Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
As the rare earth drama continues to unfold, we can expect to see a lot of anticipation on the part of the parties involved. One thing that we should expect is that the price of technological goods will be impacted, at least until the time alternatives can be put in place.
The historical animus that Americans supposedly have toward taxes has been largely manufactured to facilitate the propaganda machine of the modern anti-tax movement. This means that the long hiatus between the Whiskey Rebellion and Proposition 13 must be considered the norm in American history and that some recent change in American circumstances must be responsible for the modern anti-tax movement.
In a report meant to be both inspiring and reassuring, the WWF ambitiously declares that the world can switch to 95% renewable energy sources by 2050. The Scenario depends largely on increased efficiency and regulated flows of energy through a great system of interconnection. People are remarkably absent. The ostensible reason is that the report is focused on what is “technically possible,” which is more about joules and btus than about human behavior.
A friend of mine once remarked that if current trends continue, razor cartridges will have at least 100 blades each by the end of the century. The razor blade wars are among the most visible absurdities illustrating how the limits of complexity clash with our blind faith in the idea that more complexity will always solve our problems or improve our lives.
If humans were smart, we would bet on our ignorance.
-Fueling the Food Revolution: CoFed to train New Generation of Student Leaders
-How Sweden turns human body heat into useful energy
-Vision: 8 Reasons Global Capitalism Makes Our Lives Worse — And How We Can Create a New Kind of Economy
-Oil spill report: Initial analysis
-Disregard for safety led to Deepwater Horizon spill
-Panel Faults Oil Firms, Calls for Better Oversight
-National Oil Spill Commission Finds Right Problems, Issues Wrong Solutions
-Missed Opportunity: Spill Commission Rejected by Drillers
One of the main enablers of a demographic shift away from a rural-agrarian population to an urban-industrial one is the combine. The combine removes most labor from agriculture for the most critical crops: edible grains, legumes and oil seeds. Seeds are a highly portable, storable and versatile class of food, allowing civilizations to trade and buffer against shortages. Most calories now consumed derive directly or indirectly from seeds.
Despite blanket media coverage of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, there has been little discussion of the fact that Assange is merely one leader within a large and complicated social movement, the “free culture movement.” The present situation was predicted by visionary hackers over thirty years ago, and they set out to ensure the victory of free culture over proprietary culture, open organisation over closed, and privacy over Big Brother.
-If Shale Gas Is a Game-Changer, Why Are All the Major Producers Looking for Oil?
-Natural Gas: Continually Running Into New Obstacles
-Pennsylvania’s Drilling Wastewater Released to Streams, Some Unaccounted For
-Fracking the life out of Arkansas and beyond
I have recommitted to local organizing that aims mainly to strengthen institutions and networks on the ground where I live, rooted in a belief that those local connections will be more important than ever in coming decades. At the same time, I try to maintain and extend connections to like-minded people around the world, hoping that those connections can contribute to the possibility of coordinated global action. In short, I am trying to become more tribal and more universal at the same time.
– Swedish documentary on WikiLeaks: “WikiRebels” (now online)
– Stephen Colbert’s International Manhunt for Julian Assange
– Wikileaks defectors to launch Openleaks alternative
– WikiLeaks may make the powerful howl, but we are learning the truth
– Harvard law professor: Seven Thoughts on Wikilea
– The US Government’s Pursuit of WikiLeaks Could Be Its Undoing-
