Category: Government

Computer Glitches Disrupt Business As Usual

Posted on July 9, 2015 in Economics, Government, Implementation, Industries, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” – Classic Murphy’s Law!

The age of technology has overcome us; computerized systems are impacting every aspect of modern life.

This is good!

This is bad!

The famous criminal Willie Sutton was once asked why he robbed banks, and his response was simple, eloquent, and humorous:

Because that’s where the money is.

CU Blog - Computer Glitches Disrupt Business As Usual - Photo 3

The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that wherever and whenever there is economic prosperity, “bad actors” will always emerge. This fact should be no surprise; it should be expected forthright. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This CU would function as a facilitator for the 30 member-states of the Caribbean, charged to elevate the economic, security and governing engines of the region. There will be the need to facilitate the full breadth and depth of Information & Communications Technologies (ICT).

The “bad actors” or threats to societal engines could be intentional or accidental, man-made or natural. This is duly documented in the current news story of heightened computer glitches that have disrupted major players in the American business eco-system … on the same day.

This has disrupted the business as usual. Is it chance or is it choice?

This is yet to be ascertained; see the news article here:

Title: NYSE re-opens after trading stopped amid United Airlines, WSJ.com tech issues
Reporting by: Kylie MacLellan; Editing by: Dominic Evans

CU Blog - Computer Glitches Disrupt Business As Usual - Photo 1Trading was halted for more than two hours on the New York Stock Exchange floor Wednesday after an internal technical issue was detected – which then set off speculation that a cyber-glitch at United Airlines and a temporary online outage at the Wall Street Journal newspaper were connected.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama had been briefed on the glitch that took out trading on the floor of the NYSE by White House counterterrorism and homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco and chief of staff Denis McDonough.

He also said despite indications that it was not a cyber-breach, the administration was “keenly aware of the risk that exists in cyber space right now.”

CU Blog - Computer Glitches Disrupt Business As Usual - Photo 2Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson tried to allay fears, saying, “It appears from what we know at this stage that the malfunctions at United and at the stock exchange were not the result of any nefarious actor.”

He added, “We know less about the Wall Street Journal at this point except that their system is back up again as is the United Airline system.”

Trading at the NYSE stopped around 11:30 a.m. ET though NYSE – listed shares continued to trade on other exchanges such as the Nasdaq.
…
Read the rest of the article here: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/07/08/nyse-united-airlines-wsjcom-hit-with-computer-issues/

The CU/Go Lean roadmap provides for comprehensive oversight in this arena of ICT; to protect against bad actors and bad happenstance.

The overriding theme of the foregoing news article is that cyber-security is not automatic, and not easy; it takes heavy-lifting on behalf of skilled stakeholders to ensure the appropriate protections are in place. The Go Lean roadmap asserts that some empowerments for the Caribbean may be too big for any one member-state alone; that there will be the need for a deputized technocracy like the CU to provide the remediation and mitigations for regional progress. The roadmap calls for vesting the CU with the authority to establish and execute a comprehensive security apparatus that also covers cyber-threats and computer glitches.

The Go Lean book relates (Page 127) how ICT can be a great equalizer in competition with the rest of the world. This embrace of ICT must include e-Government (outsourcing and in-sourcing for member-states systems) and e-Delivery, Mobile, Social Media, Postal/Electronic Mail, e-Learning and wireline/wireless/satellite initiatives.

In fact, this  the Go Lean book posits that mastery of these technology endeavors are necessary to fulfill the CU prime directives, defined by these 3 statements:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus, authorized by a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance, including a separation-of-powers between CU federal agencies and member-states governments, to support these engines.

The book contends, and this foregoing news report confirms, that bad actors and/or bad happenstance will always emerge to disrupt business as usual in the region. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

x.   Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices … to assuage continuous threats against public safety.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xvi.  Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

So while the CU is set to optimize Caribbean society through economic empowerment, with a heavy emphasis of technology, the Go Lean roadmap posits that the security dynamics (and cyber-security) of the region must also be embedded with federal oversight.

The Go Lean strategy of confederating a unified entity made up of the Caribbean to provide homeland security and intelligence gathering-and-analysis for the Caribbean, allows for a one-stop solution for regional assurances. Homeland Security for our Caribbean homeland has a different scope than for our American counterparts. Though we must be on defense against military intrusions like terrorism & piracy, we mostly have had to contend with natural and man-made concerns like hurricanes, earthquakes, oil/chemical spills and narco-terrorism. But now we must also add these cyber-threats that may imperil the region’s economic engines, like tourism. These cyber-attacks and breaches can undermine the integrity of our institutions and establishments, as previously reported in this prior blog/commentary:

… imagine a “hack” that harvests credit card account numbers used at area hotels; if those fall into the wrong hands, the experience could tarnish the goodwill of the Caribbean brand.

Considering this threatening “what if” scenario described here or the actual incidences in the foregoing news article, there is the need to be on alert against this ‘Clear and Present Danger’.

The Caribbean appointing “new guards” – a security pact or Homeland Security Department –  to ensure public safety includes many strategies, tactics and implementations considered “best-practices”. The Homeland Security Department must be on a constant vigil against “bad actors”, man-made or natural. This necessitate being pro-active in monitoring, mitigating and managing risks. Then when “crap” does happen, the “new guards” will be prepared for any “Clear and Present Danger“. The Go Lean book describes an organization structure with Emergency Management functionality, including Unified Command-and-Control for Caribbean Disaster Response, Anti-crime, enterprise corruption, corporate governance and military preparedness.

These incidences create the need for intelligence gathering and analysis to manage the right resource for the right time and right place. (The same as buildings with elevators must get and maintain appropriate “permits”, the Go Lean‘s corporate governance vision calls for IT and Data Center Best-Practice compliance). The Go Lean roadmap thusly calls for a permanent professional security force plus a robust intelligence (including cyber-security) agency. The CU Trade Federation will lead, fund and facilitate this security effort from “Step One, Day One” in the Go Lean roadmap, with the full facilitation and accountability.

This security effort is defined in the Go Lean book and blog commentaries as Unified Command-and-Control (UCC). The book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to establish and succeed with Unified Command-and-Control in the Caribbean region:

Economic   Principle – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives Page 21
Community   Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection Page 23
Community   Ethos – Intelligence Gathering Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens Page 23
Community Ethos – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Tactical – Confederating a Non-Sovereign Union Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Treasury Department – Publicly Traded Corporate Governance Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security – Unified Command & Control Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Emergency Management Page 76
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Foreign Policy Initiatives Page 102
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives Page 103
Implementation – 10 Trends in Implementing Data Centers Page 106
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media – www.myCaribbean.gov Page 111
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid – Aid   to Security Apparatus Page 115
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization Page 119
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #3: Homeland Security Pact Page 127
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #8: Cyber Caribbean Equalization Page 127
Planning – Ways to Model the EU – Sharing Page 130
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Intelligence Page 134
Planning – Lessons from East Germany – Regional Security Page 139
Planning – Lessons from the American West – Law   & Order Mitigated Wild-West Page 142
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy – Better Corporate Governance Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Impact   Justice Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Gun Control Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering/Analysis Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street – Ensure Better Corporate Governance Page 200
Appendix – Model of Cutting-edge Data Center Page 285
Appendix – Emergency Management for Information Technology Continuity Page 338

Other subjects related to ICT, security empowerments and UCC for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5435 China Internet Policing – Model for Caribbean IT Oversight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002 Managing a ‘Clear and Present’ Danger
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4308 911 – Emergency Response: System in Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881 Intelligence Agencies to Up Cyber Security Cooperation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2684 Role Model for Justice-Intelligence-Security: The Pinkertons
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1554 Caribbean Security Pact vested from a Status of Forces Agreement
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=960 Cyber-Security Model: NSA records all phone calls in Bahamas
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=535 Remembering and learning from Boston
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=308 CARCIP Urges Greater Innovation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273 10 Things We Want from the US: #5 – Intelligence Gathering

Cyber-security is now a constant threat globally – see Appendix* below – with headlines emerging almost daily. There are also film and TV shows with plot-lines that parallel this commentary; “art is now imitating life”.

Since the threat of computer glitches can disrupt everyday life, this subject area must now be assumed in the Social Contract between Caribbean citizens and their governments. Cyber-security is too big for any one Caribbean member-state to tackle alone, so rather, shifting the responsibility to the region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy of the CU will result in greater production and greater accountability. This mission aligns with the quest to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play.

The Caribbean region cannot allow a few “bad actors”, high-tech or low-tech, to disrupt the peace and integrity of Caribbean institutions. Everyone – residents, Diaspora, visitors, businesses and governments – are hereby urged to lean-in to this plan for confederacy, collaboration and convention, the Go Lean roadmap.  🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

——

APPENDIX – *Source Reference: http://www.telos.com/news-and-events/cybersecurity-news/

——

APPENDIX – VIDEO: Computer glitches disrupt stock exchange, United Airlines – http://www.today.com/video/computer-glitches-disrupt-stock-exchange-united-airlines-480883267766

The New York Stock Exchange came to a standstill for nearly four hours Wednesday and hours earlier, the computer system for United Airlines also froze. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reports.

Share this post:
, , ,

Greece: From Bad to Worse

Posted on July 7, 2015 in Economics, Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

Here a prediction for Greece: Things will get worse before they get worse!

This commentary has previously asserted that there are 3 kinds of people in the world:

1. Those who make things happen
2. Those who watch things happen
3. Those who wonder “What happened?”

Many people are now waking up to the harsh realities that a Failed-State – Greece – is emerging, right in front of their eyes. Unfortunately, this applies to people in the Caribbean as well.

On Sunday (July 5, 2015), a referendum was put to the Greek people to vote whether to accept further bail-out monies with harsh austerity measures from the international community … or go at it alone. They chose the latter!

Now they are waking up to the reality that the “cupboards are bare”; and many international trading partners will not trade with them. Many people are now wondering “What happened?”

-

See the news article here (and a related VIDEO from just before the referendum) conveying the harsh realities that many in Greece are now faced with:

Title: The economic consequences of Syriza
By: C.R. and S.N. | London And Athens

AFTER the party in Syntagma Square celebrating the landslide victory for the “no” campaign in Sunday’s referendum comes the hangover. They went wild “because we are tired of everything, from all the lies, from paying for the rich, and from years of austerity, especially for young”, as one partying Athenian told us. To be fair, with youth unemployment rates of over 50%, many have had little to celebrate for a long time. Young Greeks support the aggressive stance taken towards the country’s lenders by Syriza and its leader, the Greek prime minister Alexis Tspiras, whose position in domestic politics has been strengthened as a result of the referendum.

But two days after the close of the polls the fact remains that Greece’s real economy is in a mess. Capital controls imposed after Mr Tsipras called the referendum on June 26th have kept banks closed. Ordinary Greeks have been limited to cash withdrawals from ATMs of just €60 ($67) a day (which is now in effect down to €50 as smaller notes have disappeared from circulation). Many cash machines in Athens have run completely out of money.

Firms have also been hit particularly hard. Foreign bank transfers have been banned by the Greek government, with few exceptions. Greek credit is no longer accepted outside the country. That has hit firms that rely on foreign credit to import goods, as well as the Greek tourists who found themselves stranded when their credit cards stopped working. Supplies of food and some medicines are running short (see picture); a black market for cancer drugs has even emerged. As we reported on Sunday:

Greece relies almost entirely on foreign imports for its pharmaceutical supplies. But since capital controls imposed last Sunday brought the country’s banking system to a sudden halt, some suppliers have stopped delivering key medication because they cannot get paid…As things stand, she has another week’s worth of insulin in stock for diabetics but will then have to start turning her patients away. “Do you know what that means?” she asks, trying to keep a proud face, “Do you know what insulin does?”

Unsurprisingly, as a result, Greek economic growth—which began to falter shortly after Syriza came to power in January—has collapsed. Consumption has slumped by 70% since capital controls were imposed, according to the National Confederation of Hellenic Commerce, a business group. Individuals and firms are hoarding cash at the same time that essential goods are becoming unavailable—a toxic mix for any economy. The decision taken yesterday by the European Central Bank—to keep in place the cap on emergency lending to Greek banks, and to increase the discount applied on Greek bonds accepted as collateral—will tighten the short-run financial crunch.

Greece is running short of time; in the next few days either a new deal will be done that allows the ECB to reopen the liquidity spigots or bank failures will lead to Grexit. In either case, the damage done by this period of uncertainty and financial drought will be severe.

Economic history suggests that economies can be surprisingly resilient when hit by shocks, such as the temporary imposition of capital controls or a reduction in the supply capacity of the economy. The Cypriot economy, for instance, started to grow again just one year after it imposed capital controls in 2013. And as Britain’s experience of general strikes indicates, temporary one- or two-week supply disruptions do not tend to have much impact on output after about a year. Leaving a single currency may also not be a complete disaster; countries such as Ireland (which left the British pound in 1928) have managed it before. And many countries ditching fixed-exchange rates—such as Britain in 1931 and 1992—exited long recessions almost immediately after they bit the bullet.

But there are three main reasons why economists think that the Greek economy will be wounded for far longer than other unfortunates. First, current uncertainty is probably damaging future demand as well as current demand; future tourist bookings have fallen by around a third since capital controls were imposed, for instance, which matters greatly given that the sector produces almost one-sixth of the country’s GDP. And with summer bookings so vital, the likely conclusion of the crisis in early July could not have been timed worse. Second, most countries that experience fast recoveries from supply-side shocks and fixed-exchange rate exits are able to count on a solvent and liquid banking system, which is needed in order to fund investment and growth through loans.

But Greece’s, which is about to collapse because of capital controls and deposit flight, is in a less comfortable position. The speedy introduction of new economic reforms post-Grexit, combined with capable macroeconomic management, could nonetheless cushion the Greek economy against the worst effects of exit and lead to a rapid bounceback. Yet few outside Greece reckon that the Syriza government has the inclination or competence to execute the transition smoothly and responsibly. Whatever Greece’s political fate, its economy is bound to get much worse before it gets better.
Source: The Economist Magazine – Online Edition – July 6, 2015
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/07/greeces-economy

—————–

VIDEO – Yes or No? Greece Again on the Brink: Greek Debt Crisis – https://youtu.be/reU7wWgFmDU

Published on Jul 3, 2015 – For the past five years, Greece has been struggling with a financial crisis that has led the country to the brink of an exit from the euro and an economic collapse.

Add this word to your vocabulary: Grexit; meaning a Greek Exit from the European Union.

This experience in Greece is a cautionary tale for the Caribbean, as so many aspects of Greek life parallel those of the Caribbean:

The harsh reality of Greece is a reminder of another crisis, the Great Recession of 2008. The events this week – with the referendum – mirrors September 15, 2008 when the American Investment Bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, thus bringing the US (and the world’s economy) to the brink of disaster. This 2008 consideration is part-and-parcel of the book Go Lean…Caribbean which serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to provide new oversight for the Caribbean region’s economic, security and governing engines. The book was conceived as a result of this 2008 crisis, by stakeholders intimate with the anatomy of the 2008 crisis – People who make things happen – and composed from a position of strength, while in the location of one of the most successful communities to endure the Great Recession crisis: Omaha, Nebraska.

The pretext of the Go Lean roadmap is simple, and applies equally to Greece and the Caribbean:

Only at the precipice do they change!

The lessons learned, and codified, in the pages of the Go Lean book can now be enhanced with the examination of the realities of Greece. This examination must consider the reality of the economic, security and governing aspects of Greek society.

CU Blog - Greece - From Bad to Worse - Photo 3 CU Blog - Greece - From Bad to Worse - Photo 2

This country now has new leadership – the political party Syriza was swept into office on 25 January 2015 – trying to forge change in a dysfunctional environment. Until recently, the Minister of Finance for this sovereign nation was Yanis Varoufakis. (He resigned on July 5th, after the passage of the Referendum). To project transparency, Mr. Varoufakis presented the arguments in favor of their request for more compromise from the European Central Bank, the IMF, and other creditors demanding more austerity from Greece; he vocalized the following:

Our political mandate is to find an honourable, workable compromise. Is it so difficult to do so? We do not think so. A few days ago Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s Chief Economist published a piece entitled ‘Greece: A Credible Deal Will Require Difficult Decisions by All Sides.’ He is right, the three operative words being ‘by all sides’. Dr Blanchard added that: “At the core of the negotiations is a simple question. How much of an adjustment has to be made by Greece, how much has to be made by its official creditors?”

That Greece needs to adjust there is no doubt. The question, however, is not how much adjustment Greece needs to make. It is, rather, what kind of adjustment. If by ‘adjustment’ we mean fiscal consolidation, wage and pension cuts, and tax rate increases, it is clear we [Greece] have done more of that than any other country in peacetime.

  • The public sector’s structural, or cyclically adjusted, fiscal deficit turned into a surplus on the back of a ‘world record beating’ 20% adjustment
  • Wages fell by 37%
  • Pensions were reduced by up to 48%
  • State employment diminished by 30%
  • Consumer spending was curtailed by 33%
  • Even the nation’s chronic current account deficit dropped by 16%.

No one can say that Greece has not adjusted to its new, post-2008, circumstances. But what we can say is that gigantic adjustment, whether necessary or not, has produced more problems than it solved:

  • Aggregate real GDP fell by 27% while nominal GDP continued to fall quarter-in-quarter-out for 18 quarters non-stop to this day
  • Unemployment skyrocketed to 27%
  • Undeclared labour reached 34%
  • Banks are labouring under non-performing loans that exceed 40% in value
  • Public debt has exceeded 180% of GDP
  • Young well-qualified people are abandoning Greece in droves
  • Poverty, hunger and energy deprivation have registered increases usually associated with a state at war
  • Investment in productive capacity has evaporated.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/full-greece-proposal-leaked-by-yanis-varoufakis-2015-6

Mr. Varoufakis’ appeal has been rejected. Greece is now at the precipice. They are willing to change and correct many inequities. But maybe, this is too little, too late? They want to work to build up their communities, not necessarily build up their neighboring countries. They are willing to accept the Grexit.

In this status quo is the primary lesson for the Caribbean. Are we now willing to change and correct the inequities in our society?

The Go Lean book declares: “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste” – quoting noted Economist Paul Romer. The opportunity exists now to forge change in the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean, as this cautionary guidance is gleaned from the Greek crisis.

The roadmap calls for a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean into a Single Market of 42 million people; thereby allow an adequate size to absorb economic shocks and downward trends. The Go Lean roadmap provides the details for the creation of 2.2 million new jobs and GDP growth to accumulate to $800 Billion. This vision is at the root of the Go Lean roadmap, embedded in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13):

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

xxv.  Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.

The following details from the book Go Lean … Caribbean are the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to effect the turn-around of the Caribbean societal engines – to learn from Greece:

Who We Are – SFE Foundation and 2008 Role Page 8
Anecdote: Puerto Rico – The Greece of the Caribbean Page 18
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Money Multiplier Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 Member-States into a Single Market Page 47
Strategy –   Mission – Build and foster local economic engines Page 45
Strategy –   Mission – Fortify the stability of our mediums of exchange Page 45
Strategy –   Mission – Dissuade further Brain Drain Page 46
Tactical –   Confederating a Permanent Union Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Implementation – Assemble all Member-States Page 96
Implementation – Ways   to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt Page 114
Planning – Ways to Model the European Union (EU) Page 130
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008 Page 136
Planning – Lessons Learned from Omaha Page 138
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Help the Middle Class Page 223
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Cuba Page 236
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Haiti Page 238
Appendix – Caribbean Failed-State Indicators and Definitions Page 271

Greece will become a Failed-State before it is all said-and-done. We hope that this country, and their European neighbors, can secure their society to assure peace and the protection of human rights.

Greece will recover…eventually! Their disposition will go from bad to worse – see Appendix VIDEO – but then they can reboot, much like Cyprus did just recently, as detailed in the foregoing news article. Take their tourism for example:

Travel and tourism contributed a total of €28.3 billion ($31.3 billion) to the economy in 2013—or 16.3% of GDP. But after one to two years, after the country returns to local drachma currency and it stabilizes after devaluation, destinations in Greece will be cheaper than its competitors. This will eventually be an advantage. – http://www.economist.com/node/21657058

Greece will be a European Failed-State … and will “bounce-back” … eventually.

We also have Failed-States in the Caribbean: Think: Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba; plus a host of countries just slightly behind them. We have to foster our own turn-around strategies for our region.

The Go Lean roadmap declares that the responsibility for fixing the Caribbean though must fall first-and-foremost on the Caribbean, its people and institutions.

The Caribbean must also reboot and “bounce back”; to “step back from the precipice”. The effort is not easy; the Go Lean book describes it as heavy-lifting. But the returns will be worth the investment. This is true for Greece … and the Caribbean.

This is the goal of the Go Lean roadmap: not to wonder what happened, or watch things happen, but rather to make the things happen … that make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

—————–

Appendix VIDEO – The Economic Collapse of Greece. Whiteboard Animation by Angelow – https://youtu.be/dt6w4eE_tg0

Published on Mar 17, 2013 – VIDEO on the previous need for Greek bail-outs. Greece is bankrupt!

Share this post:
, , , , ,
[Top]

Buggery in Jamaica – ‘Say It Ain’t So’!

Posted on July 2, 2015 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

This commentary has asserted that the Caribbean region can be a better society than the United States of America. Yes, we can!

But to  even start the discussion, we must first:

Live and let live!

t So - Photo 3The topic of intolerance has been acute in the news as of late. We have the extreme example of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) beheading non-Muslims because… well, just because. And the example of the US legalizing Gay Marriage may be considered too tolerant for some people’s good taste.

Where does the Caribbean fit in this discussion?

If ISIS is one end of a scale and Gay Marriage in America is another end, then one Caribbean member-state, Jamaica, would be closer to …

ISIS!

Yes, it is that bad. Say it ain’t so.

See Appendix-VIDEO’s below …

While this commentary directly targets Jamaica, the majority of the countries and overseas territories of the former British Empire, still criminalize sexual acts between consenting adults of the same sex and other forms of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. This has been described as being the result of “the major historical influence” or legacy of the British Empire. In most cases, it was former colonial administrators that established anti-gay legislation or sodomy acts during the 19th century; see Appendix below. The majority of countries then retained these laws following independence.[1][2].

There is an effort now to transform society in Jamaica (and other countries) in this regards. There are Gay Pride Activities being planned for this Summer of 2015. See the relevant news article here:

Title: J-FLAG Is Planning Gay Pride Activities, But No Parade For August – Exec
Source: Jamaica Gleaner Daily Newspaper Online Site; posted June 30, 2015; retrieved from: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20150630/j-flag-planning-gay-pride-activities-no-parade-august-exec  

Local gay lobby, J-FLAG, is refuting reports that it will host a road parade in August when the group plans to have a series of gay pride activities.

Social media has been abuzz since yesterday following a report that the group would host a parade, similar to what is done in the United   States and other countries.

However, executive director of J-FLAG, Dane Lewis, says the report is wrong, adding that Jamaica is not ready for such an event.

Meanwhile, he says the group is planning a week-long series of activities starting on Emancipation Day, August 1, to mark growing tolerance for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

Some years ago, an attempt to host a gay parade was thwarted after anti-gay supporters reportedly planned attacks against marchers.

Jamaica is accused of being one of the most homophobic places on earth.

Last week, the US government released a report noting that anti-gay laws and the dancehall culture are responsible for perpetuating homophobia in Jamaica.
Additional reference sources: http://jflag.org/

t So - Photo 1
———–

VIDEO: Executive Director of JFLAG, Dane Lewis: “We Are Jamaicans” – https://youtu.be/sJ-17R5DCoI


Published on Jan 17, 2013 – “We Are Jamaicans” is funded with the kind support of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC) through its Global Fund Vulnerablised Project.

Building a diverse society is not easy. The book Go Lean … Caribbean describes the challenge as heavy-lifting. Though the US had failed at this challenge, it proudly boasts that it got better with every generation. The Caribbean on the other hand, leaves much to be desired in terms of the willingness to change and keep pace with progressive societies. (Now the US, Canada, Ireland and other countries have legalized Gay Marriage).

In a previous blog-commentaries, this defect – Homosexual Intolerance – was listed among the blatant human rights abuses in the region.

This is an important consideration for the planners of Caribbean empowerment. The Caribbean, a region where unfortunately, we have NOT … tried to be as tolerant as may be required, expected and just plain moral.

We must do better!

The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that Caribbean society’s prosperity has been hindered with a high abandonment rate – reported at 70% for educated classes region-wide, but an even higher 85% in Jamaica. The primary mission of the Go Lean book is to “battle” against the “push-and-pull” factors that draw so many of our Caribbean citizens away from their homelands to go to more progressive countries.

The Go Lean book campaigns to lower the “push” factors!

The purpose of the Go Lean book is to fix the Caribbean; to be better. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to pursue the quest to elevate the Caribbean region through empowerments in economics, security and governance. It is the assertion that Caribbean citizens can stay home and effect change in their homelands more effectively than going to some foreign countries to find opportunities for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The book therefore asserts that the region can turn-around from failing assessments by applying best-practices, and forging new societal institutions to impact the Greater Good for all the Caribbean. This point was pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 10 – 14) with these acknowledgements and statements:

xi.   Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … Egypt. On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/ communities like New York City, … Canada, … and tenants of the US Constitution.

The CU/Go Lean vision to elevate Caribbean society must also consider the issue of image. There is the need for a sentinel role for Caribbean image, as there are a lot of times that Caribbean life and people are denigrated in the media: news, film, TV, books, magazines. It’s unfortunate when we are guilty of scathing allegations. The Go Lean roadmap calls for the CU to assume a role of protecting and projecting positive Caribbean images. The plan is to use cutting edge delivery of best practices; the applicable CU agencies will employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact the Go Lean prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and mitigate challenges/threats to public safety for all citizens… LGBT or straight.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Jamaica has a failing economy.

Jamaica’s primary economic driver is tourism. So …

t So - Photo 2

Is the Caribbean ready for this economic activity? A bridge too far, too soon?

t So - Photo 4Jamaica has a long way to go; the country has been described by some Human Rights groups as the most homophobic place on Earth because of the high level of violent crime directed at LGBT people; (Padgett, Tim: “The Most Homophobic Place on Earth?”. Time Magazine posted 12 April 2006). The United States Department of State said that in 2012, “homophobia was [unacceptably] widespread in the country” (2012 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Jamaica, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, pages 20-22). As depicted in the VIDEO below, even President Obama indicted the island on a recent official State Visit.

Why is this country’s homophobia so acute compared to other countries? For one, they have held on emphatically to the British Laws on Buggery – see Appendix below – from their colonial days; even though the host country of England has already abandoned the laws (in 1967).

Jamaica is partying like it’s 1899!

This is therefore a matter of community ethos. The Go Lean book defines community ethos as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; the dominant assumptions of a people or period. This tropical paradise of Jamaica, as defined in the foregoing news article and VIDEO continues to spur bad attitudes, bad ideas, bad speech and bad actions towards the LGBT community. This is unbecoming of a progressive society in 2015.

Alas, this is a crisis…for victims and their loved ones. The Go Lean book posits that this crisis can be averted, that the crisis is a “terrible thing to waste”. The Go Lean roadmap seeks to optimize the eco-systems for Jamaica and the entire Caribbean. The book stresses new community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to transform and turn-around the eco-systems of the regional society. These points are detailed in the book as follows:

Who We Are – SFE Foundation – Comprised of Caribbean Diaspora Page 8
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states into a Single Market Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Repatriate the Diaspora, even Minorities like those of the LGBT community Page 46
Tactical – Ways to Foster a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy to $800 Billion GDP Page 68
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Government versus Member-State Governance Page 71
Anatomy of Advocacies – Examples of Individuals Who Made Impact Page 122
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Homeland Security Pact Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Minority and Human Rights Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from US Constitution – Equal Protection for all Minorities Page 145
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance – For All Citizens Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract – Security against “Bad Actors” Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – Internal Affairs Reporting Line Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime – Hate Crime Qualifiers Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism – Consider Bullying as Junior Terrorism Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth – Collaborating with Foundations Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Jamaica Page 239
Advocacy – Ways to Impact British Territories Page 245

Looking at the disposition of the island nation of Jamaica’s, we see that its societal engines are failing.

Could the investment in the diversity of its people be at the root of the problem?

The failing indices and metrics of Jamaica have been considered in previous blog/commentaries; see sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4840 Jamaican Poll: ‘Bring back the British!’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3694 Looking for a job in Jamaica, go to Canada
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2830 Jamaica’s Public Pension Under-funded
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392 Jamaica to receive World Bank funds to help in crime fight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=313 What’s Holding Back Jamaica’s Reforms

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to empower and elevate Caribbean societal engines to make Jamaica, and the rest of the Caribbean, better places to live, work and play … for all citizens, including the LGBT communities.

Most of the Jamaican Diaspora that has abandoned the island now lives in the US, Canada or the UK. Their new home-communities are more tolerant societies of their LGBT neighbors.

Perhaps, there is some correlation.

This commentary is not urging the abandonment of the Judeo-Christian moral code; Jesus Christ instructed to “let them be” at Luke 22:51 (The Message Translation). Rather this commentary urges tolerance and moderation: Live and let live!

Fight the hate!

Yes, we can … do this. Yes, we must do this. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!
———–

Appendix VIDEO: US President Obama’s LGBT comments at Youth Leaders Town Hall – https://youtu.be/636mgw1THpc?t=5m1s


Published on Apr 9, 2015 – President Obama delivers remarks and answers questions at a town hall with Young Leaders of the Americas at University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. April 9, 2015.
———–

Appendix VIDEO: Gay rights in Jamaica – https://youtu.be/_nSgMGoBAmU

playbutton-300x300

———–

Appendix – Encyclopedic Reference: Buggery in English Common Law

The British English term buggery is very close in meaning to the term sodomy, often used interchangeably in law and popular speech. It may also be a specific common law offenceencompassing both sodomy and bestiality.

In English law “buggery” was first used in the Buggery Act 1533, while Section 61 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, entitled “Sodomy and Bestiality”, defined punishments for “the abominable Crime of Buggery, committed either with Mankind or with any Animal”. The definition of “buggery” was not specified in these or any statute, but rather established by judicial precedent.[1] Over the years the courts have defined buggery as including either [of these]:

  1. anal intercourse or oral intercourse by a man with a man or woman[2] or
  2. vaginal intercourse by either a man or a woman with an animal,[3]

But [no other] form of “unnatural intercourse”[4] [was defined], the implication being that anal sex with an animal would not constitute buggery. Such a case has not, to date, come before the courts of a common law jurisdiction in any reported decision. However, it seems highly improbable that a person would be exculpated of a crime associated with sex with animals only by reason of the fact that penetration involved the anus rather than the vagina. In the 1817 case of Rex v. Jacobs, the Crown Court ruled that oral intercourse, even with an underage and/or non-consenting person, did not constitute buggery or sodomy.[4]

At common law consent was not a defence[5] nor was the fact that the parties were married.[6] In the UK, the punishment for buggery was reduced from hanging to life imprisonment by the Offences against the Person Act 1861. As with the crime of rape, buggery required that penetration must have occurred, but ejaculation is not necessary.[7]

Most common law jurisdictions have now modified the law to permit anal sex between consenting adults.[8] Hong Kong did so retroactively in 1990, barring prosecution for “crimes against nature” committed before the Crimes (Amendment) Ordinance 1990 entered into force except those that would still have constituted a crime if they had been done thereafter. In England and Wales, homosexual buggery was decriminalised in 1967 with an age of consent at 21 years, whereas all heterosexual intercourse had an age of consent at 16 years. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 did not fully remove buggery as a concept in United Kingdom law, as the previous law is retained for complainants (consensual or “pseudo-consensual”) under the age of 16, or 18 with regards to an adult perceived to be in a “position of trust”. As the law stands, buggery is still charged, exclusively regarding “pseudo-consensual” anal intercourse with those under 16/18, because children cannot legally consent to buggery although they may appear to do so. Rape is charged when the penetration is clearly not consensual. Buggery with an animal is still unlawful under Section 69 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

In the Republic of Ireland, the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993 abolished the offence of “buggery between persons”.[9] For some years prior to 1993, criminal prosecution had not been made for buggery between consenting adults. The 1993 Act created an offence of “buggery with a person under the age of 17 years”,[10] penalised similar to statutory rape, which also had 17 years as the age of consent. The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2006 replaced this offence with “defilement of a child”, encompassing both “sexual intercourse” and “buggery”.[11] Buggery with an animal is still unlawful under Section 69 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. In 2012 a man was convicted of this offence for supplying a dog in 2008 to a woman who had intercourse with it and died.[12]

Etymology – The word bugger and buggery are still commonly used in modern English as a mild exclamation. “Buggery” is also synonymous with anal sex.

The word “bugger” was derived, via the French bougre, from Bulgar, that is, “Bulgarian”, meaning the medieval Bulgarian heretical sect of the Bogomils, which spread into Western Europe and was claimed by the established church to be devoted to the practice of sodomy.[13] “Buggery” first appears in English in 1330, though “bugger” in a sexual sense is not recorded until 1555.[14]

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery)

Share this post:
, , , , , ,
[Top]

Role Model Iris Adderley – Disability Advocate: Reasonable Accommodations

Posted on June 28, 2015 in Economics, Government, Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary/Interview

Travel away from your children for an extended time period and you would notice something amazing: Change.

It turns out that change is constant; children grow. But you have to take a step back to notice the difference.

CU Blog - Anecdote - Iris Adderley - Photo 1This is the experience of Disability Advocate Iris Adderley. She is a proud Bahamian – oldest child with 10 siblings who mostly all still live in the Bahamas – who served her country well; especially during the early days of nation-building (independence status was obtained in 1973). In a job assignment with the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, Ms. Adderley spent many years abroad (Coral Gables, FL and Dallas, TX) promoting the Bahamas around the world as a tourist and convention destination. She was continuously called upon to sell a vision of the Bahamas that she discovered later to be out-dated, and irrelevant. The country had changed … and even declined, it seemed, in her absence.

Ms. Adderley returned to the Bahamas in the year 2000, but not to the homeland she had left behind, rather to this newly changed community. The changes were not all good. To complicate matters, she was now returning as a quadriplegic, a permanent disability.

Ms. Adderley endured a life-threatening car accident in Metropolitan Dallas in 1982, where she lived and worked for her Ministry of Tourism assignment. But she does not consider her injury as a national sacrifice. It was just “time and unforeseen occurrence” befalling her; (see Bible reference of Ecclesiastes 9:11 in the Appendix below). This taught her a very important lesson that everybody is  vulnerable to injury and illness and can be rendered disabled. This new reality became her new advocacy, a quest to make sure people with disabilities have equal rights and opportunities to contribute to society. (This quest also applies as a population ages, the prevalence of disabilities increases proportionally; think Diabetes amputations, Hip replacements, etc.).

This conclusion aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, that with just a reasonable accommodation, persons with disabilities can live a full and engaging life … and help to elevate their communities and make “home” better places to live, work and play.

What reasonable accommodations?

For starters, Ms. Adderley expressed that if her injury had occurred in her Caribbean homeland that she would now be dead!

The world is better … that she has survived.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is designed to elevate the region’s economic, security and governing societal engines. This includes healthcare. The CU roadmap calls for improvements to the region’s emergency management apparatus. There is a plan to deploy a network of 6 cutting-edge Trauma Centers throughout the Caribbean. With this mitigation and remediation, the region can more competently respond to trauma emergencies, like life-threatening auto accidents.

It is only reasonable to expect that Caribbean society would have caught up to finally being able this deliver on the social contract at this level, considering that Ms. Adderley trauma transpired 33 years ago.

Unfortunately, the experiences of so many in the Bahamas, specifically and the Caribbean as a whole, is that these countries are structured only for the lowest common denominator (LCD); anyone one with needs above-and-beyond this LCD level is just “out-of-luck”.

This is unacceptable … and unreasonable for Caribbean contributors like Iris Adderley. This is also unacceptable … and unreasonable for the planners of the new Caribbean. We must deliver better on the social contract, the implied covenant where citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights. Blatant failures on the delivery of this social contract lead to an undesirable destination: abandonment!

Ms. Adderley lived in the most advanced country in the world, in the US State of Texas. She would have been excused if she wanted to remain there for her sustained existence, considering her health disposition. But she showed a national sacrifice ethos and repatriated back to her Caribbean homeland. This is heroic!

In a structured interview, Iris Adderley made the following contributions to this discussion of the roadmap to elevate her community:

CU Blog - Anecdote - Iris Adderley - Photo 2

Bold = Author

What are the details of your advocacy?

There should be a stronger manifestation of “Human” and “Woman’s” rights in the Bahamas. It is deplorable that the country is so deficient in these offerings. Earlier in my career, I took the assignment in Dallas so as to leave the Coral Gables Office of the Ministry of Tourism because the spirit of gender discrimination was just so acute. I felt I could make a bigger impact in a more reasonable environment. I was proven correct and did indeed have a greater impact professionally there. Returning to the Bahamas in 2000 I wanted to nurture that same advocacy at home, but this time with a supplemental agenda for persons with disabilities.

What are your responsibilities now?

I serve as a Consultant at the Disability Affairs Division of the Ministry of Social Services and Community Development. I help to guide public policy to benefit those with disabilities in the country, even blending my prior role as a Tourism promoter by trying to create a great environment for persons with disabilities to come visit our shores and enjoy our hospitality.

What would you do if your project had 50% more funding?

Create rehabilitation centers, if not throughout the whole country, then at least in the capital city of Nassau. Persons with disabilities need help and support to get back to the point where they can contribute to society. Increased funding would allow more cultural education to message that persons with disabilities have the same rights in any society, to be more inclusive of the day-to-day affairs.

What do you want to see in The Bahamas in … 5 years?

More fulfilment of Sir Lynden’s Vision; (the first and longest-serving Prime Minister after majority rule, Sir Lynden O. Pindling). The young people need to know who we are as a people, where we came from and that we were a nation of beautiful, strong black people.

I want to see Bahamians own more of the Bahamas. This means diversifying from the main industries of tourism and financial services; all we’re doing there is servicing other people’s assets; we are not really owning or creating anything.

What do you want to see in The Bahamas in … 20 years?

The Bahamas needs a National Strategic Plan. This needs to reflect the values and best-practices that have been honed from experiences from around the world. The Bahamas has a global Diaspora – mostly of an elderly disposition now – their participation should be invited.

What features of North America/Europe would you like to see here?

The social safety nets (health, schools, food for the poor) are to be admired, especially in many European countries. Those communities extend themselves to care for their elderly, poor, sick and disabled citizens.

How would you feel if your children emigrate?

Though I don’t have any children directly, I’m blessed with many nieces, nephews and loving family members. So many of them are bright young all-stars and go-getters, studying abroad in colleges and universities. Unfortunately, far too often, these ones are not setting their sight on a return home to the Bahamas. Some would even rather go to a Latin American country than to come back here to the Bahamas. This is sad, as it does not reflect the great sacrifices that so many in the previous generations made to forge opportunities for this next generation.

Where do you consider to be the best place to live?

At one point, my answer would have been the Bahamas; but I’ve gotten to see the real country as it exists today; this is not what we sold to tourists in promotions and advertisements. The country has changed … downward. Instead of our next generation offering reassurance and hope, I am more troubled at their lack of proper training. We cannot expect greatness from the status quo of most of this generation today..

What areas are you most disappointed in when considering the last 20 years?

The lack of discernment is especially disappointing. Many times the wise course is presented to Bahamians, but they seem to like to ignore wisdom and instead proceed down a destructive path. I guess the proverb is true: “A prophet is not accepted at home”.

Your wisdom is discerned here Ms. Adderley!

The points from this Disability Advocate align with the CU/Go Lean roadmap. Our directive is similar: to elevate Caribbean society, including those persons with physical disabilities. The declarative statements of the prime directive are as follows:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to prepare and protect stakeholders for natural, man-made and incidental emergencies.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The book posits that one person, despite their field of endeavor, can make a difference in the Caribbean, and its impact on the world; that there are many opportunities where one champion, one advocate, can elevate society. In this light, the book features 144 different advocacies, one specifically for Persons with Disabilities (Page 228). We need advocates, vanguards and sentinels like Iris Adderley to ensure equal opportunities for all these relevant stakeholders.

The Go Lean roadmap specifically encourages the region, to lean-in to elevate society with these specific community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:

Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence   Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Minority Equalization Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness – Gerontology/Aging Factors Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 Member-states Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Repatriate the Diaspora,   young and old …even those disabled Page 46
Anatomy of Advocacies – Examples   of Individuals Who Made Impact Page 122
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Homeland Security Pact Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Minority and Human Rights Page 134
Planning – Lessons from US Constitution – Equal Protection for all Minorities Page 139
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare – Caribbean [Persons] with Disabilities Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance – For All Citizens Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract – Medical / Heath Endeavors Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – Ensure Rights for the Disabled Classes Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime – Hate Crime Qualifiers Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Homeland Security – Emergency Management Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management – Trauma Art & Science Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology – e-Government Interfaces & Services Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights – Caribbean [Persons] with Disabilities Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Elder-Care – Caribbean [Persons] with Disabilities Page 225
Advocacy – Ways to Empower Women Page 226
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities – ‘Americans with Disabilities Act’ Model Page 228
Appendix – Trauma Center Definitions Page 336

The Caribbean region wants a more optimized society … for all citizens. We want to mitigate human rights and civil rights abuses, and empower all for a better life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Go Lean book posits that economic measures and security measures must be in tandem for any societal empowerment effort. According to the foregoing interview/profile, after 30 years, our region is still behind with regards to servicing the needs of one specific minority group: persons with disabilities. We must do better!

Early in the book, the pressing need to optimize facilitations for this population group was pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 13), with these opening statements:

ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans …

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. …  the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xviii. Whereas all citizens in the Federation member-states may not have the same physical abilities, reasonable accommodations must be made so that individuals with physical and mental disabilities can still access public and governmental services so as to foster a satisfactory pursuit of life’s liberties and opportunities for happiness.

The Go Lean book explicitly acknowledges that optimizing the needs of persons with disabilities is not easy; this requires strenuous effort, heavy-lifting. These persons with disabilities normally are not able to contribute as much to Caribbean society as they draw on the public resources. This is unfortunate! Other societies have provided great models and amenities for facilitating fuller lives for those with disabilities: motorized wheelchairs, cars equipped with hand controls, Braille and TeleType (TTY and/or TDD) devices. This is the quest of the CU/Go Lean roadmap to engage more people – even those persons with disabilities – into this effort to optimize Caribbean society. More innovations are forthcoming; see VIDEOs in the Appendix. This vision is only reasonable, but prudent, as this population can generate a positive Return on Investment (ROI); as demonstrated by Iris Adderley in the foregoing interview.

Many subjects related to this profile of role model Iris Adderley have been blogged in previous Go Lean…Caribbean commentary; they are sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002 Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4308 911 – Emergency Response Empowerments for the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4278 Businesses Try to Stave-off Brain Drain as Boomers Age, Retire
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3780 National Sacrifice – The Missing Ingredient
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341 American Human Rights Leaders Slams Caribbean Poor Record

The CU/Go Lean roadmap is designed to empower and enhance the economic engines for the full participation and benefit of all Caribbean people. This includes the number of citizens that may have some physical challenges (deaf, blind, lame/mobility, etc.) or mental challenges. The CU’s vision is that this population group represents a critical talent pool that is under-served and underutilized; they are therefore included in the Go Lean roadmap. Tactically there is the call for a Caribbean [Persons] with Disabilities (CDA) provision to be embedded in the Caribbean Union confederation treaty; the request is to have the edict of reasonable accommodations legally embedded in statures.

In addition to the economic missions, the CU treaty would also address security needs, with the mission to fortify homeland security and to mitigate societal threats and risks, including a solution for emergency management and medical trauma arts and sciences.

Lastly, the CU treaty addresses remediation for regional governance. The local governments are thusly spurred to adapt and enforce access standards for all public edifices and private structures providing commerce to the general public. This reasonable accommodations mandate is modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) feature in US federal law.

This roadmap is a fully comprehensive plan with consideration to all aspects of Caribbean life. All stakeholders – citizens, businesses, and institutions – are hereby urged to lean-in to this roadmap.

Yes, with all “hands on deck”, persons with disabilities as well, the Caribbean can truly become a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———–

Appendices

1. Additional information on Iris Adderley: http://www.tribune242.com/news/2013/oct/22/iris-adderley-tireless-advocate-people-disabilitie/

2. Bible Reference – Ecclesiastes 9:11:
“I have seen something further under the sun, that the swift do not always win the race, nor do the mighty win the battle, nor do the wise always have the food, nor do the intelligent always have the riches, nor do those with knowledge always have success, because time and unexpected events overtake them all.” — New World Translation

3. VIDEO – Hugh Herr: The new bionics that let us run, climb and dance – https://youtu.be/CDsNZJTWw0w

Published on Mar 28, 2014 – Hugh Herr is building the next generation of bionic limbs, robotic prosthetics inspired by nature’s own designs. Herr lost both legs in a climbing accident 30 years ago; now, as the head of the MIT Media Lab’s Biomechatronics group, he shows his incredible technology in a talk that’s both technical and deeply personal — with the help of ballroom dancer Adrianne Haslet-Davis, who lost her left leg in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and performs again for the first time on the TED stage.

4. VIDEO – ‘Terminator’ arm is world’s most advanced prosthetic limb – https://youtu.be/_qUPnnROxvY

Published on Nov 5, 2012 – A father who lost his arm in an accident six years ago has been given a new lease of life by a hi-tech bionic hand which is so precise he can type again. Nigel Ackland, 53, has been fitted with the Terminator-like carbon fibre mechanical hand which he can control with movements in his upper arm. The new bebionic3 myoelectric hand, which is also made from aluminium and alloy knuckles, moves like a real human limb by responding to Nigel’s muscle twitches. Incredibly, the robotic arm is so sensitive it means the father-of-one can touch type on a computer keyboard, peel vegetables, and even dress himself for the first time in six years.
More info about this amazing prosthetic can be found here http://bebionic.com

5. VIDEO – Berkeley Bionics: Introducing eLEGS – https://youtu.be/WcM0ruq28dc

Published on October 13, 2011 – Berkeley Bionics has rebranded. The company is now known as Ekso Bionics and eLEGS has become Ekso. To clarify, the device is an exoskeleton and the brand of the exoskeleton is Ekso, by Ekso Bionics.

Share this post:
, , , , , , ,
[Top]

Role Model: Edward Snowden – One Person Making a Difference

Posted on June 8, 2015 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Edward Snowden: Friend or Foe?

Snowden Photo 1This will be a subject of debate for the weeks, months, years and decades to come.

What is not debatable is the fact that he has been impactful. Yes, one man has made a difference.

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean recognize the contributions that Edward Snowden has made to the discussions of democratic principles: privacy versus security. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU seeks to empower a security apparatus for the Caribbean region. The issues of data monitoring and eavesdropping will be a big consideration here as well. We thank Mr. Snowden for bringing many of these issues to the fore; as the Go Lean roadmap also seeks to employ leading edge technologies to interdict domestic and foreign threats that may imperil Caribbean societal engines – without an “abuse of power”. We therefore want to study the dramatic events of this episode so as to apply best-practices in the formation of our own administration.

See the following news article (and VIDEO in the Appendix below) that summarizes the Snowden drama into 8 lessons:

Title: The Snowden Effect: 8 Things That Happened Only Because Of The NSA Leaks
One year ago Thursday, one of the most consequential leaks of classified U.S. government documents in history exploded onto the world scene: The first story based on documents from former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden was published. Americans finally knew the spy agency was sucking up virtually all of the data about who they called and when.

What followed was a torrent of articles based on the Snowden documents, as well as political and diplomatic reaction. Public debate was transformed by a new level of knowledge about the NSA — which Snowden himself said was mission accomplished. And in some modest ways Congress, companies and other countries also took concrete action. Here are the most consequential reactions to Snowden’s leaks.

1. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had to admit he lied to Congress.
Three months before the Snowden leaks began, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked the nation’s top intelligence official if the NSA collected data on millions, or hundreds of millions, of Americans.

“No, sir,” Clapper replied. “Not wittingly.”

By that point, of course, the NSA had quite wittingly been running a massive bulk telephone metadata collection program for years. The government had repeatedly asked a secret surveillance court for permission to do so, and it deemed every American’s phone record “relevant” to terrorism in the process.

Wyden fumed in secret about Clapper’s lie — but felt he could not reveal it because the metadata collection program was classified. That all changed after the publication of the first story on June 5, 2013, based off a Snowden leak.

Days later, Clapper gave the most halfhearted, or perhaps least forthcoming, admission that he had lied: “I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner by saying no.”

2. The House passed a bill (ostensibly) meant to stop bulk collection of phone metadata.
Americans were furious about the NSA’s sweeping phone metadata collection program. Even the man who wrote the original Patriot Act, Wisconsin Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner, said the program went too far.

So last month the House passed a bill that its sponsors said would end bulk collection. Whether it actually does is a matter of dispute, since the White House and the spy agencies appear to have stripped out many of its toughest provisions. But its passage is nonetheless a clear signal that nobody in Congress wants to look like they’re doing nothing about the NSA.

3. A federal judge said the NSA phone surveillance program is unconstitutional.
In December, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon issued a ruling in a lawsuit against the NSA program that said its technology was “almost-Orwellian” and that James Madison “would be aghast.”

Because other judges in other districts have found differently — one in Manhattan dismissed an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit citing the threat of terrorists’ “bold jujitsu” — the program still stands. And it had previously been approved, though behind closed doors, by the special Foreign   Intelligence Surveillance Court. But with Leon’s ruling on the books, the program could eventually wind up before the Supreme Court.

4. Tech companies finally got serious about privacy.
Big tech players had been paying lip service for years to the idea that they protect their customers’ privacy. But after the Snowden revelation that the NSA was accessing company servers via its PRISM program, privacy suddenly became a very tangible good. Cloud providers stand to lose $35 billion over the next three years in business with foreign customers afraid of storing their data with U.S. companies.

So the companies are responding by adding encryption measures such as Transport Layer Security. Google even announced on Tuesday that it is testing a new extension for the Chrome browser that could make encrypting email easier.

5. Britain held its first-ever open intelligence hearing.
If you thought intelligence oversight was weak in the United States, you won’t believe how it works with our closest ally. The powerful British spy agencies MI5 and GCHQ had never faced a public hearing in front of Parliament until Snowden’s stories dropped.

The November hearing was hardly confrontational. But it was a step forward for a country that has generally reacted to the Snowden leaks with little more than a shrug. And that step matters for Americans as well: In April, The Intercept revealed that the GCHQ had secretly asked for “unsupervised access” to the NSA’s data pools.

6. Germany opened an investigation into the tapping of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone.
The revelation that the NSA was monitoring the German chancellor’s cell phone came as a surprise to her — and to Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). Merkel was so outraged that she reportedly compared the surveillance to that of the Stasi, the former East German spy agency. (And she would know, having grown up in East Germany.)

On Wednesday, GermanFederalProsecutorHaraldRangeannounced that he is opening an investigation into the monitoring of Merkel’s phone calls. The investigation is proof positive that the Snowden leaks have frayed some U.S. diplomatic relations, but also that people the world over are starting to take surveillance seriously.

7. Brazil scotched a $4 billion defense contract with Boeing.
In another example of soured relations abroad, Brazil gave a massive fighter jet contract to Saab instead of the American company Boeing. Opinions varied as to how much that had to do with Snowden’s leaks, with one government source telling Reuters that he “ruined it for the Americans.” One analyst believed, however, that the Boeing jet simply cost too much.

The jet aside, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was clearly steamed, taking to the podium at the U.N. General Assembly to denounce the surveillance on her. Snowden’s leaks also helped propel the passage of an Internet bill of rights meant to protect privacy in the South American nation.

8. President Barack Obama admitted there would be no surveillance debate without Snowden.
In a major speech in January, Obama said he was “not going to dwell on Mr. Snowden’s actions or his motivations.” But he essentially acknowledged that the roiling, yearlong debate over surveillance would not have happened without him.

“We have to make some important decisions about how to protect ourselves and sustain our leadership in the world, while upholding the civil liberties and privacy protections that our ideals — and our Constitution — require,” Obama said.

The secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court also nodded toward the “considerable public interest and debate” that Snowden’s leaks created. And even Clapper acknowledged, “It’s clear that some of the conversations this has generated, some of the debate, actually needed to happen.”

The surveillance court finally started publicly posting some filings from its major cases. And in further acknowledgement of the need for a debate, the NSA and other agencies have posted declassified files to a new intelligence Tumblr — revealing for the first time aside from Snowden’s leaks documentary evidence of the inner workings of mass surveillance.
Source: Huffington Post Online News Source; posted June 5, 2015; retrieved June 7, 2015 from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/05/edward-snowden-nsa-effect_n_5447431.html

s Difference - Photo 2An important consideration related to Mr. Snowden is the priority on human/civil rights. The motive for mass surveillance from the US Patriot Act was national security, but in its execution, it became abusive to human and civil rights. That is the formula for tyranny! Yet the authorities refused to “stop, drop and roll”; there was no remediation.

The Patriot Act went into effect in 2001 (effective for 4 years), then re-authorized in 2005 and 2011 (for 4 years only) with little debate. But thanks to one man, Edward Snowden, the 2015 renewal was stalled, debated, re-visited, re-considered and eventually defeated. People asked questions, challenged disclosures, protested and resolved … to do better.

One man … made a difference!

This one man impacted his country … and the whole world.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” – Edmund Burke; 1729 – 1797; an Irish statesman, member of the British Parliament and supporter of the American Revolution.

Edmund Burke! Edward Snowden! These two men – one from history and another of contemporary times – have more in common than what may have been obvious. Another expression Edmund Burke is credited for, is perhaps more apropos:

“People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous”.

There is now a new security monitoring legislative provision!  Credit or not, this is a direct impact of the actions of Edward Snowden! This law allows for security monitoring, without the privacy violations. (The USA Freedom Act was passed on June 2, 2015 with a new expiration of 2019;[5] however, Section 215 of the law was amended to stop the NSA from continuing its mass phone data collection program.[6]). This end-product is better all around. In fact, “a White House investigation found that the prior NSA program may have never stopped a single terrorist attack”. This new provision is an elevation for society.

Like Edward Snowden’s advocacy, the prime directive of the book Go Lean…Caribbean is to elevate society, but instead of impacting America, the roadmap focus is the Caribbean. In fact, the declarative statements are as follows:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant societal engines again foreign and domestic threats.
  • Improvement Caribbean governance – with appropriate checks-and-balances – to support these engines.

Edward Snowden is hereby recognized as a role model that the Caribbean can emulate. (He disclosed that telephone data for one Caribbean member-state, the Bahamas, was also being collected and analyzed by the NSA). He has provided a successful track record of forging change, resisting the “abuse of power”, managing crises to successful conclusions and paying forward the benefits for a tyranny-free society to all peoples; see his letter in the Appendix. The Go Lean book relates that Caribbean member-states do have a tyrannical past, considering examples of Cuba (236), Haiti (238), and the Dominican Republic (306).

The book posits that one person, despite their field of endeavor, can make a difference in the Caribbean, and its impact on the world; that there are many opportunities where one champion, one advocate, can elevate society. In this light, the book features 144 different advocacies, so there is inspiration for the “next” Edward Snowden or Edmund Burke to emerge and excel right here at home in the Caribbean. We need vanguards and sentinels against the dreaded “abuse of power”.

The roadmap specifically encourages the region, to lean-in to open advocacy with these specific community ethos, strategies, tactics, and implementations:

Community Ethos – Security Principles – Privacy vs Public Protection Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Whistleblower Protection Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Intelligence Gathering Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Minority Equalization Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 Member-states Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Enact a Security Apparatus Against Threats Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Protect Homeland with Anti-crime   Measures Page 45
Anatomy of Advocacies – Examples of Individuals Who Made Impact Page 122
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Defense / Homeland Security Pact Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices Page 134
Planning – Lessons from East Germany – Bad Checks-and-Balances Page 139
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Homeland Security Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights Page 220

The Caribbean region wants a more optimized security apparatus.

The region wants to mitigate human rights and civil rights abuses; in general all “abuse of power”.

This book posits that “bad actors” – even tyrants – will emerge to exploit inefficient economic, security and governing models.  Early in the book, the pressing need to streamline protections – for citizens and institutions – was pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12), with these opening statements:

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including … forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

The Go Lean book explicitly acknowledges that optimizing the needs for security, justice and privacy are not easy; they require strenuous effort; heavy-lifting. There needs to be a better balance of public protection versus privacy concerns. Balance? That is the quest of the CU/Go Lean roadmap: an optimized society with better checks-and-balances.

Other subjects related to civil/human rights checks-and-balances for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentary, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5304 Mitigating the Eventual ‘Abuse of Power’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4809 Using Surveillance to Interdict Americans Who Aided ISIS
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4447 Abuse of Power Example: Ferguson-Missouri biased cops & courts
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360 Dreading the American ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881 Intelligence Agencies to Up Cyber Security Cooperation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1554 Status of Forces Agreement = Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=960 NSA records all phone calls in Bahamas, according to Snowden
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=535 Remembering and learning from Boston
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341 American Human Rights Leaders Slams Caribbean Poor Record

With a heightened focus on balanced justice institutions and the participation of many advocates on many different paths for progress, the Caribbean can truly become a better place to live, work and play.  🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———-

Appendix – Edward Snowden Letter – June 5, 2015 – “This is the power of an informed public”

Dear XXXXXXX,

Simple truths can change the world.

Two years ago today, in a Hong Kong hotel room, three journalists and I waited nervously to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National Security Agency had been collecting records of nearly every phone call in the United States.

Though we have come a long way, the right to privacy remains under attack. Join me in standing up for our rights: Tell President Obama to log off.

Last month, the NSA’s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts, and it was disowned by Congress. And, after a White House investigation found that the program never stopped a single terrorist attack, even President Obama ordered it terminated.

This is because of you. This is the power of an informed public.

Ending mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen. Yet while we have reformed this one program, many others remain.

We need to push back and challenge the lawmakers who defend these programs. We need to make it clear that a vote in favor of mass surveillance is a vote in favor of illegal and ineffective violations of the right to privacy for all Americans. Take action to ban mass surveillance today.

As I said at an Amnesty event in London this week, arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

We can’t take the right to privacy for granted, just like we can’t take the right to free speech for granted. We can’t let these invasions of our rights stand.

While we worked away in that hotel room in Hong Kong, there were moments when we worried we might have put our lives at risk for nothing — that the public would react with apathy to the publication of evidence that revealed that democratic governments had been collecting and storing billions of intimate records of innocent people.

Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong.

In solidarity,

Edward Snowden, for Amnesty International

———-

APPENDIX VIDEO – HuffingtonPost Analysis Video – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/05/edward-snowden-nsa-effect_n_5447431.html

Share this post:
, , ,
[Top]

In Search Of The Red Cross’ $500 Million In Haiti Relief

Posted on June 4, 2015 in Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste” – familiar expression coined by American Economist Paul Romer.

This expression is prominent in the introduction of the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The motives of the book publishers are to exploit the post-2008 economic crises to forge change in the Caribbean region. But in this case, it appears that another party has utilized a Caribbean crisis to exploit the public for monies for their own coffers; that party is the American Red Cross.

Immediately after the earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010 many Non-Government Organizations (NGO), including the American Red Cross, embarked on fundraising campaigns to raise money for the response, relief and rebuilding of Haiti. The Red Cross held a Telethon, complete with text message fundraising:

Text [the word] Haiti to 90999

… and boom, $10 would be billed to the respondent’s mobile phone account and encumbered for the American Red Cross’s Aid to Haiti. (Note: this writer contributed via text message in 2010).

$500 Million In Haiti Relief - Photo 1

How successful was this fundraising campaign? US$500 million! How successful was the relief and rebuilding of Haiti campaign? Still waiting…

VIDEO – Report highlights Red Cross aid failures in Haiti  https://youtu.be/cSAZ8cScwro

Published on Jun 3, 2015 – Following the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the American Red Cross raised close to 500 million dollars and promised to help rebuild the country’s communities. A new report by ProPublica and NPR unearth a number of confidential memos and insider accounts that stand in sharp contrast to the public picture painted by the organization. CBSN spoke to co-author of the report, Justin Elliott.

This consideration aligns with the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies of the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The declaration is that the Caribbean must be front-and-center in providing for our own solutions. The alternative, someone else taking the lead for our solution seems to be lacking…every time!

For us in the Caribbean, we need to grow up and more responsible ourselves! We need to stand up and be counted!

The Go Lean book declares (Page 115):

“Haiti should not be a perennial beggar; the Caribbean should not be perennial beggars, but we do need capital/money, especially to get started”.

There was the opportunity to raise $500 million to get started. We lost out!

Instead the American Red Cross provided the “adult supervision” and what do we have to show for it? According to the following AUDIO Podcast, next to nothing; (6 houses):

Appendix AUDIO Podcast: NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’ –  http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=411524156&m=411812821

By Laura Sullivan – When a devastating earthquake leveled Haiti in 2010, millions of people donated to the American Red Cross. The charity raised almost half a billion dollars. It was one of its most successful fundraising efforts ever.
The American Red Cross vowed to help Haitians rebuild, but after five years the Red Cross’ legacy in Haiti is not new roads, or schools, or hundreds of new homes. It’s difficult to know where all the money went.
Source: National Public Radio (NPR) – Radio Podcast for Fresh Air; posted 06/03/2015; retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red-cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief

This is just another example of Crony-Capitalism.

This is not only the Go Lean commentary, but rather many of the general public voiced this same concern on the cited NPR website; see sample here:

Public Comment by “TheUnPossible” on June 3, 2015: Perhaps they should do what they do best. Serve coffee, give-out blankets and draw blood. This reminds me of a lot of the other high-profile charities like Susan G. Komen and United Way that just become a black-hole for donations. They’re like a church. They get people to give them tons of cash and promise salvation if people just believe in them.

Public Comment by “Unpartisan” on June 3, 2015: They’re like a church. They get people to give them tons of cash and promise salvation if people just believe in them.” Sounds like many politicians and government agencies as well, good analogy.

Public Comment by “James Hulsey” on June 3, 2015: I haven’t trusted the American Red Cross since 9/11, when they were fundraising for 9/11 relief efforts and then shunted the extra money into their general fund.

Public Comment by “TravelingOne” on June 4, 2015: No – the Red Cross: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/… And one of the reasons they no longer get any money from me; nor does United Way (UW) however.

Public Comment by “DCRich” on June 4, 2015: Local UW chapters often are worse. They coerce poorly paid employees of agencies they support to contribute with the implication that support to the agency is influenced by this. They try to engage new agencies with the same kind of appeal. Most of their money goes to orgs that have no trouble fundraising on their own like the Y and Scouts. Basically, they’re a middleman that allows the business community to interfere with and take credit or the work of “charity”. Giving money directly to some org[anization] you actually know something about is better than giving a cut to UW or CFC [(Combined Federal Campaign) for federal government employees].

The book and subsequent blogs posit that the Caribbean must not be vulnerable to American Crony-Capitalistic forces.

“We can do bad all by ourselves”.

The dread of Crony-Capitalism was highlighted and detailed in many previous blog commentaries; see Appendix below. Now we have to add the reality of Big Charity to the landscape; referring to the big organizations that fleece the public under the guise of charities but retain vast majorities of the funding as administrative costs, thusly benefiting mostly the charities’ executives and staff rather than the intended benefactors.

The Caribbean must do better! We need a Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on this issue.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean pursues the quest to elevate the Caribbean region through economic, security and governance empowerments. This includes oversight and guidance for NGO’s in the region. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to provide better stewardship for the Caribbean homeland. The book describes that NGO’s are Caribbean stakeholders. Even though many of the 30 member-states may be considered independent nations, the premise of the book is that there must be an ethos of interdependence, rather than just independence. This all relates to governance, the need for technocratic – and better – stewardship of regional Caribbean society. This point was also pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 & 14) with these acknowledgements and statements:

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of [other] communities.

$500 Million In Haiti Relief - Photo 2This is the quest of CU/Go Lean roadmap: to provide new guards for a more competent Caribbean administration … by governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations. (NGO would be promoted, audited and overseen by CU administrators).

This crisis should not be wasted!

In general, the CU will employ better strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant engines and mitigate internal and external “bad actors”.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book stresses key community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to turn-around the eco-systems of Caribbean governance. These points are detailed in the book as follows:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Respond to Incentives in   Predictable Ways Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence   Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in   the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Whistleblower Protection Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Intelligence Gathering Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – “Crap” Happens Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations – South Africa TRC Model Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing – Emergency Response Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states/ 4 languages into a Single Market Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Prepare for the eventuality of natural disasters Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change Page 57
Tactical – Ways to Foster a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Post WW II European Marshall Plan/Recovery Model Page 68
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Government versus Member-State Governance Page 71
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Treasury Department – Shared Property Recording Systems Page 74
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – State Department – Liaison/Oversight for NGO’s Page 80
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Interior Department – Housing & Urban Authority Page 83
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Federal Courts – Truth & Reconciliation Commissions Page 90
Implementation – Assemble All Regionally-focus Organizations of All Caribbean Communities Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid Page 115
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Homeland   Security Pact Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Governance and the Social Contract Page 134
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Governance and the Social Contract Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Housing – Optimizing Property Registration Process Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Develop a Pre-Fab Housing Industry – One solution ideal for Haiti Page 207
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations – NGO’s can help deliver Social Contract Page 219
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Haiti Page 238
Appendix – Philanthropy Pledge Signatories – Billionaires willing to “give” to an optimized  technocracy Page 292

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to empower and elevate Caribbean societal engines. While it is out-of-scope to impact America, we do not want American institutions (or European or Asian for that matter) exploiting our crisis for their gain.

Charity begins at home. (And should be managed at home). Online crowd-sourcing may be a better tool.

The Go Lean book calls on the Caribbean region to be collectively self-reliant, both proactively and reactively. Natural disasters (i.e. earthquakes and hurricanes) will occur again. Considering our efforts in our disaster response, relief and rebuilding – there will be many opportunities to get it right. Once we do … get it right – with an optimized technocracy – there will be more philanthropic funds and charitable donations to help our Caribbean causes. NGO’s, billionaires and their well-funded foundations are attracted to efficiently managed entities:

Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves – Old Adage.

Our quest is simple, a regional effort to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————

Appendix – Models of American Crony-Capitalism

Big Defense Many theorists indicate that the “follow the money” approach reveals the Military Industrial Complex work to undermine peace, so as to increase defense spending for military equipment, systems and weapons.
Big Media Cable companies conspire to keep rates high; kill net neutrality; textbook publishers practice price gouging; Hollywood insists on big tax breaks/ subsidies for on-location shooting.
Big Oil While lobbying for continuous tax subsidies, the industry have colluded to artificially keep prices high and garner rocket profits ($38+ Billion every quarter).
Big Box Retail chains impoverish small merchants on Main Street with Antitrust-like tactics, thusly impacting community jobs. e-Commerce, an area of many future prospects, is the best hope of countering these bad business tactics.
Big Pharma Chemo-therapy cost $20,000+/month; and the War against Cancer is imperiled due to industry profit insistence.
Big Tobacco Cigarettes are not natural tobacco but rather latent with chemicals to spruce addiction.
Big Agra Agribusiness concerns bully family farmers and crowd out the market; plus fight common sense food labeling efforts.
Big Data Brokers for internet and demographic data clearly have no regards to privacy concerns.
Big Banks Wall Street’s damage to housing and student loans are incontrovertible.
Big Weather Overblown hype of “Weather Forecasts” to dictate commercial transactions.
Big Real Estate Preserving MLS for Real Estate brokers only, forcing 6% commission rates, when the buyers and sellers can meet without them.
Big Salt Despite the corrosiveness of salt on roads and the environment, it is the only tactic   used to de-ice roads. Immediately after the weather warms, the roads must be re-constructed, thus ensuring a continuous economic cycle.
Big Energy The For-Profit utility companies always lobby against regulations to “clean-up” fossil-fuel (coal) power plants or block small “Green” start-ups from sending excess power to the National Grid. Their motive is to preserve their century-long monopoly and their profits.
Big Legal Even though it is evident that the promotion of Intellectual Property can help   grow economies, the emergence of Patent Trolling parties (mostly lawyers) is squashing innovation. These ones are not focused on future innovations, rather just litigation. They go out and buy patents, then look for anyone that may consume any concepts close to those patents, then sue for settlements, quick gains.
Big Cruise Cruise ships are the last bastion of segregation with descriptors like “modern-day-slavery” and “sweat-ships”. Working conditions are poor and wages are far below anyone’s standards of minimum. Many ship-domestic staff are “tip earners”, paid only about US$50 a month and expected to survive on the generosity of the passengers’ gratuity. The industry staff with personnel from Third World countries, exploiting those with desperate demands. Nowhere else in the modern world is this kind of job discrimination encouraged, accepted or tolerated.
Big Jails The private prison industry seem motivated more by profit than by public safety. They attempt to sue state governments when their occupancy levels go too low; a reduction in crime is bad for business.
Big Housing The American legacy is one of the institutional segregation in American cities. The practice was administered by real estate agents and housing officials executing policies to elevate property values and generational wealth for White families at the expense of a life of squalor for Non-Whites.
Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

China Internet Policing – Model for Caribbean

Posted on June 3, 2015 in Government, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Is anyone watching the store in the Caribbean? The e-Store that is! Are there open sales for illegal narcotics, weapons and paraphernalia on Caribbean-area web domains? How about stolen credit cards, or movies, or music?

China Internet Policing 2Just because these commercial transactions are on the internet, and may be electronically advanced, these facts do not make them benevolent. Rather, there is a lot of malevolence on the world-wide-web (WWW). Sometimes the moniker WWW is derisively dubbed the Wild-Wild-West; thusly referring to the olden days of the American West – in the 19th century – when law-and-order was many times absent from society; outlaws, duels and revenge-seeking were prevalent. The theme of the marketplace then was: “Let the buyer beware”.

The thinking is that we have now advanced a long way from those bad old days.

But yet, have you ever gotten an email from some Nigerian Tribal Chief … or Nigerian widow (or a Nigerian job; see Appendix VIDEO), who needs you to facilitate some financial transaction, using your money in the process but boasting how you will profit big in the end? Have you gotten one of these…lately? No; just check your Spam e-Mail folder; there are probably a few there now.

There is a Murphy’s Law on Technology that is apropos to this discussion:

A computer can make as many mistakes in 2 seconds as 20 men in 20 years.

A need therefore exists to regulate man and machine when it comes to technology-driven commerce:

o  There is the need for someone to watch the e-Store.

o  There is also the other extreme: freedom of speech …
… it should not be curtailed by web censors.

But can the freedoms go too far; and conversely, can censorship go too far?

Can companies protect their reputation online from defamation? Or how about cyber-bullying by irate customers or some competitive agent? These are all real concerns and real threats. This following news article conveys that China recognizes the need for some policing in the internet marketplace:

Title: China’s ‘Internet police’ open a window on Web censorship

BEIJING (Reuters) – The branch of China’s police in charge of censoring “illegal and harmful” online information will make its efforts more visible to the public from Monday with the launch of their own social media accounts, the Ministry of Public Security said.

China Internet Policing – Model for Caribbean - Photo 1The Chinese government aggressively censors the Internet, blocking many sites it deems could challenge the rule of the Communist Party or threaten stability, including popular Western sites like YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, as well as Google Inc.’s main search engine and Gmail service.

Police in some 50 areas, from metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai to more obscure cities like Xuzhou in Jiangsu province, will open accounts on sites including Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, the ministry said late on Sunday.

The move is a response to public concern about problems like online gambling and pornography and is aimed at increasing the visibility of the police presence online to “create a harmonious, cultured, clear and bright Internet”, it said.

“The Internet police are coming out to the front stage from behind the curtains, beginning regular open inspection and law enforcement efforts, raising the visibility of the police online, working hard to increase a joint feeling of public safety for the online community and satisfy the public,” the ministry said.

The cyber police are working to root out “illegal and harmful information on the Internet, deter and prevent cyber-crimes and improper words and deeds online, publish case reports and handle public tip-offs”, it said.

Problems such as fraud, defamation, gambling, the sale of drugs and guns, and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a charge often used to lock up dissidents – have angered people and created a serious challenge to an orderly Internet, it said.

The police would issue warnings to those involved in minor offences and go after more serious cases.

“Just like in the real world, law violations in cyberspace will not go unaccounted for,” it said.

The government has already deleted some 758,000 pieces of “illegal and criminal information” from the Internet and investigated more than 70,000 cyber-crime cases since the start of this year, the ministry said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Paul Tait)
Reuters News Wire – Published May 31, 2015; retrieved June 2, 2015 from:
http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-internet-police-open-window-censorship-023422128–finance.html

Where do we stand in the Caribbean?

For starters, there is no call for censorship. But there is a need for responsible internet messaging.

China Internet Policing 3Electronic Commerce is now all the rage in North America, Europe and certain key Asian markets (i.e. China, Japan, Indonesia, etc.). While the Caribbean has not fully embraced the world of e-Commerce, the internet via broadband, Wi-Fi and mobile has been fully assimilated – most adults have a mobile phone. So planners for Caribbean economic empowerments have contemplated the infrastructural deficiencies and proposed the remediation to better govern e-Commerce in this region. This is the assertion in the book Go Lean…Caribbean; it is the contemplation, proposal and remediation plan to reboot Caribbean economics, security and governance. This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to facilitate the growth, promotion and regulatory oversight of electronic commerce in a regional Single Market.

The book posits that some issues are too big for any one Caribbean member-state to manage alone, that there are times when there must be a cross-border, multilateral coordination. The strategy is to confederate all 30 Caribbean member-states and appoint the CU as a deputized agency to oversee this important activity. In addition, attendant functions are included in the roadmap to facilitate e-Commerce: Central Bank adoption of Electronic Payment schemes and Postal Integration/Optimization. Without these functionalities, internet commerce would remain stagnant!

On the other hand, with the expected surge in this sphere of activity, many other challenges will come. In previous blogs, the following issues were detailed:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5353 US Presidential Politics and the Internet
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4793 Online reviews – like Yelp and Angie’s List – can wield great power for services marketed, solicited and contracted online.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4381 Net Neutrality – The need for Caribbean Administration of the Issue.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4337 Crony-Capitalism Among the Online Real Estate Markets
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881 European and North American Intelligence Agencies to Ramp-up Cyber Security Cooperation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=906 Bitcoin e-Payments needs regulatory framework to manage ‘risky’ image
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=308 Caribbean Communications Infrastructure Program (CARCIP) and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) urges greater innovation and protection.

These commentaries demonstrate that there is the need for a governing body to better oversee and police Caribbean society to mitigate cyber-crimes and illicit activities initiated and/or continued in the online world. Policing the internet is too big for any one Caribbean member-state to manage alone. Too much is at stake.

Providing regional oversight for the Caribbean Single Market – a lean technocracy – for cross-border electronic media, governance of the Information Technology Arts and Sciences and Grievance Officiating are among the missions of Go Lean roadmap. The CU’s prime directives are identified with the following 3 statements:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the people and processes (economic engines) of the region from threats and attacks (physical and electronic) that may originate from foreign or domestic sources.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

These prime directives will elevate Caribbean society. With this success comes the emergence of bad actors – foreign and domestic. The goal of preparing the appropriate security apparatus was envision in the Go Lean roadmap from the beginning; this was defined early in the book (Page 12 & 14) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

x.  Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices … to assuage continuous threats against public safety.

xv. Whereas the business of the Federation and the commercial interest in the region cannot prosper without an efficient facilitation of postal services, the Caribbean Union must allow for the integration of the existing mail operations of the governments of the member-states into a consolidated Caribbean Postal Union, allowing for the adoption of best practices and technical advances to deliver foreign/domestic mail in the region.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

The subjects of cyber-crimes and electronic commerce integrity feature economic, security and governing concerns. These fields will escalate in importance with the Go Lean roadmap as there is the call for deployment of a Social Media / Electronic Commerce offering for all Caribbean member-states, branded www.myCaribbean.gov. This Caribbean Cloud initiative is projected in the Go Lean book as a subset of the integrated postal operations, the Caribbean Postal Union.

China Internet Policing 4China is an emerging economy. Their economic growth has been impressive in the last 30 years. Despite their official Communism adherence, they model technocratic governmental administrations. There is much for the Caribbean region to learn from their model.

Of course the Caribbean will not boast the 1.3 Billion-population that China holds, but the same as we’re able to model the American example, there is much to consider from our Asian (Chinese) trading partners. The wisdom the Go Lean book gleans from these models is presented as a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies; as highlighted in the following sample:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – People Choose Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Privacy versus Public Protection Page 23
Community Ethos – Whistleblower Protection Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Integrate a Single Market of entire region Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Caribbean Postal Union (CPU) Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Interstate Commerce Administration Page 79
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Communications and Media Authority Page 79
Implementation – Year 1 / Assemble Phase – Establish CPU Page 96
Anecdote – Implementation Plan – Mail Services – US Dilemma Page 99
Implementation – Improve Mail Services – Electronic Supplements Page 108
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media – Weibo Volumes Page 111
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region – Cyber Caribbean Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce Page 129
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy –Ways to Improve Governance Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street – Wifi & Mobile Apps Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living Page 234

This commentary is not intended to make disparaging remarks about Nigeria. Also, this commentary is not intended to make disparaging remarks about Communist China. Rather, the Go Lean book asserts (Page 23) that there is good and bad in every country; no matter the time or place, bad actors will always emerge to exploit economic successes.

That place is now extended to cyber-space.

We, the Caribbean collectively and individually, must police cyber-space as well.

To keep pace with the latest and greatest cyber-criminals will require an advanced level of interdiction and technical competence. It is the assertion here that this is heavy-lifting and too much for any one Caribbean member-state alone. No, the Caribbean needs the effectiveness and efficiencies proposed in Go Lean…Caribbean. The Caribbean needs this technocracy!

This is a lesson we can learn … and apply from China, in our application and pursuit of the Greater Good.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————–

Appendix – VIDEO: Nigerian Scammers Impersonate FBI Agent in Work-from-Home Scam – https://youtu.be/D82MzqwyK8A

Published on Mar 13, 2012 – The FBI’s Special Agent Tom Simon is warning about a new scam targeting Hawaii residents, which offers them a work-from-home position, but the company they reportedly will work for, and the financial transactions they are asked to perform, are fake.

 

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

‘Significant’ oil deposit found offshore Guyana

Posted on May 25, 2015 in Economics, Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

Oil is up and down.

Just recently the price per barrel was so low that it was traded on the commodities market for the rock-bottom price of $48. But in 2008, (a familiar year for this commentary), the price was as high as $144 per barrel. That’s wholesale for crude. At the retail level, the price at the low was below $2 per gallon in some US cities; (as reported in this previous blog, a Oklahoma gas station posted a price at $1.99). At the 2008 high, the retail price was over $5.00 in some American cities, like in California.

It could be a dizzying ride, up and down, complete with exhilaration and anxiety, especially for communities with mono-industrial economic engines. Trinidad is one such community. Now Guyana wants to be added to the fray.

This news article speaks of the success of the oil exploration activities undergoing in the waters off the coast of Guyana. This is not just off-shore, but rather within the 200-mile region called the Exclusive Economic Zone. The news article relates as follows:

Title: ‘Significant’ oil deposit found offshore Guyana 
oil deposit found offshore Guyana - Photo 1

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA) — Guyana looks to be set to join the group of oil producing nations, as news was made public by ExxonMobil that it has found a deposit of a ‘significant’ amount of oil in the Stabroek Block, some 120 nautical miles offshore Guyana.

It was discovered in one of the two wells it drilled in the Liza-1 site, which realised more than 295 feet of high-quality oil-bearing sandstone. The well was started or “spudded” on March 5, 2015, and the data will be analysed in the coming months to determine the full resource potential.

oil deposit found offshore Guyana - Photo 2It was drilled to 17,825 feet (5,433 metres) in 5,719 feet (1,743 metres) of water in the Stabroek Block, which is 6.6 million acres (26,800 square kilometers), the statement noted.

In the released statement, president of ExxonMobil Exploration Company, Stephen Greenlee, said, “I am encouraged by the results of the first well on the Stabroek Block… over the coming months we will work to determine the commercial viability of the discovered resource, as well as evaluate other resource potential on the block.”

Guyana has been identified by several surveying companies as one of the world’s greatest untapped potential sources for hydrocarbons.
Source: Caribbean News Now – Regional Online News Site – Posted May 22, 2015; retrieved from: http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-%27Significant%27-oil-deposit-found-offshore-Guyana-26217.html

Congratulations to Guyana!

There are other countries in the region hoping for similar success. This is just a sample list:

What feature about these aspiring countries, and the existing oil-producing countries, makes oil exploration possible?

The answer is the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which constitutes additional territory to explore and exploit. Every Caribbean nation, with no immediate neighbor within 200 miles, has this EEZ territory for their benefit; see Appendix A.

How does this process work?

It is simple and it is complicated. This duplicity is part of the heavy-lifting for elevating the region.

This is the guidance from the book Go Lean … Caribbean. It serves as a roadmap – turn by turn directions – for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This federation is designed to employ best practices for economics, security and governance. The CU/Go Lean roadmap posits that “Extractions” (Oil and Rare Earths) must be a significant strategy for the Caribbean region to elevate its society. In fact, the roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus, including emergency management, to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between member-state governments and the CU.

The implementation of the CU allows for the designation of more Exclusive Economic Zones, the consolidation of existing EEZ’s and the technocratic-cooperative administration of “Extractions” within these geographic spaces.

The process of benefiting from the EEZ starts with exploration. This is what Guyana has just concluded. They embarked on a scanning / diagnostic process to map out a geological survey of the subterranean formations under the seabed within their  EEZ. First they found ideal indicators, then they drilled wells and “lo and behold” the announcement in the foregoing news article.

Guianan officials are not trained oil explorers. They hired and out-sourced to technocrats or Subject Matter Experts (SME), for both the drilling and the earlier step of geologic scanning. The foregoing article reveals that the drilling was performed by the drilling SME ExxonMobil. But the scanning was done by a different SME, a company branded Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS); see Appendix B & VIDEO.

PGS also works with Trinidad & Tobago, helping to map out the geological surveys for that country’s Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries for further exploration in their EEZ. Trinidad is already an oil-exporting country.

oil deposit found offshore Guyana - Photo 3

Within the exploration process, there is a step for public bidding. This allows a drilling SME to make financial commitments (and immediate down payments) to the host country for a split of any resultant revenues derived from successful drilling expeditions. Once bids have been accepted by the host country and permits issued, then the exploring entity proceeds to drill test wells, after more detailed analysis and diagnostic mapping. The results are “hit and miss”.

The foregoing news article reports that the exploratory effort in the Guianan EEZ has been made a “hit”.

The Go Lean/CU roadmap designates an enlarged Exclusive Economic Zone for the integrated Caribbean region, for the geographic area of the Caribbean Sea.

An EEZ can have non-standard dimensions (beyond the 200 miles of the coastline) only with approval of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas. (Consider the examples of Denmark, Philippines and Portugal in Appendix A). The confederation of the 30 member-states, the CU, will be the administrator of this EEZ. Step One / Day One of the roadmap calls for awarding contracts for oil exploration and other extractions in the EEZ – this is what the Go Lean book describes as one of  the methods for financing the CU start-up; this is how to Pay For Change (Page 101).

The Go Lean roadmap details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster development, administration and protections in the Caribbean EEZ. The following list applies:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic   Systems Influence Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Whistleblower Protection Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Intelligence Gathering Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – “Crap” Happens Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development Page 30
Anecdote – Pipeline Transport – Strategies, Tactics & Implementations Page 43
Strategy – Alternative Energy: Harness the power of the sun, winds and tides in the EEZ Page 46
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 82
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Extractions (Mining, Materials & Drilling) Administration Page 83
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government – Environment Regulations & Permits Page 93
Anecdote – Caribbean Energy Grid Implementation Page 100
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Benefits from the EEZ Page 104
Implementation – Ways to Develop Pipeline Industry Page 107
Implementation – Ways to Improve Energy Usage – Deploy Wind Turbines in EEZ Page 113
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Extractions – Oil Mitigation Plan Page 195
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Fisheries – Model of Alaska EEZ Page 210
Advocacy – Ways Impact Trinidad & Tobago – Oil Boom to Expire without new Exploration   Page 240
Advocacy – Ways Impact The Guianas – Guyana’s Societal Challenges Page 241
Appendix – North Dakota Oil Boom Economic-Societal Effects Page 334
Appendix – Cape Cod Wind Farm – Model for Caribbean EEZ Page 335

Oil is good; oil is bad! The Go Lean roadmap asserts that the world’s energy needs are undeniable – constant demand – and that the oil-producing economies do have prospects of prosperity (Trinidad & Tobago is no longer considered developing / Third World). The Caribbean sorely needs the empowerments in this roadmap to explore and exploit “oil” in the modern economy. The region also needs mitigations and security measures in the roadmap to guarantee environmental protection.

Oil prices are cyclical – constantly up and down. It is difficult to manage certainties in governance without certainties in revenues. Thusly, the Go Lean roadmap calls for economic diversifications; this is apropos for tourism-service economies as well. There is much at stake when communities “miss the mark” on the diversity quest: fight and flight. The “fight” has been consistent in oil-producing Trinidad with security incidents big and small; big as in Martial Law declaration and terrorist threats; small as in constant crime and employment insecurities. The flight consequence has been consistent in Trinidad; they have experienced one of the highest societal abandonment rates in the region where 70% of the college-educated population have fled.

Guyana is encouraged to take heed from Trinidad.

The CU/Go Lean roadmap is designed to bring the long-awaited economic diversity and efficiency to the Caribbean. The goal is to optimize Caribbean society, allowing us to better compete globally and present more favorable options for our youth to prosper here in their homeland.

Oil exploration and production requires heavy-lifting to derive full benefits for the community; and mitigate accompanying risks. Welcome to the CU technocracy.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people, business, institutions and governments, to lean-in for the efficiencies and diversities described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————-

Appendix A – Exclusive Economic Zone

An Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is a sea zone prescribed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea over which a state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.[1] It stretches from the baseline out to 200 nautical miles (nmi) from its coast. In colloquial usage, the term may include the continental shelf. The term does not include either the territorial sea or the continental shelf beyond the 200 nmi limit. The difference between the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone is that the first confers full sovereignty over the waters, whereas the second is merely a “sovereign right” which refers to the coastal state’s rights below the surface of the sea. The surface waters, as can be seen in the map, are international waters.[2]

Generally, a state’s EEZ extends to a distance of 200 nautical miles (370 km) out from its coastal baseline. The exception to this rule occurs when EEZs would overlap; that is, state coastal baselines are less than 400 nautical miles (740 km) apart. When an overlap occurs, it is up to the states to delineate the actual maritime boundary.[3] Generally, any point within an overlapping area defaults to the nearest state.[4]

A state’s Exclusive Economic Zone starts at the landward edge of its territorial sea and extends outward to a distance of 200 nautical miles (370.4 km) from the baseline. The Exclusive Economic Zone stretches much further into sea than the territorial waters, which end at 12 nmi (22 km) from the coastal baseline (if following the rules set out in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea).[5] Thus, the EEZ includes the contiguous zone. States also have rights to the seabed of what is called the continental shelf up to 350 nautical miles (648 km) from the coastal baseline, beyond the EEZ, but such areas are not part of their EEZ. The legal definition of the continental shelf does not directly correspond to the geological meaning of the term, as it also includes the continental rise and slope, and the entire seabed within the EEZ.

The following is a list of the largest Exclusive Economic Zones; by country with a few noticeable deviations:

Country EEZ Kilometers2 Additional Details
United States 11,351,000 The American EEZ – the world’s largest – includes the Caribbean overseas territories of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
France 11,035,000 The   French EEZ includes the Caribbean overseas territories of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy and French Guiana.
Australia 8,505,348 Australia has the third largest exclusive economic zone, behind the United States and   France, with the total area actually exceeding that of its land territory. Per the UN   convention, Australia’s EEZ generally extends 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the coastline of Australia and its external territories, except where a maritime delimitation agreement exists with another state.[15]The United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf confirmed, in April 2008, Australia’s rights over an additional 2.5 million square kilometres of seabed beyond the limits of Australia’s   EEZ.[16][17] Australia also claimed, in its submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, additional Continental Shelf past its EEZ from the Australian Antarctic Territory,[18] but these claims were deferred on Australia’s request. However, Australia’s EEZ from its Antarctic Territory is approximately 2 million square kilometres.[17]
Russia 7,566,673
United Kingdom 6,805,586 The UK includes the Caribbean territories of Anguilla, Bermuda, Cayman Islands,   Montserrat, Turks & Caicos and the British Virgin Islands.
Indonesia 6,159,032
Canada 5,599,077 Canada is unusual in that its EEZ, covering 2,755,564 km2, is slightly smaller than its territorial waters.[20] The latter generally extend only 12 nautical miles from the shore, but also include inland marine waters such as Hudson Bay (about 300 nautical miles (560 km; 350 mi) across), the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the internal waters of the Arctic archipelago.
Japan 4,479,388 In addition to Japan’s recognized EEZ, it also has a joint regime with Republic of (South) Korea and has disputes over other territories it claims but are in dispute with all its Asian neighbors (Russia, Republic of Korea and China).
New Zealand 4,083,744
Chile 3,681,989
Brazil 3,660,955 In 2004, the country submitted its claims to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) to extend its maritime continental margin.[19]
Mexico 3,269,386 Mexico’s EEZ comprises half of the Gulf of Mexico, with the other half claimed by the US.[32]
Micronesia 2,996,419 The Federated States of Micronesia comprise around 607 islands (a combined land area of approximately 702 km2 or 271 sq mi) that cover a longitudinal distance of almost   2,700 km (1,678 mi) just north of the equator. They lie northeast of New Guinea, south of Guam and the Marianas, west of Nauru and the Marshall Islands, east of Palau and the Philippines, about 2,900 km (1,802 mi) north of eastern Australia and some 4,000 km (2,485 mi) southwest of the main islands of Hawaii. While the FSM’s total   land area is quite small, its EEZ occupies more than 2,900,000 km2 (1,000,000   sq mi) of the Pacific Ocean.
Denmark 2,551,238 The Kingdom of Denmark includes the autonomous province of Greenland and the self-governing province of the Faroe Islands. The EEZs of the latter two do not form part of the EEZ of the European Union.
oil deposit found offshore Guyana - Photo 4
Papua New Guinea 2,402,288
China 2,287,969
Marshall Islands 1,990,530 The Republic of the Marshall Islands is an island country located near the equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the International Date Line. Geographically, the country is part of the larger island group of Micronesia. The country’s population of 68,480 people is spread out over 24 coral atolls, comprising 1,156 individual islands and islets. The land mass amounts to 181 km2 (70 sq mi) but the EEZ is 1,990,000 km2, one of the   world’s largest.
Portugal 1,727,408 Portugal has the 10th largest EEZ in the world. Presently, it is divided in three non-contiguous sub-zones:

Portugal submitted a claim to extend its jurisdiction over additional 2.15 million square kilometers of the neighboring continental shelf in May 2009,[44] resulting in an area with a total of more than 3,877,408 km2. The submission, as well as a detailed map, can be found in the Task Group for the extension of the Continental Shelf website.

Spain disputes the EEZ’s southern border, maintaining that it should be drawn halfway between Madeira and the Canary  Islands. But Portugal exercises sovereignty over the Savage    Islands, a small   archipelago north of the Canaries, claiming an EEZ border further south. Spain objects, arguing that the SavageIslands do not have a separate   continental shelf,[45] citing article 121 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.[46]
oil deposit found offshore Guyana - Photo 6
Philippines 1,590,780 The Philippines’ EEZ covers 2,265,684 (135,783) km2[41].
oil deposit found offshore Guyana - Photo 5
Solomon Islands 1,589,477
South Africa 1,535,538
Fiji 1,282,978 Fiji is an   archipelago of more than 332 islands, of which 110 are permanently inhabited, and more than 500 islets, amounting to a total land area of about 18,300   square kilometres (7,100 sq mi).
Argentina 1,159,063
Spain 1,039,233
Bahamas 654,715
Cuba 350,751
Jamaica 258,137
Dominican Republic 255,898
Barbados 186,898
Netherlands 154,011 The Kingdom of the Netherlands include the Antilles islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, Sint Maarten and Sint Eustatius
Guyana 137,765
Suriname 127,772
Haiti 126,760
Antigua and Barbuda 110,089
Trinidad and Tobago 74,199
St Vincent and the Grenadines 36,302
Belize 35,351
Dominica 28,985
Grenada 27,426
Saint Lucia 15,617
Saint Kitts and Nevis 9,974

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone)

————-

Appendix B – Guyana Stabroek MC2D Description

Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS), in conjunction with the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), is pleased to announce the availability of the MultiClient 2D survey acquired over the Stabroek concession. The survey consists of approximately 7,603 km of seismic that has been acquired and processed over the block and tie lines to existing well information with the objective of providing for the first time detailed imaging and geological understanding of this as yet undrilled concession. PGS acquired the data using its GeoStreamer® technology which is a solid streamer with the combination of two different sensors which provide data that exhibits a wider bandwidth and better penetration than conventional data. This MC2D survey provides the GGMC with a state of the art data set that assists industry in their evaluation of this frontier area.

SURVEY AREA
7,603 km

ACQUISITION DETAILS:
2008 – M/V Aquila Explorer
2D Acquisition Mode
GeoStreamer®

ACQUISITION PARAMETERS:
2 ms sample rate
Record Length 14000 ms
Shot Interval 37.5 m
Streamer Length 12000 m
Nominal fold 160

PROCESSING PARAMETERS:
Wavefield summation
SRME
Radon Demultiple
Pre-Stack Time Migration

AVAILABLE DATASETS:
TAPSTM Gathers
Raw PSTM Stack SEGY
Final PSTM Stack SEGY
Near, Mid and Far Angle Stack SEGY
Navigation UKOOA
Velocity Data in ASCII format
Gravity data

About PGS
Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) offers a broad range of products including seismic and electromagnetic services, data acquisition, processing, reservoir analysis/interpretation and multi-client library data. We help oil companies to find oil and gas reserves offshore worldwide.

PGS was founded in Norway in 1991, with two seismic ships and some highly innovative ideas on how to reshape the industry. Today we share the same drive to innovate as inspired our founders, though the team is bigger:

  • 12 offshore seismic vessels
  • 30 offices worldwide, employing over 70 nationalities

PGS has a presence in 21 countries with regional centers in London, Houston and Singapore. Our headquarters is in Oslo, Norway and the PGS share is listed on the Oslo stock exchange (OSE:PGS).

VIDEO – PGS Seismic Principles – https://youtu.be/q4PqkV0SBe0

Published on Mar 21, 2014 – A short video explaining the seismic principles.

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

Drones to be used for Insurance Damage Claims

Posted on May 22, 2015 in Government, Implementation, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

CU Blog - Drones to be used for Insurance Damage Claims - Photo 1What have you done for “me” lately?

So now that we’ve been awed and entertained with drones, frankly we need something more. We need to put them to work. What can drones do for us … in our quest to elevate Caribbean societal engines?

The answer is “Plenty”!

For starters, an insurance company had sought and is now approved to use drones for disaster claims processing.

This is BIG!

In a few days, the annual hurricane season will begin … in earnest; (this year was an aberration with the first Tropical Depression – Ana – making landfall early on May 10 in South Carolina, USA).

“Ana” is the first of what is forecasted to be a busy season. The names for the 2015 season are already pre-determined as:

Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Joaquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor and Wanda.

The source news article follows:

Title: FAA Gives USAA The A-OKAY To Test Damage Claims Drones
By: Kelsey D. Atherton

Source: Popular Science Magazine posted April 7, 2015; retrieved 05-21-2015 from:
http://www.popsci.com/faa-gives-usaa-okay-drone

After the disaster come the accountants. Major tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and the like do dollar amounts of damage, sometimes in the billions. That number comes from the nitty-gritty of insurance valuations and payouts, a wholly human assessment of the ruins from natural forces. Now, thanks to FAA approval, robots may start to get in on the action.

Yesterday, insurance giant USAA announced, as follows, that the FAA approved their request to test drones as a way to more quickly process insurance claims after disasters:

FAA Approves USAA Request for Drone Research

April 6, 2015 –The Federal Aviation Administration has approved USAA’s request to test how unmanned aircraft systems, also known as drones, could help speed review of insurance claims from its members following natural disasters. USAA is one of the first insurers to be granted the approval for such testing.

“Our members have grown accustomed to seeing us pave the way for innovative solutions that streamline the claims process,” said Alan Krapf, president, USAA Property and Casualty Insurance Group.

In October 2014, USAA filed for an exemption under Section 333 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 to enable more efficient testing of small drones. Exempt from select FAA regulations, USAA can now fly drones, made by U.S.-based PrecisionHawk, during the day within line-of-sight of a trained pilot and air crew. Prior to the approval, USAA test flights could only take place at FAA-approved sites. No aircraft will exceed an altitude of 400 feet, and all flights will continue to be reported to the FAA prior to takeoff.

With FAA approval, USAA will work with PrecisionHawk [(see VIDEO here)] to efficiently research and develop best practices, safety and privacy protocols and procedures as it further develops plans for operational use.

USAA also filed for an additional FAA exemption in November that will enhance USAA’s ability to use drones in catastrophes. That exemption petition is pending approval, and a decision is expected soon.

“We’re proud to be among the first insurers approved to test this technology,” Krapf said. “It’s our responsibility to explore every option to improve our members’ experience.”

About USAA
The USAA family of companies provides insurance, banking, investments, retirement products and advice to 10.7 million current and former members of the U.S. military and their families. Known for its legendary commitment to its members, USAA is consistently recognized for outstanding service, employee well-being and financial strength. USAA membership is open to all who are serving our nation in the U.S. military or have received a discharge type of Honorable – and their eligible family members. Founded in 1922, USAA is headquartered in San Antonio. For more information about USAA, follow us on Facebook or Twitter (@USAA), or visit usaa.com.
(Source: https://communities.usaa.com/t5/Press-Releases/FAA-Approves-USAA-Request-for-Drone-Research/ba-p/62019)

USAA applied for the exemption in October. In their application, they noted that USAA employees were invited to Oso, Washington, after a mudslide to assist local officials with aerial surveys.

Drones are a great tool for examining natural disasters, because they can safely fly over areas where the ground may still be hazardous for humans. Visual assessment and mapping tools give rescue workers a way to understand the newly-changed terrain, and they can also let insurance agents see which claims are justified.

In the best case scenario, using drones to evaluate claims means that victims of disasters will get the resources they need to get back on their feet faster. All told, that’s pretty great. There are certainly far worse things that could happen when a robot shows up after a disaster.

CU Blog - Drones to be used for Insurance Damage Claims - Photo 4

CU Blog - Drones to be used for Insurance Damage Claims - Photo 5

The subject of unmanned aircrafts are just another area of autonomous vehicles that the Go Lean … Caribbean movement (book and aligning blogs) has highlighted as being a focused subject for the region. This subject will impact jobs and security measures. Consider these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1487 Here come the Drones … and the Concerns
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1277 The need for highway safety innovations – here comes Google
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=673 Ghost ships – Autonomous cargo vessels without a crew

A lot of activity with autonomous aircrafts have been the product of Radio Controlled craft hobbyists; see Appendix C VIDEO. But now, practical applications are being promoted, especially for commercial photographers. This is science, not science fiction; see VIDEO in Appendix B. There is the need for high-end photography solutions to process claims after natural disasters. According to the foregoing news article, the US regulators are now allowing the testing of drones for post-hurricane (and other natural disasters) claims processing. This aligns with the Go Lean book, to optimize natural disaster response AND to provide oversight for the regional aviation space. This book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU/Go Lean roadmap describes CU agencies in the role of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) performs for the US in the foregoing article. So the parallel is strong, as there is the need to plan for natural disasters in the Caribbean – more and more – in partnership with the CU‘s Emergency Management agencies.

CU Blog - Drones to be used for Insurance Damage Claims - Photo 3

CU Blog - Drones to be used for Insurance Damage Claims - Photo 2

The Go Lean book purports that this type of industrial revolutions emerging with drones are more and more critical for Caribbean society. The risks and threats from storms will only intensify. In the previous blog about the rise of drones, this commentary asserted that “our region must participate in these developments, not just spectate on them”. These points are  also pronounced early in the book in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14), with these statements:

i.   Whereas the earth’s climate has undeniably changed resulting in more severe tropical weather storms, it is necessary to prepare to insure the safety and security of life, property and systems of commerce in our geographical region. As nature recognizes no borders in the target of its destruction, we also must set aside border considerations in the preparation and response to these weather challenges.

xxvi.  Whereas theCaribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries… In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism…– impacting the region with more jobs.

xxvii.  Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

This Go Lean book and accompanying blogs champion the cause of deploying technology to make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play. The assertion is that innovative developments like camera-mounted unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) should be readily deployed after emergencies and disasters – from hurricanes to industrial accidents – to quickly assess the damage: life and property; see Appendix A VIDEO. There is the need to gather intelligence for where to direct First Responders (as in 911 emergencies); and even before people in the affected areas may call out for help.

While the focus of the Go Lean movement is primarily towards economics, it is the premise of this roadmap that security efforts must be coupled with the region’s economic empowerments. The premise is simple! The economic engines must be protected and preserved; this subject of “Insurance Company Disaster-Claim Assessing Drones” is therefore within scope for the Trade Federation. In fact, the CU/Go Lean roadmap has defined these 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

While there may be proponents and opponents (privacy advocates) of unmanned aviation, no one would object to aggressive efforts to locate people in danger or quickly restore communities to normal operations after a storm. There is an overriding need, as many times tourist-based industries need to project the confidence to the watching world that Caribbean winter destinations will be ready, willing and able to extend hospitality to visitors … in short order.

The message and image must be consistent for the region’s primary economic driver, even after a natural disaster: Be our guest!

The Go Lean strategy is to confederate the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region to form the technocratic CU Trade Federation. Tactically, the roadmap calls for a separation-of-powers, allowing the Caribbean member-states to deputize authority of the Caribbean airspace to the one unified CU agency. Operationally, there is the need for these drones in critical times and also for everyday scenarios. (Many times, watercrafts become imperiled in the region’s waters; the scanning & diagnostic capabilities on drones would far-exceed human-eye capability for search-and-rescue).

The book details community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster innovative solutions in Caribbean communities, so as to positively impact the societal economic, security and governing engines:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – All Choices Involve Costs Page 21
Community Ethos – Job   Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Public Protection Over Privacy Concerns Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI) Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating 30 Member-states in a Union Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Aging Diaspora Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – New High Multiplier Industries Page 68
Separation of Powers – Self Governing Entities Page 80
Separation of Powers – Aviation Administration and Promotion Page 84
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change – Hurricane Reinsurance Funds Page 101
Implementation – Benefits from the Exclusive Economic Zone Page 104
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Homeland Security Innovations Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Housing – Hurricane Risk Reinsurance Funds Page 161
Advocacy – Revenues Sources for Caribbean Administration – Reinsurance Funds Page 172
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street – Adopt Advanced Products: “Reinsurance” Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation – Aviation Oversight Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Fisheries – Search & Rescue Page 210
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living Page 238
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Rural Living Page 239

The foregoing news story relates to threats and consequences of hurricanes. While hurricanes present a Clear and Present Danger to “life and limb”, the focus of this commentary is on property. While the sense of urgency may appear to be lower, there is still the need to impact the region’s Greater Good. The advocacy in this case is to be an early adopter of technology to optimize the administration of Caribbean economic engines.

This is heavy-lifting. The buy-in from community stakeholders will not be easy; there will be the need for collaboration, compromise and consensus-building for the full adoption of unmanned aviation.

The insights from the foregoing articles and embedded videos help us to appreciate that the future for unmanned aviation is now! We must therefore lean-in for these empowerments now.

In fact the region is urged to lean-in for the entire roadmap of Go Lean … Caribbean. The benefits are too alluring. Protection of people, properties and processes. This is the Greater Good. This roadmap allows for that quest: to make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

————

Appendix A VIDEO – Drone Footage from Inside Corvette Museum Sinkhole – https://youtu.be/vkEDwOidW_Q


Published on Feb 12, 2014 – University of Western Kentucky’s Engineering Department sent a drone helicopter into the sinkhole at the National Corvette Museum that swallowed eight vintage Corvettes.

————

Appendix B VIDEO – Sprite Unmanned Aerial Vehicle –  https://youtu.be/-w9YTJjGaEg


Published on May 13, 2015 – Meet Sprite, the most portable, most durable small unmanned aerial vehicle in the world. Powerful, yet simple to fly. Visit us at www.ascentaerosystems.com for more information! Pre-order at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/…

————

Appendix C VIDEO – Top 10 Drones 2015 – https://youtu.be/sq2n4TMC1XU


Published on Nov 14, 2014 – More Info & Pics: https://ezvid.com/top-ten-drones

 

Share this post:
, , , , ,
[Top]

POTUS and the Internet

Posted on May 19, 2015 in Government, Implementation, Social

Go Lean Commentary

What is the requirement for the Office of the President of the United States; and why is this important to the Caribbean?

A candidate must be at least 35 years old; natural born citizen of the country (could not have been naturalized); must win the majority of votes (270) of the 538 total in the American Electoral College.

One more requirement: the candidate must have a “thick skin” and the uncanny ability to choose his/her battles. The President cannot pick a fight with just anyone that lobs unkind words, no matter how denigrating the insult.

This is not easy! Considering the free-for-all that is the internet; freedom of speech … is not free!

This actuality was dynamically illustrated in the past week; first with a number of 2016 potential candidates (Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton) in their quest to secure their own web domains (xxxxxxxxxx.com, xxxxxxxxxx.net, xxxxxxxxxx.org, etc.) and lastly with the current president’s first foray with the social media site Twitter. See stories here:

Title #1: U.S. presidential candidate Fiorina spins web around interviewer
By: Bill Trott, Reuters, May 10, 2015

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina apparently has learned something about registering website domain names.

Former Hewlett-Packard Co Chief Executive and Republican U.S. presidential candidate Carly Fiorina speaks during the Freedom Summit in GreenvilleShortly after the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive announced her campaign last week, she found out that a cybersquatter had bought the rights to carlyfiorina.org and was using it to criticize her record.

Chuck Todd of NBC News brought up the issue while interviewing Fiorina on “Meet the Press” and showed the website, which features row after row of frowny-face emoticons representing 30,000 people laid off during her Hewlett-Packard tenure from 1999 to 2005.

Fiorina defended her record and after the interview sent a tweet thanking Todd for having her on the show and saying, “Btw, checkout chucktodd.org.” Her campaign had registered that domain and clicking on the link redirected traffic to her official campaign site, carlyforpresident.com.

Fiorina had done the same thing last week with sethmeyers.org when she appeared on NBC’s “The Late Show with Seth Meyers.”

Fiorina has acknowledged she made a mistake in not registering carlyfiorina.org first, but she is not the only 2016 presidential candidate bedeviled by cybersquatters.

Republican Ted Cruz must endure a rogue tedcruz.com site that says only “Support President Obama. Immigration Reform now”, while jebbushforpresident.com is being used by supporters of gay rights, not Jeb Bush.

The site hillaryclinton.org is not the work of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign and cyber security experts say it contains malicious software.

—————-

Title # 2: VIDEO – President Obama @POTUS – http://wapo.st/1FkwKrX

May 19, 2015 (Reuters) – President Obama started his own Twitter account on Monday. Within 45 minutes of sending his first tweet, Obama gained more than 217,000 followers.

—————-

Title #3: ‘Welcome To Twitter, N*gger’: Righties Go FULL RACIST On POTUS Twitter Account (TWEETS)

Well, President Obama finally has his own twitter account, and conservatives didn’t waste any time showing just how racist they really are.

CU Blog - POTUS and the Internet - Photo 1

While the president was having fun posting about how his tweets would be his own words to the American people, righties were busy hurling racial slurs in @replies at the POTUS twitter account. For your viewing disgust, here are just a few of the so-called “welcome” messages President Obama received on his newly-created personal account (yes, these are screenshots and not actual tweets, in the event these trolls decide to delete their words like the cowards they are):

CU Blog - POTUS and the Internet - Photo 2

CU Blog - POTUS and the Internet - Photo 3

CU Blog - POTUS and the Internet - Photo 4

As if those initial messages weren’t bad enough, one person tweeted to the sitting President that he should be lynched, completed with image:

CU Blog - POTUS and the Internet - Photo 5

… I could go on, but you get the idea. If this doesn’t tell you that Barack Obama has handled the unprecedented disrespect and outright hatred directed at him from right-wing racists with the utmost grace and dignity, I don’t know what will. …

The entire article is here: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/05/18/welcome-to-twitter-ngger-righties-go-full-racist-potus-twitter-account-tweets/; retrieved May 19, 2015.

—————-

Title #4: Uh, you probably don’t want to tweet to @POTUS, actually
By: Caitlin Dewey

Twitter, at first glance, is a magical fantasy land — a utopia where any old egg can freely converse with presidents, pop stars and kings. It is the great democratizer; the global water cooler; the one place where you can say anything to anyone and know it’ll be okay.

Consider this your monthly reminder that this is actually NOT the case: On the modern Internet, impressions of anonymity and ephemerality are, well … usually fake.

But the joke’s actually on them: Not only does the Secret Service already monitor Twitter for threats, but the White House is archiving each and every thing @POTUS tweeters say. Ashley Feinberg flagged this relevant piece of the White House Online Privacy Policy …

… when you tweet “leave Michelle for me @POTUS,” or something even more inappropriate/creepy, that lives in an official White House Archive for eternity (slash, for potential future scrutiny).

To be clear, this isn’t just a White House thing: The principle applies, in one form or another, to most types of social networking …

Find the whole article at the Washington Post Online site – The Capital’s Daily Newspaper (Posted 05-19-2015) –

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/05/19/uh-you-probably-dont-want-to-tweet-to-potus-actually/

The President of the United States (POTUS) is considered the most powerful Commander-in-Chief in the world; this is due to the fact that the US is the only remaining Super Power with the world’s largest Single Market economy and world’s largest military establishment. This country is the Caribbean largest trading partner. POTUS also has direct oversight over the US Federal Government functionalities in the 2 US Territories in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands).

This subject is a pivotal theme in the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which asserts that Internet & Communications Technologies (ICT) are critical for elevating Caribbean society. The art and science of this field is slated to impact the economic, security and governing engines. The internet makes things easy; it makes benevolent endeavors easier and malevolent endeavors easier. There must be the constant oversight.

The challenges of politicians and the Internet clearly demonstrate the need for technocratic oversight for the Caribbean’s foray into garnering more respect and benefits for intellectual property. There is the need for “Grievance Officers” to settle disputes related to cyber-squatting for Caribbean domains and the proposed Caribbean Cloud branded: www.myCaribbean.gov.

Change has come to the world of politicking and elections. The ubiquity of the internet cannot be ignored.

This book, Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion GDP and create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the societal engines and marshal against human and civil rights abuses.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, plus facilitate a smooth transparent election process.

Early in the book, the benefits of optimizing governance through technology empowerments are pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 & 14), with these statements:

xi.  Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii.  Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law…

xxvi.  Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

xxvii.  Whereas intellectual property can easily traverse national borders, the rights and privileges of intellectual property must be respected at home and abroad. The Federation must install protections to ensure that no abuse of these rights go with impunity, and to ensure that foreign authorities enforce the rights of the intellectual property registered in our region.

The Go Lean book details the community ethos to adapt to the changed ICT landscape, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:

Community Ethos – Economic Principle – People Respond to Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI) Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property Page 29
Community Ethos – Impact Research & Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Bridge the Digital Divide Page 31
Strategy – Vision – Integrate 30 Caribbean member-states into a Single Market Economy Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Fix the broken systems of governance in our region Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Book: Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776) Page 70
Separation of Powers – Department of State – Federal Elections Administrators Page 70
Separation of Powers – Federal/Caribbean Police – Elections/Candidate Security Page 77
Separation of Powers – Film Promotion and Administration Page 78
Separation of Powers – Intellectual Property (Copyrights & Domains) Administration Page 78
Separation of Powers – Communications and Media Authority Page 79
Separation of Powers – Federal Legislature & Electoral Seats Page 91
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media Page 111
Implementation – Ways to Impact Elections Page 116
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Contact Centers – Ideal for Pre-Election Polling Page 212
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora Page 217
Appendix – Puerto Rico Diaspora distribution in the mainland United States Page 304

This commentary is about the Caribbean, not about the United States. It is important for leaders in the US to be concerned with the Caribbean’s well-being. This point has been explicitly acknowledged by Caribbean stakeholders and relevant subjects have recently been extolled in these previous Go Lean…Caribbean blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5183 Mexico Model – May 5th – US too occupied during Civil War to defend neighbor
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5088 Caribbean Migrants among the accounting of 1 in 11 Black population in USA
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4935 A Lesson in History – Grand Old Party – the Republicans – must be cuddled
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4897 US Backs LNG Distribution Base in Jamaica as Caribbean Regional Hub
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4793 Yelp.com Review Site – Model of CU Social Media Grievance Regulators
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4551 US Territories – currently Between a ‘rock and a hard place’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360 Dreading the American ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4294 US Ambassadors to Caribbean push US Energy and Security Policies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3834 State of Caribbean Union compared to the State of the American Union
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3662 Caribbean Migrants desperate to get to US as Promised Land destination
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1965 America’s Navy – Protector for Caribbean waters and the World’s

Other interactions related to US government-to-Caribbean population have also been blogged in Go Lean commentaries, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4058 New York Times Maledictions on The Bahamas
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3473 Haiti to Get $70 Million from US-AID to Expand Caracol  Industrial Park
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3455 Restoration of US Diplomatic Relations with Cuba
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2907 Miami Haitian-American leaders protest Bahamian immigration policy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341 US slams human rights practices among Caribbean nations

The CU seeks to re-boot the relationship with the US to an elevated “protégé” status, as opposed to the parasite status currently being maintained. For the Caribbean member-states, the CU will oversee the radio spectrum used for internet, radio, television and satellite communications in the region. (This radio spectrum must be regulated “by us and for us” … on a regional level due to the close-proximity of member-states). So the CU‘s coordination must be arranged in the manner of a Common Pool Resource, as the radio spectrum is limited. This oversight must also extend to internet broadband (wireless & wire-line) governance.

Also, the CU must conduct its own federal elections for all 30 member-states. This CU election process, detailed in the Go Lean roadmap, is a direct parallel to the election process in the US, alluded to at the start of this commentary. The US system defines 538 “electors”. This corresponds to the 435 members of the House of Representatives, 100 senators, and the three additional electors for the nation’s non-State capital city, Washington, DC. The same Electoral College design is proposed for the CU – so as to not trivialize the region’s Small Island States – where 250 House seats, and 60 Senate seats, amounts to a total 310 (Page 91). With the requirement of 156 electoral votes to win the CU presidency, no candidate can be elected without the inclusion of some Small Island States. This is logical; an effective application for the CU legal structure bred from the US model.

For the CU, ICT must also come into play more and more to facilitate efficient federal campaigns. We can do this!

We can apply best-practices – as communicated in the foregoing articles – so as to mitigate election-campaign abuses and remediate slanderous communication from “bad actors” who try to bully elected officials; these ones  will become more active as election passions intensify.

“Out with the old; in with the new” – the US President Obama has less than 2 years remaining in his constitutionally-mandated  term-limit. The candidates vying for Mr. Obama’s job for 2016 will have to feature many of the same qualifications as Mr. Obama; these ones, in particular, must be thick-skinned in tolerating scathing insults and cyber-bullying. They would do best to remember that there will always be a loud minority … and quiet majority. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]