Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

David Axelrod Describes The No Good, Very Bad Minefield Of Obama's Early Presidency
HP | Sam Stein | 02/10/15

Barack Obama, transitioning from presidential campaign to the White House in the fall of 2008, was confronted with what could be described as a steaming pile of bad economic news. The stock market was collapsing, credit markets were frozen and hundreds of thousands of jobs were being lost every month. "Well," the soon-to-be president told his incoming economic advisers. "It's too late to ask for a recount." ...

...Those first months of the Obama presidency are recounted in behind-the-scenes detail in Axelrod's new book, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics, which goes on sale Tuesday. The 509-page account of Axelrod's career in news and politics also illuminates the frustrations, nuances and annoyances that presidents and members of their staffs face in office. ...

... Obama's first problem upon winning the election, as Axelrod recounts, was putting together a staff. Whether out of false modesty, stubbornness or an aversion to a terribly stressful job, many of Obama's cabinet picks initially turned him down. ... Read more

A New Generation of Data Requires Next-Generation "Computer" Systems
WiredMagazine | Ross Mauri | older, 01/14/15

... There is no question that demand for centralized data processing is going through the stratosphere. We're at the early stages of what analyst firm IDC calls the third platform, and what Gartner Group calls the "nexus of forces" sweeping the industry. The so-called first platform was the mainframe era, running from the 1960s to 1980s. The second began with the personal computer and ran through the Internet era, until the rise of the smart phone around 2007. The third platform is evolving in response to the unprecedented demands created by the combination of mobility, social media, cloud computing, and data from sources that never before generated data, like Fitbits or sensors in cars or coffee machines. ...

... The third platform requirements are driving more of life and business online, spiking up electronic events and information. Cyber Monday mobile traffic accounted for 41.2 percent of all online traffic, up 30.1 percent over 2013, according to the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark. A new report from Juniper Research finds that mobile phone and tablet users will make 195 billion mobile commerce transactions annually by 2019, up from 72 billion this year, or about 197 million transactions per day. ... Read more

The Massive Work That Goes Into Remodeling an Old Aircraft Carrier
WiredMagazine | Katherine Kornei | 02/03/15

Aircraft carriers are complicated. They're floating cities and mobile airbases, housing thousands of sailors and airmen, tens of aircraft, multiple nuclear reactors, and their own hospitals, barbershops, chapels, and zip codes. Carriers support defense and humanitarian efforts worldwide and can travel upwards of 100,000 nautical miles each year. Each United States aircraft carrier -- there are 10 in active service -- is designed to last 50 years. But the only way they get there is with a massive remodeling effort conducted once in the middle of its lifespan to update its technology and infrastructure.

Because "remodeling" is a term more often applied to home kitchens and bathrooms, the multi-year, multi-billion dollar process of modernizing the ship and readying it for at least two more decades of service is called Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH). ... Read more

Bin Laden Already Dead
FoxNews | author | older, 12/26/01

Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader.

Bin Laden, according to the source, was suffering from a serious lung complication and succumbed to the disease in mid-December, in the vicinity of the Tora Bora mountains. The source claimed that bin Laden was laid to rest honorably in his last abode and his grave was made as per his Wahabi belief. About 30 close associates of bin Laden in Al Qaeda, including his most trusted and personal bodyguards, his family members and some "Taliban friends," attended the funeral rites. A volley of bullets was also fired to pay final tribute to the "great leader." ... Read more