Civilization // Current

Greece and Italy without hope

Italy is gripped by crisis and unemployment and with democracy in danger, but is not... more

hyperion74
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6 days ago
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0 comments

Weariness

The reason why Berlusconi will not and cannot stand on trial is quite obvious: he... more

hyperion74
added this
10 days ago
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0 comments

See the immense area destroyed by a nuclear firestorm

BOOM. http://www.nucleardarkness.org/nuclear/nuclearexplosionsimulator/... more

remanns
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11 days ago
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8 comments

Logging Contributed to Nazca Collapse

Now a team of archaeologists have found the demise of the Nazca society was linked in... more

SeaJade
added this
23 days ago
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1 comment

Sid Meier Bringing Civilization To Facebook

Sid Meier is taking two of the most addictive games ever created - Civilization and... more

DeathAdder420
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1 month ago
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1 comment

This should be interesting...

DOJ begins Monsanto probe
On October 8, the seed and agrochemical giant Monsanto revealed that it is being questioned by the Department of Justice for a possible violation of anti-trust laws related to its control of much of the genetically engineered seed market, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The timing of the investigation coincides with an announcement in late August from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack about a series of workshops to hear farmers' concerns about corporate consolidation in the agricultural industry. Christine Varney, the Justice Department's antitrust chief, also recently announced a commitment to investigate competition issues within the agricultural industry.

Monsanto is characterizing the investigation as an informal, "business as usual" questioning, rather than a formal probe, but that may well be because it is no stranger to being investigated on anti-trust charges. In 2007, the Peoria Journal Star reports, Monsanto acquired the cottonseed company Delta and Pine Land, which gave them control of more than half of the U.S. cottonseed market. In order to approve the deal, federal regulators required Monsanto to divest itself of another cottonseed company that controlled about 12% of the market, as well as amend its licensing policies to allow other companies to "stack" or combine Monsanto's patented genetic traits with their own. This meant billions of dollars in licensing fees for Monsanto. In May of this year, Monsanto sued DuPont, one of its largest competitors, for intellectual property right infringement. DuPont promptly counter-sued, accusing Monsanto of unlawful anti-competitive behavior. Monsanto is the world's biggest seed company and fifth largest agrochemical company (thanks largely to its ubiquitous herbicide, Roundup). DuPont is the world's second biggest seed company is also the sixth largest agrochemical company. All of the genetically engineered traits involved in the litigation between the two companies relate to herbicide tolerance.This should be interesting... DOJ begins Monsanto probe On October 8, the seed and... more

SeaJade
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1 month ago
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1 comment

YouTube - WE LIVE IN PUBLIC - trailer

We Live in Public explores the effect the internet is having on our society through... more

sk8bs55
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1 month ago
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4 comments

The Punk Patriot * Religion is Unreasonable

The Punk Patriot gets esoteric: NEW! DONATE!:... more

asherp
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1 month ago
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6 comments

"Plan B.40: Mobilizing to Save Civilization": An introduction to Lester R.Brown's New Book

Earth Policy .org just sent out this press release on Lester R. Brown's latest book... more

SeaJade
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3 months ago
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1 comment

Book Review: "TIME'S UP! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis"

An new book out called "TIME'S UP: An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis". I just saw this review and the book looks interesting, wonder what this author has to say...

From the web site:
"The Environment’s Last Hour? Not If We Do Something Now
Categories: Chelsea Green News
Posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 10:14 am by makennagoodman

Climate change. Species extinction. Disappearing ecosystems. The global environmental crisis is closing in on humanity from all directions, yet the crisis barely registers on this culture’s list of problems–perhaps many of us are too busy watching reality shows about octuplets or bachelors or underfed models. As we stand around, humanity is doomed to a collapse that may leave only a few nomads, and a toxic, barely survivable Earth in its wake.

Time to wake up, it would seem. Time to un-glue ourselves from the TV and take a step towards change. Time to check out Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis by Keith Farnish–your guide to understanding (and implementing) a healthier future.

ANNOUNCING THE RELEASE OF…..

TIME’S UP! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis

THE BOOK THAT COULD MAKE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUMANITY SURVIVING, OR HUMANITY ENDING.

There is a crisis of our making unfolding as we watch, and it could spell the end of humanity as we know it. While we enjoy the material benefits of technological “progress” and economic growth, we have singularly failed to understand the terrible price of such a situation, and have become utterly incapable of doing anything about it. The small ripples that we see at the edge of the pond–slowly eating the bank away that we are standing upon–have a source, and that source is Industrial Civilization.

Here is book that will completely change how we look at ourselves and the damage we are causing; and offers a way of putting humanity back on a sustainable track–the one that we veered off not so long ago, and now feel we can never return to. Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis is no mainstream environmental book, it is no less than a survival guide for humanity.

The author, Keith Farnish, does not accept that there is only one way to live, nor does he accept that we are fated to destroy the life-support system that we depend upon for our survival. In Time’s Up! he takes the reader on a journey through a myriad of different scales, examining in detail the way our behaviour is causing our own demise; he examines the essence of what it means to be human, asking (and answering) the vital question: “What matters to us?”; he helps us to understand the importance of reconnecting with the real world, and then explains in terrible detail how and why industrial society has kept us in a lethal, disconnected state. Finally, he offers a set of radical, multi-level solutions to bringing us back on track, and following the path that humanity has to follow if we are to survive as a species.

Time’s Up! is not a comfortable read, but never before has a problem been in such need of uncomfortable truths."An new book out called "TIME'S UP: An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis". I... more

SeaJade
added this
3 months ago
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6 comments

Civilization by Marco Brambilla

Civilization is a video installation by CRUSH and artist/director Marco Brambilla for... more

pushbomb
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3 months ago
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Seasteading: Open ocean soverignty

There aren’t many places left unclaimed by one nation or another, unless of course... more

Greenpointer
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3 months ago
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9 comments

We should pay more attention to Turkey's ancient and critical past

In terms of our civilization and history, we ("we" in the so-called western world)... more

CivilizedGraeme
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3 months ago
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The World Will Never be the Same If You See Through the Eyes of Forest Gump

The world will never be the same if you see through the eyes of Forest Gump.

CHANLEEPENG
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3 months ago
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0 comments

And The Heavens Filled With Brimstone, Like the Bowels Of Hell!

Brute-Force Engineering and Climate The eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia in... more

remanns
added this
3 months ago
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1 comment

Water Is A Human Right!

Water Is A Human Right Not A Corporate Privilege! How insane is it that we have... more

SeaJade
added this
3 months ago
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31 comments

Lewis Black on Broadway (on water)

How civilization destroyed water. Pepsi and Coke owning water companies. Etc.

jessilee23
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4 months ago
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Marco Brambilla: Civilization | Motionographer | Motion graphics, design, animation, filmmaking and

Here is an incredible film that is viewed as you go up and down an elevator at the... more

TheRealEdwin
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4 months ago
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RFID "Tag the world"

Passive RFID’s do not have a power source but use a signal sent by the scanner to power the microchip circuit to transmit back their stored information. Passive RFID’s are getting very small. Hitachi a few years ago produced a chip (called the mu chip) that was the size of a pencil point; if you take a pencil and put it on a piece of paper you get a little dot. That’s how small they’re getting. In 2007 Hitachi came out with a chip that was even smaller, they call it RFID powder. They are just like the talcum powder you would put on a baby. Somark Innovations in Jan 10, 2007 announced an invisible RFID ink. This can be applied to cattle, prime cuts of meat, military personnel and it can be read through hair.

When you go to Wal-Mart, Best Buy, the U.S. Military and many other agencies around the world, you will see that they are all implementing RFID chips on items and increasingly on people.

The recent growth of the RFID industry has been staggering: From 1955 to 2005, cumulative sales of radio tags totaled 2.4 billion; in 2007 alone, 2.24 billion tags were sold worldwide and analysts project that by 2017 cumulative sales will top 1 trillion–generating more than $25 billion in annual revenues for the industry. We’re starting to see chips being implemented in credit cards, debit cards and passports, driver’s licenses, health cards, and many other things. Increasingly they are being used to monitor people as well as items. RFID tags embedded into clothes and personal belongings allow people to be tracked and monitored in shopping malls, libraries, museums, sports arenas, elevators, and restrooms. American Express has them on their blue cards. They are announcing plans to place people-tracking readers in stores to track customers movements and observe their behavior. If you bought something with your credit or debit card, they will know what items you bought and if the items were chipped, they will know what you were buying. In this way they will be able to track you.

In 2006, IBM received a patent approval for an invention called, "Identification and tracking of persons using RFID-tagged items." One stated purpose was to collect information about people that could be "used to monitor the movement of the person through the store or other areas."

In London you can buy a monthly pass to the transit cars that have an RFID on it and if you link the bus pass to a person’s name you can track where this person is on the bus and subway system throughout London, England. In 2007 the police were getting four requests a month, a year later it jumped to 100. In April, 2008 the London police announced that they were putting RFID chips on all of the 31,000 police in London.
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-558597/Met-Police-officers-microchipped-brass-Big-Brother-style-tracking-scheme.html)

In Southern China they’re implementing RFID readers in the city of Shenzhen to track the movement of citizens; all citizens have an ID card with a chip so they can identify who is in what part of the city at any point in time.

Some 800 hospitals in the United States are now chipping their patients. You can turn it down, but it’s available. Four hospitals in Puerto Rico have put them in the arms of the Alzheimer’s patients (http://www.gearlog.com/2007/08/rfid_chips_used_to_track_alzhe.php).

IBM has demonstrated a tiny device that measures heart rate and is able to sense when a person wearing it is in distress, after which it will call a cell phone for immediate help. The distress signal is sent wirelessly via Bluetooth.

4 Additional self loading short videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob532iEpqk&feature=PlayList&p=AA33C13AA4719E87&index=0&playnext=1Passive RFID’s do not have a power source but use a signal sent by the scanner to... more

sespian
added this
4 months ago
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18 comments

Profit Driven Insurance Claim Denials Kill People: The Bodies Can Be Found!

By Amy Goodman

"Wendell Potter is the health insurance industry’s worst nightmare. He’s a whistle-blower. Potter, the former chief spokesperson for insurance giant CIGNA, recently testified before Congress, “I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick—all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.”

Potter was deeply involved in CIGNA and industrywide strategies for maintaining their profitable grip on U.S. health care. He told me: “The thing they fear most is a single-payer plan. They fear even the public insurance option being proposed; they’ll pull out all the stops they can to defeat that to try to scare people into thinking that embracing a public health insurance option would lead down the slippery slope toward socialism ... putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. They’ve used those talking points for years, and they’ve always worked.”

In 2007, CIGNA denied a California teenager, Nataline Sarkisyan, coverage for a liver transplant. Her family went to the media. The California Nurses Association joined in. Under mounting pressure, CIGNA finally granted coverage for the procedure. But it was too late. Two hours later, Nataline died.

While visiting family in Tennessee, Potter stopped at a “medical expedition” in Wise, Va. People drove hours for free care from temporary clinics set up in animal stalls at the local fairground. Potter told me that weeks later, flying on a CIGNA corporate jet with the CEO: “I realized that someone’s premiums were helping me to travel that way ... paying for my lunch on gold-trimmed china. I thought about those men and women I had seen in Wise County ... not having any idea [how] insurance executives lived.” He decided he couldn’t be an industry PR hack anymore.

Insurance executives and their Wall Street investors are addicted to massive profits and double-digit annual rate increases. To squeeze more profit, Potter says, if a person makes a major claim for coverage, the insurer will often scrutinize the person’s original application, looking for any error that would allow it to cancel the policy. Likewise, if a small company’s employees make too many claims, the insurer, Potter says, “very likely will jack up the rates so much that your employer has no alternative but to leave you and your co-workers without insurance.”

This week, as the House and Senate introduce their health care bills, Potter warns, “One thing to remember is that the health insurance industry has been anticipating this debate on health care for many years ... they’ve been positioning themselves to get very close to influential members of Congress in both parties.” Montana Sen. Max Baucus chairs the Senate Finance Committee, key for health care reform. Potter went on, “[T]he insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and others in health care have donated ... millions of dollars to his campaigns over the past few years. But aside from money, it’s relationships that count ... the insurance industry has hired scores and scores of lobbyists, many of whom have worked for members of Congress, and some who are former members of Congress.”

The insurance industry and other health care interests are lobbying hard against a government-sponsored, nonprofit, public health insurance option, and are spending, according to The Washington Post, up to $1.4 million per day to sway Congress and public opinion.

Don’t be fooled. Profit-driven insurance claim denials actually kill people, and Wendell Potter knows where the bodies are buried. His whistle-blowing may be just what’s needed to dump what’s sick in our health care system.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column."

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 750 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” recently released in paperback.By Amy Goodman "Wendell Potter is the health insurance industry’s worst... more

SeaJade
added this
4 months ago
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4 comments

tagged w/ Civilization

Greece and Italy without hope

Weariness

See the immense area destroyed by a nuclear firestorm

Logging Contributed to Nazca Collapse

Sid Meier Bringing Civilization To Facebook

DOJ Begins Monsanto Probe

YouTube - WE LIVE IN PUBLIC - trailer

The Punk Patriot * Religion is Unreasonable

"Plan B.40: Mobilizing to Save Civilization": An introduction to Lester R.Brown's New Book

Book Review: "TIME'S UP! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis"

Civilization by Marco Brambilla

Seasteading: Open ocean soverignty

We should pay more attention to Turkey's ancient and critical past

The World Will Never be the Same If You See Through the Eyes of Forest Gump

And The Heavens Filled With Brimstone, Like the Bowels Of Hell!

Water Is A Human Right!

Lewis Black on Broadway (on water)

Marco Brambilla: Civilization | Motionographer | Motion graphics, design, animation, filmmaking and

RFID "Tag the world"

Profit Driven Insurance Claim Denials Kill People: The Bodies Can Be Found!

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