The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Study Says Climate Debate Is Largely Cultural
SustainableBusiness.com News, 03/17/2011
While debate on climate change often strikes a caustic tone, the real impediment to meaningful dialogue is that the two sides often talk past each other in what amounts to a “logic schism,” says a University of Michigan researcher.
Continue reading “Climate Change as a Culture-Information Challenge”
GM Suspends Shreveport Truck Output on Japan Parts Shortage
Bloomberg March 17, 2011, 4:13 PM EDT
By Craig Trudell
March 17 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Co., the largest U.S. automaker, will suspend production at its Shreveport Assembly in Louisiana for the week of March 21 because of a parts shortage resulting from the crisis in Japan.
Phi Beta Iota: Chernobyl and Bho Pal did not have the same cascade effect as today's nuclear events (five of them) in Japan. The global supply chain vulnerability has grown to the point of severe dysfunctionality in the face of a major disruption. Rising oil prices may also change the affordability of out-sourced parts, one reason we are so interested in the Open Farm Technology initiative. Despite over a decade of recommendations to be more thoughtful about this, entire industries continue to ignore both “true cost” information and supply chain choke point information.
OCHA, UNOSAT and NetHope have been collaborating with the Volunteer Technical Community (VTC) specifically CrisisMappers, Crisis Commons, Open Street Map, and the Google Crisis Response Team over the past week.
The CrisisMappers Standby Task Force has been undertaking a mapping of social media, news reports and official situation reports from within Libya and along the borders at the request of OCHA. The Task Force is also aiding in the collection and mapping of 3W information for the response. UNOSAT is kindly hosting the Common Operational Datasets to be used during the emergency. Interaction with these groups is being coordinated by OCHA’s Information Services Section.
The public version of this map does not include personal identifiers and does not include descriptions for the reports mapped. This restriction is for security reasons. All information included on this map is derived from information that is already publicly available online (see Sources tab).
In the midst of this transition in Libya, one of the most devastating earthquakes in centuries hit northern Japan, causing one of the most destructive tsunamis in recent memory. Just hours after the earthquake, a member of Japan's OpenStreetMap community launched a dedicated Crisis Map for the mega-disaster. A few hours later, Japanese students at The Fletcher School (which is where the Ushahidi-Haiti Crisis Map was launched) got in touch with the Tokyo-based OpenStreetMap team to provide round-the-clock crisis mapping support.
Over 4,000 reports have been mapped in just 6 days. That's an astounding figure. Put differently, that's over 600 reports per day, or one report almost every two minutes for 24 hours straight over 6 days. What's important about the Japan Crisis Map is that the core operations are being run directly from Tokyo and the team there is continuing to scale it's operations. It's very telling that the Tokyo team did not require any support from the Standby Volunteer Task Force. They're doing an excellent job in the midst of the biggest disaster they've ever faced. I'm just amazed.
Tip of the Hat to Patrick Meier and Team at iRevolution.
65% of Americans Believe Afghan War Not Worth Fighting
Tuesday, 15 Mar 2011 01:41 PM
By Henry J. Reske
Almost 65 percent of Americans now believe that the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting. The number is up 20 points from results in 2009 when 44 percent did not think the war worth fighting, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Phi Beta Iota: Afghanistan, like Iraq, is an elective war founded on hundreds of lies to the public by a pair of Administrations who have substituted ideology for intelligence and profiteering for public service. The seismic change occurring today is centered on what can the public know, when. Public intelligence in the public interest is destined to kick in sooner with each passing year. One day, elective wars will be impossible.
Poverty to Dictate Future Power Play
Geoffrey T. Smith, Wall Street Journal
March 17, 2011
Those who believe that economics, rather than individuals or events, is the driving force behind history are going to have their faith sorely tested in the coming weeks.
Emotion and experience say the revival of nuclear power can not and should not continue after the events at Fukushima. Economics, and the political imperatives that it creates, say it is inevitable.
Former Minnesota governor, navy SEAL, and pro rassler Ventura has a new truTVshow investigating but not necessarily debunking conspiracy theories. This companion to the program, a sort of teaser, dissects such famed objects of unending speculation as the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations. Ventura concludes that none of those were twisted-loner crimes but rather resulted from conspiracies of varying vastness. Anent the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Ventura asserts that “our government engaged in a massive cover-up” and had “ties to the hijackers.” He ventures that “unanswered questions remain about how the towers were brought down and whether a plane really struck the Pentagon” and that the “Bush Administration either knew about the plan” or “had a hand in it.” Heady, paranoiac stuff, to be sure, but there are even more forthright charges regarding the assassination of Malcolm X, the Jonestown massacre, and the “stolen” elections of 2000, 2004, 2008, and, for that matter, 1980. Believable? Some of it. An action-packed read? You bet. –Mike Tribby
Continue reading “Worth a Look: Jesse Ventura on US Government”
If independent, democratic, governments are formed in the Middle East, they won't follow Washington's orders.
Lamis Andoni
09 Mar 2011 11:45 GMT
Al Jazeera
Barack Obama, the US president, has still not fully grasped the essence of the revolutions underway in the Arab world. He genuinely seems to believe that the people rallying for democracy in the region are making a pro-Western, if not pro-Israeli, statement.
See Also (all but two best pals of the Obama Administration):
Review: Breaking the Real Axis of Evil–How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025
