Category: Civil Society

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Citizen Satellites (1 kilogram)

04 Education, Academia, Civil Society, Earth Intelligence, Government, Military, Technologies
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Citizen Satellites

Tiny, standardized spacecraft are making orbital experiments affordable to even the smallest research groups

By Alex Soojung-Kim Pang and Bob Twiggs | February 9, 2011 (latest issue)

Ever since Sputnik kicked off the age of space satellites more than fifty years ago, big institutions have dominated the skies. Almost all the many thousands of satellites that have taken their place in Earth orbit were the result of huge projects funded by governments and corporations. For decades each generation of satellites has been more complicated and expensive than its predecessor, taken longer to design, and required an infrastructure of expensive launch facilities, global monitoring stations, mission specialists and research centers.

In recent years, however, improvements in electronics, solar power and other technologies have made it possible to shrink satellites dramatically. A new type of satellite, called CubeSat, drastically simplifies and standardizes the design of small spacecraft and brings costs down to less than $100,000 to develop, launch and operate a single satellite—a tiny fraction of the typical mission budget of NASA or the European Space Agency.
(full article requires subscription)
Comment: the article mentions the idea of “printing” low-cost materials as well.

Related:
+ Crowdfunding for a Satellite to Widen Net Access to Help Benefactors to Help Themselves

+ Brooklyn Space Program (weather balloon + iPhone + camera recording most of the flight into space and back)

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America’s Core Values: We the People vs. Them Crooks

11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call

Chuck Colson

America's Core Values

Beyond A House Divided

By Chuck Colson|Christian Post Guest Columnist

In his new book, Beyond a House Divided: The Moral Consensus Ignored by Washington, Wall Street, and the Media, Carl Anderson examines a mountain of polling statistics and has some surprising news. Anderson writes, “In dealing with many high profile issues, we have found consensus where conventional wisdom would have us believe it is most unlikely: on the issues of religion in public life, abortion, marriage, and the role of government, among others.”

Anderson writes that Americans, by a margin of nearly two to one, share a common moral compass and are, as a result, at odds not with each other, but rather with governmental, media, and financial institutions. We care much more about right and wrong than we do about right and left.

. . . . . . .

While documents like the Manhattan Declaration are regularly smeared as the work of partisans and extremists, quite the opposite is true. Carl Anderson’s book makes the clear case that if you believe in restricting abortion, in traditional marriage, and in other traditional values you are, whether Republican, Democrat or Independent, part of the great American consensus.

It reminds me of what Sociologist Peter Berger used to say: If India is the most religious nation in the world, and Sweden the most irreligious, America is a nation of Indians governed by Swedes. We, in fact, are in the mainstream. It's the elite who are out of step. So if we focus our energies on working together, we can bring about the great civic and national renewal so many of us seek.

Read full essay….

Phi Beta Iota: Emphasis added.  This is not news to the informed public.  It has long been known that the 80-20 rule applies–that most agree on 80% and disagree on 20%.  Focusing the public “debate” on the 20% is a common means of creating wedge issues that portray a difference between Republicans and Democrats that is cosmetic at best.  2012 is a potential time of Awakening and Emergence.

See Also:

Reference: Citizens Fiddle, Obama Dances

Reference: Electoral Reform–1 Page 9 Points 2.2

Reference: Empire of Lies & Secrecy

Reference: On the Issues from Abortion to War & Peace

Review: Griftopia–Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

Review: The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown–Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash

Search: political parties infographic

Strong Signals: Truth or Tyrannicide + RECAP

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: Egypt Dictator-Domino Falling?

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Peace Intelligence

Egypt: A spokesman for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood announced that the group is making five urgent demands which the Egyptian government should comply with in order to avert several crises, according to a 19 January posting on the Muslim Brotherhood website.

Muhammad Mursi said the group wants Cairo to revoke the state of emergency, dissolve the People's Assembly and hold free and fair elections, amend the constitutional articles that led to vote rigging in Egypt's last elections, hold presidential elections according to those amendments, and fire the current government and form a national unity government responsive to the Egyptian people's demands.

Comment: The Brothers are belatedly trying to take advantage of the Tunisian uprising. Mubarak could die at any time, but as long as he possesses his faculties he will not fall for lies by his personal security chief, as did Tunisia's Ben Ali, and will not be intimidated by the Brotherhood.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: Dictators will fall before faux democracies because they are on the thinnest ice in the face of angry connected young people with legitimate grievances.  The PowerShift that Alvin and Heidi Toffler anticipated in the 19990's has begun to occur.  The other threat to civilization can be found in fundamentalists and relativists–those who treat faith as a cult or faith as a convenience.  It is a mistake to regard the Muslim Brotherhood as threatening–they are more of an indications & warning.  When  the right precipitant comes along, Egypt will fall, and the other 43 dictators will follow in relatively quick (ten years) time.  Now is when US covert action could shine, but first the White House and Congress and the military-industrial complex must be weaned of their love of dictators.  This is also a time when holistic all-source analysis could shine, helping guide a 180 degree turn away from dictators and toward democracy in time for the 2012 “Awakening.”

See Also:

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: Egypt Dictator-Domino Falling?”

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DELIBERATION: Jim Turner Dissects Paul Krugman

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence

Jim Turner, #2 to Ralph Nader in the day, is co-author of VOICE OF THE PEOPLE–The Transpartisan Imperative in American Life.  This is his contribution to the current dialog.

My view is that Krugman's article —

America is divided by two very different views of government
Saturday, January 15, 2011

— as usual for him, is a clear and articulate presentation of the Order Left position.  Like his counterparts on the Order Right, it is long on proscription and short on empathy—lots of shoulds, theys, and inevitables, some but few mights, wes, and possibilities.  In this particular instance Order Left Krugman attacks his equally narrow Order Right adversaries over taxes and health as examples of a general indictment of political failure and takes no notice of the free right or the free left.

I admire Krugman as an exponent of his confined view and, when I accept his premises, often agree with him.  Nonetheless, he leaves out or minimizes, in this and other columns the fact that one of the biggest divides we face as a nation is the divide between a relatively united country and a significantly unrepresentative politics.

When I originally read this Column I picked out three points I thought were key to Krugman’s inability to successfully address the situation facing all Americans which he seems to want to do.

Continue reading “DELIBERATION: Jim Turner Dissects Paul Krugman”

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: China Moves In on North Korea

02 China, 02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Strategy

North Korea-China: North Korea will develop the islet of Hwanggumpyong on the Yalu River Delta linking Sinuiju with the Chinese city of Dandong as a special economic zone in cooperation with Chinese businessmen, Chosun Ilbo reported 18 January. North Korean Cabinet already approved a law on the development that will be announced in March or April.

Comment: This is another example of Chinese business tutelage for North Korea. All other special economic zones have either failed for lack of investors or been troubled by North Korean government meddling. In the last category are the Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast and the Kaesong joint industrial park, north of Panmunjom.

One would surmise that a joint venture with the Chinese would be relieved of the unpredictability of North Korean leadership whims, which have undermined the profitability of the joint ventures with the South Koreans. More importantly, every Chinese economic lifeline tossed into the North Korean economic morass is a burden on China and a restraint on North Korea.

The Chinese are moving slowly, but steadily based on their understanding of the magnitude of North Korean economic mismanagement. Thus far, they appear to be helping North Korean enterprises that have prospects of profitability, such as textiles, and Chinese enterprises that benefit from North Korean geography, such as ports and infrastructure on the Sea of Japan.

North Korea never has been self-reliant and its condition of dependency on the global economy has steadily deepened under Kim Chong-il. The Chinese appear determined to salvage what they can and rebuild the rest of North Korea in a different, more sustainable direction, slowly, by converting some North Korean activities into extensions of China's economy.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: The Chinese are out-thinking and out-maneuvering the USA on all fronts, and in a fascinating twist, may be egging the USA on to the same military-industrial death march that led to the end of the Soviet Union.  The above development should be studied in relation to WASHINGTON RULES: US-Korea-China-NK NAFTA.  In both instances, leaders are making strategic moves for reasons they consider valid, but that have nothing to do with the well-being of their respective publics.

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: Tunesia & USA Politics

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

Phi Beta Iota: If one reads the Winner Take All Politics book review by Retired Reader first, and then the analytic comments here, one is struck by the raw nearly identical nature of the corrupt politicians and the dysfunctional political system.  Third World America, indeed.

Tunisia: Politics. The Speaker of the Parliament is the new temporary President of Tunisia, in accord with the constitutional succession and as announced by Prime Minister Ghannouchi two days ago.

Local television broadcast on 17 January the formation of the new government — the national unity government. The cabinet includes the defense, finance and foreign ministers when Ben Ali was president. Three leaders of opposition parties are included in the cabinet for the first time.

Prime Minister Ghannouchi created three high-level panels, for political reform, to investigate the recent violence and to investigate reform. He also ordered political prisoners released.

Security

Some gun shots were fired on the 17th but the worst of the fighting occurred over the weekend when Army soldiers and armed citizen groups fought gun battles with Presidential guards from the Ben Ali regime.

The government announced that 78 people died in the past week of violence.

About 1,000 protesters who assembled near the Interior Ministry called for the ruling party to relinquish power. News services reported the protesters chanted: “Out with the RCD!” and “Out with the Party of the Dictatorship!”

Comment: The government appears to be in transition from a strong presidency to a government led by parliament. The Prime Minister, not the temporary president, is leading the political metamorphosis. The announcement of a unit government has quieted conditions in Tunis, by most accounts, but its adequacy and genuineness are questionable.

The uprising was not fundamentally political and not a challenge to authority, until the government made it such. The demonstrations primarily were about economic conditions – the price and availability of food, according to contacts in Tunis, and unemployment, according to the international press. As yet the new government has made no statements about its plan to tackle either.

In other words, the mismatch between public grievances and government remedies portends more unrest that may yet usher in a revolution – a change of government system not just a change in the head of government. At this point no revolution has occurred. The leaders of the pre-existing regime are maintaining themselves in office and that looks like political deception. [Emphasis Added.]

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: Tunesia & USA Politics”

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