dig deeper into his $17.5 billion pockets to pay the street-sweepers of Facebook properly, maybe he could be persuaded by a little moral outrage?
Levin disagrees. “Perhaps a minute percentage of users will stop using Facebook when they hear about this,” he says. “But the more digital our society becomes, the less people value their privacy.”
Perhaps. But maybe disgruntled commuters, old schoolfriends and new mothers will think twice before sharing intimate information with their “friends” – only to find that two minutes later it’s being viewed by an under-vetted, unfulfilled person on a dollar an hour in an internet café in Marrakech. - The Daily Telegraph
Facebook's 'dark side': study finds link to socially aggressive narcissism
By Damien Pearse, guardian.co.uk,
Psychology paper finds Facebook and other social media offer platform for obsessions with self-image and shallow friendships
Who, one wonders, apart from the desperate, the unstable and the unsavoury, would be attracted to doing such an awful job in the first place?
Of course, not all of the unsuitable material on the site is so graphic. Facebook operates a fascinatingly strict set of guidelines determining what should be deleted. Pictures of naked private parts, drugs (apart from marijuana) and sexual activity (apart from foreplay) are all banned. Male nipples are OK, but naked breastfeeding is not. Photographs of bodily fluids (except semen) are allowed, but not if a human being is also shown. Photoshopped images are fine, but not if they show someone in a negative light.
Once something is reported by a user, the moderator sitting at his computer in Morocco or Mexico has three options: delete it; ignore it; or escalate it, which refers it back to a Facebook employee in California (who will, if necessary, report it to the authorities). Moderators are told always to escalate specific threats – “I’m going to stab Lisa H at the frat party” is given as the charming example – but not generic, unlikely ones, such as “I’m going to blow up the planet on New Year’s Eve.”
It is, of course, to Facebook’s credit that they are attempting to balance their mission “to make the world more open and connected” with a willingness to remove traces of the darker side of human nature. The company founded by Mark Zuckerberg in his Harvard bedroom is richer and more populated than many countries. These moderators are their police.
Neither is Facebook alone in outsourcing unpleasant work. Adam Levin, the US-based chief executive of Criterion Capital Partners and the owner of British social network Bebo, says that the process is “rampant” across Silicon Valley.
“We do it at Bebo,” he says. “Facebook has so much content flowing into its system every day that it needs hundreds of people moderating all the images and posts which are flagged. That type of workforce is best outsourced for speed, scale and cost.”
A spokesman for Twitter said that they have an internal moderation team, but refused to answer a question about outsourcing. Similarly, a Google spokesperson would not say how Google+, the search giant’s new social network, will be moderated. Neither Facebook nor oDesk were willing to comment on anything to do with outsourcing or moderation.
Levin, however, estimates that Facebook indirectly employs between 800 to 1,000 moderators via oDesk and others – nearly a third of its more handsomely remunerated full-time staff. Graham Cluley, of the internet security firm Sophos, calls Silicon Valley’s outsourcing culture its “poorly kept dirty secret”.
Lack of security
The biggest worry for the rest of us, however, is that the moderation process isn’t nearly secretive enough. According to Derkaoui, there are no security measures on a moderator’s computer to stop them uploading obscene material themselves. Despite coming into daily contact with such material, he was never subjected to a criminal record check. Where, then, is the oversight body for these underpaid global police? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Facebook itself is guarding them, according to a previous statement to which the Telegraph was referred. “These contractors are subject to rigorous quality controls and we have implemented several layers of safeguards to protect the data of those using our service,” it read. “No user information beyond the content in question and the source of the report is shared. All decisions made by contractors are subject to extensive audits.”
And yet in the images due for moderation seen by the Telegraph, the name of anyone “tagged” in an offending post – as well as the user who uploaded it – could be clearly discerned. A Facebook spokesman said that these names are shared with the moderators to put the content in context – a context sufficient for Derkaoui to claim that he had as much information as “looking at a friend’s Facebook page”. He admits to having subsequently looked up more information online about the people he had been moderating. Cluley is worried that Facebook users could be blackmailed by disgruntled moderators – or even see pictures originally intended for a small circle of friends pasted all over the web.
Shamoon Siddiqui, chief executive of Develop.io, an American app-building firm that employs people in the developing world for a more generous $7 to $10 an hour, agrees that better security measures are needed. “It isn’t wrong for Facebook to have an Indian office,” he says. “But it is wrong for it to use an arbitrary marketplace with random people it doesn’t know in that country. This will have to change.”
In Britain, for example, all web moderators have to undergo an enhanced CRB check. eModeration, whose clients range from HSBC to The X-Factor, pays £10 an hour and never lets its staff spend too long on the gritty stuff. They wouldn’t go near the Facebook account. The job, says Tamara Littleton, its chief executive, is too big, the moderating too reactive, and they couldn’t compete on cost with the likes of oDesk.
So, if no one can undercut the likes of oDesk, could they not be undermined instead? If Mr Zuckerberg will not dig deeper into his $17.5 billion pockets to pay the street-sweepers of Facebook properly, maybe he could be persuaded by a little moral outrage?
Levin disagrees. “Perhaps a minute percentage of users will stop using Facebook when they hear about this,” he says. “But the more digital our society becomes, the less people value their privacy.”
Perhaps. But maybe disgruntled commuters, old schoolfriends and new mothers will think twice before sharing intimate information with their “friends” – only to find that two minutes later it’s being viewed by an under-vetted, unfulfilled person on a dollar an hour in an internet café in Marrakech. - The Daily Telegraph
Facebook's 'dark side': study finds link to socially aggressive narcissism
By Damien Pearse, guardian.co.uk,
Psychology paper finds Facebook and other social media offer platform for obsessions with self-image and shallow friendships
Too many 'friends'? A psychology paper
has found a link between Facebook and other social media and socially
disruptive narcissism. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Researchers have established a direct link between the number of
friends you have on Facebook and the degree to which you are a
"socially disruptive" narcissist, confirming the conclusions of many social media sceptics.
People who score highly on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire had more friends on Facebook, tagged themselves more often and updated their newsfeeds more regularly.
The research comes amid increasing evidence that young people are becoming increasingly narcissistic, and obsessed with self-image and shallow friendships.
The latest study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, also found that narcissists responded more aggressively to derogatory comments made about them on the social networking site's public walls and changed their profile pictures more often.
A number of previous studies have linked narcissism with Facebook use, but this is some of the first evidence of a direct relationship between Facebook friends and the most "toxic" elements of narcissistic personality disorder.
Researchers at Western Illinois University studied the Facebook habits of 294 students, aged between 18 and 65, and measured two "socially disruptive" elements of narcissism – grandiose exhibitionism (GE) and entitlement/exploitativeness (EE).
GE includes ''self-absorption, vanity, superiority, and exhibitionistic tendencies" and people who score high on this aspect of narcissism need to be constantly at the centre of attention. They often say shocking things and inappropriately self-disclose because they cannot stand to be ignored or waste a chance of self-promotion.
The EE aspect includes "a sense of deserving respect and a willingness to manipulate and take advantage of others".
The research revealed that the higher someone scored on aspects of GE, the greater the number of friends they had on Facebook, with some amassing more than 800.
Those scoring highly on EE and GG were also more likely to accept friend requests from strangers and seek social support, but less likely to provide it, according to the research.
Carol Craig, a social scientist and chief executive of the Centre for Confidence and Well-being, said young people in Britain were becoming increasingly narcissistic and Facebook provided a platform for the disorder.
"The way that children are being educated is focussing more and more on the importance of self esteem – on how you are seen in the eyes of others. This method of teaching has been imported from the US and is 'all about me'.
"Facebook provides a platform for people to self-promote by changing profile pictures and showing how many hundreds of friends you have. I know of some who have more than 1,000."
Dr Viv Vignoles, senior lecturer in social psychology at Sussex University, said there was "clear evidence" from studies in America that college students were becoming increasingly narcissistic.
But he added: "Whether the same is true of non-college students or of young people in other countries, such as the UK, remains an open question, as far as I know.
"Without understanding the causes underlying the historical change in US college students, we do not know whether these causes are factors that are relatively specific to American culture, such as the political focus on increasing self-esteem in the late 80s and early 90s or whether they are factors that are more general, for example new technologies such as mobile phones and Facebook."
Vignoles said the correlational nature of the latest study meant it was difficult to be certain whether individual differences in narcissism led to certain patterns of Facebook behaviour, whether patterns of Facebook behaviour led to individual differences in narcissism, or a bit of both.
Christopher Carpenter, who ran the study, said: "In general, the 'dark side' of Facebook requires more research in order to better understand Facebook's socially beneficial and harmful aspects in order to enhance the former and curtail the latter.
"If Facebook is to be a place where people go to repair their damaged ego and seek social support, it is vitally important to discover the potentially negative communication one might find on Facebook and the kinds of people likely to engage in them. Ideally, people will engage in pro-social Facebooking rather than anti-social me-booking."
People who score highly on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire had more friends on Facebook, tagged themselves more often and updated their newsfeeds more regularly.
The research comes amid increasing evidence that young people are becoming increasingly narcissistic, and obsessed with self-image and shallow friendships.
The latest study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, also found that narcissists responded more aggressively to derogatory comments made about them on the social networking site's public walls and changed their profile pictures more often.
A number of previous studies have linked narcissism with Facebook use, but this is some of the first evidence of a direct relationship between Facebook friends and the most "toxic" elements of narcissistic personality disorder.
Researchers at Western Illinois University studied the Facebook habits of 294 students, aged between 18 and 65, and measured two "socially disruptive" elements of narcissism – grandiose exhibitionism (GE) and entitlement/exploitativeness (EE).
GE includes ''self-absorption, vanity, superiority, and exhibitionistic tendencies" and people who score high on this aspect of narcissism need to be constantly at the centre of attention. They often say shocking things and inappropriately self-disclose because they cannot stand to be ignored or waste a chance of self-promotion.
The EE aspect includes "a sense of deserving respect and a willingness to manipulate and take advantage of others".
The research revealed that the higher someone scored on aspects of GE, the greater the number of friends they had on Facebook, with some amassing more than 800.
Those scoring highly on EE and GG were also more likely to accept friend requests from strangers and seek social support, but less likely to provide it, according to the research.
Carol Craig, a social scientist and chief executive of the Centre for Confidence and Well-being, said young people in Britain were becoming increasingly narcissistic and Facebook provided a platform for the disorder.
"The way that children are being educated is focussing more and more on the importance of self esteem – on how you are seen in the eyes of others. This method of teaching has been imported from the US and is 'all about me'.
"Facebook provides a platform for people to self-promote by changing profile pictures and showing how many hundreds of friends you have. I know of some who have more than 1,000."
Dr Viv Vignoles, senior lecturer in social psychology at Sussex University, said there was "clear evidence" from studies in America that college students were becoming increasingly narcissistic.
But he added: "Whether the same is true of non-college students or of young people in other countries, such as the UK, remains an open question, as far as I know.
"Without understanding the causes underlying the historical change in US college students, we do not know whether these causes are factors that are relatively specific to American culture, such as the political focus on increasing self-esteem in the late 80s and early 90s or whether they are factors that are more general, for example new technologies such as mobile phones and Facebook."
Vignoles said the correlational nature of the latest study meant it was difficult to be certain whether individual differences in narcissism led to certain patterns of Facebook behaviour, whether patterns of Facebook behaviour led to individual differences in narcissism, or a bit of both.
Christopher Carpenter, who ran the study, said: "In general, the 'dark side' of Facebook requires more research in order to better understand Facebook's socially beneficial and harmful aspects in order to enhance the former and curtail the latter.
"If Facebook is to be a place where people go to repair their damaged ego and seek social support, it is vitally important to discover the potentially negative communication one might find on Facebook and the kinds of people likely to engage in them. Ideally, people will engage in pro-social Facebooking rather than anti-social me-booking."
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Sunday, March 11, 2012
Leadership management and strategy - failure of Obama Presidency
HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency
John Mariotti, Forbes Contributor
BREAKING NEWS—A Series of Excerpts from A Powerful New Book
Much has been written about Barack Obama’s presidency during his first three years. His supporters still adore him. His critics dislike him intensely. The real question is, why has Obama failed—in his own terms: “to turn this country around?” His campaign mantra of “HOPE & CHANGE” created tremendous expectations. The problem is, as our title states, “hope is not a strategy” and the “change” has been change for the worse, and not better.
Now there is a new book which chronicles thirty of Obama’s most notable failures and mistakes from a new perspective: as problems of leadership, ideology and inexperience–combined. Co-author Dave M. Lukas and I have combined the perspectives of two different generations of executive and entrepreneurial success into a series of short, easy-to-read chapters, each of which describes one or more of Obama’s failed outcomes, and goes on to offer valuable lessons for life, career and most of all, for current and future leaders in business and government.
Dave and I are both deeply concerned about America’s future as it struggles under Obama’s staggering budget deficits and imperial power plays, leading to sluggish growth, record unemployment and a general lack of respect for the USA that is growing greater every month he is in office.
When Barack Obama exploded onto the national political stage—literally—during the 2004 Democratic convention, he used his oratorical skills to elevate his thin resume and undistinguished career into national prominence. He stated his conviction that, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America.” Unfortunately, after a masterful campaign, in which he echoed this line in various forms, he did not behave or govern this way. Under his presidency, the divide between the conservative and liberal elements of the US government has grown wider, not narrower. Obama has been a divider, not a uniter.
Why this happened can lead to complex, and contentious arguments. That it has happened is indisputable. In HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency we break down some of the many the problems, mistakes, failures and “misstatements” that Americans encountered during President Obama’s first term.
In this series, I will post excerpts from several chapters of the book, to provide readers a “taste” of what the book contains. It has been called “The most important book of 2102,” and described as, “An insightful guide to leadership and management based on examples of stunning failures and what not to do.” Another assessment of it said it this way: “Every American voter needs to read this book. It will help them see Obama’s many mistakes—prove that style and oratory do not trump substance…”
The book will be available in late March on www.amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle versions, and other on-line booksellers. To sign up for more details of availability, go to www.hopeisnotastrategybook.com and click on the Contact tab.
—————-
John Mariotti is an internationally known executive and an award-winning author. His newest book, co-authored with D. M. Lukas, Hope is NOT a Strategy: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency will be available in March 2012 at www.amazon.com. Mariotti’s 2008 book, The Complexity Crisis was named one of 2008’s Best Business Books. His critically acclaimed 2010 novel, The Chinese Conspiracy, merges an exciting fictional thriller with the reality of America’s risk from Cyber-Attacks. Mariotti does keynote speeches, serves on corporate boards and is a consultant/advisor to companies. He can be reached at www.mariotti.net.
Newscribe : get free news in real time
John Mariotti, Forbes Contributor |
| Image via Wikipedia |
Much has been written about Barack Obama’s presidency during his first three years. His supporters still adore him. His critics dislike him intensely. The real question is, why has Obama failed—in his own terms: “to turn this country around?” His campaign mantra of “HOPE & CHANGE” created tremendous expectations. The problem is, as our title states, “hope is not a strategy” and the “change” has been change for the worse, and not better.
Now there is a new book which chronicles thirty of Obama’s most notable failures and mistakes from a new perspective: as problems of leadership, ideology and inexperience–combined. Co-author Dave M. Lukas and I have combined the perspectives of two different generations of executive and entrepreneurial success into a series of short, easy-to-read chapters, each of which describes one or more of Obama’s failed outcomes, and goes on to offer valuable lessons for life, career and most of all, for current and future leaders in business and government.
Dave and I are both deeply concerned about America’s future as it struggles under Obama’s staggering budget deficits and imperial power plays, leading to sluggish growth, record unemployment and a general lack of respect for the USA that is growing greater every month he is in office.
When Barack Obama exploded onto the national political stage—literally—during the 2004 Democratic convention, he used his oratorical skills to elevate his thin resume and undistinguished career into national prominence. He stated his conviction that, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America.” Unfortunately, after a masterful campaign, in which he echoed this line in various forms, he did not behave or govern this way. Under his presidency, the divide between the conservative and liberal elements of the US government has grown wider, not narrower. Obama has been a divider, not a uniter.
Why this happened can lead to complex, and contentious arguments. That it has happened is indisputable. In HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency we break down some of the many the problems, mistakes, failures and “misstatements” that Americans encountered during President Obama’s first term.
In this series, I will post excerpts from several chapters of the book, to provide readers a “taste” of what the book contains. It has been called “The most important book of 2102,” and described as, “An insightful guide to leadership and management based on examples of stunning failures and what not to do.” Another assessment of it said it this way: “Every American voter needs to read this book. It will help them see Obama’s many mistakes—prove that style and oratory do not trump substance…”
The book will be available in late March on www.amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle versions, and other on-line booksellers. To sign up for more details of availability, go to www.hopeisnotastrategybook.com and click on the Contact tab.
—————-
John Mariotti is an internationally known executive and an award-winning author. His newest book, co-authored with D. M. Lukas, Hope is NOT a Strategy: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency will be available in March 2012 at www.amazon.com. Mariotti’s 2008 book, The Complexity Crisis was named one of 2008’s Best Business Books. His critically acclaimed 2010 novel, The Chinese Conspiracy, merges an exciting fictional thriller with the reality of America’s risk from Cyber-Attacks. Mariotti does keynote speeches, serves on corporate boards and is a consultant/advisor to companies. He can be reached at www.mariotti.net.
Newscribe : get free news in real time
Western Imperial powers overreach, yet again!
From Egypt to Russia, the Western urge to meddle in other countries continues to be troublesome.
US, Israeli and European cheerleaders of Arab “regime change” through street politics have realised by now that the naive notion of ousting dictators does not travel in a straight line. Among other things, the new regimes that emerge have tended to be more independent and less Western-friendly.
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist Freedom and Justice Party has taken the pivotal role in post-Mubarak political life, including the upper house of Parliament. In Tunisia much the same has been happening with the Islamist Ennahda party.
Shifting
the goalposts: When allegations of voter fraud bore no fruit, Moscow’s
street protesters switched to accusing Putin of using rough tactics on
them as police made arrests. — AFP
An element of that
plays in the opposition Syrian National Council’s multiple splits. The
more cautious Western officials are currently hesitant to provide “hard
power” to the rebels battling Damascus, since rebel ranks include
al-Qaeda.
Right-wing US lawmakers like John McCain are chiding President Obama for not arming Syrian rebels. It is telling that McCain’s best claim to fame is as a veteran of the Vietnam War, that classic icon of a failed and futile US armed intervention.
Even so, the temptation for a hyperpower to intervene can be irresistible, so Washington covertly dispatches regime-change NGO activists as catalysts instead of the Marines. It is what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls “smart power.”
However, the double standards when compared to similar situations elsewhere then become glaring. After Western-allied Saudi Arabia sent troops into Bahrain to suppress protesters there one year ago, Western-compliant Qatar has called for supplying troops and weapons to Syrian rebels fighting President Assad.
To an incumbent government in Iran that is also being targeted by Western and Israeli policymakers, all of that is enough to invoke Islamism in defiant response. Although President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remains the convenient bogeyman for the West, his political rivals at home are even more conservative and Islamist as shown in parliamentary elections early this month.
Nonetheless, neither religion nor showy forms of piety is the issue: it is a country’s unwillingness to comply with Western requests and demands that is. The stakes are raised when such a country is oil-rich and occasionally snubs Western concerns as well.
Currently the most conspicuous example of this is Russia, or rather president-elect Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This is a country that happens to channel the West’s worst “fears” today: being big, rich in oil and gas, independent-minded, “uncooperative” with the West over Libya, Syria and Iran, and even opposed to Nato’s eastwards expansion right up to Moscow’s doorstep.
Thus US and some European leaders are as keen for a “Russian spring” as they have been about a political spring-cleaning in Arab and Muslim countries they do not yet control. How the West would respond to anti-Putin street protests was therefore a foregone conclusion.
Russia’s recent presidential election provided the moment for a convergence of anti-Putin posturing. Russian street protesters, then Western media, and then Western governments formed a chorus to denounce Putin’s victory and the electoral process that led to it.
This happened both from a distance, such as the State Department or the Oval Office, as well as from within Russia by a visiting team of OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) election observers. It also occurred from the editorial offices of supposedly liberal Western media.
But what is the substance of complaints, apart from the usual geopolitical power plays?
If indeed the election had been a sham as the protesters and critics have been claiming, the evidence for it would have been presented, analysed, commented on and displayed. The Putin electoral bandwagon would and should have been stigmatised, although the appropriateness of any foreign political action would still be in question.
Russian protesters at least would have been justified in their street demonstrations, and assured of the justice of their cause. Instead, the protesters were already out in the streets denouncing Putin months before the election, which gives some indication about the content of their complaint.
Now weeks later, opposition claims of vote fraud favouring Putin is still without substance. Opinion polls before the election indicated a two-thirds majority support for Putin, and the results have since shown 64%.
Even Putin’s opponents had agreed that he had no problem securing enough votes to win the election. Until now his opponents and critics have not explained why he needed to cheat to win, and furthermore they failed to show that he had cheated.
No evidence
Interestingly, the OSCE observers indirectly rebuffed opposition claims of multiple voting by Putin supporters, and instead reported on the negative perceptions that attended the voting. The Europeans had no evidence of vote fraud and declared that there were no significant violations, but they still hankered after attaching a negative spin to the election and its result.
They cited no improper motives by Putin’s United Russia party, yet they were not above tainting the election result through implication or by default. Perhaps that was an attempt at smart power too.
If anyone had any “actionable” evidence of fraud it would have been the OSCE observers, yet they served up nothing. Their position would in effect have been a workable endorsement of the election’s credibility.
United Russia had failed to secure a two-thirds majority, yet the CIA-linked Voice of America reported that Putin had won “by a landslide.” Meanwhile, the opposition claim of voter fraud persisted all-round in the face of the absence of any evidence to substantiate it.
That much might have been expected of Putin’s opponents at home and even Western governments averse to his independent ways. But for Western media to chime along without questioning the basis of their presumptions, and even failing to report dispassionately, shows a decline in professional ethics.
At the heart of such reporting and editing is a tendency to approach opposition claims with less scepticism than government ones, although both sides are equally interested parties in an electoral contest. It is an approach typical of the Western media in the Third World.
As for Moscow’s street protesters, they have lately taken to shifting the goalposts. After their allegations of vote fraud bore no fruit, they switched to accusing Putin of using rough tactics on them as police made arrests.
At the same time, protesters say they want neither violence nor a revolution, just more transparency and the rule of law. They have no alternative candidate they prefer to Putin, just an alternative mode of the government’s handling of the election for a better sense of confidence in the process.
Essentially, the protesters did not endorse any particular candidate but were instead just being anti-Putin. The very fact that they have been doing so openly without being packed off to a gulag in Siberia for life shows the distance Russia has travelled since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
For now, Putin’s main rival candidates – a communist, a crypto-fascist and a controversial oligarch – seem to leave little to be desired between them. If the unspoken objective of Russian voters is getting a president who can act competently and confidently to safeguard Russia’s interests, the election might already have been purposeful enough.
The protesters and their Western backers might then just need a little time to reconcile themselves to it. That could be their best option in smart politics yet.
Behind The Headlines By Bunn Nagara
THE so-called Arab Spring continues to spring surprises, most of all on its Western backers. With double standards in international politics, just about anything goes.US, Israeli and European cheerleaders of Arab “regime change” through street politics have realised by now that the naive notion of ousting dictators does not travel in a straight line. Among other things, the new regimes that emerge have tended to be more independent and less Western-friendly.
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist Freedom and Justice Party has taken the pivotal role in post-Mubarak political life, including the upper house of Parliament. In Tunisia much the same has been happening with the Islamist Ennahda party.
Shifting
the goalposts: When allegations of voter fraud bore no fruit, Moscow’s
street protesters switched to accusing Putin of using rough tactics on
them as police made arrests. — AFPRight-wing US lawmakers like John McCain are chiding President Obama for not arming Syrian rebels. It is telling that McCain’s best claim to fame is as a veteran of the Vietnam War, that classic icon of a failed and futile US armed intervention.
Even so, the temptation for a hyperpower to intervene can be irresistible, so Washington covertly dispatches regime-change NGO activists as catalysts instead of the Marines. It is what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls “smart power.”
However, the double standards when compared to similar situations elsewhere then become glaring. After Western-allied Saudi Arabia sent troops into Bahrain to suppress protesters there one year ago, Western-compliant Qatar has called for supplying troops and weapons to Syrian rebels fighting President Assad.
To an incumbent government in Iran that is also being targeted by Western and Israeli policymakers, all of that is enough to invoke Islamism in defiant response. Although President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remains the convenient bogeyman for the West, his political rivals at home are even more conservative and Islamist as shown in parliamentary elections early this month.
Nonetheless, neither religion nor showy forms of piety is the issue: it is a country’s unwillingness to comply with Western requests and demands that is. The stakes are raised when such a country is oil-rich and occasionally snubs Western concerns as well.
Currently the most conspicuous example of this is Russia, or rather president-elect Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This is a country that happens to channel the West’s worst “fears” today: being big, rich in oil and gas, independent-minded, “uncooperative” with the West over Libya, Syria and Iran, and even opposed to Nato’s eastwards expansion right up to Moscow’s doorstep.
Thus US and some European leaders are as keen for a “Russian spring” as they have been about a political spring-cleaning in Arab and Muslim countries they do not yet control. How the West would respond to anti-Putin street protests was therefore a foregone conclusion.
Russia’s recent presidential election provided the moment for a convergence of anti-Putin posturing. Russian street protesters, then Western media, and then Western governments formed a chorus to denounce Putin’s victory and the electoral process that led to it.
This happened both from a distance, such as the State Department or the Oval Office, as well as from within Russia by a visiting team of OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) election observers. It also occurred from the editorial offices of supposedly liberal Western media.
But what is the substance of complaints, apart from the usual geopolitical power plays?
If indeed the election had been a sham as the protesters and critics have been claiming, the evidence for it would have been presented, analysed, commented on and displayed. The Putin electoral bandwagon would and should have been stigmatised, although the appropriateness of any foreign political action would still be in question.
Russian protesters at least would have been justified in their street demonstrations, and assured of the justice of their cause. Instead, the protesters were already out in the streets denouncing Putin months before the election, which gives some indication about the content of their complaint.
Now weeks later, opposition claims of vote fraud favouring Putin is still without substance. Opinion polls before the election indicated a two-thirds majority support for Putin, and the results have since shown 64%.
Even Putin’s opponents had agreed that he had no problem securing enough votes to win the election. Until now his opponents and critics have not explained why he needed to cheat to win, and furthermore they failed to show that he had cheated.
No evidence
Interestingly, the OSCE observers indirectly rebuffed opposition claims of multiple voting by Putin supporters, and instead reported on the negative perceptions that attended the voting. The Europeans had no evidence of vote fraud and declared that there were no significant violations, but they still hankered after attaching a negative spin to the election and its result.
They cited no improper motives by Putin’s United Russia party, yet they were not above tainting the election result through implication or by default. Perhaps that was an attempt at smart power too.
If anyone had any “actionable” evidence of fraud it would have been the OSCE observers, yet they served up nothing. Their position would in effect have been a workable endorsement of the election’s credibility.
United Russia had failed to secure a two-thirds majority, yet the CIA-linked Voice of America reported that Putin had won “by a landslide.” Meanwhile, the opposition claim of voter fraud persisted all-round in the face of the absence of any evidence to substantiate it.
That much might have been expected of Putin’s opponents at home and even Western governments averse to his independent ways. But for Western media to chime along without questioning the basis of their presumptions, and even failing to report dispassionately, shows a decline in professional ethics.
At the heart of such reporting and editing is a tendency to approach opposition claims with less scepticism than government ones, although both sides are equally interested parties in an electoral contest. It is an approach typical of the Western media in the Third World.
As for Moscow’s street protesters, they have lately taken to shifting the goalposts. After their allegations of vote fraud bore no fruit, they switched to accusing Putin of using rough tactics on them as police made arrests.
At the same time, protesters say they want neither violence nor a revolution, just more transparency and the rule of law. They have no alternative candidate they prefer to Putin, just an alternative mode of the government’s handling of the election for a better sense of confidence in the process.
Essentially, the protesters did not endorse any particular candidate but were instead just being anti-Putin. The very fact that they have been doing so openly without being packed off to a gulag in Siberia for life shows the distance Russia has travelled since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
For now, Putin’s main rival candidates – a communist, a crypto-fascist and a controversial oligarch – seem to leave little to be desired between them. If the unspoken objective of Russian voters is getting a president who can act competently and confidently to safeguard Russia’s interests, the election might already have been purposeful enough.
The protesters and their Western backers might then just need a little time to reconcile themselves to it. That could be their best option in smart politics yet.
Golf, a good walking game!
Make it a good walk Golf is an enjoyable sport as long as there is an element of exercise involved, like walking, otherwise it’s just a parlour game.
The phrase “Golf is a good walk spoilt” is often attributed to the famous American scribe Mark Twain, who was said to have used it to describe his frustration with the game.
The truth is that Twain, whose real name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens, never uttered those words but it seems a US magazine in the 1930s attributed the phrase to him because “it sounded like something Twain would say”.
Regardless of who is the original author, we golf mortals, who find the simple instruction of keeping the ball in a straight direction an impossible task, find so much truth in that phrase.
Even a demi-god like Tiger Woods is struggling to keep his game together and often refers to the present state of his game as military golf because he keeps hitting the ball left and then right and then left and then right again – like soldiers marching.
However, all of us continue to chase after the white dimpled ball because we want to get better at it and it is probably the only form of exercise we get after hours in the office. Thus, it’s a good walk spoilt – a good exercise pursuit interjected by bad golf.
This brings me to the recent controversy surrounding the Bukit Jambul Country Club in Penang where the management company running it has decided to ban golfers from walking.
The actual ruling is not a ban on walking but rather that all golfers taking to the course must rent a buggy.
The clash between the golfers and the club operators – Taiyo Resorts – has descended into all sorts of battles from name calling at press conferences to disciplinary hearing against members who opposed the buggy only ruling which took affect on Feb 1.
It all started when some 100 members voiced their displeasure over the compulsory buggy-use rule at the golf club.
According to the club’s liaison committee chairman, Stanley Park, from that day walking hours were restricted to after 5pm (only on Monday and Tuesday). Many other clubs around the country also restrict golfing to non-peak hours but none have enforced it as strictly as BJCC.
“However, the club has already made known to the members of the Liaison Committee during one of our regular meetings, that BJCC shall be a full buggy course as soon as the renovations of the fairways gets completed,” Park said in an interview.
More than 100 disgruntled golfers protested at the club on Feb 2, saying the ruling was not suitable due to the way the course was built as it was designed for golfers to walk and not intended to be a buggy course.
They also complained about the increase in the buggy rental rates from RM22 to RM37 for the first nine holes.
Taiyo Resorts’ managing director Datuk Eiro Sakamoto argued that majority of the club’s 2,800 members did not object to the new ruling and it was just a few golfers who were making noise.
It cannot be denied that the “buggy only” ruling is a way for the company to increase their ancillary income – after all it had promised the state government, which owns the course an increase in profit.
However, most visitors to Bukit Jambul would rent a buggy as it is quite a commando course with hilly and tight fairways that are quite sapping for those unused to such conditions.
But for golfers, seeking a good workout, Bukit Jambul is the perfect course to keep fit and to test whether you can avoid playing Tiger’s military golf.
Making money from running a golf club is not an easy thing especially when you have a course built into the top of a hill. Maintenance, I expect, would be high and the green fees collection cannot be much.
The subscription is just over RM90 and with 2,800 members, this works out to be RM252,000 per month. The extra revenue from F&B plus ancillary income like golf buggy rental becomes important.
However, the management of BJCC must take cognisance of the importance of walking when playing golf.
It improves your game because it keeps the rhythm going when one walks:
I hope that the matter can be resolved amicably as golf is a gentleman’s game with proper rules.
So till next month, walk the course and truly enjoy the view.
Keep Walking.. Keep Walking...Keep Walking
Keep Walking.....
Because...
The Organs of your body have their sensory touches at the bottom of your foot.
If you massage these points you will find relief from aches and pains as you can see the heart is on the left foot.
Typically they are shown as points and arrows to show which organ it connects to.
It is indeed correct since the nerves connected to these organs terminate here.
This is covered in great details in Acu-pressure studies.
God created our body so well that he thought of even this.
He made us walk so that we will always be pressing these pressure points and thus keeping these organs activated at all times.
So, keep walking....... LIVE LONGER !!!!!
Golfer or not, you must see this clip...
- http://www.youtube.com/watch_
popup?v=aw-nt0eTb2w
It's all in the balance... (He plays off 3!!) And he walks the course!!!!!
Is there something unreal with our fliers at the club?
Hear that members are filing court action for some declaration of rights to play golf the way it was meant to be played?
Perhaps some of you LC members can show this clip to the presiding judge. Thanks
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