CASE 390 - 2012 is not the end of the world...?

The 2012 phenomenon/conspiracy comprises a range of eschatological beliefs according to which cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on December 21, 2012. This date is regarded as the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Various astronomical alignments and numerological formulae have been proposed as pertaining to this date, though none have been accepted by the mainstream media or society., but a few films have been made, websites exist and its a big market, but will it happen. Many assertions about the year 2012 form part of a non-codified collection of New Age beliefs about ancient Maya wisdom and spirituality, Christians believe its the apocalypse. There is no significant astronomical event tied to the Long Count's start date.] However, its supposed end date has been tied to astronomical phenomena by esoteric, fringe, and New Age literature that places great significance on astrology. Chief among these is the concept of the "galactic alignment". "Timewave zero" is a numerological formula that purports to calculate the ebb and flow of "novelty", defined as increase over time in the universe's interconnectedness, or organized complexity. According to Terence McKenna, the universe has a teleological attractor at the end of time that increases interconnectedness, eventually reaching a singularity of infinite complexity in 2012, at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur simultaneously. He conceived this idea over several years in the early to mid-1970s while using psilocybin mushrooms and DMT. Some proponents of doomsday in 2012 claim that a planet called Planet X, or Nibiru, will collide with or pass by Earth in that year. This idea, which has appeared in various forms since 1995, initially predicted Doomsday in May, 2003, but proponents later abandoned that date after it passed without incident. The idea originated from claims of channeling of alien beings and has been widely ridiculed. Astronomers have calculated that such an object so close to Earth would be visible to anyone looking up at the night sky.

According to the true Mayern scriptures, At 10:05 Dec 21st nothing noticable or significant will happen other than our Sun which takes around 26,000 years to orbit Sirius A which it always has for over 4 billion years, will be at the furthest point away from Sirius A and we now turn a corner to come back, the mayerns were saying that it will be a time of great awakening and the end of the lowest unconscious point in our human era, they wern't saying its going to be doom and gloom and the end of the world, the people controlling the planet put that out there to put fear into people so they wont want to wake up to their control, and the closer we get to Sirius A the more conscious and awake we become, but its not sirius A its Sirius B a tiny dwarf star which spins 23 times a minute, orbits Sirius A which has such a high magnetic pull it definatly effects human resonance, its even possible that places like Atlantis were around when our sun was close to Sirius A 13,000 years ago a highly advanced society built with consciousness







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events



http://www.december212012.com/
http://www.greatdreams.com/2012.htm



http://www1.zmovie.tv/movies/view/2012-time-for-change-2010

CASE 389 - The facebook generation

The facts

Facebook is the worlds biggest social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc which was part funded by paypal, Accel, the CIA and DARPA . As of February 2012, Facebook has more than 845 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other. Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site.



Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The Web site's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and in 2006 eventually to anyone aged 13 and over. However, based on ConsumersReports.org in May 2011, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts, violating the site's terms of service.

Ownership

The ownership percentages of the company which has made revenue profits of upto $8 billion since 2006 are as follows. Mark Zuckerberg: 28.4%, Accel Partners: 10%, Digital Sky Technologies: 10%, Dustin Moskovitz: 6%, Eduardo Saverin: 5%, Sean Parker: 4%, Peter Thiel: 3%, Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners: between 1 to 2% each, Microsoft: 1.3%, Li Ka-shing: 0.75%, the Interpublic Group: less than 0.5%. A small group of current and former employees and celebrities own less than 1% each, including Matt Cohler, Jeff Rothschild, Adam D'Angelo, Chris Hughes, and Owen Van Natta, while Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus have sizable holdings of the company. The remaining 30% or so are owned by employees, an undisclosed number of celebrities, and outside investors. Adam D'Angelo, chief technology officer and friend of Zuckerberg, resigned in May 2008. Reports claimed that he and Zuckerberg began quarreling, and that he was no longer interested in partial ownership of the company.



CASE 180 - Information awareness office

Social impact

Facebook has affected the social life and activity of the worlds people, especially the developed countries in various ways. Especially with its availability on many mobile devices, Facebook allows users to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. It can also unite people with common interests and/or beliefs through groups and other pages.
Some argue that Facebook is beneficial to one's social life because they can continuously stay in contact with their friends and relatives, while others say that it can cause increased antisocial tendencies because people are not directly communicating with each other. Some studies have named Facebook as a source of problems in relationships. Several news stories have suggested that using Facebook causes divorce and infidelity. In some ways society has become very needing and relies too much on facebook, and when a major event such as a famous persons death or sporting event occurs the whole world knows within an hour and instantly eveyone has an opinion and most people will get highly offended if people dont share your views. People will talk to you all day long on it, but in public most cant even bring them selves to look at you or say hello, People will ignor your calls, texts, emails, knocks at the door for days or even weeks, but if you write something on a persons facebook wall positive or negative or something they deem interesting or useful to them the person will do all they can to reply as soon as possible, in most cases just secounds after, in some cases kids sat in the back seat of the car, driver replying whilst driving, and it will always be followed by comments from all their friends and family, everyone knows everyones business and facebook has made it easy to do this, but myself personally I feel more disconnected from my friends and family more than ever. Its almost become the human ego, or a school playground scenario for the ego, everyone wants people to look at them and show them attention, "look at me, my possessions, my new car" or "my lifes so bad, everyone give me self pitty". There's also a space for the "advanced minds" to play, which usually means they just post up a picture or write some fantastic quote like its their own words that someone else wrote years, even centuries ago or they like to post derogative, egotistical statuses because there so intelligent or have something more than "you" , but where ever you go, what ever the subject, there's always battles between people's opinions, the society we live in has become so divided by so many catagories now and its mainly due to facebook as we come to its 1 billionth user, 1 in 7 of us.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/06/is-facebook-taking-over-the-world.html
http://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Effect-Inside-Company-Connecting/dp/1439102112

CASE 388 - PIPA

The PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA) is a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods", especially those registered outside the U.S. The bill was introduced on May 12, 2011, by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and 11 bipartisan co-sponsors. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementation of the bill would cost the federal government $47 million through 2016, to cover enforcement costs and the hiring and training of 22 new special agents and 26 support staff. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill, but Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) placed a hold on it.



The PROTECT IP Act is a re-write of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which failed big time to pass in 2010. A similar House version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), was introduced on October 26, 2011, but has been shelved until a later date.



Among those who oppose the legislation are the Mozilla Corporation, Facebook, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Yahoo!, eBay, American Express, reddit, Google, Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, English Wikipedia, and Uncyclopedia.[citation needed] Internet entrepreneurs including Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, and Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley signed a letter to Congress expressing their opposition to the legislation. The Tea Party Patriots have argued that the bill "is bad for consumers". A letter of opposition was signed by 130 technology entrepreneurs and executives and sent to Congress to express their concern that the law in its present form would "hurt economic growth and chill innovation in legitimate services that help people create, communicate, and make money online". English-language Wikipedia sites joined other Internet sites in protesting the PIPA and SOPA legislation by staging a "blackout" of service for 24 hours on January 18, 2012. Many websites protested, including: Wikipedia, CNet and Cheezburger network sites. Some websites denied access to their websites altogether.

CASE 387 - The history of Western Sahara

Located in northern Africa on the Atlantic Ocean, Western Sahara is surrounded by Algeria to the east, Morocco to the north, and Mauritania to the south, it is mostly low, flat desert with some small mountains in the south and northeast. The Legal status of the territory is disputed and sovereignty unresolved; a UN referendum on the issue is planned. The territory is contested by Morocco and the Polisario Front, which in Feb. 1976, formally proclaimed a government-in-exile of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, now officially recognized by about 55 countries. In 1975 an international court of Justice granted Western Sahara, previously a Spanish Overseas Province, self-determination. Unfortunately, King Hassan of Morocco sent 350,000 people to take control of the territory. Initially partitioned by Morocco and Mauritania, it came fully under Moroccan control in 1979. Morocco has yet to comply with UN demands for the territory's complete release.



Since 1977 the Saharan provinces of Laayoune, Smara, and Boujdour have participated in local elections that are organized and controlled by the Moroccan Government. The southern province of Oued Ed-Dahab has participated in Moroccan-controlled elections since 1983. Sahrawis whose political views are aligned with the Moroccan Government fill all the seats allotted to the Western Sahara in the Moroccan Parliament.

The civilian population living in the Western Sahara under Moroccan administration is subject to Moroccan law. U.N. observers and foreign human rights groups maintain that Sahrawis have difficulty obtaining Moroccan passports, that the Government monitors the political views of Sahrawis more closely than those of Moroccan citizens, and that the police and paramilitary authorities react especially harshly against those suspected of supporting independence and the Polisario. The Moroccan Government limits access to the territory, and international human rights organizations and impartial journalists sometimes have experienced difficulty in securing admission.

Western Sahara depends on pastoral nomadism, fishing, and phosphate mining as the principal sources of income for the population. The territory lacks sufficient rainfall for sustainable agricultural production, and most of the food for the urban population must be imported. All trade and other economic activities are controlled by the Moroccan Government. Moroccan energy interests in 2001 signed contracts to explore for oil off the coast of Western Sahara, which has angered the Polisario. Incomes and standards of living in Western Sahara are substantially below the Moroccan level.



http://freesahara.ning.com/
Free Western Sahara network

CASE 386 - Equifax

Equifax Inc. is a consumer credit reporting agency founded in the United States, considered one of the three largest American credit agencies along with Experian and TransUnion. Founded in 1899, Equifax is the oldest of the three agencies and gathers and maintains information on over 400 million credit holders worldwide. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Equifax is a global service provider with US $1.5 billion in annual revenue and 7,000+ employees in 14 countries. Equifax is listed on the NYSE.



For most of its existence, Equifax has operated primarily in the business-to-business sector, selling consumer credit and insurance reports and related analytics to businesses in a range of industries.[citation needed] Business customers include retailers, insurance firms, healthcare providers, utilities, government agencies, as well as banks and other financial institutions. Equifax sells businesses credit reports, analytics, demographic data, and software. Credit reports provide detailed information on the personal credit and payment history of individuals, indicating how they have honored financial obligations such as paying bills or repaying a loan. Businesses then use this information to decide what sort of products or services to offer their customers, and on what terms.

From 1999, Equifax began offering services to the credit consumer sector in addition, such as credit fraud and identity theft prevention products. Equifax, and other credit monitoring agencies are required by law to provide US citizens with one free credit file disclosure every 12 months; the Annualcreditreport.com website incorporates data from US Equifax credit records.



Banks spy on people's financial activities to create behavior scores that help generate profitable marketing strategies and predict credit worthiness.credit bureaus and other agencies are helping banks look deeply into your financial activities. Banks can now examine your rent payments, utility payments, income and home value. They can even rate your banking and spending habits. No matter how hard you try to avoid leaving financial footprints that reveal your spending and earning information, the banking industry is continually developing newer and better ways to spy on the financial behaviors of consumers, they usher people or get their worker bees to push new technology onto customers in all places of business within the service and financial industry, such as direct debit, chip and pin, swipeless cards, they really dont want people to pay with cash.

Every swipe you make with a debit or credit card is watched and analyzed. Every deposit and withdrawal you make is scrutinized. "Tighter credit standards, new ways to combat fraud and an ever-growing pile of monitoring services offered by credit bureaus and other analytics companies," according to Weston, means that whether you like it or not, the banking industry has more information about your financial situation than ever before.

http://money.msn.com/credit-rating/5-ways-your-bank-spies-on-you-weston.aspx