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.
If you're from Tyler, your state Rep. Leo Berman gave the OK for a rally last Saturday at the Capitol to promote a November vote on whether Texas should secede from the United States.
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Phi Beta Iota: Texas is not alone. The most likely states to secede are Vermont and Hawaii, followed by Texas and Alaska. If the US Government continues on its present course, we speculate that at least ten to fifteen states will evaluate, if not execute, secession options that include the recovery of federal lands, the exclusion of federal forces, and complete tax moratoriums.
Open Source Civic Engagement Platform “Kajoo” ready to launch at SXSW
2011 is already the year of Internet-fuelled civic revolution. The
immediacy and reach of the social media now provides not just a
powerful way of connecting, but also a new sense of citizenship to
communities around the world.
Kajoo looks beyond today’s revolutions and explores what civic
engagement looks like in the age of social media. It has an engaging
interface that enables users to earn points and rewards for reporting
opportunities for civic improvement, proposing solutions, and
implementing those solutions.
The Mesh networks research group is formed by research and developer teams throughout all the world which are involved in active wireless mesh networks projects.
The Mesh Networks Research Group is focused in the mesh networks field and cover aspects like privacy, security, routing protocols, mobile mesh networks and roaming. All the members of this group are concerned about the importance of open source projects when sharing and spreading knowledge. The open source concept applies to use open routing protocols for ensuring interoperability among networks and open monitoring and test platforms.
Phi Beta Iota: A one-day global block party or a one-day sick-out would make much more sense. This is however an important example of both the scale that is possible and the seeding that is emergent. The times they are a-changing.
Imagine a game in which “true cost” is the norm, and the public can see alternative realities that are fully transparent and show the art of the possible in the absence of corruption….note the “bottom up” nature of the project.
Virtual worlds have long been populated by creatures that interact, reproduce, compete, evolve and die. But by and large, they do so because their behavior is programmed by developers. These efforts can produce complex virtual ecosystems, but they’re not quite the digital reflections of what happens in nature.
Life in the real world is “programmed” by DNA, but its form and behavior are determined by the random mutation of genetic code, not by the intentions of a developer. Computer scientists have always been intrigued by the prospect of creating “artificial life” — that is, digital genetic code that can sustain itself over generations and adapt to meet the demands of a virtual environment without human interference.
Here’s the thing: the House Republicans are going after their version of unsightly pimples on the body politic — the programs they and their billionaire sponsors find ideologically unpalatable — without seriously considering where our money really flows. We at TomDispatch thought we might lend a hand to Congress’s deliberations this week by offering something new: the first real figure on what American taxpayers actually pay for the Pentagon, the U.S. military, homeland security, our distant wars, the care of veterans, intelligence, and every other aspect of our national security and war state.
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$1.2 Trillion: The Real U.S. National Security Budget No One Wants You to Know About
What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked up the check only to discover that it was almost twice the menu price.
