A public interest web site with interactive communication facilities, information sources and news, research and communication tools, opinion and articles on Australian governance
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A public interest web site with interactive communication facilities, information sources and news, research and communication tools, opinion and articles on Australian governance
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From the creative mind of Kevin R Beck - click |
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A SITE WITHIN THE KEVIN R BECK CREATED MOSAIC PORTAL NETWORK CONCEPTED, DESIGNED, AND OWNED, BY Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia - Click |
Click for My World My Space
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Distribution Utilities  
"Opus Dei is a Catholic institution founded by Saint Josemaría Escrivá. Its mission is to help people turn their work and daily activities into occasions for growing closer to God, for serving others, and for improving society. Opus Dei complements the work of local churches by offering classes, talks, retreats and pastoral care that help people develop their personal spiritual life and apostolate." |
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Australia's Emmission Trading Scheme 
Activism and Game Strategy |
Oh Minister It's Not True |
Bringing Australia's Commonwealth Public Service Down |
| Counter DIGITS.com:All networked sites, forums and blogs
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 Sociology, tools for interpreting, and testing, spin speak |
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Joseph Turow summarises, in this linked article, how marketers are using new technologies to make it "harder than ever for audiences to escape, and resist, their advances. " " One practice, "seeding," blends "publicity, product placement, and public relations." Seeding can involve hiring actors for "clandestine campaigns that 'may consist of seeding chat rooms, blogs and forums with paid-for messages,'" as one marketer explained. A Weber Shandwick executive described the goal as to "enlist, equip and harness the power of trusted, informed and credible messengers." Another tool, "behavioral targeting," allows marketers to customize online ads, depending on Web pages visited and searches performed. Soon, "registration data, your movements on their site, and even information about you that they've purchased from a third party" will also be available to marketers. Offline examples of behavioral targeting include customizable cable TV commercials and convenience store coupons. SOURCE: Boston Globe, August 27, 2006 For more information or to comment on this story, visit PR Watch: Go to PR Watch This same technique of the corporate world, euphemsitically called spin (when it is simply lies) has been embraced by Australia's governments. You will note the sudden (June - July 2009) rise of politicians (particularly higher ranking Australian politicians) turning to mobile short messaging. They are twits. To adopt this technological crap is insulting to thinking voters. However the advisers in the Australian Prime Minister's office seem to struggle with mature activity and government process. Within the political office of the twit sits a kid whose job is to take a thousand word policy, or extended thought (if they actually have one) and turn it into six words. These are the feckless, and stupid, ideas that emanate out of the modern Minister, Premier or Prime Minister's offices, all added together to manipulate the Australian voter. Politicians who tun to these devices cannot be taken seriously as legislators and visionearies in our governments. Such practices demonstrate the paucity of intelelctual, and cognitive, leadership of those who inhabit high public office in Australia. The Prime Minister has a blog and places short 300 word platitudes on it. He is, to my mind, not to betaken seriously. By comparison Nick Xenophon and Steve Fielding, independent Senators show more maturity in public office than the Prime Minister of Australia. |
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The electorate lacks the education, awareness and the cognitive skills to understand, distill complex matters and arguments, They have no interest in demanding, or particpating and interacting, to ensure, quality government, ethical practice and performance from their elected officials at local, state, territory or federal government levels. Sadly the politicians in power, in Australia, in this modern age (2009)are not likely to alter the status quo that delivers, and maintains, the power of public office. The electorate is powerless to deal with underperfrming public services. Queensland presents a constant model of decay in public office emulated by other states, and territories, within Australia. (Kevin R Beck) |
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By the parasites of Australian democracy and politics |
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Want to communicate a response, and article, retort or alternative view, and have it posted to this web site and others on the Mosaic Portal network of web sites?
Click here
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IMPORTANT
every portal page uses scripting to update content.
So turn your active content on.
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"We'd all like to vote for the best man but he is never a candidate." (Kin Hubbard, US comedian)
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| Mass distribution articles - 300+ sites |
Predictions Economy, Society and Events |
About the Owner and Author |
Definition of an Expert |
| Governments, and corporations, are spending billions to mislead, misinform,
corrode, corrupt and manipulate the world in which they operate. There are people across the globe using technology tools, human networks and strategies to try and counter these activities albeit in a small way.
They are oft dismissed .
Take an interest in your governments, demand accountability, choose who you will do business with and what products and services you will buy.
Demand that enterprises such as banks, and large
powerful corporations, be good citizens rather than
self serving interested enterprises. Challenge the media, the public relations and spin doctors, on their own turf. challenge your governments, politicians and public servants. Build communities of interests, technological and human.
Wikileaks - a global source of information kept from the people of the world Beyond the horizon sits the Shadow Server |
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Who runs Australia?
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Oils and Acrylics on Canvas |
Heartland Retreat, is one hour from the Maroochydore Airport on the Queensland Sunshine Coast. |
 
Heartland Retreat Queensland Australia  Les Dyer's Inspiration |
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| PREDICTIONS THAT BIT, AND WILL BITE THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENTS, BUSINESS AND THE NATION INTO 2010 Insights, intuition, predictions and analysis, predicted as early as 2007, by Kevin R Beck In the latter part of 2008, and early in 2009, Kevin R Beck wrote in the web sites of the Mosaic Portal that there would be a number of events that would curb the government's plans and actions. Among the many predictopns made in September 2008 were that in 2009 the Australian budget would come under severe stress, growth would plummet to the negative, a major Australian financial institution will stumble in 2009, paid maternity leave will be a dream of a future Australia, a proposal to raise the Goods and Services Tax will emerge in 2009 there will be mortgage defaults, and a dramatic down turn in China's economy and demand.accurately predicted the financial devastation. |
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| What, in the absence of their created intelligence gathering, a set of vehicles, information sourcesa nd strategies, were created to link things - to link their performnace, their objectives and their activities? What if the whole of the Australian government/s were being monitored, assessed and filtered? Is this possible using modern technologies? What if not only governments, and Ministers, were the objects of the technology and utilities but also individual members ofm parlaiensta nd of the bureaucracries? What if the motivation is to compete or create barriers, to actively be a participant in the political arena? Some very senior, and quite outspoken members, of state and federal parliaments once told me if I wanted to play in politics I should join a party and run for parliament. How does one do that when the participation is rigged and the allocation of preselection is by patronage? Then having got there to be back bencher doing as one is told, adding to the corrosion of parliament and democracy. Given that someone turned their attention to this challenging task, and spent the money and the time to do all of the above, what might it look like as a piece of technology and a disparate but interlinked set of utilities and tools.? |
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The distribution is targeted to a particular audience through direct email lists. Distribution is at individual, regional, state, national or international by country and is not limited to Australia. Effective political, and citizen, activism is one where issues and interaction are under pinned by a complex a proactive and comprehensive strategy. It is a strategy that can, over time, demonstrate a capacity to influence and/or frustrate selected agendas, activities, policies and initiatives, of the power collective. This is not acknowledged because the degree of investigation, and intelligence gathering, carried out by Australian media, by public servants and corporate employees is not sophisticated or deep. I would hazard that if you are asked key managers to name stakeholdesr and/or competitors they would demonstrate a very narrow perspective and awareness. |
Services - Professional Managers and Associates Australia |
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| Experts are everywhere. Governments and corporations use them, the media, public and private entities. They inhabit universities. They inhabit disciplines. There are a number of prime experts that are driving government policy, thinking and response. Governmment economists (in Treasury and in Finance and Administration) and theorists engaged in climate change and carbon trading. So are they really expert? If we look at how many actually accurately predict outcomes, such as the financial services meltdown of 2008, and the property and finance and banking crsahes, one might doubt their expertise. Yet they never seem to go away. Is this because they are part of a club that ignores the fallacies, and oversights or incompetence, of its membership? Philip Tetlock, a psychologist with a Phd from Yale has spent much of his time at the Universities of California, Berkely and Ohio. What makes him unique in the world of academic research is that he has produced a seminal and intensive study of the world of experts, of all types, and assessed whether they are any better at their activity than a novice such as me (KEVINRBECK). Philip has published his research in "Expert Political Judgement: How good is it? How can we know? (Princeton University Press). His research translates to any society and this case I have compared it to how things work in Australia. The Australian Financial Review published an excellent synopsis (Friday 25 November, 2005, Review 3) of his research in an article written by Paul Monk, who is co-founder of Austhink Consulting and author of "Thunder from the silent zone: rethinking China". Tetlock's work can be applied to the unflinching claims of the Howard government for its Workplace Relations Reforms, justification of war in Iraq, economic policy, investment in R&D and other pet projects and its ideological pursuit of dross. Similarly it can be used to debunk economic forecasts, political analysis and a host of other "crystal ball" style pronouncements that are used to sell services, dress up stories and drive home points. The research exposes the human tendency to rely on an expert, particularly one with a job that suits and a title to go without. The history of their performance and other traits are never considered nor remembered. He says that "experts are attempting to do with confidence what they demonstrably cannot do very well at all. They make lots of money and cudos from dubious forecasts without ultimate accountability. They are well suited to being politicians particularly Ministers in Australia's governments and consultants and advisers in Australia's top tier companies and public sector enterprises. They are partisan, rarely admit error or they will give a dozen explanations as to how they got it wrong. Governments, shareholders and businesses lose billions year after year but continue to draw on their services. Monk quotes Tetlock, "we keep running into ideological impasses rooted in each side insisting on being the only judge of its own beliefs and forecasts". Does that have resonance, or sound familiar, in your workplace, communities, in political rhetoric and justification, on television and everywhere? Tetlock found that experts on their home turf made neither better-calibrated nor more discriminating forecasts than did dilettante trespassers. Monk says that Telock found that it made virtually no difference whether participants had doctorates, whether they were economists, political scientists, journalists or historians, whether they had policy experience or access to classified information, or whether they had logged many or few years of experience in their chosen line of work. There was no correlation between ideology and accuracy of judgement or precision of forecasting. The experts tended not to adjust their beliefs when the evidence came in but to rationalise or outright deny their errors. Is that familiar too? Seems our politicians have this gene. The dominant danger he concluded was hubris closed mindedness, dismissing dissonant possibilities too quickly. Resistance is fierce particularly from those with grand reputations but humble track records. Tetlock did find that exacting research using scientific and other proven techniques based on solid empirical evidence, statistical analysis and checking, using large volumes of data and input over time did impact on the accuracy and quality. This is the intrinsic objective of the design of the Mosaic Portal. With these tools, perhaps I can predict the future? |
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Homeless International
Rebecca's Community in Australia
Habitat
