The Bioneers Conference is a leading-edge forum presenting breakthrough solutions for people and planet. Join us on October 14-16, 2011 for the annual conference.
Michel Bauwens: Trending Now, Ethical Economics
Advanced Cyber/IO, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Policies
Ethical Economy is trending now.
Core Concept: “That a generalized, technology-enhanced capacity for manifold cooperation has become the main productive force means that there is no longer any contradiction between ethics and economics. On the contrary, the ethical ability to open up to and share with others has become the most fundamental quality of a successful economic agent.”
Socio-Political Implications: This also means that the old models for institutionalizing ethics and economics, representative democracy and private property are becoming obsolete. Politics is no longer a separate practice, best handled by expert politicians. On the contrary the basic political practice of constructing a common social world, an ethical surplus has become a fundamental aspect of economic production. A brand community is like a social movement, open source is a political program, and a self-managed slum or a cooperative micro-credit system is also a project for a different political order.
Winslow Wheeler: Leon Panetta Misleads Public
10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Secretary of Defense Panetta used an invitation to the National War College as an opportunity to lobby against cutting the defense budget more than the $350 billion he has already agreed to. In the absence of any informed or probing questions, Panetta's extreme rhetoric has also oozed into new Washington DC hysteria resulting from reports about a new round of Pentagon budget cuts. Even the most severe version of the cuts being bandied about would leave DOD quite flush with money in historic terms.
These are the themes in a new piece, “Elitist Tripe on Defense Spending,” at AOL Defense.
The invitation came to me from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's public affairs office to attend a “conversation” with Panetta and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton at the prestigious National Defense University in Washington. Although I knew it wasn't me they wanted to talk to, I sat in the audience to hear Panetta and Clinton in action, especially on the subject of my prime interest: the defense budget.
Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: Leon Panetta Misleads Public”
John Robb: OpenBTS Village Base Station
Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Mobile
Village Base Station project. A 20watt, OpenBTS based, voice and low-bandwidth node.
Building Your Own GSM Network: A Demonstration of the Village Base Station Project
Posted by AnneryanHeatwole on Jul 15, 2011
MoblleActive.org recently had the opportunity to test an off-the-grid GSM base station. Kurtis Heimerl presented The Village Base Station (VBTS), (link is a PDF) a low-power means of providing mobile network service without grid power or network infrastructure.
Read full article (other photos).
Phi Beta Iota: As best we can tell, OpenBTS is central–vital–to the achievement of Open Society as well as Open Government, and is the only way that we can reasonably scale free to very low cost Internet access to the five billion poor.
See Also:
Chuck Spinney: Fukushima Aftermath
03 Economy, 05 Energy, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency
A sobering Japanese bookend to the stunning Sprey-Cockburn report which documented Fukushima's increased infant death rates in some cities in the United States (distributed on 16 Aug). Yet another nail in the claim that we can evolve a safe carbon-free economy in the near term. Given the low power density of green technologies, like wind and solar, going carbon-free or moving away from fire — i.e., the invention that launched millions of years human cultural evolution — in the next 30-100 years necessarily involves a huge expansion in nuclear power, because is the only high power-density, non-carbon solution available over the foreseeable future).
Chuck Spinney
The Blaster
Nice
Published on Thursday, August 18, 2011 by Al Jazeera
Fukushima Radiation Alarms Doctors
Japanese doctors warn of public health problems caused by Fukushima radiation.
by Dahr Jamail
Scientists and doctors are calling for a new national policy in Japan that mandates the testing of food, soil, water, and the air for radioactivity still being emitted from Fukushima's heavily damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant.
“How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?” asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives.
Read more….
Phi Beta Iota: We do not agree with Brother Spinney's conclusion. Infinite free energy is available now, particularly in countries such as Chile where a wide variety of solar, geo-thermal, and oceanic forms can be deployed. We have lacked both political will and scientific imagination, as well as the essential focus on distributed self-sufficiency. The “central” generation paradigm is corrupt and will not scale.
Chuck Spinney: NATO and Libya – What Next?
04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace IntelligenceThe interplay of chance with necessity means that no one can predict the future evolutionary pathway in Libya or the US role in Libya, but Ted Galen Carpenter of the libertarian CATO Inst. provides a thoughtful lens for thinking about potential ramifications of NATO's precipitate intervention in Libya.
Key issues discussed:
- De facto or de jure partition vs a unification that sows the seeds of future conflict?
- How to replenish empty Libyan treasury and repair infrastructure (including restoring oil production capability)?
- Will US get sucked into another NATO stabilization, peacekeeping, nation-building mission?
CS
NATO’s New Problem: Post-Qaddafi Libya?
Ted Galen Carpenter, The National Interest, August 18, 2011
After weeks of very little movement either militarily or diplomatically in Libya, there are apparent developments on both fronts in recent days. Rebel forces, aided by NATO’s air support, finally appear to be advancing into western Libya and cutting off supply lines to Tripoli, the long-time stronghold of support for Muammar Qaddafi. And reports are swirling about secret negotiations that might provide a peaceful exit from the country for the aging dictator.
Those developments underscore that U.S. and NATO officials urgently need to consider what strategy they intend to pursue if Qaddafi’s more-than-four-decade hold on power finally comes to an end. That is more crucial for the leaders of the European members of the alliance, since Libya is located on Europe’s Mediterranean flank, but because the Obama administration unwisely chose to involve the United States in Libya’s internecine conflict by launching air strikes, it has become a pertinent issue for Washington as well.
The outlook for a post-Qaddafi Libya is midpoint between sobering and depressing. It is possible that the warring parties will accept a de facto division of the country between the eastern and western tribes, although a formal agreement to that effect is unlikely. Even an informal partition would more accurately reflect the demographics, politics, and history of that territory than an insistence on keeping Libya intact.
Phi Beta Iota: A serious world power would heed the wisdom of Ambassador Mark Palmer, and have Undersecretaries for Peace at both foreign affairs and defense, with two strategies: one for dictators that agree to a five year non-violent exit strategy, and another for those that do not. What is happening in the Middle East today is a direct representation of the fact that there are no serious world powers in being today.
Cynthia McKinney: Libya – Cultural Intelligence Report
04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, Cultural Intelligence
Libya: Psy-Ops and War Games, A continuing series of live reports
August 18, 2011 by POPEYE
Filed under Featured Stories, Libya
(Susan Lindauer) Here’s breaking News from a confidential source inside Tripoli. And it’s nothing like what CNN is broadcasting… Pay attention to live reports from Zawia.
First, today the power went out in all of Tripoli today. As a gift to the Muslim community for their 17th day of Ramadan, NATO bombed a power plant and six high voltage sub stations. Apparently they believed the Libyans would have no ability to repair this, and so, in their “humanitarian effort to protect civilians,” they tried to cut power to 2 million innocent people during the holy month of Ramadan and the hottest month of the year in this desert country. Well, NATO sorely underestimated these resilient people. They had the power back in 6 hours! You know, there is NO fighting in Tripoli, never has been, no fighting on the outskirts never has been. So, NATO has been continually bombing a peaceful city, destroying the infrastructure, killing and constantly terrorizing civilians.
Second, the media outside is trying to win this war by completely flipping the truth upside down. Ghadafi is stronger than ever. Today, people gathered in two areas of Tripoli where people said NATO was planning on bombing. Hundreds of thousands of people waving green flags, chanted (Allah, Muammar, Libya, Wah bes) (God and Muammar makes Libya complete). Dancing and daring NATO to come and hit them.
These people are so pissed at NATO that they would all lay down their lives before they let “The NATO” win as they say. A young woman from the Foreign Minister’s office named Sana spoke with us tonight. She said the people are so used to NATO now that they are beginning to name their worthless pets after NATO.
Sana said that the Western news media is showing old pictures of Zawia in an attempt to show bunches of rebels there. So a few people went and waved a green flag at the over pass that the media was showing on the news. And guess what? The group was never on camera, because it was not a live shot.
She also told us that the Libyans are now in complete solidarity behind the legitimate government and Ghadafi. She said all the Libyan people have offered to have Ghadafi come and sleep at their homes, he should switch homes every night, all Libyans are prepared to die for Ghadafi. She said, Ghadafi should run for president in the US, because the US is so divided and people are so disgusted with their government there. The unity of Libya behind Ghadafi is unmatched for any leader world wide, she thinks the American people need someone to unite them, not to divide them.
Spoke with the Electronic army, they say there are small pockets of rebels they liken to gangs in Misurata and the Libyan army is the middle of the city cleaning them out. Most of them are running away.
Dr Moussa Ibrahim stated yesterday that Oil Companies of the aggressor nations are trying frantically to open avenues of communication with any and every minister trying to garner favor and regain their once lucrative contracts. You won’t see that in the Western news, even though this release was given to all the journalists here in Tripoli.
That is all for now.
Phi Beta Iota: NATO attacks against Tripoli are an atrocity–commanders and pilots should be held accountable for obeying blatantly illegal orders.
