Bitcoin Blues on Mt Gox in Tokyo

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Bitcoin Withdrawals Halted by Mt. Gox

 

With New York’s top banker set to regulate Bitcoin exchanges, the Tokyo marketplace named Mt. Gox halted withdrawals late last week of all digital accounts. http://www.forbes.com/sites/leoking/2014/02/11/bitcoin-trading-technology-in-question-as-currency-dives-after-glitch/

 

Bitcoin, the most traded cyrptocoin, lost about 14% of its value, dropping from a price in US dollars of $692 per coin to $595. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/10/us-investing-bitcoin-idUSBREA191Y220140210

 

The Mt. Gox action to stop withdrawals arose from “unusual activity” detected in the marketplace. No details about the nature of such activities has been released so far. Sebastien Galy, a currency trader with New York’s Societie Generale described the technical issues as “… of a much larger intensity than we’ve seen in the past.”

 

In recent months the Sacramento Kings basketball franchise and the online retailer Overstock.com began accepting Bitcoins for payment. At the same time, however, legal actions surrounding arrest of Bitcoin leaders raised fundamental questions about cyrptocoin viability. http://hamiltonfinanceservices.com/?p=1350

 

Is this the beginning of the end for digital coin alternatives to government-backed currencies? Or is this simply another adjustment in the longer term birth of new currencies? http://www.afp.com/en/search/site/bitcoin/

 

What do you think?

 

 

 

 

Something About ASCAP Still Bugs Me

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You may have never heard of me, but in a few small circles I am known as a concert pianist and a composer of contemporary music for piano.  Since age 4 I have played as a solo pianist and as an orchestral pianist, but only for non-profit performances that benefit charities I prefer to encourage.  Additionally, as an attorney and professor of law I have written and published two legal textbooks (under my legal name) and as a dilettante I also wrote and self-published four spy novels under a nome de plume in French.  Finally, I have also painted in oils and acrylics, and mostly while traveling in the Far East for a few years, I exhibited most of the art still in my possession. http://artlacrosse.com

 

So when I candidly tell you how ambivalent I feel about today’s VOA article in the Arts & Entertainment Section by Jeff Lunden extolling the benefits of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), you might be surprised.  http://www.voanews.com/content/ascap-celebrates-100-years-of-protecting-composers/1848269.html After all, as an artist I should be sympathetic to other artists in need of compensation for their works.

 

While I practiced piano from an early age, I did so mostly in imitation of my mother and her little sister, my aunt, both of whom became accomplished concert pianists when I was very young.   I loved music from the beginning and I played for hours daily out of adoration for my mother and aunt.  When I first performed in Madison, Wisconsin, it was for holiday gatherings of our little city’s elite.  That blossomed into more work, and by the time I attained teen age, I rebelled in favor of a very different lifestyle.  Still, I continued to love music and taught myself to compose piano pieces, which a friend at the University of Wisconsin transcribed and arranged.  It offered relief from pain in other parts of life, and I never expected to receive a cent for any of that work.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer’s_aesthetics  If any proceeds flowed from my performances or compositions, I only wanted those benefits to go to local shelters.

 

The same feelings followed my writing of two textbooks for a large organization where I worked.  I gladly signed over all copyrights to that organization, preferring to focus on better things than the business of publishing.  After I became somewhat self-sufficient financially from the practice of law and military service, I played with novel writing and self-published four of my spy novels in the 90’s when spy novels seemed popular.  I set up a trust to take any profits and donate them to designated charities that support young artists.

 

To me, composing, writing, and painting garnished my life of work in other fields.  Hopefully, my music, words, and images also enriched the lives of a few others.  To seek payment for that art somehow diminishes it, in my view. http://www.arthistoryunstuffed.com/kant-art-for-arts-sake/

 

Granted, some friends who also created art argued their need for income from their work, and I never disagreed with them.  I simply went my own way.

 

So today when the Voice of America (VOA) recounted the ‘brilliant idea’ behind ASCAP, I cringed a little.  Sure, let the famous entertainers take their bows and ample paychecks.  The laws of Europe and America support those rights to payment for intellectual property expressed in art.  Yet, something seems lost in that bargain, at least to me.

 

What do you think? 

 

Jerome Hamilton, editing blogster at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com where your comments are always invited

 

 

Polygamy Not Thriving Anywhere

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Polygamy in Utah Not Remotely Mainstream

 

News on Yahoo today suggests that polygamy thrives in Utah, but I beg to disagree. Having lived there and observed first hand how most “Mormons” live, I find Yahoo’s article title grossly misleading. http://news.yahoo.com/polygamy-thrives-utah-071640727.html It’s not really William Edwards’ article from Agence France-Presse (AFP), published first on YouTube as a vidnews, that bothers me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZkRow2BQAE&feature=c4-overview It’s Yahoo’s inaccurate title!

 

Polygamy has not thrived in Utah since the 1890’s when leaders of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints denounced the practice of plural marriage and began excommunicating anyone who continued it. Once in a rare moment today such excommunications still occur, but to most of Utah’s Mormons it’s a non-issue, even a peculiar and embarrassing factoid of history. Splinter minority groups rebelled against that strong 1890 denunciation by Mormon leaders and formed their own versions of churches designed primarily to perpetuate the polygamous lifestyle. Those churches never became mainstream, let alone thrive in Utah or elsewhere.

 

I suggest that news hounds intent on sniffing out current reports about our world go straight to the AFP site instead of bothering with Yahoo’s exploitative twist on both Reuters and AFP reporting. As a predominant American English speaker, I like http://www.afp.com/en/news/ but most other major languages also appear on that AFP site. And Reuters traditionally offers a great line up, too, at http://www.reuters.com/ so don’t let your news become diluted by less than professional reporting.

 

Of course, if you just want honest news commentary from the heart of America, I invite your review of my blog at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com, where your comments, too, are always welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

Great Olympics Opening, No Matter What Others Focused On

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Distant Focus on Olympic Grandeur Leaves Flaws Invisible

Photo Published by http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com

 

Watching the Olympics open in Russia yesterday from a distance of several thousand miles gave a different view than seems generally reported the day after. Lead up to the event was informative (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gddpRX14OEQ) and even grand (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgA9y45rCgM). Yet, some critics watching the opening in person saw the fifth Olympic circle fail to ignite and they reported how TV coverage substituted a practice run as the broadcast to avoid coverage of the failed ignition. Other critics saw one of the flame-lighters, the great Olympic champion and now Russian hero Irina Rodnina, as the wrong choice for flame-lighter. Last autumn she re-tweeted a photo from American friends of US President Obama eating a banana, interpreted by some as racist and therefore those critics labeled Rodnina with the same invectiveness. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/07/us-olympics-ceremony-controversy-idUSBREA1620220140207)

 

To a neutral online observer watching the Olympics opening in Russia, none of the flaws so heavily discussed by commentators seemed noticeable. The procession looked beautiful and as symbolically meaningful as the Olympic originators had dreamed in 1896. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Summer_Olympics)

 

Should the jaundiced views of reporters bent on finding fault be the primary lens through which one observes the international cry for peace and athletic beauty embodied in Olympic gatherings? To the observers at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com, the obvious answer seems to be, “Never!”

 

No great nation-state can escape its critics, and the criticism pressed in the face of national leaders serves a significant purpose: It displays where improvement may be made. Nonetheless, the grandeur of the Olympics should not be diminished to those who long for expression of an ideal, however distant from the streets of daily life. We each may preserve that grandeur by selecting the message intended by the Olympic organizers as our primary focus.

 

 

What do you think?

Who’s Working Now?

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Who’s Working Today Will Not Be The Same Tomorrow, If Tech Improves As Planned

 

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics Report today told some of the story. Nonfarm workers increased 113,000 in January 2014, as compared with an average monthly increase throughout 2013 of 194,000. The unemployment rate changed little at 6.6 percent, based on 10.2 M unemployed workers who actively seek full time work. Long-term unemployed decreased 232,000 in January 2014, and they account for about 35.8% of those unemployed. (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm)

 

If high tech company plans work out, fewer unskilled workers will be employed in the future. The precise impact of new technology cannot be accurately forecast. Nonetheless, Google says it has reached final development stages for autonomous computer operated vehicles. (http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520746/data-shows-googles-robot-cars-are-smoother-safer-drivers-than-you-or-i/) IBM artificial intelligence scientists are perfecting Watson, a computer that learns. (http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/solutions/watson/) Amazon has already automated several of its warehouses and soon it plans to transport parcels by airborne drones. (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304724404577291903244796214) (http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/01/amazon-is-experimenting-with-autonomous-flying-delivery-drones/)

 

While new goods and services will be offered to many consumers worldwide due to new technologies, new labor numbers will reflect fewer jobs among unskilled workers. High tech will replace those workers in growing numbers. (http://www.voanews.com/content/technology-impact-on-people-lives-mixed/1846050.html) In the words of the author of The Second Machine Age, Andrew McAfee,Technology tends to favor some kinds of winners and they are pulling ahead and leaving a lot of people behind. So we see inequality in income, inequality in wealth, inequality in opportunity, in mobility, and these are very serious challenges that we have to confront,” 

 

When you see high tech replacing local jobs, we invite you to comment on this blog. What do you think? Is the short term loss of work worth the longer term improvements? Is automation unstoppable?

 

And as for unemployed workers who want to work, what stories have you witnessed? We invite you to add those stories online here.

 

The staff at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com invites your participation in this worldwide conversation.

 

 

 

 

Nuland Phone Gaff Gets No Comment

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US Diplomat Phone Remarks On YouTube Dis the EU

http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com

Victoria Nuland, a senior US diplomat, has nothing more to say about a leak, allegedly from Russian secret services, on her internal telephone conversation.  Her expletive dismissal of the European Union piqued anger from the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but to Nuland the YouTube post of her private diplomatic discussion demonstrated good spy tradecraft.   (http://www.voanews.com/content/us-diplomat-no-comment-on-alleged-eu-statement/1846448.html)  She took an opportunity in today’s press conference to note that the US does not train or supply Ukrainian protestors, contrary to President Putin’s advisors’ allegations.  (http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2014/02/06/putin-adviser-threatens-russian-intervention-in-ukraine)

To me, Nuland’s flippant lack of awareness of how every telephone conversation, but especially those of US high ranking diplomats, has become fair game for all spy organizations, not to mention high tech vigilantes, since the Snowden disclosures about rampant US spying under the PRISM program orchestrated by the US National Security Agency across more than 100 other US spy agencies.

In other words, what goes around comes around.  What do you think?

Israel Demolitions Peak As Middle East Talks To Start

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West Bank Demolition At 5-Year High

http://HamiltonfinanceServices.com

 

As US-backed peace negotiations start up, so do demolitions by Israeli military operations. In fact, the number of demolitions hit a 5-year high today with 663 houses in rubble over the past twelve months. Aid organizations such as Red Cross, Oxfam, and Christian Aid now complain about obstruction and confiscation of their aid at the same time. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/07/us-israel-palestinians-demolitions-idUSBREA160N620140207)

 

No one on the Israeli side will comment, leaving observers to wonder whether tensions in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq have emboldened Israel to revisit the 1979 Camp David accords. As demonstrated in the 1967 Six-Day War, preemptive operations by Israel tend to mark their strategies. Even when Israel rules out preemptive strikes, as in the 1973 October War begun on Yom Kippur by Arab forces, it remains a key to most Israel operations. Leading up to such strikes, fomenting civilian actions have historically suggested mounting tensions with potential military ramifications.

 

Here at HamiltonFinanceServices.com, we have reviewed the 1967 and 1973 war histories plus the activities culminating in the 1979 Camp David accords, to understand what current demolitions signify. Ever since the 1973 October War, a strong political faction in Israel has pressed the agenda of military and intelligence services’ vigilance. The 2009 election of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a second term illustrates the slight leadership control of the right over contemporary Israeli politics. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Netanyahu) (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/22/us-israel-election-idUSBRE90K0FP20130122)

More importantly, tensions across the Middle East may leave open military opportunities for hawkish factions, both within Israel and in the region. Recall that Egypt, Syria, and Iraq were key to Arab war efforts in both the 1967 route by Israel of those Arab forces and the 1973 stalemate imposed by Kissinger shuttle diplomacy. In particular the 1973 October War illustrates how Israel, ready to trounce Arab forces it had surrounded just before peace negotiations halted that war, learned to never again let down its guard. The preemptive nature of Israeli defense from June 5th though the 10th of 1967 remains predominant in war doctrine among Israeli commanders. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War)

 

Last months’ announcement of Israel’s Iron Beam (http://www.infowars.com/israel-plans-laser-interceptor-iron-beam-for-short-range-rockets/) leaves some observers wondering about how the Spring of 2014 might blossom on the Sinai and along the Gaza. What do you think?

 

 

 

Vatican Need Not Defend Against UN Committee Allegations

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Vatican Defense Should Be Unnecessary

 

Though not a Catholic, I sympathize with the Vatican in its contest of wills against the UN Human Rights Committee.  That committee represents no single nation but instead hires staff sympathetic to a political agenda and relies exclusively on the allegations of people claiming wrong-doing.  The wrong-doing underlying current disagreement between the Vatican and the UN focuses particularly on pedophilia by predator priests, a horrible crime if true.  Yet, Vatican law presumes innocence until guilt is firmly proven, as most other nations do.

 

The Church’s moral position has never faltered in its abhorrence of child victimization.  However, the Church also strongly opposes homosexuality, abortion, and contraception, none of which bother the UN committee members or staff to any significant degree.  Indeed, some committee staffers carry reputations as political advocates for those positions opposed by the Church.

 

More significant than the ideological lines clearly distinguishing the Church and the UN, the sovereignty of each varies markedly.  The Vatican has been recognized for centuries as a sovereign entity entitled to legislate, execute, and adjudicate its own ecclesiastical laws over its citizens, including its priests, with the same legal force and effect employed by nation-states such as the United States, China, or Russia when they guard their legal procedures, laws, and sovereignty.  In contrast, the UN is a voluntary amalgamation with no sovereign authority whatsoever.  So when a UN committee alleges concealment of crime, it speaks with no legal authority.  In contrast, under Church law silence is demanded.  Granted, much of the world favors transparency, but openness and candor have never been part of the Vatican culture or its laws.  Further, no amount of protest by UN committees will affect Vatican policies or doctrines, no matter how much committee members and staffers disagree with the Vatican.

 

No excuses can or should be made for pedophiles.  However, in a significant majority of cases raised by the UN committee, no adjudication by a legal body supports labeling the priests so accused as convicted pedophiles.  Perhaps the Church moves too slowly and too quietly to comfort actual victims of sexual assault by priests, yet the need for improvement in the Church’s legal procedures has been admitted and that improvement is underway, not because of UN clamoring but because the Vatican has heard reports of its members’ pain.  Nonetheless, the Church through its Vatican government has every right to its own legal authority.  It should not be expected to defend itself to a UN committee fundamentally opposed to Vatican principles.

 

That’s my view.  What do you think?

 

 

http://www.voanews.com/content/scathing-un-report-demands-vatican-act-against-sex-abuse/1844754.html

Nye-Ham Debate Over Religion and Science

When news hit that Bill Nye, the popular US science commentator, would debate Ken Ham, a Christian minister from Kentucky who runs a museum about creationism, I rolled my eyes. It sounded like another publicity scam for the far right Christians. Who cares whether religionists’ assertions based on personal belief or scientists’ attempts at more objective observations form the basis of what a society decides are its laws and mores? The stadium hosting that debate sold out quickly. It also fulfilled the publicity expectation; loads of sympathizers clicked onto Ham’s museum website. Maybe I should leave the tempest in its teapot, but the old debate, science v. religion, still troubles me in the context of contemporary news about wars around the globe.

 

On my blog I have commented about war already. http://hamiltonfinanceservices.com/?p=1503 The troubles in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Thailand, South Sudan, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Mali highlight one over-arching theme: War, particularly about who is in charge, plagues this planet almost continually. That theme sounds like the second law of thermodynamics writ large in human history. You know the law, however you word it: Disorder increases. In terms of human history, war persists.

 

The Nye-Ham debate caused no war although the same cannot be said of similar debates between Sunnis and Shiites. Why don’t Nye and Ham resolve their differences with an agreement such as, “Some prefer to see with their imaginations without further testing and others prefer to see with their imaginations but only if confirmed by testing.” That impresses me as a resolution of the religion-science tension: Individuals choose to believe whatever comforts them more, simple fantasy or apparently verifiable fantasy.

 

That resolution solves nothing. People build societies based on their beliefs about reality and goodness. Without implicit agreement on how to form a worthy belief, society will shake itself into oblivion. Observe how the United States has fared since its realization that it has no shared soul, that is, no shared belief in God or secularism or materialism or … anything. I wonder when the US will descend into civil war. Will it happen soon after it falls into servitude due to indebtedness?

 

Nye and Ham won the approval of their established followers and from what can be gleaned from news coverage no one moved towards one view or the other as a result of the debate. Does that mean the wars, even if won or lost, will never change the beliefs of those who communicate through violence?

 

What do you think?

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/04/271648691/watch-the-creationism-vs-evolution-debate-bill-nye-and-ken-ham

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/bill-nye-bible-doesn-39-t-tell-earth-093334127.html?vp=1

Nye-Ham Debate Over Religion and Science

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Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham Over Telling the Truth

 

When news hit that Bill Nye, the popular US science commentator, would debate Ken Ham, a Christian minister from Kentucky who runs a museum about creationism, I rolled my eyes. It sounded like another publicity scam for the far right Christians. Who cares whether religionists’ assertions based on personal belief or scientists’ attempts at more objective observations form the basis of what a society decides are its laws and mores? The stadium hosting that debate sold out quickly. It also fulfilled thet publicity expectation; loads of sympathizers clicked onto Ham’s museum website. Maybe I should leave the tempest in its teapot, but the old debate, science v. religion, still troubles me in the context of contemporary news about wars around the globe.

 

On my blog I have commented about war already. http://hamiltonfinanceservices.com/?p=1503 The troubles in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Thailand, South Sudan, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Mali highlight one over-arching theme: War, particularly about who is in charge, plagues this planet almost continually. That theme sounds like the second law of thermodynamics writ large in human history. You know the law, however you word it: Disorder increases. In terms of human history, war persists.

 

The Nye-Ham debate caused no war although the same cannot be said of similar debates between Sunnis and Shiites. Why don’t Nye and Ham resolve their differences with an agreement such as, “Some prefer to see with their imaginations without further testing and others prefer to see with their imaginations but only if confirmed by testing.” That impresses me as a resolution of the religion-science tension: Individuals choose to believe whatever comforts them more, simple fantasy or apparently verifiable fantasy.

 

That resolution solves nothing. People build societies based on their beliefs about reality and goodness. Without implicit agreement on how to form a worthy belief, society will shake itself into oblivion. Observe how the United States has fared since its realization that it has no shared soul, that is, no shared belief in God or secularism or materialism or … anything. I wonder when the US will descend into civil war. Will it happen soon after it falls into servitude due to indebtedness?

 

Nye and Ham won the approval of their established followers and from what can be gleaned from news coverage no one moved towards one view or the other as a result of the debate. Does that mean the wars, even if won or lost, will never change the beliefs of those who communicate through violence?

 

What do you think?

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/04/271648691/watch-the-creationism-vs-evolution-debate-bill-nye-and-ken-ham

 

http://news.yahoo.com/bill-nye-bible-doesn-39-t-tell-earth-093334127.html?vp=1