Wadiblog

Scientists reported Thursday that there is such a drug

Wouldn’t this be nice?

If you are a churchill group member, these are some of the events they are putting together. If you want to attend and are not a member, you may have to pay a higher price for admission. You can also join the club and attend if you wish to do so:

Wed, July 30: 5th Annual Good Wine and Good Company: Old World Meets New World (San Francisco) (members only)
This event will feature California winemakers who are making tasty wine using Old World methods. Featured speakers include Louis Kapcsándy of Kapcsándy Family Winery, and Michael Brill of Crushpad. Please visit www.churchillclub.org for further details and to RSVP.

Mon, August 4: Hollywood, YouToo? Finding the Money and Eyeballs in Web Video (San Francisco)
Speakers: Nathan Coyle, co-head digital, Creative Artists Agency; Brent Friedman, executive producer and head writer, Electric Farm Entertainment/Gemini Division; Jordan Hoffner, director of content partnerships at YouTube; Ziv Navoth, VP of Marketing and Business Development, Bebo; and Frank Rose, WIRED, moderator. Please visit www.churchillclub.org for further details and to RSVP.

Thu, August 14: Election 2008: Cutting Through the Spin (Location TBA)
Speakers: Paul Jay, CEO and Senior Editor, The Real News Network; Ray McGovern, ex-CIA analyst, advising Ronald Reagan; Matt Furman, ex-CNN SVP and current Google executive, moderator. Please visit www.churchillclub.org for further details

Tue, August 19: Upsizing: Breaking the Billion Dollar Benchmark (Palo Alto)
Speakers: Mark Templeton, CEO, Citrix Systems; Maynard Webb, CEO, LiveOps, former COO, eBay; Dave Thomson, award-winning author, moderator. Please visit www.churchillclub.org for further details and to RSVP.

Thu, September 25: Churchill Club Annual Dinner: An Evening with Steve Ballmer (Santa Clara) (members only)
Please visit www.churchillclub.org for further details and to RSVP.

Since this speech by Obama is already getting old, (it was delivered last week in Berlin,) I wouldn’t want to waste time by asking people to come together to listen to it. Everyone should listen to this speech, and hear a citizen of humanity speaking for himself and others, countless others, including me:

[Excerpt:] “… Partnership and co-operation among nations is not a choice. It is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity. That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us again. ..”

A new search engine created by former engineers from Google Inc. launched Sunday night, claiming to cover three times as many Web pages as Google. Cuil!!

Former Google engineer launches new search engine

Has anyone checked them out yet?

Mahvish Rukhsana Khan an Afghan-American attorney from San Diego, California presents in her acclaimed book “My Guantanamo Diaries” the human catastrophe resulting from the U.S. led War on Terrorism in Afghanistan. She presents stories from inside the Guantanamo Detention camp at a book reading hosted by the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, California on July 10, 2008.

To learn about future such readings, join My Guantanamo Diary on Facebook.

Posted by: Abdulrahman Rafiq on behalf of Faraz Shah (Photographer)

Sitting with several Calfriends, sipping cups cold coffee (Pakistani Style) at Mirchi Cafe in Fremont, California I was astounded to learn about Facebooks content copyright policy.

Believe it or not, any content, primarily photos and videos that a user posts to Facebook is solely own by Facebook.com.

Even if you delete the content from your profile, it will not be deleted from Facebooks database, and they reserve the right to use any content for marketing and publicity purposes.

See Facebook’s Terms of Use:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

To learn more about this visit http://PhotoAttorney.com

Moral of the story is: Before posting content to any Social Network  make sure you have read the Terms of Use statement. You may be in for a surprise.

(Posting from Blackberry)

At the heart of a democratic system is the core belief that WE the People do not relinquish our sovereignty. However, to maintain this sovereignty over ourselves, rather than merely becoming tools for sometimes well camouflaged tyranny of special interests – citizens need to be well informed before we vote. Our vote is our voice into the system – singly and collectively. Only through great vigilance and conscious analysis will we exercise our true voice, else, we are mere puppets, echoing someone else’s will, perhaps someone whom we don’t even agree with.Having been a member of the League of Women Voters (an organization which dates back to 1920 and which also includes Men since the 1970’s) I have found it to have consistently useful resources. It has a sterling reputation for holding fair and impartial candidate forums and offering both pros and cons for ballot measures. The League is organized along the same lines as our governments: national, state, regional and local.

The LWV of California has wonderful website, www.smartvoter.org which includes information on everything from where to find your polling place to links to the legislative information on ballot measures. The site also offers a free public service to all candidates to put up a webpage. At this url http://www.smartvoter.org/voter/links.html - one can find links to other political resources.

LWV US also has a site: http://www.vote411.org/ which provides information on the Presidential candidates.

Also useful sites are the County registrar of voters and of course the California Secretary of State website. I have included the Alameda and the Santa Clara County registrar of voters sites below:

California Secretary of State
http://www.sos.ca.gov/

Alameda County Registrar of Voters
http://www.acgov.org/rov/

Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters
http://www.sccgov.org/portal/site/rov

Remember that “democracy is not a spectator sport”

(Article adapted and updated from my article for TriCity Voice dated July 18, 2007)

The health care system in the United States is clearly sick. Our health care system is one of the most expensive among the industrialized countries and yet the World Health Organization rates us as 37th in overall healthcare performance [1]. California is no exception. Over seven million people in California alone are uninsured and many more are underinsured [2]

There have been many proposals put forth, including mandating individuals to purchase insurance [3]. The League of Women Voters of California (“LWVC”) and the its local arm, the League of Women Voters of Fremont, Newark and Union City (“LWVFNUC”) [both of which also include men], after reviewing the various proposed options to remedy the healthcare system, support single payer universal healthcare. LWVC and LWVFNUC along with thousands of others supported Senate Bill 840, titled “The California Health Insurance Reliability Act”, authored by State Senator Sheila Kuehl.

This landmark legislation provides fiscally sound, affordable and comprehensive coverage via single payer universal health insurance for all Californians. SB 840 would require replacing all health premiums, taxes, deductibles and co-payments now paid by employers, employees and individuals with one affordable premium paid to the public trust fund. Proponents expect that the bill will save $8 billion in the first year alone and $344 billion over a ten year period [4]. This legislation would replace the current 1,500 plus insurance plans in existence in California with a more cost effective universal access health care system.

SB 840 passed both the State Senate and Assembly in the 2006 legislative session. However, it was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger on September 22, 2006 on the grounds that “healthcare is not a right” [5]. Proponents of SB 840 have noted that the Governor received $4 million in campaign funds from the Insurance Industry [5]. Despite 2006 legislative year obstruction, Senator Kueh and supporters forged on ahead with its re-introduction in the 2007 legislative session. SB 840 passed the State Senate and is now in committee’s in the State Assembly Appropriations Committee.

The League of Women Voters of Fremont, Newark and Union City (“The League”), will continue to participate in OneCareNow, a grass roots campaign to educate Californians about single payer universal healthcare. The OneCareNow campaign held health care awareness activities in 365 cities throughout California. The campaign started in August 2006 and continued until August 2007. Every day for 365 days, one city in California was asked to support the concept of making sure that all Californians have health care. July 18, 2007 is the day that was devoted to the City of Fremont.

February 12, 2007 was the City of Newark’s day. In February, the League engaged in outreach activities with residents and presented information about SB 840 to the Newark City Council. May 5th was Union City’s awareness day. The League presented testimony to Union City’s Council which passed a resolution in favor of SB 840 on May 22, 2007.

Fremont’s awareness activities included leafleting at various theaters which were showing Michel Moore’s recent documentary about the deplorable state of our healthcare system – “Sicko”. The League also sponsored a packed forum featuring the following knowledgeable speakers who shed light on the various proposals Assemblymember Alberto Torrico, Co-author of SB 840, Ms. Pat Snyder, League of Women Voters of California, Mr. Andrew McGuire, Executive Director, Health Care for All.

The OneCare grassroots movement convened a State Strategy Summit in February 2008 in Los Angeles to plan for ongoing strategy to obtain universal coverage for all. Stay tuned for updates.
Useful Websites:
www.lwvfnuc.org
www.onecarenow.org
www.healthcareforall.org

Reference web links:

[1] World Health Organization: 2000 report: www.who.int/whr/2000/en/index.html

[2] Health Care for All: www.healthcareforall.org/healthcare_crisis.html

[3] This site has a readable summary: Health Access California: www.health-access.org/advocating/2007_bills.html

[4] Health Care for All: www.healthcareforall.org/studies.html - based on the Lewin Group 2004 study.

[5] OneCareNow: www.onecarenow.org/sb840.htm

Tradition, Technique, Technology – II ;

Contemporary artists from Pakistan

Featuring Farida Batool, Adeela Suleman and Ayaz Jokhio

Aicon Gallery, Palo Alto, July 17 – August 30

Opening Reception, Friday July 18, 2008, 6:00-9:00 p.m.

A great show case of 3 artists’ personal exploration of Pakistan’s history and how to deal with it.The press release says:“Working separately in Lahore and
Karachi, these three artists reference the transformation of heritage as a means of identifying the urgency to address issues of violence, sexuality and stereotyping. The artists included in this exhibition each take a unique approach to their art and its history that both challenges the viewer and allows for individual interpretations. ”

Siliconstani, ifaqeer, Abbas, and myself will be there on opening night. Hope to see you all there!

To learn more and to see an online preview:

http://www.aicongallery.com/exhibitions/2008-07-18_tradition-technique-technology-ii/pressrelease/

http://www.aicongallery.com/exhibitions/2008-07-18_tradition-technique-technology-ii/images/

For Directions:

View Larger Map

The main speaker at Thursday’s NYC Ultra Light Startup meeting was John Carlino, the founder and president of GoNogging.com, a free platform to share digital content and demand the video you want. GoNogging.com is John’s second internet business and is developed purely through outsourcing. So it made sense that he was at Ultra Light Startups to tell us about his tricks for effective and efficient outsourcing.

I liked John. He’s a straight up New Yorker who tells you his tricks of business in a clear no-nonsense style. Here are some of John’s do’s and don’t:

• Don’t pay them

Lump sums or installments. Pay your outsourcers by the milestone. This way you are incentivizing them to provide exactly what you want at the price agreed. Anything else may mean you waiting around twiddling your fingers.

• Own your code

Your outsourced teams should not have the right to replicate. This is your baby. Protect it.

• Don’t mix it up

Don’t host and code through the same provider. A one-stop-shop is not a good idea. It means that the provider has more control over you. If things fail on one end you have a lot more to lose if you try and leave the shop.

• Make friends with everyone

Especially project managers. Even if the company treats your work shabbily, a project manager can be a very useful resource at a later date. He can give you honest feedback and teach you about the technologies out there.

• Break it up

Into modules and have different developers/development teams work on it. This way you can test several teams, if one person/team is unable to deliver the process still runs. Make sure the code is well commented for smooth transition between teams.

• Let them teach you

Tech changes fast. You can’t possibility know all you need to know, especially if you are not a techie yourself. Do enough research to figure out what you need to know and then based on that find teams with potential and have them compete. They will teach you what you need to know. You can use this knowledge with other lower priced teams. This doesn’t mean the team that originally taught you lost out. They formed a relationship. You might end up working with them in the future.