Open Minds (formerly known as March Madness for the Mind) is the acclaimed annual exhibition of cutting-edge innovation from NCIIA's (National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance) best student teams. The exhibition takes place each year during NCIIA's annual conference, and is an opportunity for student teams to demonstrate their products and companies, and receive local and national media coverage. 10-15 teams are selected to participate in this high profile event, which involves an evening exhibition for NCIIA conference attendees as well as an exhibition open to the general public and an exciting video competition.
The state of civil liberties and national security in the United States is alarming.
In the American Empire, the former are routinely crippled or lacerated in the false name of the latter. Trust in government plunges. Dangers are magnified manifold to wound constitutionally venerated freedoms. International terrorist suspects who have never attempted to kill an American are treated as existential threats to U.S sovereignty. Predator drones employed off the battlefield in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Yemen are spawning more enemies than are killed. Habeas corpus is suspended. Military commissions denuded of due process and which combine judge, jury, and prosecutor in a single branch of government are substituted for independent civilian courts. Time-honored privacy rights are trampled. Torture or first cousin enhanced interrogation techniques are endorsed. Congressman Peter King (R. N.Y.), slated for the chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee, insists that prosecutions of alleged international terrorists in civilian courts are intolerable because guilty verdicts are not guaranteed. The worst violations are dared by few, willed by more, but tolerated by virtually all.
The nation needs a new birth of freedom dedicated to the proposition that the life of a vassal or serf — even in absolute safety — is not worth living.
At present, procedural safeguards against injustice are jettisoned for the counter-constitutional dogma, “Better that many innocents suffer than that one culprit eludes punishment.” A craving for a risk-free and comfortable existence fuels the nation's war on individual freedom. Acceptance of risk, however, is the lifeblood of a free society. Every human sports DNA capable of anti-social behavior — even the saintly. The United States is headed for the same ruination as Athens for the same reasons penned by historian Edward Gibbon: “In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all — security, comfort, and freedom. When…the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.”
Contrary to longstanding orthodoxies, civil liberties and national security are more aligned than opposed. Scrupulous respect for freedom works hand-in-glove with national security by evoking unbegrudging loyalty among citizens eager to risk that last full measure of devotion to foil opponents and to maintain government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Patriotic soldiers are superior to mercenaries. Hessians were no match for the Minutemen in the American Revolutionary War. A military that fights more for love of country than fear or money will triumph. And love of country is elicited by the government's securing unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
President Barack Obama's Afghanistan war plans took two major hits this week: First, his longtime adviser and chief diplomat in the region, Richard Holbrooke, passed away unexpectedly. Now, two classified intelligence reports, one each on Afghanistan and Pakistan and intended for congressional committees, had their contents leaked to The New York Times and their findings are not good.
September 2010
Authors: Todd Gabe, Jaison R. Abel, Adrienne Ross, and Kevin Stolarick
This study identifies clusters of U.S. and Canadian metropolitan areas with similar knowledge traits. These groups—ranging from Making Regions, characterized by knowledge about manufacturing, to Thinking Regions, noted for knowledge about the arts, humanities, information technology, and commerce—can be used by analysts and policymakers for the purposes of regional benchmarking or comparing the types of programs and infrastructure available to support closely related economic activities. In addition these knowledge-based clusters help explain the types of regions that have levels of economic development that exceed, or fall short of, other places with similar amounts of college attainment. Regression results show that Engineering, Enterprising, and Building Regions are associated with higher levels of productivity and earnings per capita, while Teaching, Understanding, Working, and Comforting Regions have lower levels of economic development.
Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega’s government accepts bribes from drug traffickers, harbors terrorists and attempts to endear itself to Iran, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables.
By Samuel Rubenfeld
U.S. diplomats accused Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government of taking bribes from drug traffickers in exchange for freeing suspects, in cables released by Wikileaks.
The bribes formed a kind of “judicial ‘campaign finance’ machine” in return for not-guilty verdicts, according to a May 5, 2006, cable from the U.S. Embassy in Manangua, Nicaragua. It says the ruling Sandinista party regularly accepted cash from drug traffickers, “usually in return for ordering Sandinista judges to allow traffickers caught by the police and military to go free.” The scheme, the cable said, was run by the director of the state security service and overseen by Supreme Court judges, including Rafael Solis and Roger Camillo Arguello.
Phi Beta Iota: What US diplomats don't get is that CIA lies to them all the time, and very often is also paying the same people while sanctioning the drug trans-shipments. Similarly, DEA and the FBI cut deals. The single best known case with respect to Nicaragua and the CIA destroying an entire black population in the USA dealt with Contra leader Blandon, a strategic-level (massive) drug exporter. This is told inReview: Dark Alliance–The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Hark back to Panama and General Noriega, who regularly received warm assurances (as well as serious cash payments) from CIA, in some cases from Bill Casey personally, to the effect that as long as he allowed CIA support for the Contras out of Panama, all drug-related matters were “off the table.” It was an ambitious attorney general in Florida that actually undid that deal. What CIA has done in our name–what the Pentagon and Special Forces have done in our name–is reprehensible. Tim Wiener has it right in Review: Legacy of Ashes–The History of the CIA and so do General Smedley Butler, USMC (Ret) in Review: War is a Racket–The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier and James Carroll in Review: House of War. ENOUGH!
“If the expansion of the Human Terrain System gains traction at TRADOC it could kill any efforts to develop a cultural expertise construct by the Civil Affairs community, specifically the Civil Affairs Proponent at USA JFK SWCS. Everybody is looking to get as much money as they can for their organizations as the Defense budget begins to get squeezed. Naturally there could be a potential dog fight between TRADOC and any other Army organization making claims for HTS-like capability. Once something becomes institutionalized in the military it is difficult to change the new status quo.”
Phi Beta Iota: The US Army Civil Affairs Brigade got off to a very good start under Col Ferd Irizzarry, USA, and then he got sent to Afghanistan to punch his pre-flag combat operations ticket and it took a nose dive. HRT is the most badly managed–unethically managed–program in the DoD Human Intelligence inventory. While recognizing that the author above is on a vendetta against HRT, the bottom-line is that he is right, HRT is wrong, and TRADOC does not know the difference.
(actually, to steal a phrase from Alan and Bill, an advance. Retreat is too negative).
There's a tremendous opportunity to create events where people connect. Unfortunately, it's also easy to turn these events into school-like conferences, not the emotional connections that are desired.
You can create an advance with a team that knows one another from work, or even more profoundly, with a bunch of independent thinkers who come together to energize, inspire and connect.
I've been to a bunch and here's what I've learned, in no particular order:
Must be off site, with no access to electronic interruption
Should be intense. Save the rest and relaxation for afterwards
Create a dossier on each attendee in advance, with a photo and a non-humble CV of who they are and what they do and what their goals are
Never (never) have people go around a circle and say their name and what they do and their favorite kind of vegetable or whatever. The problem? People spend the whole time trying to think of what to say, not listening to those in front of them (I once had to witness 600 people do this!!)
Instead, a week ahead of time, give each person an assignment for a presentation at the event. It might be the answer to a question like, “what are you working on,” or “what's bothering you,” or “what can you teach us.” Each person gets 300 seconds, that's it.
Have 11 people present their five minutes in an hour. Never do more than an hour in a row. The attendees now have a hook, something to talk to each presenter about in the hallway or the men's room. “I disagree with what you said this morning…”
Organize roundtable conversations, with no more than 20 people at a time (so if you have more attendees than this, break into groups.) Launch a firestarter, a five minute statement, then have at it. Everyone speaks up, conversations scale and ebb and flow.
Solve problems. Get into small groups and have the groups build something, analyze something, create something totally irrelevant to what the organization does. The purpose is to put people in close proximity with just enough pressure to allow them to drop their shields.
Do skits.
Have a moderator who is brave enough and smart enough to call on people, cut people off, connect people and provoke them in a positive way.
Invite a poker instructor or a horseshoe expert in to give a lesson and then follow it with a competition.
Challenge attendees to describe a favorite film scene to you before the event. Pick a few and show them, then discuss.
Don't serve boring food.
Use nametags at all times. Write the person's first name REALLY big.
Use placecards at each meal, rotating where people sit. Crowd the tables really tightly (12 at a table for 10) and serve buffet style to avoid lots of staffers in the room. Make it easy for people to leave boring tables and organically sit together at empty ones.
Do something really interesting after 10 pm.
Serve delicious food, weird food, vegan food, funky food. Just because you can.
Don't worry about being productive. Worry about being busy.
Consider a tug of war or checkers tournament.
Create an online site so attendees can check in after the event, swap email addresses or post promised links.
Take a ton of pictures. Post them as the advance progresses.
Here's the goal: new friends. Here's the output: a new and better to-do list.
Bruce Fein
