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Journal: True Cost of War–Insanity & Murder at Home

07 Health, 08 Proliferation, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Reform, True Cost
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A Groundbreaking PTSD Court Decision

Week of November 02, 2009

A groundbreaking verdict for accused veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was decided recently in Canyon City, Ore. when former Soldier Jesse Bratcher, on trial for murder, was found guilty by reason of insanity.  It appears to be the first trial in the U.S. where a veteran's post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was successfully considered to mitigate the circumstances of a crime.  For more information on the case, visit the National Veterans Foundation website.
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Journal: Space Hotel & Noblesse Oblige

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice
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Space Hotel
Space Hotel Full Story

BARCELONA (Reuters) – A company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says it is on target to accept its first paying guests in 2012 despite critics questioning the investment and time frame for the multi-billion dollar project.

The Barcelona-based architects of The Galactic Suite Space Resort say it will cost 3 million euro ($4.4 million) for a three-night stay at the hotel, with this price including an eight-week training course on a tropical island.

During their stay, guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel around the world every 80 minutes. They would wear velcro suits so they can crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Phi Beta Iota: There are some ethical and civitas maximus possibilities here.  This may also accelereate the disclosure of what has been found on the Moon and on Mars in the way of artificial construction.

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Worth a Look: Visual Language & Information Mapping

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Key Players, Methods & Process, Policies, Real Time, Technologies, Threats, Tools
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Source Web Site
Source Web Site

Phi Beta Iota: Our most trusted alter ego flagged this for attention, and we love it.  We have ordered the book on Visual Language and hoping the author will soon publish on Information Mapping.  This is sheer genius, not least for its human sensitivity and its grasp of the brain-eye-hand-touch loop.  We are blown away by this, it buries the visual design phenoms of the past, while clearly being relevant to Collective Intelligence and Conscious Evolution.

Amazon Page
Amazon Page
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Journal: Airplane Wings from Soy…Soon

03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 12 Water, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Technologies
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Not New, But Improved

Allison Arieff

Meet Stella.

At first glance, this little yellow giraffe looks like a lot of other kids’ bath toys. But Stella is made from Renuva, a little-known material that could change for the better the way hundreds of things, from upholstery to airplane wings, are made.

The story of how Stella came to be made from this material, a soy-based alternative to polyurethane (which is typically petroleum-based), provides a model for how stuff can be better designed in the future.

Phi Beta Iota: While folks focus on the Al Gore show and the important but isolated challenge of reducing our carbon footprint, the avant guarde is way down the road with sustainable design, green chemistry, zero waste, and so on.  It's all connected, we need to get truth on the table, and we need to do the right things righter.  Stella is a poster child for a new paradigm of ecological economics, natural capitalism, and conscious evolution.  Learn more about Renuva from Dow below.

Learn More
Learn More
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Journal: Afghanistan–The Arithmetic of the Frontier

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Government, Military
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Afghan jezail
Afghan jezail

Boston Globe

By H.D.S. Greenway

November 3, 2009

PRESIDENT OBAMA  is doing the arithmetic of fighting in Afghanistan and figuring the odds of Pakistan pulling through. He must not only add up the numbers of soldiers he wants to hand over to his generals, but must also measure what is achievable against what his country has to spend in money and blood. General Stanley McChrystal?s requests echo those of Marshal Akhromeyev, who begged the Soviet Politburo for more soldiers for his war 20 years ago.

Continue reading “Journal: Afghanistan–The Arithmetic of the Frontier”

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Journal: Chuck Spinney Sends–Katrina & Fear

03 Environmental Degradation, 08 Wild Cards, 12 Water, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Military
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Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

The Detritus of Katrina and the Paralysis of Fear:
A Metaphor for Contemporary Politics

The vast Mississippi Delta in Louisiana is sinking as sea water from the Gulf of Mexico seeps in to destroy its fresh water marshlands.  The Army's Corps of Engineers says it can not protect New Orleans from the inevitable storm surges caused by hurricanes (see the Guardian report attached below).

Some may dismiss this warning as alarmist hype, and the Army's Corps of Engineers certainly does not have an enviable track record in this regard.  That said, the Corps' warning does make evident the political-economic  detritus left over from Hurricane Katrina.  Inferentially, the warning also highlights the hollowness in the scare tactics used by global warming advocates to raise money for their far more costly ambitions, not to mention the paralyzing political-economic consequences posed by the politics of fear practiced by the Pentagon.

The reality of the Delta thus becomes a metaphor for the larger emptiness that now pervades American politics.

Below the Fold: Balance of Spinney Comment, Full Article with Highlight, Books
Continue reading “Journal: Chuck Spinney Sends–Katrina & Fear”

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Journal: Death to Idiot “Pay Walls”

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics
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Newsday Columnist Quits Over Paywall, Wants To Be Read

One of the reasons why the NY Times eventually did away with its old “paywall” was that its big name columnists started complaining that fewer and fewer people were reading them.

The NY Times is reporting that Newsday columnist Saul Friedman quit and did so while publishing an open letter on why paywalls are a bad idea, while also telling the NY Times that he knew his column was popular with people outside of Newsday's footprint, and he was upset that those people would not be able to read his column and that he wouldn't be able to send out links to his columns.

Oh, one other thing? Mr. Friedman is 80 years old and worked for newspapers for over 50 years. In other words, he's not just some “young kid who thinks everything online should be free” as we're so often told is the real problem.