On Wednesday, The US Department of Homeland Security seized a payment processing account belonging to Mt. Gox, the largest international Bitcoin trader over claims the monetary exchange service had falsified financial documents, as reported at Ars Technica.

Bitcoin threatens both the financial elite’s monopoly over the economy and the online web of payment systems which have been used as a tool to crack down on free speech on the Internet, Amir Taaki, a bitcoin software developer, told RT.com in this interview.

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Lynnea Bylund is managing director of Gandhi Legacy Tours, Director of Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute, founder of Catalyst House and has nearly three decades of experience in administration, marketing and business development. She was a nationally recognized spokeswoman for the emerging alternative video and information delivery industries. She has a degree in holistic health-nutrition from the legendary and controversial health educator and activist Dr. Kurt Donsbach, she is the founder of two not-for-profit small business-based wireless trade associations and has lobbied on Capitol Hill and at the FCC where she has spoken out strongly against the cable TV monopoly, illegal spectrum warehousing and ill-conceived congressional schemes to auction our nation’s precious airwaves to the highest bidder.

Ms. Bylund is a founder and former CEO of a Washington DC telecommunications consulting and management company with holdings in several operating and developmental wireless communications systems and companies. In 1995 Lynnea became the first female in the world to be awarded a Broadband PCS operating permit – she was one of only 18 winners, along with Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon in the biggest cash auction in world history, raising a whopping $7.7 billion. Lynnea also spear-headed the successful effort to launch the first cable TV network in the South Pacific islands.
… > Follow Lynnea on:  +LynneaBylund – Twitter – LinkedIn – FaceBook – Pinterest & YouTube

Our friend and associate, M.K. Gandhi grandson Arun Gandhi, may seem odd as a  runway model, but he recently strutted the runway wearing a kilt and ‘Peace Tartan’ for charity.

Arun was born in the apartheid South Africa. During his early teen years he lived with his Grandfather in India where he received one-on-one daily instruction from ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi on understanding violence, its causes and nature and the opposite living philosophy of nonviolence. 

Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Arun is a true social activist who transverses the planet regularly, lecturing on nonviolence and introduces himself as a “Peace Farmer.”  

Arun founded and stewards the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute, which champions against child labor and poverty and rescues Indian children from human traffickers. (disclosure: I am am honored to be a Board member of that organization)

Source: NY Times India Ink Blog – 

On Monday, Mr. Gandhi donned a World Peace tartan kilt designed by Victor Spence, a Scotsman who has created a line of tartan clothes and accessories to promote world peace at the “From Scotland With Love” fashion show at Stage 48 on the West Side. The annual charity event was started 11 years ago by the actor Sir Sean Connery and the Scottish businessman Geoffrey Scott Carroll to promote Scottish culture in the United States. This year’s theme, “The Scottish Lion Meets the Asian Dragon,” included a mix of Asian and Scottish clothing from designers around the world. Proceeds will benefit the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit group that helps injured American soldiers when they return home from war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Gandhi was joined on the runway by the host of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Josh Elliott, and Lt. Colonel Martha McSally, who is the first female fighter pilot in history, among others.

He spoke with India Ink before the show over tea at the Pierre Hotel, just after the fitting of his kilt, about strutting down the catwalk, lessons his famous grandfather taught him and how anyone today can join the movement for nonviolence and world peace.

(Read more…)

Google hits the books …

Veteran documentarian Ben Lewis travels the world speaking to futurists like Wired Magazine co-founder Kevin Kelly and scholars such as Harvard University cultural historian Robert Darnton for his mind-bending film Google and the World Brain, a fascinating look at the Google Books Project and its global implications.

From TechCrunch –

“Google And The World Brain” is a new documentary about Google’s plan to scan all of the world’s books, which triggered an ongoing lawsuit being heard today. The hair-raising film sees Google import millions of copyrighted works, get sued, lose, but almost get a literature monopoly in the process. It’s scary, informative, and worth watching if you recognize its biased portrayal of Google as evil.

The film is getting wider release as Google continues to fight the Author’s Guild in court today. The organization is demanding $3 billion in damages from Google for scanning and reproducing copyrighted books. Google is asking the court to prevent the group from filing a class-action suit.

(Read more…)