True Cost – Page 16 – Public Intelligence Blog

There are six big issues in the United STATES of America that the media is ignoring. Among the Members of Congress, only one, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX-22), speaks publicly and coherently about these issues. Here they are:

1) The Power to Wage War. This is vested in Congress and has been abdicated to the Executive.

2) The Power of the Purse. This is vested in Congress and has been abdicated to the Executive.

3) Consent of the Senate. This is the new issue, that of “czars” unconfirmed by the Senate who have broad powers (or are merely very bad impotent theater, depending on your perspective).

4) Of, By, and For the People I. Corporate Personality and the legitimacy–or illegitimacy–of corporate spending on campaigns combined with the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the two-party tyranny, demand scrutiny by the public and finally–decades late–concerted public decision on how “it is supposed to be” in order to be consistent with the vision of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution of the United STATES of America.

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2009/09/252009/09/25

Reference: Cloud Computing 1.0 25 Sep 09

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Policies, Policy, Real Time, Reform, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools, True Cost

There are at least two organized gangs in cloud computing, with several more emerging in the wings. This is a first cut at what we have in play.

Below the fold are a list of members of the Infrastructure 2.0 Gang and the Cloud Connect Gang, followed by a number of headlines from 2007 to date that comprise a rapid read-in.

As with the origin of computers, when librarians were not consulted, the focus on these gangs is on technical connectivity and related issues (e.g. authentication, security), and NOT on information-sharing and sense-making as the ultimate objective.

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2009/09/242009/09/24

Journal: True Cost Meme

True Cost

Original Source

>>CEI Breaks True Cost of Cap and Trade Treasury Department’s Own Documents CEI’s Christopher C. Horner reveals the true $1,761 per family cost of Cap and Trade legislation with the Treasury Department’s own documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. News of the story has been widely covered in:

CBS News; Obama Admin: Cap and Trade Could Cost Families $1,761 a Year
CBS News; Declan McCullagh’s Response to Skepticism on Cap and Trade Costs
The Investor’s Business Daily; Smoking Papers on Global Warming
The Washington Post; Cap-and-Trade Memos Fire Up the Skeptics
The Politico; Cap and Trade’s Price Tag [Corrected]
CEI’s Openmarket.Org Blog Post by Iain Murray
CEI’s GlobalWarming.Org Blog Post by Christopher Horner

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2009/09/192009/09/19

2008 Paul Ray The Political Compass (Updated)

Civil Society, Historic Contributions, Policy, Reform, True Cost

New research data released August 25, 2008 by Dr. Paul Ray depicts a New Political Compass which shows that politics in the United States is no longer along a horizontal left/right divide. There is now a much more complex political landscape shaped by the emergence of what Dr. Ray calls the “Political North,” which is shifting the political center of gravity in a progressive direction beyond left and right.

This polling indicates that creating an alliance between progressive values and green politics could be a winning strategy for this [and future] election(s).

Graphics Below the Fold

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2009/09/192009/09/19

Journal: Regulating Wall Street: Idiocy on Top of Illusion

03 Economy, Commerce, Ethics, True Cost

Full Story Online

A Las Vegas Illusion

Roger Martin is Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the
University of Toronto

Pre-order his forthcoming book

In response to the question: What does Wall Street have to change to produce better leaders, a different culture and a more long-term focus?

Forget about it. Don't even waste time thinking about it. The purpose
of Wall Street firms is to trade value for their own benefit not to
build value for the economy either short-term or long-term. While at
one point in its history, a non-trivial part of Wall Street's activity
involved financing the growth of American companies, that is now a
minor piece of its business. Wall Street is primarily engaged in
encouraging individuals and companies to trade value between one
another and tolling the parties for the service, and trading against
the outside economy for its own account.

Phi Beta Iota: This author not only gets it, he provides a solution. Wall Street, and the Fed, need to be creatively destroyed, and we need to restore bottom-up Human Scale locality-based business. Government “regulation” of financial crime is idiocy on top of illusion.

2009/09/102009/09/10

Worth a Look: Medard Gabel, EarthGame and More

Academia, Commerce, Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Threats, Topics (All Other), True Cost, Worth A Look

Professor Medard Gabel

Medard Gabel was for many years #2 to Buckminister Fuller, and a co-creator of the analog World Game. As a founding director of Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 Public Charity, he created–and retains ownership of–the EarthGame.

Below are four specific modules that can be used NOW to excite both students and executives about the importance of sustainable design, strategic analysis, and the unity of knowledge–what E. O. Wilson calls Consilience.

Advise the President
of the United States in the
Presidential Advisor Game
learn more …

Save the World
from climate disaster in the
Climate Change Game
learn more …

Green Your Campus
in the
Campus GreenGame
learn more …

Bring Peace to the World
in the
World PeaceGame
learn more …

Other BigPictureSmallWorld programs and simulations include the LeadershipGame, The FutureGame and our week-long summer program at the United Nations and Chestnut Hill College—the Design Science Lab.

Phi Beta Iota strongly recommends anything and everything that Medard Gabel has created and offers.Give him a call to see how one of his programs will fit into your program today at 610.566.0156!

NOTE: We *will* create the World Brain and the EarthGame, it is only a matter of when, not if. Get started now by engaging Medard Gabel to show you how you can make sense, make strategy, and advance the common good while achieving your own worthy goals.

2009/09/072009/09/07

Journal: Chuck Spinney on Moral and Mental Collapse of the Federal Government

Ethics, Government, Legislation, True Cost

EMPHASIS: The larger result of this cynical behaviour is a widespread moral and mental collapse that is rapidly transforming our experiment in building a government of the people, by the people, and for the people into a sham that is more like a 21st Century corporatist mutation of 18th Century court of Louis XVI.

Viewed retrospectively, the political economy of Versailles on the Potomac admits to only two stages in the life cycle of any government program, be it defense, a bailout of the banks, healthcare reform, or anything else: (1) It is too early to tell, and (2) it is too late to do anything about it.

Nowhere is the decision-making conundrum implied by these stages more clearly evident than in the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex, MICC, particularly in the acquisition of high tech weapon systems, but also in the decision to go to war.

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