The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Open Access, Open Data are rocking forward….
Tip of the Hat to Frank van Harmelen at Twitter for the leads.
The Dutch Approach to Research Data Infrastructure
See Also:
2009 Open Government Data Netherlands Update
2009 Open Data and the Future of Funded Research
2011 Open Research Data Day 18th May
2011 Open data: an international comparison of strategies
2011 [PDF] A Global Perspective on Open Access Amsterdam, January 20, 2011 …
NukeFree.org
From Bonnie, Jackson & Graham: “We May Be on the Brink….”
We ask you to help make this happen.
The atomic industry desperately needs $36 billion in federal loan guarantees.
If we stop them, new reactor construction in this country will be severely restricted, if not ended altogether.
As the editor's blog currently posted at NukeFree.org explains:
( http://nukefree.org/editorsblog/americas-new-nuke-showdown-starts-now )
Japan and Germany have turned away from atomic power.
The first Congressional vote on these guarantees, as embedded in the 2012 federal budget, could happen in an Appropriations subcommittee as early as June 2.
We ask that you contact the White House and your Senators and US Representatives as often and forcefully as you can. You can do that on your own, or through the NIRS Action Alert linked through NukeFree.org:
( http://nukefree.org/loan-guarantee-battle-heating-take-action ).
Tell them it's time we scrap the failed atomic power experiment, and embrace the green-powered future we need to survive.
This is a battle that we can win. Defeating these handouts will have a HUGE impact.
Please join us. This definitive turn away from atomic power CAN happen.
No Nukes!
Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and Graham Nash
Dear friends,
I’m excited to let you know about an upcoming free teleseminar by colleagues of mine, Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow. This couple is well known for their work in translating the various evolutionary sciences into practical wisdom for meeting the challenges of everyday life.
The focus of their hour-long audio seminar will be, as they summarize it: “Why the Stone-Age instincts we’ve all inherited can so often challenge us in our modern-day settings—and how new discoveries in the evolutionary and human sciences offer perspectives that are both practical and profound.”
Michael and Connie were the ones who launched me into my own evolutionary perspective, which expanded and deepened into the vision in my book REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM.
I'm beginning to see an emerging whole-life curriculum to bring actionable evolutionary understandings into virtually every aspect of life, just as feminist and ecological understandings have spread into every niche. The first rough outline of such an “evolutionizing” curriculum might look something like this:
* Evolutionize yourself and your relationships:
Connie and Michael's class
* Evolutionize your groups, organizations and communities:
Peggy Holman's ENGAGING EMERGENCE
* Evolutionize your society and social systems:
Tom Atlee's REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
Robert Wright's NON-ZERO
John Stewart's EVOLUTION'S ARROW
Paul Ehrlich and Robert Ornstein's NEW WORLD, NEW MIND
* Evolutionize your worldview
Elisabet Sahtouris' EARTHDANCE
Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme's THE UNIVERSE STORY
Michael Dowd's THANK GOD FOR EVOLUTION
David Sloan Wilson's EVOLUTION FOR EVERYONE
There are many other dimensions that could be included in such a curriculum — evolutionizing technology, education, heatlh care, you name it — and dozens of other really fine books and other resources that could be used — but the general idea in this outline intrigues me and, I hope, others who might act on it.
I invite you get a good whiff of how this perspective could play out in your own life. Check out Connie and Michael's free evening teleclass this Wednesday (May 18th) — “Evolutionize Your Life: The Science of How to Decode Human Behavior, Eliminate Self-Judgment, and Create a Big-Hearted Life of Purpose and Joyful Integrity”. You can read more about it and register at http://bit.ly/EvolutionizeLifeClass .
Enjoy!
Coheartedly,
Tom
A CLOSE LOOK AT THE THOMAS DRAKE CASE
An insightful account of the pending prosecution under the Espionage Act of former National Security Agency official Thomas A. Drake appears this week in The New Yorker. Author Jane Mayer delves deeply into the origins of the case stemming from Drake's critical view of NSA management and surveillance practices. She explores the unfolding consequences of the case and its larger significance.
Among the article's many striking observations on the Drake case is the concluding quote from Mark Klein, a former AT&T employee who exposed warrantless surveillance activity by the Bush Administration. “I think it’s outrageous,” he says. “The Bush people have been let off. The telecom companies got immunity. The only people Obama has prosecuted are the whistle-blowers.”
See “The Secret Sharer” by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, May 23, 2011.
Photo Caption: Drake, a former senior executive at the National Security Agency, faces some of the gravest charges that can be brought against an American citizen. Photograph by Martin Schoeller.
The Tehran Peace Conference started on 14 May and ended today, 15 May, (63rd Anniversary of Palestine's Nakbah ) with me chairing the 7:30 am panel entitled, “Terrorism: Concepts and Contexts.” Members of the Clergy from Brazil, Greece, and the U.S. made presentations as well as international lawyers, academicians, and peace activists from Australia, Canada, Ecuador, Venezuela, Spain, Ghana, and Bolivia. My assignment is to write up my report of each of the presentations and submit the recommendations from the panel to the Conference Secretariat.
On Day One of the Opening Plenary with journalist Jim Lobe seated on my right and Rabbis Weiss and Rosenberg sitting in front of me, I was surprised when my name was called to make a presentation at the opening plenary of the Tehran Peace Tribune. I immediately set about writing my remarks and here is what I said:
Cynthia McKinney
International Conference on Global Alliance Against Terrorism for a Just Peace
Tehran, Iran
15 May 2011
How wonderful to be at a Conference where the word “love” is used; we are here because we love humankind. We are here from all corners of the earth; we are against terrorism; we want peace.
However, we must clarify peace. What kind of peace do we want?
President John F. Kennedy answered his question by saying: “. . . not a Pax Americana” imposed on the world by weapons of war. He went on to say that the kind of peace we want is the kind of peace that makes life worth living–peace for all men and women for all time.
No Justice, No Peace. No Truth, No Justice!
But, today, U.S. policy is rooted in lies, injustice, and war. And at home, the people of the U.S. suffer. Racism is acute, despite and maybe because of President Obama; hatred is rampant with hatred of Muslims, incarceration of Palestinians, targeting of immigrants, the lynchings of Blacks, disappearances of Latinos, and the pauperization of the people. People inside the U.S. are under attack in the realm of policy:
Continue reading “Reference: Cynthia McKinney Speaks in Tehran”
Phi Beta Iota: Kudos to Christopher B. Bedford for his many contributions, this one in particular is most timely now as a global movement for redirecting the manner in which land (and water) are “owned.” As with our native forebearers, land can no longer be owned by individuals–community land trusts are the essential way forward. This is the practice in many countries. This 37 minute DVD is revolutionary.
See Also:
Phi Beta Iota: We reproduce the excerpt in order to add links to all of the books and individuals mentioned. Tip of the Hat to Reality Sandwich for this offering, and to Evolver Editions (North Atlantic/Random House) for their new Manifesto series in support of human consciousness and planetary synthesis.
Noosphere: The Next Stage in the Evolution of Human Consciousness, A Testimony
To mark the recent passing of José Argüelles, we offer an excerpt from his upcoming book Manifesto for the Noosphere: The Next Stage in the Evolution of Human Consciousness, available from Evolver Editions/North Atlantic Books in October 2011.
EXCERPT:
We must enlarge our approach to encompass the formation taking place before our eyes … of a particular biological entity such as has never existed on earth-the growth, outside and above the biosphere, of an added planetary layer, an envelope of thinking substance, to which, for the sake of convenience and symmetry, I have given the name of the Noosphere. –Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man
Manifesto for the Noosphere is the result of forty years of study, contemplation, investigation, and synthesis. While the noosphere may be beyond the grasp of conventional science, it is a deep and pervasive intuition that has gripped the minds of scientists, philosophers, poets, and artists since the concept first emerged in 1926. It is an evolutionary concept posited by studies in both biogeochemistry and paleontology. It is a whole-systems paradigm that melds prophecy and analysis of current world trends. It is a perception that the transformation of the biosphere is inevitably leading to a new geological epoch and evolutionary cycle, and it is due to the impact of human thought on the environment that this new era — the Noosphere — is dawning.
