EVOKE is a ten-week crash course in changing the world.
It is free to play and open to anyone, anywhere.
The goal of the social network game is to help empower people all over the world to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems.
VOKE was developed by the World Bank Institute, the learning and knowledge arm of the World Bank Group, and directed by alternate reality game master Jane McGonigal.
When American Conservative Magazine and a senior Fellow of the Ludvig von Mises Institute collaborate to produce a dynamite article that builds on and reinforces the great work of my friend, the late Professor Seymour Melman of Columbia University, a card-carrying liberal, you know it is time to sit up and read it carefully.
Below is a an excellent article describing how the political economy of the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex drains and distorts the civilian economy. Melman did the path breaking research in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s and his warnings about deindustrialization were prophetic. No less an authority that William Anders, CEO of General Dynamics, confirmed Melman's warnings in spades, when Anders explained to a group of defense contractors in the 1991 why General Dynamics was not going to convert into civilian production after the cold war ended, because “most [weapons manufacturers] don’t bring a competitive ad-vantage to non-defense business,” … and … “Frankly, sword makers don’t make good and affordable plowshares.” [see The Domestic Roots of Perpetual War, pages 58-59 & footnotes 4 and 5.]
Phi Beta Iota: Summing up, we have military spending distorting the economy, Wall Street defrauding the economy, and a mix of politicians completely out of touch with reality and pretending to be “governing.” We can't make this stuff up.
Conceived and facilitated by Douglas Rushkoff, Contact seeks to explore and realize the greater promise of social media to promote new forms of culture, commerce, collective action, and creativity.
Bringing together technologists, artists, activists, businesspeople, funders, and other stakeholders in the networked future, this summit will hatch new ideas, connect collaborators, and forge an ongoing community for innovating social media and beyond. See the new event forums.
Phi Beta Iota: Whether or not Facebook and GroupOn are paying attention, this event has the potential to turn into the seed crystal for a self-organizing World Brain and Global Game.
Secrecy News reported Monday on strange new guidance from the Air Force Materiel Command declaring that Air Force employees and even their family members could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for accessing the WikiLeaks web site. On Monday night that new guidance was abruptly withdrawn.
Lt. Col. Richard L. Johnson of Air Force Headquarters released this statement: read statement….
“[I]f a family member of an Air Force employee accesses WikiLeaks on a home computer, the family member may be subject to prosecution for espionage under U.S. Code Title 18 Section 793,” the legal guidance reads. “The Air Force member would have an obligation to safeguard the information under the general guidance to safeguard classified information.”
Phi Beta Iota: We do not make this stuff up. If SecDef wants an excuse to dismiss Air Force leadership down to the one-star level, this is it. This is utterly insane, and a clear demonstration of moral and intellectual and leadership vacuum that exists in the US Air Force.
Below are three separate contributions: Spinney on Sprey; Sprey on Boeing; and Seattle Times on Boeing.
CHUCK SPINNEY SOUNDS OFF
President Obama says that restoring America’s competitiveness is one of his top priorities. Yet under his watch, deindustrialization, financialization, and globalization continue without interruption. Many advocates of defense spending argue that spinoffs from the Pentagon's R&D and high tech engineering practices are keys to reinvigorating America’s manufacturing economy. For whatever reasons, Mr. Obama shows no intention of reining in defense spending by anything more than a cosmetic amount, even though the defense budget is higher now that at any time since the end of WWII (after removing the cumulative effect of 60 years of inflation), and despite the fact that the United States is spending about as much on defense as the rest of the world combined.
Phi Beta Iota: Below the line is an excellent overview from NIGHTWATCH. Here are the key points:
1. Muslim Brotherhood was caught by surprise, not just the US Intelligence Community.
2. This is a revolution of young people focused on fundamentals, NOT an Islamic uprising.
3. There is no overt anti-US aspect within the young, but Hezbollah and others are trying to tie the US to the dictators it supports–left unsaid is that if the US cannot turn on a DIME (pun intented) it will be skewered with its own sword.
4. Dictator Mubarak may be shopping for an exile estate in Egypt.
INSIGHT: The US Government has no one thinking strategically–certainly not the Goldman Sachs lobbyist now enjoying the corner office and pretending to be national security advisor to the President, and certainly not the Department of State, which has lost its one strategic thinker back to Princeton and has no bench. NOW IS THE TIME for President Barack Obama to decide he wants to create a Smart Nation with Whole of Government strategy and operations resting on a foundation of intelligent intelligence. See ON INTELLIGENCE: Open Letter to the President.
