Roger McNamee was early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg. And an early investor.
A big Facebook promoter.
ZUCKED is McNamee’s intimate reckoning with the catastrophic failure of the head of one of the world’s most powerful companies to face up to the damage he is doing.
I’ve not heard any other critic as astute, nor as fair, as to exactly why Facebook is harming and even killing some of their customers around the world.
As Facebook is unable to police itself, governments should step in.
In addition I’d want personal controls over my feed.
As Professor Galloway points out so clearly, it’s the algorithm driving monetization that causes MOST of the problems with Facebook.
Both right and left leaning Americans are convinced that Facebook currently is biased against their beliefs. Both GOP and DEMs want to change Facebook.
Facebook is a private company and can do anything it wants — unless laws are changed. And they will be.
Results of one online survey.
Facebook would continue their free service with advertising, of course.
They are the same ones who told me COVID-19 is less deadly than the common flu. They believed FOX and Trump.
They are the same ones who told me hydroxychloroquine was a ‘cure’. Not even Trump took it when he got sick.
I don’t want that 43% of Americans anywhere near me or my family.
I’m willing to suffer the economic and personal consequences.
Some families are now separated by the border. Canadians can still fly to the States, so it’s possible for them to get together — but that doesn’t work for those who can’t fly.
I might reconsider under a Biden Presidency. But it’s unlikely. Covid denying Americans will be even more agitated.
This morning I spoke with a Canadian who somehow just drove back from California. There are exceptions to the border crossing rule.
For me a authoritarian regime (dictatorship) is a place where the leader can order opponents murdered, without consequences. Russia and Saudi Arabia in 2020, for example.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) scores countries on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture.
Nations are then classified under four types of governments: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime and authoritarian regime.
Obviously, the main goal of the GOP under this egocentric toddler is to make the rich richer. Which they’ve done.
Nations still ranking high as democracies include Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Denmark. Canada and Ireland are up there, as well.
Recently a Republican Senator claimed that “democracy isn’t the objective” any longer. Knowing that his Party was likely to lose the 2020 election, it’s part of the GOP plan to contest the results.
That Senator was bored, at home, COVID-19 positive at the time. #loser
I want people to be able to easily un-elect bad leaders. To have more influence in governance, even when they get it wrong. When wrong, they should be able to later easily change again.
The best coverage of this issue I’ve found is from my favourite podcast.
Epidemics Show Societies Who They Really Are –
On the Media
Communicable disease has haunted humanity for all of history. As such, the responses to coronavirus in our midst have a grimly timeless quality. In fact, to one scholar, epidemics are a great lens for peering into the values, temperament, infrastructures and moral structures of the societies they attack. Frank M. Snowden is a professor emeritus of the history of medicine at Yale and author of Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present. An epidemic, he writes, “holds a mirror” to the civilization in which it occurs. In this podcast extra, he speaks to Bob about what we can learn about ourselves from the infectious diseases we've faced, from the bubonic plague in the 14th century to the Ebola outbreak in 2014 to COVID-19 today.
This interview originally aired as a segment in our March 6, 2020 program, Our Bodies, Ourselves.
A young adult novel, it’s ideal for younger kids too.
I grew up with Carol Johnston, the gymnast who was featured in the Disney TV movie Lefty (1980)
Nobody called Carol “Lefty” back at Altadore. We called her Carol, one of the best gymnasts in the club.
It was difficult for any other gymnast to complain about anything as Carol worked even harder — and never complained.
Carol passed away on May 11, 2019 due to complications from Early On-set Alzheimers, by the way. Sad. But her legend lives on.
She’s still a role model for gymnasts with physical challenges.
Aven Green loves to tell people that she lost her arms in an alligator wrestling match, or a wildfire in Tanzania, but the truth is she was born without them.
And when her parents take a job running Stagecoach Pass, a rundown western theme park in Arizona, Aven moves with them across the country knowing that she’ll have to answer the question over and over again.
Her new life takes an unexpected turn when she bonds with Connor, a classmate who also feels isolated because of his own disability, and they discover a room at Stagecoach Pass that holds bigger secrets than Aven ever could have imagined.
The Chicks (previously known as the Dixie Chicks) … have won 13 Grammy Awards.
Remember this from 2003?
Anti-war band the Dixie Chicks have hit back at their critics – by posing naked on the front of a leading showbiz magazine.
The Grammy-winning band suffered a massive backlash in America after they said they were “ashamed” President George Bush was from their home state of Texas. …
When you challenge a Trump supporter to defend the toddler’s latest indefensible lie, crime or moral outrage, they very often deflect by calling for “civility”. Let’s look for common ground.
That’s bullshit, of course. I ask that they instead unfriend me instantly.
So far as I’m concerned you’ll burn in the same Hell as this anti-Christ.
The Ugly American
Forgive? Sounds good
Forget? I’m not sure I could
I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go ’round and ’round and ’round …
The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road.
Rocco recommended this book.
Sometimes the truth is more unbelievable than fiction.
Ross Ulbricht (born March 27, 1984) is an American convict best known for creating and operating the darknet market website Silk Road from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. …
Federal prosecutors alleged that Ulbricht had paid $730,000 in murder-for-hire deals targeting at least five people, allegedly because they threatened to reveal Ulbricht’s Silk Road enterprise.
It’s possible that none were actually killed. Ulbricht might have been scammed for that money.
People died using Silk Road drugs.
Ulbricht justified his crimes with a B.S. personal philosophy that he was doing more good for the world than bad. He wasn’t.
There are still more questions than answers about Silk Road.
Deep Web is a 2015 documentary film chronicling the events.
I grew up with 
Aven Green
