Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) are foreign organizations that are designated by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as amended. FTO designations play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business.
Identification The Bureau of Counterterrorism in the State Department (CT) continually monitors the activities of terrorist groups active around the world to identify potential targets for designation. When reviewing potential targets, CT looks not only at the actual terrorist attacks that a group has carried out, but also at whether the group has engaged in planning and preparations for possible future acts of terrorism or retains the capability and intent to carry out such acts. Until recently the INA provided that FTOs must be redesignated every 2 years or the designation would lapse. The President Of Twitter. Explainer: How Corruption Is Strangling U.S. Innovation - James Allworth.
11 entertainers who found creative ways to make a living. Musician Amanda Palmer has spent her career seeking out connection: first as a living statue on the street, who traded intimate eye contact and a rose for a passerby’s money; then, as one half of the band The Dresden Dolls, who didn’t hesitate to ask fans for support, either in person or over Twitter. Amanda Palmer: The art of asking “I think when we really see each other, we want to help each other,” Palmer explains in her talk from TED2013, which has already surpassed a million views. Her experience bears out this theory: her fans are not just willing, but eager, to lend a hand in exchange for the reward they get from her music.
The Dresden Dolls built a loyal following, playing extra shows on their nights off from opening for Nine Inch Nails. Soon, they were picked up by a major label and sold 25,000 copies of their second album. For Palmer, it was a triumph — but the record label considered it a flop. At a show, though, a fan walked up to Palmer with a $10 bill. How Facebook could get you arrested | Technology | The Observer. Aereo TV: Barely Legal By Design - Larry Downes. In a post yesterday, I mentioned Aereo TV, a new Barry Diller-backed business launched last year, calling it an example of a start-up that is “barely legal by design.” Since the courts are about to make a ruling that will profoundly affect its prospects, it might interest you to learn more about how its entire business is engineered to exploit existing copyright law.
First, this service takes full advantage of unchallenged U.S. law that makes over-the-air television free to anyone who puts up an antenna and connects it to a receiving device. Unlike countries such as the U.K., for example, the U.S. has no television license tax. Broadcasters in the U.S. make their money based on advertising, plain and simple. Second, it relies on the seminal 1984 Sony Betamax case, in which the U.S. Since the programming was being made available at no charge, the Court reasoned, making a copy simply to watch at another time did not disturb the market of the copyright owner — the key to fair use analysis. 4 inspiring kids imagine the future of learning. After more than 13 years of research convinced him that children have the ability to learn almost anything on their own, 2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra aspires to shape the future of learning by building a School in the Cloud, helping kids “tap into their innate sense of wonder.”
In the spirit of Mitra’s invitation to the world to “ask kids big questions, and find big answers,” we asked four brilliant young people to tell us: What do you think is the future of learning? Here, their answers. Adora Svitak, 15-year-old writer, teacher and activist “One of the most powerful shifts in the future of education will come from not only the tools at our disposal, but from an underutilized resource: the students whose voices have for too long been silent. We’re pushing for seats at the decision-making tables, empowering ourselves by shaping our own learning, and taking on activist roles both online and off. Watch Adora’s talk to discover “What adults can learn from kids” » Join the conversation! The Fallacy of the "China Defense" - Andrew Winston.
By Andrew Winston | 1:00 PM March 4, 2013 For anyone who doesn’t want to reduce carbon emissions, China seems like a great scapegoat. The defenders of the status quo argue that U.S. companies will be at a disadvantage if we tax carbon or invest in clean energy because “China’s not doing anything.” U.S. Senator Marco Rubio recently offered up a perfect example of this idea: “There are other countries that are polluting in the atmosphere much greater than we are — China, India, all these countries that are still growing. But there are three little problems with this logic: 1) It’s not true. China recently demolished this fallacy when leaders announced they would implement a carbon tax. Is China still growing and emitting more carbon?
2) Science doesn’t care. The math and physics of climate change are getting clearer by the day. 3) We should want to go clean anyway. One of Sen. I could keep going with counterarguments — like shouldn’t we lead because we’re, well, leaders? New crimes: new policing tactics. Women in Paris finally allowed to wear trousers. On January 31, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France's minister of women's rights, made it officially impossible to arrest a woman for wearing trousers in the French capital.
The law was kept in place until now, despite repeated attempts to repeal it, in part because officials said the unenforced rule was not a priority, and part of French "legal archaeology. " In July however, in a public request directed at Ms Vallaud-Belkacem, Alain Houpert, a senator and member of the conservative UMP party, said the "symbolic importance" of the law "could injure our modern sensibilities," and he asked the minister to repeal it. Ms Vallaud-Belkacem agreed, and in a published statement on Jan. 31st wrote: "This ordinance is incompatible with the principles of equality between women and men, which are listed in the Constitution, and in France's European commitments. "From that incompatibility follows the implicit abrogation of the ordinance. " America's (Really) Big Ideas Deficit | Umair Haque. Eudaimonics. Redesigning Global Prosperity.
NB--this is an archived version of the very first essay I wrote on the internets, in 2004 (i think :). i've republished it here in 2012 (dis)honor of SOPA.The New Economics of Music: File-Sharing and Double Moral Hazard Part 1: Why the Music Industry is (Really) Broken ‘The whole point of digital music is the risk-free grazing’ – Cory Doctorow Every major label 's setting up an iTunes these days.
They're all, in the immortal words of Johnny Cash, 'born to lose, and destined to fail'. Why? The music industry doesn't understand the microeconomics of it's own business. I reached this conclusion because, as I was scoping BoingBoing one day, I read Cory's statement, and it struck me as exactly right. Fundamentally, I'm going to argue that consumers download music, as much to derive extra value from getting something for free, as they do because they want insurance against buying something they didn't want in the first place.
We can also look at this through the lens of contract theory. Better Transportation Options=Healthier Lives. The NewPublicHealth National Prevention Strategy series is under way, including interviews with Cabinet Secretaries and their National Prevention Council designees, exploring the impact of transportation, education and more on health. “Better Transportation Options = Healthier Lives” tells a visual story on the role of transportation in the health of our communities. Some highlights: Public transit users walk an average of 19 minutes getting to and from public transportation.Countries with lower rates of obesity tend to have higher rates of commuters who walk or bike to work.The risk of obesity increases 6 percent with every additional mile spent in the car, and decreases 5 percent with every kilometer walked.Lengthy commutes cost $100 billion each year in excess fuel costs and lost productivity.More than 30,000 people died in car wrecks in 2010.Strong seatbelt and child safety laws resulted in a 25 percent decrease in car accident deaths since 2005.
The World Bank’s open data: 7 apps to play with. Sanjay Pradhan was thrilled when, at age six, a cart full of sweets was wheeled to his family’s doorstep in Bihar, India. The gift, however, was intended as a bribe for his father, who was responsible for building roads in India’s poorest state. “My father had developed a firm stance against corruption, even though he was harassed and threatened,” says Pradhan in this moving talk from TEDGlobal 2012. “His was a lonely struggle, because Bihar was also India’s most corrupt state, where public officials were enriching themselves rather than serving the poor.” Years later, Pradhan joined the World Bank, which aims to fight poverty by transferring aid from rich to poor countries. However, he was quickly disillusioned. Pradhan, now the vice president of the World Bank Institute, believes that the spirit of openness is changing international aid.
Poverty DataFinder (for iOS or Android). Happy data excavating. The 2012 Legatum Prosperity Index.