Who Is REALLY Benefiting From This Recovery? - MOC #231 (by @LeeCamp)

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We’re told the economy is in recovery. But is it really? Recovery for who? 
Some of the facts from this episode are from an Alternet article by Les Leopold - http://bit.ly/10j0rD8
To check out the Moment of Clarity Kickstarter go here: www.bit.ly/MOCshow

To donate a tweet or Facebook post per day or per week, go here: www.DonateYourAccount.com/LeeCamp 

Source: youtube.com

#KeystoneXL supports claim, pipeline system safety - #fail

Pipelines are the safest way to transport oil in the United States, a former U.S pipeline regulator said at a Nebraska meeting on the Keystone XL pipeline. The U.S. State Department requested public opinion on a draft assessment of the planned cross-border pipeline. Critics of the project say Canadian crude oil, the type designated for Keystone XL, may be more corrosive and therefore more likely to cause a pipeline spill. A so-called tar sands oil spill in Michigan in 2010 was the costliest incident of its kind. Exxon Mobil is working to clean up a similar spill in Arkansas, though that spill is far less severe than Michigan’s. Brigham McCown, former director of the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, brushed off some of the safety concerns. “I do want to point out that pipelines are the safest means to transport energy products in this country,” he was quoted by the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star as saying. The newspaper said the State Department took comments from supporters and detractors in a lengthy meeting Thursday. TransCanada Vice President Corey Goulet told the Journal Star he didn’t think the Arkansas spill would factor into the decision on Keystone XL. “I don’t like to make comparisons because a pipeline properly maintained can last indefinitely,” he said. Exxon’s pipeline, Pegasus, was installed in the 1940s. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kerri-Ann Jones said the government would consider things like Keystone XL consumers when considering the thousands of comments submitted on the draft report. No indication was given as to when a final decision was expected.

Study: Flu Shots During Pregnancy Lead to 4,250 Percent Increase in Fetal DeathsEndAllDisease.com

pregnancy_vaccineFor years, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has maintained that the combined influenza vaccine, which was first administered during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic flu season, is perfectly safe and actually encouraged for pregnant women. But a new study published in the journal Human and Environmental Toxicology (HET) reveals that, following the mass administration of the untested dual vaccine, which contains the mercury-based preservative Thimerosal, miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women who received it skyrocketed by an astounding 4,250 percent.

Based on information compiled from the official government Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System(VAERS), which only accounts for less than 10 percent of all actual vaccine injury cases, the multiple-strain, inactivated flu vaccine containing mercury was directly responsible for triggering the 4,250 percent fetal death increase, which was seen only during the 2009 pandemic flu season. In the years before the vaccine’s administration, as well as in the years after, rates of miscarriage and stillbirth were far lower, pointing to the combined vaccine as the culprit.

According to Eileen Dannemann, Director of the National Coalition of Organized Women (NCOW), the CDC has continually made a conscious and willful effort to cover up this data, which shows the immense dangers of the combined flu shot, and has repeatedly lied to the public with claims that the vaccine is safe for pregnant women. The agency even went so far as to publish a fraudulent study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (AJOG) that intentionally withheld critical data on the fetal death spike.

“Not only did the CDC fail to disclose the spiraling spike in fetal death reports in real time during the 2009 pandemic season as to cut the fetal losses, but also we have documented by transcript Dr. Marie McCormick, chairperson of the Vaccine Safety Risk Assessment Working Group (VSRAWG) on September 3, 2010, denying any adverse events in the pregnant population during the 2009 pandemic season,” wrote Dannemann in a letter to Dr. Joseph Mercola about her findings.

Hidden presentation slide reveals CDC knew full well about spike in fetal deaths from flu shot, deliberately tried to hide this information

Since the combined flu shot has never actually been tested for safety, especially in pregnant women, the CDC set up a mock advisory group headed by its own Dr. Marie McCormick to track all adverse events from the shot during the 2009 pandemic season. But as reported by investigative journalist Christina England over atVactruth.com, neither Dr. McCormick nor any other advisory person ever fessed up with the truth about the flu shot’s dangers, even after being confronted with incontrovertible evidence.

“The Advisory Committee on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) and CDC were confronted with the VAERS data from NCOW on September 3, 2010, in Washington, D.C., and then again by conference call on September 10, and then again in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 28, 2010,” added Dannemann in her letter. “On both September 3 and September 10, Dr. Marie McCormick clearly denied that there were any adverse events for pregnant women from the 2009 flu vaccine.”

To make matters worse, the CDC’s Dr. Tom Shimabakuru was caught lying about significant adverse reactions to the H1N1 vaccine at the October 28 presentation in Atlanta. According to England, Dr. Shimabakuru had a secret slide in his briefcase that revealed the significant uptick in fetal deaths among pregnant women who received the flu shot, but it was not included in his presentation. It was only after a member of the audience requested information on such adverse events that Dr. Shimabakuru reluctantly and nervously pulled out the slide, further revealing the CDC’s extensive efforts to conceal this important information from the public.

Be sure to read England’s full report on the issue here:
http://vactruth.com/2012/11/23/flu-shot-spikes-fetal-death/

Source

Corporate Profits Set Records While Average People Suffer - #MOC #212 (by @LeeCamp)

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The Dow Jones set a new record high this week while homelessness and unemployment are still very high. Sources: http://bit.ly/12sGVKS and http://bit.ly/165CQLy

Source: youtube.com

The 16th Century Religious Wars And Today’s Copyright Monopoly Wars Have More In Common Than You Think

People in power have always tried to prevent the common folk from obtaining knowledge that threatens their power. This happened in the 16th century, and it is happening now.

copyright-brandedInformation advantage has always equaled power.

The group in society that can control what the other groups know and don’t know will rise to power in every other aspect. Therefore, information technology has always been policed and even militarized to some extent, by any group that obtains the ability to control it.

It has been the case since the dawn of civilization that some group has told everybody else what the world looks like, how it works, and what happens in it. (Usually, that group is placed at the center of that particular world view in one way or another.) This continues today, with governments all over the world trying to put their spin of events on the newsflow, putting themselves in a good light to literally get away with murder.

The quest for the net’s liberty is not a fight for some silly right to download free music. It is much larger than that: it breaks a hegemony that has stood for millennia.

This is why the old guard is terrified of the Internet. It’s not that you can copy and spread their propaganda without asking – heck, that’s what they want, and have always wanted. What they fear is that you can fact-check it and publish your findings without asking anybody’s permission. Or worse still, you can start communicating your own view of the world, rather than relating everything you think to their image of the world.

All of this has happened before.

When the printing press was invented, it wasn’t a revolutionary invention as such – it was a revolutionary combination of four other inventions: metal movable type, block pressing, oil-based inks, and cheap cloth-based paper. It revolutionized society by its ability to distribute information cheaply, quickly, and accurately.

At its invention, Gutenberg pictured the Catholic Church using the printing press to distribute its bibles better and faster, being able to get a more consistent interpretation of Christianity out to the smallest village. But that’s not quite what happened.

Rather, a new movement emerged, one that was much better at using the new technology, and which used its superior ability to distribute information in getting the upper hand over the Catholic Church. It was called Protestantism and it differed from Catholicism in one crucial aspect: It printed bibles in people’s own languages.

The power to interpret the bible from Latin had been shattered, ruined, destroyed – and with it, a large amount of the power of the Catholic Church. They tried every trick in the book to put the cat back in the bag and sabotage this technology – up to and including the death penalty, which was instituted in France on January 13, 1535, against the crime of using a printing press at all.

It didn’t work. The cat was indeed out of the bag. People could publish and distribute their own ideas. The hegemony fell, but not without some 200 years of horrible wars. On the surface, they were about minute details of Christianity – about how you should go about worshipping a particular god.

Looking closer at the situation, a bloody war between Catholicism and Protestantism seems odd and puzzling. They are two branches of the same religion that worship the same god, using the same instruction manual. Only the language of the instruction manual differs – one branch has it in local languages, the other branch has its instruction manual in Latin. Why was this worth 200 years of warfare across the entire known world at the time?

The differences are indeed superficial, but the consequences of those differences are not. In one branch, it means that those who know Latin – the clergy and academics – get the ability to tell everybody else what to do, and it was ruled in a strict religious top-down hierarchy. In the other branch, that power of interpreting the instruction manual (the bible) rested with the people themselves.

The religious wars were never about religion as such. They were about who held the power of interpretation, about who controlled the knowledge and culture available to the masses. It was a war of gatekeepers of information.

Does this narrative feel familiar?

Interestingly, one of the methods used by the people on the Catholic side of the fight was to suppress dissent by censoring the printing press. While criminal and harsh penalties didn’t work, commercial incentives to kill freedom of speech worked flawlessly. Mary I of England gave a printing monopoly to London’s printing guild, the London Company of Stationers, on May 4, 1557. This monopoly gave them exclusive rights to printing in all of England, in exchange for allowing the Queen’s censors to prevent any threatening ideas from seeing the light of day.

This monopoly was very beneficial for the new gatekeepers – the printers – and the ruling class alike, with every member of the public losing their freedom of information from it. But how would those members of the public know what ideas were never before their eyes, and understand their impact to society?

This monopoly stands to this day. It was the copyright monopoly that started like this.

Yes, that means that you can view today’s copyright monopoly wars as a logical continuation of the 16th century religious wars. There is nothing new under the sun.

David versus Monsanto: A Documentary on #GMO (by @mercolapromos)

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http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/11/03/david-versus-mo… Dr. Mercola would like you to watch and learn from this documentary film “David versus Monsanto” as it reveals the victory of a farmer, David Runyon, against Monsanto which is one of the most powerful companies pro

Source: youtube.com

Swiss Study Shows 147 Technocratic “Super Entities” Rule the World

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
October 10, 2012

The Swiss Federal Institute (SFI) in Zurich released a study entitled “The Network of Global Corporate Control” that proves a small consortiums of corporations – mainly banks – run the world. A mere 147 corporations which form a “super entity” have control 40% of the world’s wealth; which is the real economy. These mega-corporations are at the center of the global economy. The banks found to be most influential include:

• Barclays
• Goldman Sachs
• JPMorgan Chase & Co
• Vanguard Group
• UBS
• Deutsche Bank
• Bank of New York Melon Corp
• Morgan Stanley
• Bank of America Corp
• Société Générale

However as the connections to the controlling groups are networked throughout the world, they become the catalyst for global financial collapse.
James Glattfelder, complex systems theorist at the SFI explains: “In effect, less than one per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network.”

Using mathematic models normally applied to natural systems, the researchers analyzed the world’s economy. Their data was taken from Orbis 2007, a database which lists 37 million corporations and investors. The evidence showed that the world’s largest corporations are interconnected to all other companies and their professional decisions affect all markets across the globe.

George Sudihara, complex systems expert for SFI claims that this phenomenon is a common structure that could be found in nature. Comparing the manufactured reality of the financial markets to the ecosystems of the planet, Sudihara says that although the 147 corporations that rule the world through influence and interconnectedness are no more harmful than the natural cycles of our weather or animal kingdoms.

Yet because of the facts presented in the study, the financial crash of 2008 can be traced back to these tightly-knit networks. Future disasters can also be projected based on this analysis because of the “connectedness” of these influential entities which are only 147 corporations.

It is suggested the global capitalism could be a useful tool to make the markets more stable by simply acquiescing to control by the technocrats. The world’s transitional corporations (TNCs) guide the flow of all economies through influence and manipulation which created a structure of economic power. Most corporations are guided by the shareholders who use the companies to wield incredible power over the shift of economic consciousness. And the behavior of the system reflects the direction taken by those who fund the super entities.

Assumed by many that there was a complex architecture to the global economic power that caused financial systems to ebb and flow or crash and burn is not a scientific fact as evidenced in this study.

As the banking cartels force countries in the EuroZone into sovereign debt, there is a weakening of the many multi-national corporations around the world. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase have financially gained while stocks are being unloaded in other markets.

This sovereign land-grab by the central banking cartels across Europe is mirrored in a recent Goldman Sachs report: “The more the Spanish administration indulges domestic political interests … the more explicit conditionality is likely to be demanded.” In other words the technocrats working for the Zionists are acquiring each country in the EuroZone.

The European Central Bankers agreed to give any nation in the Euro-Zone a bailout if they agreed to hand over the country to them under the guise of “new rules and conditions when applying for assistance.”

#SpreadThis -> #Amazon tribe massacre alleged in Venezuela - #DGR

Massacre of Yanomami Feared in Venezuela
Village of 80 people was firebombed from the air, say activists, by illegal gold miners based in neighbouring Brazil


A massacre of up to 80 Yanomami Indians has taken place in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas, according to claims emerging from the region, prompting the government to send in investigators.

Blame is being placed on illegal garimpeiro miners who cross the border from Brazil to prospect for gold and have clashed violently with Amazon tribes before. According to local testimonies an armed group flew over in a helicopter, opening fire with guns and launching explosives into Irotatheri settlement in the High Ocamo area. The village was home to about 80 people and only three had been accounted for as survivors, according to people from a neighbouring village and indigenous rights activists.

The claims were presented to local authorities in Puerto Ayacucho, the capital of Amazonas state on Monday, asking for an immediate investigation of the site where the alleged killing took place, and for the expulsion of the garimpeiros. The event would have taken place during the first two weeks of July but due to the remoteness of the village it is only now been made public.

A spokeswoman at the public prosecutor’s office said the government could not yet confirm the attack nor how many people may have been killed.

Luis Shatiwe, a leader of the Yanomami group, told a Venezuelan newspaper that the survivors were hunters who had been out of the village at the time of the alleged attack. The hunters, he said, heard a helicopter and gunfire and said a communal hut in the village was destroyed by fire.

Survival International, a London-based organisation that seeks to protect native peoples, said in a statement that another Yanomami told the group that tribespeople had found bones and charred bodies in the village.


A member of the team that collected the testimony said: “When we heard the first accounts we flew into Parima-B [the closest town] by helicopter with a contingent of military. In Parima we spoke to Yanomami who had walked six days to get to Parima-B to talk to us. In places this remote that is how people communicate.” The man asked not to be identified.

Luis Bello, a lawyer in Puerto Ayacucho who defends indigenous rights, said the allegations were the latest in a series of reports of abuse as garimpeiro activities in the region have increased. “Reports of garimpeiros attacking different communities are becoming more and more frequent, and now we also hear of rivers being poisoned with mercury. We’ve reported to the authorities but we are so far away that is it all easily forgotten,” Bello said.


Bello said a combination of high gold prices and pressure from the Brazilian federal police in their own territory had led to the influx of garimpeiros. “They have also become more sophisticated. They used to fly in and land in clandestine strips, now they come in helicopters and use huge extracting machinery that is decimating the jungle,” Bello said.

In 1993, 16 Yanomamis were killed by garimpeiros in what became known as the Haximu massacre. But there have been cases that turn out to be fake. Aime Thilet, a member of Wataniba, an NGO that defends indigenous rights, said that when the latest alleged attack was reported “we were in the Alto Siapo, also on the border with Brazil, because we got radio a very detailed and what seemed credible report of another massacre, which turned out to be false”.


Livorio Guarulla, the governor of Amazonas state, said remoteness and military restrictions on access to the area made it difficult to investigate the claims quickly. “This happened in July but because it takes close to seven days to get there we don’t really know what happened. The shaponos – the collective community dwellings – house more than 100 people, so it could be 70 [casualties] or it could be more or less.”

The minister for indigenous affairs has yet to make a statement. (SOURCE)

The 6 Creepiest Lies the Food Industry is Feeding You As we’ve talked about before, the food industry is based almost entirely on a series of lies that, quite frankly, most of us just prefer to believe (“‘All natural?’ Sounds healthy to me!”). But we have to draw the line somewhere, right? Especially when the food you buy has nothing to do with what it says on the label. #6. Your Honey and Spices Are Fake If you’re like us and you only use spices to impress the opposite sex with the illusion that you know what to do with them, then it’s possible that you don’t even really know what that stuff is supposed to be made of. And that’s exactly where the food industry wants you, if they’re going to sell you fake bootleg spices. The Horror: Take honey, for example. You’d think it’s a pretty straightforward product — bees make it, bears steal it from the bees, you eat it. Or something. But the truth is that pretty much all the major players in the industry knowingly buy their honey from dodgy sources in China — a country that, for instance, has no qualms in purveying pepper that is entirely made from mud. Bootleg Chinese honey frequently has all of the pollen filtered out of it to disguise its origin, and it’s then cut like back-alley cocaine with cheap corn syrup and artificial sweeteners. The FDA says that a substance can’t legally be called “honey” if it contains no pollen, and yet most of the stuff tested from the main retailers contained not a trace of it. Soy sauce is another thing you’d assume no one would feel the need to fabricate, seeing as soy isn’t exactly a rare commodity. Again, you’d be wrong. Proper soy sauce takes a pretty long time to make, so many manufacturers have started producing an imitation product that takes only three days to make and has a longer shelf life. It is made from something called “hydrolyzed vegetable proteins,” as well as caramel coloring, salt, and our good old friend corn syrup. Most of the soy sauce that you get in packets with your sushi is actually this fake stuff. But at least it comes with wasabi, too, right? If by “wasabi” you mean “horseradish mixed with mustard.” Let’s face it, you probably weren’t even served by a real Japanese person. The worst offender is possibly saffron. The real stuff is up there with the most expensive spices at roughly $10,000 per pound. That’s especially impressive, considering that a lot of “top-quality” saffron consists of roughly 10 percent actual saffron. The rest is just random, worthless plant bits, ground up and mixed with the real thing. And that’s what you get when you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you get the complete forgery: On the left, you see real saffron. On the right — saffron-flavored gelatin. Its appearance is convincing enough, until you put it in water and it completely dissolves, leaving behind little more than a bland aftertaste and a patch of froth shaped like a middle finger. Read more: The 6 Creepiest Lies the Food Industry is Feeding You Nah, it’s cool. Your food is completely real.
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The 6 Creepiest Lies the Food Industry is Feeding You

As we’ve talked about before, the food industry is based almost entirely on a series of lies that, quite frankly, most of us just prefer to believe (“‘All natural?’ Sounds healthy to me!”). But we have to draw the line somewhere, right? Especially when the food you buy has nothing to do with what it says on the label.

#6. Your Honey and Spices Are Fake

If you’re like us and you only use spices to impress the opposite sex with the illusion that you know what to do with them, then it’s possible that you don’t even really know what that stuff is supposed to be made of. And that’s exactly where the food industry wants you, if they’re going to sell you fake bootleg spices.

The Horror:

Take honey, for example. You’d think it’s a pretty straightforward product — bees make it, bears steal it from the bees, you eat it. Or something. But the truth is that pretty much all the major players in the industry knowingly buy their honey from dodgy sources in China — a country that, for instance, has no qualms in purveying pepper that is entirely made from mud.

Bootleg Chinese honey frequently has all of the pollen filtered out of it to disguise its origin, and it’s then cut like back-alley cocaine with cheap corn syrup and artificial sweeteners. The FDA says that a substance can’t legally be called “honey” if it contains no pollen, and yet most of the stuff tested from the main retailers contained not a trace of it.

Soy sauce is another thing you’d assume no one would feel the need to fabricate, seeing as soy isn’t exactly a rare commodity. Again, you’d be wrong. Proper soy sauce takes a pretty long time to make, so many manufacturers have started producing an imitation product that takes only three days to make and has a longer shelf life. It is made from something called “hydrolyzed vegetable proteins,” as well as caramel coloring, salt, and our good old friend corn syrup. Most of the soy sauce that you get in packets with your sushi is actually this fake stuff. But at least it comes with wasabi, too, right? If by “wasabi” you mean “horseradish mixed with mustard.” Let’s face it, you probably weren’t even served by a real Japanese person.

The worst offender is possibly saffron. The real stuff is up there with the most expensive spices at roughly $10,000 per pound. That’s especially impressive, considering that a lot of “top-quality” saffron consists of roughly 10 percent actual saffron. The rest is just random, worthless plant bits, ground up and mixed with the real thing.

And that’s what you get when you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you get the complete forgery:

On the left, you see real saffron. On the right — saffron-flavored gelatin. Its appearance is convincing enough, until you put it in water and it completely dissolves, leaving behind little more than a bland aftertaste and a patch of froth shaped like a middle finger.

Nah, it’s cool. Your food is completely real.

(via inspirement)

Source: chemicalfreelife

cc: @GaryWebb1972 ~ Report: British Member of Parliament puts $16 million bounty on Obama, George W. Bush

British Lord Nazir Ahmed put a £10 million ($16 million) bounty on both President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush Friday, according to The Express Tribune, an English language Pakistani newspaper.

Nazir, who is of Pakistani heritage and a member of the British House of Lords, reportedly made the comments while at a reception in Haripur, a Pakistani city 4o miles north of Islamabad. Nazir told the audience that he was putting the bounty out for the capture of the American leaders in response to the bounty placed on Hafiz Muhammad Saeed by the United States.

“If the U.S. can announce a reward of $10 million for the captor of Hafiz Saeed, I can announce a bounty of 10 million pounds on President Obama and his predecessor George Bush,”  Nazir reportedly said.

Saeed is widely believed to be the head of the Pakistani based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was responsible for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India that killed more than 160 innocents including six Americans. After the 2008 attacks, Saeed denied being connected to the terrorist group. In April, the U.S. government announced a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture in connection to the attacks.

According to The Express Tribune, Nazir said the bounty on Saeed was a grave insult to all Muslims and that he would sell his house if necessary to obtain the funds necessary to pay the bounty he placed on Obama and Bush.

The Pakistani report was brought to the attention of The Daily Caller by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

4 ways #Microsoft is screwing the desktop virtualization industry, and why I'm quitting the MVP program - By: Brian Madden - #Epic #Realness

A lot of people have long believed that Microsoft has been screwing us. But after last week’s radio show and two fantastic articles from Gabe and Jack, it became clear that Microsoft is doing four very specific and intentional things that are holding back the desktop virtualization industry:

No. 1: No SPLA for Windows VDA

As Gabe pointed out last week, In order to connect to a Windows desktop in a VDI scenario, you’re required to have a Windows VDA (“Virtual Desktop Access” license). If you buy Software Assurance (SA) for a particular client device, the VDA license is included. Fine. And for clients that are not eligible for SA (because they can’t run Windows, like iPads or thin clients), you can still buy a standalone VDA license so you can use that device to access a Windows-based VDI desktop. Fine again.

Now you might also know that there’s a licensing program Microsoft offers called the Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA). This is the license that service providers use to charge their customers for access to Microsoft software on a monthly basis. This makes sense, because you couldn’t be a service provider if you had to buy full-price licenses for products that customers might only use for three months and then abandon. Microsoft has SPLA licenses for just about every product they make—except for VDA! In other words, it’s simply not possible for a Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) provider to “rent” Windows desktops to users. The only workaround, and the recommendation from Microsoft, is that if a service provider wants to provide a desktop as a service to a customer, the customer has to provide their own VDA licenses. So all these DaaS providers you hear so much about—Desktone, tuCloud, etc.—all their pricing is based on the customer bringing their own Windows licenses. (BYOL?)

The crazy thing is that tons of people have asked for SPLA licenses that can be applied to Windows desktops. We hear this from every major DaaS provider. (Both on the record and off.) And it’s also crazy that Microsoft has SPLA licenses for Windows Server, including Remote Desktop Session Host. So you can provide an shared session-based desktop as a service, but not a VDI desktop? WTF?

There are plenty of users out there who would like to try subscribing to Windows desktops as a service, but as soon as they read the fine print, they’re discouraged. I mean imagine how someone like Desktone has to say, “Okay, you can get your desktop from us for $30 per user per month. Oh, but first you have to buy this other volume license from Microsoft, and if you ever change your mind and don’t like our service, you’re stuck with this thing.” How crazy is that?

Some people argue that each customer buying their own full licenses shouldn’t be a problem, and that this is a non-issue. Well if this isn’t a problem, then why does the SPLA program exist? Why do they make RDS CALs available via SPLA? Obviously Microsoft and the world-at-large recognize that having an SPLA program is a good thing. Heck, even Office has SPLA. So why does it apply to DaaS desktops with the multi-user OS but not the single user? What gives?

And how crazy are the workarounds? So service providers can buy big servers, buy copies of Windows Server Datacenter Edition, build an unlimited number of VMs, configure those VMs to look like desktops with Aero glass and everything, give each user exclusive access to a “desktop” VM, then rent RDS CALs via SPLA—and that’s all Ok? But you try that same thing with a Windows 7 VM, and you’re the recipient of legal action from Microsoft!

No. 2: Hosting providers aren’t allowed to let two customers share the same servers or storage

As if the whole SPLA thing isn’t crazy enough, Gabe also pointed out that if you’re a DaaS provider and you’ve managed to convince your customers to buy their own VDA licenses, Microsoft forbids you from using the same physical hardware for more than one customer! Are you kidding me? So if you want to get into the desktop hosting business, it’s impossible to have a customer with less than, say, 50 users, because you’d have to splurge for for a dedicated server for them.

Again, what possible logic could there be behind this rule other than to purposefully slow the adoption of DaaS and VDI? What’s really crazy is that VDI is all about virtual desktops, and virtual desktops are VMs running on these virtual platforms. Yet Microsoft forces service providers to have purposefully inefficient designs? How many compostable forks are needed on their Redmond campus to make up for all the extra greenhouse gases burned to power these arbitrarily-underutilized servers? And isn’t virtualization supposed to fix all this, not be the cause of it?

By the way, if you don’t believe this, check out the question and answer from Microsoft’s official on SPLA Program Guide:

I am a hoster who wants to provide Windows-based desktops as a hosted service. Do my customers need to pay for Windows VDA? OR Is there a Service Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA) for Windows VDA so that hosters can provide Windows-based desktops as a service to third parties?

Currently, there is no SPLA model for Windows VDA. Hence, customers who subscribe to desktops from a third-party hoster will need to pay Microsoft for a Windows VDA license for each device accessing Windows client virtual machines in the datacenter. Additionally, hosters need to ensure that they isolate the hardware and other resources for each company (i.e. no two customers can share the same set of resources, such as hardware, storage, etc).

No. 3: Arcane rules about on-premise devices

For our third bit of craziness, Microsoft has this arcane rule about how SA and VDA licenses are allocated. Microsoft SA and VDA licenses are assigned to devices, not people. So right off the bat this is weird, because this whole VDI thing is about the ability to access your desktop from anywhere on any device. But if Microsoft is licensing VDA based on the client device, you need an expensive VDA license for every possible client device each user connects from!

To address this, Microsoft created something called “Extended Roaming Rights” (ERR). The basic concept is that as long as the user’s primary device is covered by VDA, then the user can use ERR to also access a VDI desktop from a personally-owned device. So far, so good. Except here’s where it gets crazy. The ERR only apply to users when they’re not in the office. Check out Jack’s article from a few weeks ago for more details, but the basic point is that any device that’s used on-premise must be fully licensed with VDA. The ERR are only for off-premise clients. As Jack pointed out, “say for example that an employee, tired of being chained to their desk, brought in a MacBook from home. The company would now need to provide another VDA license. That MacBook was perfectly fine at Starbucks, but now it’s costing the company more money.”

Again, how crazy is that? And it gets worse. The definition of whether a device needs to have its own VDA license or can leverage the ERR of an existing device is based on whether the device is “controlled” by the company. But as Eric Gunderson pointed out in the comments of Jack’s article, what does that mean exactly? If the company uses an MDM or MAM solution to enforce security policies on iPads, now that means that device needs a separate VDA license if it’s brought onto the company’s premises? (All of these gory details are outlined in Microsoft’s 147-page Product Use Rights document.)

No. 4: Microsoft won’t disclose how OnLive licensing works

The final thing that pisses me off about Microsoft is that they won’t disclose how OnLive is able to provide their service while maintaining compliance with Microsoft licensing. For those who haven’t seen it, OnLive offers a full remote Windows 7 VDI desktop direct to end user consumers, and the users don’t have to buy VDA licenses. Based on everything we know about Microsoft licensing, this should be in clear violation of Microsoft’s policies. (And many of the other DaaS providers are crying foul, noting that it’s hard for them to compete against a company who apparently doesn’t have to license Microsoft products like the rest of the world does.)

I decided to leverage my Microsoft “MVP” credentials to find an answer. (Microsoft is always talking about how we MVPs have exclusive access to the product teams and how we can get our questions answered.) I sent the following question to my primary contact in the Remote Desktop group at Microsoft:

Can anyone shed any light on how OnLive is licensing Windows 7 licensing for their customers? Is this a special SPLA-like deal? We talked to their CEO, and he just said, “We have licensing experts, and it’s legal,” but he couldn’t tell us how. He also never heard of VDA, so I’m not sure he’s the right person to ask?

The response we received was something along the lines of “we’re not in the best position to comment on how another company is doing their licensing.”

Fine. So I asked the question a different way:

Thanks for this answer. I understand that you can’t comment on specific customers. Let me a different question: Can you please get me in touch with a licensing expert at Microsoft who can explain how I would set up my own DaaS offering based on Win7 Enterprise? I want it to be free, or $9.99 per month. But I don’t want customers to have to own their own Win7, VDA, or SA. I want to provide everything as a provider. I’d be interested in exploring this offering for both physical and virtual hosts. Please tell me which Win7 licenses I have to buy in order to do this?

Again, I got absolutely nowhere. They supposedly said that they were escalating it, but that was more than a month ago and I’ve heard nothing. So not even Microsoft can explain what’s happening even though it definitely looks illegal from the outside and all the other cloud DaaS providers are claiming that something is going on.

So with all this shadiness and Microsoft’s unwillingness to answer a question, why am I an MVP? I don’t agree with so much of what this company is doing. Why would I want them using me to broadcast their propaganda?

I logged into the MVP interface to see if there was an option to quit in protest. (There was not.) But I did decide that there’s no way I’m going to the MVP conference. [UPDATE March 2: I emailed my resignation to MVP Lead , and it was accepted. So I’m no longer an MVP.]

Microsoft’s annual MVP Summit is going on in Redmond this week. I am not there. I’m protesting.

I’ve been an MVP since 2004. The program used to be awesome, but it’s not anymore. I remember my loving feelings from the early days. (I even wrote a blog post with Ron Oglesby on how awesome it was.) I bragged about things like, “When we say something critical of a Microsoft product, a Terminal Server product manager at Microsoft’s response is ‘Oh my gosh! You (as a community leader) are so important to us, and we can’t believe that we’re doing anything that would make you think that. Please, tell us how we can improve and what we can do better.’”

That was back in 2004. Now in 2012 I know that I left a sentence off the end of that statement which is, “Of course we can’t actually do anything about it, but hey, we’ll make you feel like you’re making a difference.” Seriously, the same basic group of MVPs has been going there for eight years, yet there’s not one single Microsoft Remote Desktop person we deal with now who was also there in 2004. They claim to want to help and listen, but the program can’t deliver any of that.

I know I’ve dedicated my whole career to Microsoft desktops and applications, and that’s not changing anytime soon. And I know that Microsoft applications themselves are not going anywhere anytime soon. That’s also fine. It doesn’t change the fact that I don’t agree with what Microsoft is doing, and I can’t wait until alternative application frameworks break their monopoly.

I’ve told a few people privately that I want to leave the MVP program, and one of the responses I’ve gotten was people saying, ”But if you don’t go and give your feedback, then they’re never going know and they won’t fix anything.”

But that’s a load of crap too. I’ve been going to MVP summits for eight years and telling Microsoft the same stuff year after year, but so far it hasn’t worked. And besides, none of this is news to them. They know they’re screwing us.

So that’s it. Microsoft is screwing this entire industry with their asshole policies. I’m embarrassed that I supported them for so long. I just don’t have the respect for them that I did in 2004.

Underreported Struggles #60, March 2012 ~ #DGR #Activism #Solidarity


Musqueam First Nation members, supporters halt condo construction at Marpole midden site. Vancouver, March 12, 2012. Photo: Sandra Cuffe

In the month’s Underreported Struggles: Australian government passes legislation to store nuclear waste on indigenous land; Himba people of Namibia reach out to the international community for support; Musqueam First Nation halts construction of new condominium; Mexico’s Supreme Court affirms indigenous right to take part in decision making.

***

Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that a Tarahumara (Raramuri) community in the state of Chihuahua has the Constitution right to participate in the decision-making of any project that would affect them. The little-noticed decision could have far-reaching effects across the country. The high court also stated that relevant national law is similar to the International Labor Organization’s Convention No. 169, which protects the rights of indigenous communities and tribal peoples. Mexico is among 22 nations that have ratified the international agreement.

The National Indian government recently gave its approval for the first of two Russian-designed nuclear reactors at Koodankulam (Kudankulam) in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The unsettling move has been met with a massive uprising involving up to 20,000 locals and protests around the country. The government’s response has been severe. According to a recent appeal thousands of armed policemen began terrorizing the local protesters. At least 500 people—some reports say as many as 3,000—have already been arrested. A media blackout is also now in effect.

Fifty years ago, in 1962, Dryden Chemicals Ltd. quietly began funneling its mercury waste into the Wabigoon River, a practice they continued until 1970. When all was said and done, the British-owned company had dumped some 10 metric tonnes of mercury into the Wabigoon, severely contaminating its fish and disrupting the economy and subsistence practices of three Indigenous communities. Fifty years later, the mercury problem continues.

Nyoongar activists are being continuously confronted by police on Heirisson Island, where a Nyoongar Tent Embassy has been established. Since the Tent Embassy began in mid-February—in opposition to a government proposal that would force the Nyoongar to permanently surrender their land title—there have been at least 6 confrontations in which police have arrested the activists, seized their property and dismantled the Embassy. The determined Nyoongar and their allies however, refuse to back down. They keep going back to the site and restoring the Embassy.

Naga Youth in Burma have formed a new group to resist the construction of the Tamanthi Dam which is located at Homlin township in Naga area, Myanmar. Once completed, the Dam reservoir would flood 1400 sq kms, permanently displacing 53 Naga villages, 15 villages inhabited by both Naga and Kuki people and 14 Kuki villages. At least 2400 people have been already relocated at gun point.

Fishermen in Palawan are being urged to follow the traditional sustainable fishing methods of the Tagbanua people. Over the years, destructive and careless fishing practices have depleted the population of Irrawaddy dolphins, bringing them to the edge of extinction. The Tagbanua, who consider dolphins to be messengers, limit themselves to catching certain fish species based on the position of the moon or the tide. They also share their catch among neighbors and relatives, avoiding wastage and overfishing.

The Chinese government introduced a new policy that places almost every Buddhist monastery in Tibet under the direct rule of government officials. The officials will be permanently stationed in each religious institution. According to official documents, the new policy is described as, “critical for taking the initiative in the struggle against separatism,” and aims to “ensure that monks and nuns do not take part in activities of splitting up the motherland and disturbing social order.”

The Australian government passed new legislation to let nuclear waste be stored at a remote indigenous community in the Northern Territory, a decision that indigenous groups and environmentalists have vowed to fight. Muckaty Station was nominated by the Northern Land Council in 2007; But since then several traditional owners have argued they were not properly consulted and did not give their consent.

In Ecuador, A group of women led protests against a Chinese-financed Canadian copper mining project, the first large-scale mine under a new government mining policy. The women say the project would damage Amazonia’s fragile ecosystem, affecting “for all time the territory of indigenous people and nature”. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, CONAIE, also came forward against the mine as well as President Rafael Correa’s plans to allow international companies to carry out large-scale mining projects. In response, the Ecuadorian government mounted a march of its own, on International Womens’ Day.

Dozens of Musqueam First Nationmembers and supporters joined forces to halt the construction of a new 5-storey condominium that threatened an ancient village and midden site known as c??sna??m. After successfully preventing contractors from entering the site; the demonstrators set up a blockade camp to maintain a permanent presence at the site. The camp was dismantled on March 14 to make way for a three-week period of negotiations.

Representatives of Moro and Lumad communities in Mindanao signed a five-point kinship covenant in a gathering filled with remembrances of historical relationships and aspirations for peace and unity in the island. The inspiring covenant cited mutual recognition and respect (kilalaha), mutual sharing of information (sayuda), cooperation (buliga), mutual protection and preservation of life (uyaga), and mutual obligation to help the needy (pagbatunbatuna).

Quebec police dismantled a blockade that was organized by a group of Innu citizens to protest the construction of hydro transmission lines that are being placed through their traditional territory. According to available reports, no one was injured during the court-backed offensive, which the Innu passively tried to resist. The blockade/checkpoint went up soon after Innu representatives walked away from negotiations with the Hydro company.

Indigenous Peoples throughout Sarawak are coming together for the sake of their ancestors and future generations. Under the banner of “Save Sarawak Rivers” (SAVE Rivers), affected Indigenous Peoples like the Kenyahs, Ibans, Penans, Bidayuhs and Ukits have joined with local organizations and concerned individuals to halt the construction of new hydro dams and other plans to bring ‘dirty industries’ to Sarawak.

The Indigenous Peoples Confederation of Honduras (CONPAH) released a statement calling on the government of Honduras to withdraw a REDD proposal submitted to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. The statement declares that the Honduran government failed to consult the Indigenous peoples, whose land would be used for various forestation programs, before submitting the proposal.

The Government of Israel is currently considering a new bill that would turn the controversial Prawer Plan into law, paving the way for Israel to increase its efforts to dispossess the Bedouin Peoples of their land and relocate them to impoverished townships. The Bedouin’s struggle, meanwhile, continues to be widely ignored by media outlets.

Tomkav, a Luiseno village and burial site in Northern San Diego County, is being desecrated by developers working for Pardee Homes and Palomar College in San Marcos, CA. “During the course of [work], many archeologically significant new discoveries have been made, and dozens of Luiseno burials have been unearthed”; but rather than halting work as required by state law, the construction activities have been increased. To make matters worse, the construction workers have actually been celebrating their work, laughing and giving each other high fives as Luiseno Elders and others watched on.

The Himba people, who have long seen their rights trampled upon by the Namibian government, have turned to the United Nations and the international community to intervene on their behalf. A January statement signed by all 36 Traditional Himba Leaders reveals a lengthy list of abuses concerning rights to land, cultural identity, lack of consultation relating to mining and dam construction, land grabbing, interference in ancestral tribal institutions and routine oppression. Though issued in January, the Himba’s call has received little international attention.

Videos of the Month

Can Traditional Knowledge Survive in the Modern World? - Anishinabek activist, scholar and writer Dr. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson answers the question: “Can Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Survive in the Modern World?”

The History of ILO Conventions on Indigenous Peoples - Lee Swepston, Former Senior Human Rights Adviser at the International Labour Organization (ILO), discusses the history of the ILO’s Conventions on Indigenous Peoples.

Song on the Water - “Song on the Water” takes viewers along with 50 indigenous canoes, their crews, and communities on a modern-day voyage to a traditional potlatch.

Underreported Struggles is a monthly round-up of essential news and film compiled by Intercontinental Cry.

Published on Apr 2, 2012 at 12:54pm Some Rights Reserved

Weyerhaeuser subsidiary joins with Palomar College to desecrate Indian village and burial site | #DGR News Service

Image by Save Tomkav Village

By Ahni, Intercontinental Cry

Tomkav, a Luiseno village and burial site in Northern San Diego County, is being happily desecrated by developers working for Pardee Homes (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Corporation) and Palomar College in San Marcos, CA.

On the morning of February 23, 2012, a group of bulldozers arrived to begin work on the recently-approved Horse Ranch Creek Road, a four-lane road that would pave the way to a planned 844-home development and a brand new College satellite campus.

It wasn’t long before a group of Indigenous activists arrived on the scene; unfortunately, their efforts did little to stop the desecration that day.

To make matters worse, the operators weren’t merely trying to do their job, despite the best efforts of the activists. As the following cell-phone video reveals, the workers were enjoying it. You can see one of the operators grinning just before he turns away…

The incident speaks well to the reality of what Indigenous Peoples face in the United States, especially when it comes to preserving sacred site: As Elders watched on in horror and others ran out in front of bulldozers to try to save what they could, the workers were celebrating. They were “laughing about what was happening, high-fiving when they were finishing, and you know, making the pump motion with their hands to say whoo-hoo we did a great job,” said San Luis Rey attorney Merri Lopez-Keifer.

Meanwhile, Tom-Kav, a part of the Luiseno creation story and the site of an historic village and burial ground, is being viewed from afar as nothing more than empty land. It’s as if California state law and federal doesn’t even exist, never mind basic moral conscience.

“During the course of [work], many archeologically significant new discoveries have been made, and dozens of Luiseno burials have been unearthed, notes Save Tomkav Village. “California law requires that when new discoveries of human remains occur, construction projects must be put on hold until the materials can be analyzed, which could lead to project modifications. Pardee and Palomar College have disregarded legal protocol by carelessly proceeding with grading and construction activities, and in fact they sped up work as soon as San Luis Rey took legal action against them.”

A day after the disgusting display, the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians filed for an injunction to halt the road construction–which is being paid for by Palomar College.

Read more from Intercontinental Cry: http://intercontinentalcry.org/sacred-village-and-burial-site-happily-desecrated-for-palomar-college-and-pardee-homes/

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