Public Intelligence Blog

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220px-Michel_Bauwens_crop — Michel Bauwens

YouTube (57:27) The End of Economic Growth – Richard Heinberg in Australia

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Published on Oct 5, 2012 by danimations80

Journalist and author Richard Heinberg has dedicated his life to understanding the notion of ‘The End of Economic Growth', why it is upon us and how humanity should best prepare and recalibrate itself for life in world beyond peak oil. Richard gave this fascinating in-depth public lecture at the University of South Australia while promoting his book ‘The End of Growth' on September 25th, 2012. It was co-presented by Sustainable Population Australia and several other dedicated South Australian grassroots social and political action groups. https://www.population.org.au

in this one hour presentation, Richard Heinberg explains the close link between the resource/environment and the social/economic components of the present disintegration. As a journalist with a keen understanding of science and maths he does it better, more comprehensively and more clearly than most others. While the conventional wisdom is that we must get ‘the economy' growing again, Heinberg shows that not only is this the wrong strategy, it is actually making the situation worse and more intractable.

Continue reading “Michel Bauwens: Richard Heinberg on End of Economic Growth”

2012/10/092012/10/09

Yoda: Linked Open Data Overview

Access, Advanced Cyber/IO

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yoda with light saber — Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Linked Open Data

Linked Open Data is a developing set of principles for publishing re-usable data sets that work at Internet scale. In this session we will explore the progress made by libraries, archives, and museums towards sharing descriptions of their resources as linked data. We will also review emerging digital humanities projects that are exploring linked data and consider the available opportunities for local digital humanities projects.

Richard Urban, Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Science, will lead our discussion. Richard has extensive experience researching large-scale cultural heritage aggregations and metadata. In January 2013, he will lead a week-long workshop on Linked Data at the Digital Humanities Winter Institute.

Suggested background resources for participants:

Berners-Lee, T. (2006) Linked Data – Design Issues
Video: Tim Berners-Lee TED talk on Linked Data
Europeana
Out of the Trenches: A Linked Open Data Project
PELAGIOS Project
Hyvönen, E., et al., CultureSampo – Finnish Culture on the Semantic Web 2.0: Thematic Perspectives for the End-user. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2009: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics.

2012/10/09

Steven Aftergood: US Army Doctrine on Role of the Chaplain

Ethics

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U.S. ARMY DOCTRINE ON RELIGIOUS SUPPORT TO SOLDIERS

Military chaplains in the U.S. Army must have at least a Secret clearance. “This allow them access to the unit operations center and ensures that the chaplain is involved in the unit's operational planning process.”

A newly updated Army doctrinal publication on Religious Support, which describes the functions of chaplains, explains that “Religion plays an increasingly critical role… across the range of military operations.”

“Chaplains and chaplain assistants continue to sustain programs that nurture ethical decision making and facilitate religious formation and spiritual development as an inseparable part of unit readiness.”

“Throughout our history, chaplains and chaplain assistants have served alongside combat Soldiers, enduring the same hardships, and bearing the same burdens. They are members of the profession of arms.”

“Chaplains have served in the U.S. Army since the first days of the American Revolution and many have died in combat. These chaplains represented more than 120 separate denominations and faith groups from across America.”

“Six chaplains have been awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism above and beyond the call of duty,” the new Army Field Manual 1-05 noted.

However, “chaplains are noncombatants and do not bear arms. Chaplains do not have command authority.”

Essentially, chaplains are expected to fulfill “three basic core competencies: nurture the living, care for the wounded, and honor the dead.”

2012/10/082012/10/08

Event: 11 Oct Dublin – Drawing Lots for Democracy

Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Government

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The Lottery as a Democratic Institution: A Workshop

Dates: Thursday, 11 October 2012 (9am to 4pm) and Friday, 12 October (9.15am to 12pm)
Venue: Trinity College Dublin

This workshop will bring together an interdisciplinary research team from across Europe to consider the lottery as a democratic institution. The event is being jointly organised by Gil Delannoi (Science Po), Oliver Dowlen (UCL) and Peter Stone (Trinity College Dublin).

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2012/10/082012/10/08

Review: Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

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Michel Chossudovsky

4.0 out of 5 stars Five for Detail, Three for Bias, Solid Four for the Serious Reader / Researcher, October 8, 2012

Michel Chossudovsky is a known researcher and writer who is easily left of center; his greatest value lies in his presentation of truth in detail, something the neo-conservatives (far right of center) are incapable of doing. Anyone who demeans this author or his work is evidently incapable of understanding that Dick Cheney led the telling of 935 now-documented lies in taking the US to war on Iraq and in Afghanistan.

The book is NOT easy to read, with small print and 70 distinct separately titled pieces, all well-organized but reading like an op-ed book. The author also over-states, in my view the threat of a global nuclear war, while very pragmatically outlining the many ways in which the US and NATO are giving all indications of both tolerating an Israeli attack on Iran, perhaps with an Israeli nuclear bomb into Iran so they can pretend that they destroyed a nuclear facility that was no nuclear at all.

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2012/10/082012/10/09

Review: The Bhagavad Gita – The Original Sanskrit and An English Translation

4 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Intelligence (Spiritual)

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Lars Martin Fosse

4.0 out of 5 stars Straight Forward But Disappointing for a Lay Reader,October 8, 2012

This book's special niche is for those who want to read the book in Sanscrit and English at the same time.

Perhaps I have been spoiled by the excellence of The The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners that was recommended to me by Harrison Owen, himself the author of several books including Wave Rider: Leadership for High Performance in a Self-Organizing World. My review of the Gita for Westerners is a reflection of what I can get out of a book.

This one, while appreciated as a gift, and while also clearly a valuable contribution in terms of new twists on the English translation, is for me largely valuable for the ten page introduction.

I will say that the simplicity of the presentation (as in sparse sophistication demanding attention) focused my mind and I did draw out from this book the emphasis on non-attachment. In addition to the above two books, I would recommend The Zen Leader: 10 Ways to Go From Barely Managing to Leading Fearlessly, from which I drew the insight that I have been wasting time and energy trying to reform legacy systems that are too self-invested to every contemplate change, and that I should instead focus exclusively on “attracting the future” by being who I am, representing the constructive ideas that I do, and let others do with those ideas what they will.

Reading this book at a time when dark forces are conspiring to attack Iran and justify it with a variety of false flag attacks and the same kind of lies that led to the three trillion dollar war on Iraq, I try to FOCUS on the message in this book. Here is one example:

QUOTE (15): Know that this, on which all the world has been strung, is indestructible. No one can bring about the destruction of this imperishable being.

Continue reading “Review: The Bhagavad Gita – The Original Sanskrit and An English Translation”

2012/10/082012/10/08