Credit to Cary and Michael Huang: http://htwins.net

 

After the Crisis:  by Jacques Attali

Steven Pinker on the myth of violence:

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html

Detoxify or Die…by Gabriela Segura, M.D.

Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity (paid course)

Taught by Professor David Christian, D. Phil., Oxford University, Macquarie University

http://www.joelbomane.com/dr-david-christian-big-history

Gifted Hands 20th Anniversary Edition: The Ben Carson Story

Gifted Hands (2009) Cuba Gooding Jr. (Actor), Loren Bass (Actor),

Thomas Carter (Director) | Rated: Unrated | Format: DVD

John Adams (UNABRIDGED CD) [AUDIOBOOK CD] [Unabridged] [Audio CD]

David McCullough (Author)

The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives

by Shankar Vedantam

The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchristh

Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: by Daniel G. Amen

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success

Napoleon Hill (Author), Sharon L. Lechter CPA (Editor), Michael Bernard Beckwith (Afterword), Mark Victor Hansen (Foreword)

 

Cover via Amazon

ABOUT WATER CRISIS? SINCE WE ARE IN THE BRAIN ODYSSEY SERIES…

Did YOU know that your brain is 85% water?

and that it needs plenty of liquids to keep it from becoming dehydrated, something that can decrease your thinking and impair your judgment. And also…two of the best and cheapest beverages you can drink are skim milk and water. Skim milk is low in fat and high in protein and calcium, and fortified with vitamins A and D that can provide you with a nutritional punch.

Again water is one of the best things for your brain and body health. Fortunately, you don’t need to buy pricey bottled water. With a water filter that fits on your kitchen faucet, you can drink from the tape and get healthy, filtered water that will keep your brain and body hydrated for optimal performance. And You WANT  a more flavorful beverage, fill up a jug with filtered water, add a few orange slices, and keep it in the refrigerator for easy access.

WE SAID THERE IS A FOOD AND FOOD PRICE CRISIS:

There is an interesting story about Dr. Amen, a physician, child and adult psychiatrist who appeared on MSNBC’s nationally televised forum About Our Children, hosted by Bill Cosby. Bill asked him a very intriguing question. They were talking about how important good nutrition is for optimal brain performance and physical health when Mr. Cosby asked…:

“How do we teach poor people to eat right when bad food is so cheap?”

Dr. Amen with the help of Dr. Jeff Fortuna, the author of Nutrition for the Focused Brain came up with ….the following 10 tips to help people living in poverty, as well as those…. who are simply strapped for cash during these tough economic times, to eat healthier without spending a fortune.

I’ll summarize the 10 TIPS here:

First of all: Go for Satisfying Grains: Give your children oatmeal for breakfast  (make sure it is the old-fashioned kind, not the instant kind). They are loaded with soluble and insoluble fiber, they moderate blood sugar for hours, which helps keep you feeling full longer.

Also, buy Vitamin-Rich Vegetables : frozen vegetables such as broccoli, and carrots. The freezing process does remove some of the vitamin content, but frozen vegetables are still a great source of brain-boosting, anti-aging, disease-fighting nutrients.

You can boost with Antioxidants such as Apples, Oranges, and Bananas: Just one orange can provide more than 200 percent of the daily vitamin C requirement . Eating an orange is so much better for you than drinking orange juice – and cheaper.

You should eat Cottage Cheese: It is a dietary protein that primes dopamine, a brain neurotransmitter that is involved with attention span.

You can Pump Up Protein with Affordable Eggs : Eggs are a great source of protein. If you have high cholesterol, toss the yolks and just eat the egg whites, the only food source that is a perfect protein.

Now think about it…there is a way to Fill Up on High-Fiber: Low-Cost Beans: beans are loaded with fiber and high in protein, they should be a staple in any household struggling financially. To be extra economical, choose uncooked black beans, red beans, lima beans, garbanzo beans, white beans, or any other variety rather than canned beans which are more expensive.

Finally…you should Stock Up on Canned Tuna: Eating fish like tuna is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to improve heart health, reduce the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, reduce depression, and lower blood pressure.

SOME FACTS ABOUT YOUR AMAZING BRAIN…

Did you know…

• The average human brain weights about 3 pounds. Compare that to the brain of a sperm whale brain (17 pounds), dog (2.5 ounces), cat (1 ounce=about 30 grams), and goldfish (1/333 ounce).

• The human brain may not be the largest of all brains, but it is the biggest when compared to body size.

• During waking hours, the brain generates between 10 and 23 watts of power—enough to light a light bulb.

• Information in the brain travels at speeds of up to 268 miles per hour, faster than the racecars in the Indy 500, unless of course you are drunk, then things really slow down.

• Your brain is approximately 85% water.

• Your brain is estimated to have more than 100 billion neurons (also called nerve cells or brain cells), which is about the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

• Each neuron is connected to other neurons by up to 40,000 individual connections called synapses.

• Your brain has more connections than there are stars in the universe? 1 followed by 15  ZEROS more than stars in the universe.

• A piece of brain tissue the size of a grain of sand contains 100,000 neurons and 1 billion synapses all “talking” to each other.

• Sorry FOR THE FACE LIFT INDUSTRY…A wrinkled brain makes you smarter! Yes!  The brain’s wrinkles, and grooves give it more surface area and more processing power.

• Your brain represents only about 2 percent of your body weight, but it consumes about 25% of the calories you consume, 25% of the total blood flow in your body, and 20% of the oxygen you breathe.

• The idea that we only use 10% of our brains is a MYTH! You may not use every neuron in your brain at the same time, but each is important.

• Your brain doesn’t fully mature until you reach about 25 years of age.

• Your brain NEVER turns off or even rests, not even while you sleep. Your brain is very active at night, especially during dreaming.

• And finally contrary to popular belief, your brain never stops changing and can continue to form new neural connections throughout your lifetime.

“Justice is one of the most popular courses in Harvard’s history”

“Sandel has opened up an important area of debate at a time when some of the unquestioned assumptions underlying economic policy and praxis of the last few decades have been exposed as fraudulent and are being questioned. What happens to the human person in a greedy society? What happens when people and values become commodities that can be traded? What happens when morality is reduced to what is technically practicable? And who is willing to take responsibility instead of just blaming others for what they don’t like?” Nick Baines

Michael J. Sandel (born March 5, 1953) is a political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his critique of Rawls‘ Theory of Justice (1971) in his Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982).

Education

Sandel graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis University in 1975, and received his doctorate from Balliol College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, where he studied under Charles Taylor.

Philosophical views

Sandel subscribes to the theory of communitarianism (although he is uncomfortable with the label), and in this vein he is perhaps best known for his critique of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. Rawls’ argument depends on the assumption of the veil of ignorance, which allows us to become “unencumbered selves.”

Sandel’s view is that we are by nature encumbered to an extent that makes it impossible even in the hypothetical to have such a veil. Some examples of such ties are the ties we make with our families, which we do not make by conscious choice but are born with them already attached. Because they are not consciously applied, these ties are impossible to separate from someone. Sandel believes that only a less-restrictive, looser version of the veil of ignorance can be possible. Rawls’s argument, however, depends on the fact that the veil is restrictive enough that we make decisions without knowing who will be affected by these decisions, which of course is impossible if we are already attached to people in the world.

Teaching

Justice

Sandel has taught the famous “Justice”^[1] course at Harvard for two decades. More than 10,000 students have taken the course, making it one of the most highly attended in Harvard’s history. The fall 2007 class was the largest ever at Harvard, with a total of 1,115 students.^[2] The fall 2007 course was recorded, and is offered online for students nationwide through the Harvard Extension School. An abridged form of this recording is now a 12-episode TV series, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, in a coproduction of WGBH and Harvard University. Episodes are available on the Justice with Michael Sandel website.^[3] There is also an accompanying book Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, and the sourcebook of readings Justice: A Reader.

Click here for Other episodes -videos- of Justice by Michael Sandel

Other teaching

Sandel also co-teaches with Douglas Melton “Ethics and Biotechnology”, a seminar considering the ethical implications of a variety of biotechnological procedures and possibilities.

Authorship

Sandel is the author of multiple publications including Democracy’s Discontent and Public Philosophy. His Public Philosophy is a collection of his own previously published essays, examining the role of morality and justice in American political life. He offers commentary on the roles of moral values and civic community in the American electoral process – a much-debated aspect of the 2004 U.S. election cycle and current political discussion.

Michael Sandel gave the 2009 Reith Lectures on “A New Citizenship” on BBC Radio, addressing the ‘prospect for a new politics of the common good’ ^[4]. The lectures were delivered in London on May 18, Oxford on May 21, Newcastle on May 26 and Washington DC in early June ^[5].

Public service

Sandel served on the George W. Bush administration’s President’s Council on Bioethics.

2009 immigration commentary

In 2009, he described a controversial ’solution’ to immigration. Sandel suggested that the international community should impose annual refugee quotas on nations according to their wealth. Countries would be allowed to pay other, poorer countries to take refugees allotted under their quota.^[6]

Sandel does not endorse this view. He merely uses it as an illustration of the markets inevitably presupposing and promoting certain norms. He concludes: “There is something distasteful about a market in refugees, even if it’s for their own good, but what exactly is objectionable about it? It has something to do with the fact that a market in refugees changes our view of who refugees are and how they should be treated. It encourages the participants — the buyers, the sellers and also those whose asylum is being haggled over — to think of refugees as burdens to be unloaded or as revenue sources rather than as human beings in peril.”^[7]

Works

• Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, (September 15, 2009), ISBN 978-0374180652
• Michael J. Sandel, Justice: A Reader, Oxford University Press, (September 27, 2007), ISBN 978-0195335125
• Michael J. Sandel, The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, (January 31, 2007); paperback (September 30, 2009), ISBN 978-0674036383
• Michael J. Sandel, Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics, Harvard University Press (October 31, 2006), ISBN 978-0674023659
• Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, Cambridge University Press, (March 28, 1998), ISBN 978-0521567411
• Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (February 6, 1998), ISBN 978-0674197459

Other languages

• Michael J. Sandel, Plädoyer gegen die Perfektion (German), Berlin University Press, (January 1, 2008), ISBN 978-3940432148
• Michael J. Sandel and Maria Luz Melon, El Liberalismo y los Limites de la Justicia (Filosofia del Derecho) (Spanish), Gedisa Editorial, (November 2000), ISBN 978-8474327069

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

References

External links

• Harvard University Bio
• Podcast interview with Nigel Warburton on Philosophy Bites on What Shouldn’t Be Sold
• Podcast interview with Nigel Warburton on Ethics Bites on the topic of Genetic Enhancement in Sports
• The President’s Council on Bioethics
• FORA.tv The Case Against Perfection
• FORA.tv Michael Sandel on Justice: A Journey in Moral Reasoning at the Aspen Institute, one hour excerpt
• A page of links relating to the 2009 Reith Lectures
• Justice with Michael Sandel, WGBH Boston and Harvard University, complete online video with discussion guides, readings and discussion circle
• Justice: What’s The Right Thing To Do? on Harvard University’s YouTube channel

© Matthieu Ricard (born 1946) is a Buddhist monk who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal.

Recently the Dalai Lama Center Canada organized a Peace Summit in Vancouver with the Dalai Lama and other Nobel Prize winners and speakers. One evening the rock singer and humanitarian Bob Geldof, whose Live Aid concerts have raised 100s of millions of dollars for Africa, made this passionate plea:

“For most of us, all we can do when witnessing suffering is to put our hand in our pocket. If a million of us do that, it is a lot of people, a lot of help, and governments should take note. We need to keep children alive long enough so that they can become the doctors and engineers of tomorrow. Without that something will wither and die inside of us.

Many of these children don’t have parents because of man-made mistakes like wars. In my life I have met extraordinary people such as Mother Theresa. She would tell me that she saw the suffering of Christ on the broken backs of the poor. I don’t see that. I don’t see God. I see the malignant hand of man laid bare. And if that is so, it can be remedied, because it we have done it and we can undo it. We can say: “Enough!” All this is the symptom of poverty revealed in lack of education and in ill health.

In terms of global wealth, the need is infinitesimal if the political will would be there. How many times do we have to manifest the will of the people to the politician and say: “GET-THIS-DONE!” How many times do we have to create African children’s choirs and pop concerts in order to convince human beings to join in the glory of humanity? What are we – a circus or a society?

In truth, the real need represents only a tiny proportion of national budgets.

In the case of America, it is 0.16% of the national economy. It is not that Americans are selfish. Surveys show that when asked what percentage of their GDP do they believe goes into foreign aid, Americans say: “10%”. And when asked “it that enough”, they say “no”. But when they actually find out that it is only 0.16%, they are dismayed.”

The Commission for Africa has requested a doubling of aid by 2010 that will total 50 billion US dollars. Three months ago, one private bank in Britain was given 75 billion pounds within 30 minutes to save it from going under.

Yet a billion people will go down, and the cost is less that one private British company, in an economic system representing more than 50 trillion per annum. And one of the world’s richest economies can’t find a fraction of that.

We really are a joke.

When we break our promise to the poor, we break the most sacred promise, because breaking this promise kills people.

About Matthew Ricard

Money, Power, Wisdom:

September 20, 2009

Before you read any further, let me warn you. This blog post is not typical of what I usually write – and is DEFINITELY NOT for everyone!

If the “existential dilemma” leaves you cold (you lucky dog, you!), or your “search for meaning” rarely surfaces, and (when it does) is easily sublimated by a bar of chocolate in the fridge, then you won’t find this interesting.

I’ll go further. You may find it shocking, disturbing and scary. Stop. You have been warned!

(But no, I’m not joking!)

Still with me. Ok. Let’s start at the very beginning (the very best way to start, sings Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music”, by the way!)

Late last night, I was reading a blog called TECHNIUM. It’s by Kevin Kelly, the guy who wrote the awesome “1,000 True Fans” post I reference often.

This post had the intriguing title “The Unabomber Was Right”. I started reading – and found myself instantly pulled into the narrative. And (gasp!) nodding my head in agreement with some of Kaczynski’s theory!

Look, I’m no Luddite. In fact, I work in TWO of possibly the most technologically sophisticated industries in the world today – a very specialized branch of medicine (pediatric cardiac surgery), and the cutting-edge, rapidly advancing, constantly evolving arena of Internet business.

And I love what I do, and how I do it – and realize it would be impossible to do without technology.

Yet I found myself AGREEING with some quoted excerpts of the manifesto (which, by the way, I haven’t read fully – though I might at some point, to see what else is in there).

As I wended my way through the very long post on Technium’s blog, my mind recalled a similar article (from April 2000) by Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, and for a long time, it’s chief technology officer and software architect. That provocative piece, published in WIRED magazine, was titled “Why The Future Does Not Need Us”.

That article moved me to deep thought, and even resulted in a letter in response that I emailed to Wired, though I’m not sure if it was ever published in the magazine. (I’ve included it below, if you’re interested in reading it)

It also led me to study the work of futurologist Ray Kurzweil, and I read his paradigm shifting book, “The Age of Spiritual Machines” which first introduced me to the concept of a “downloadable consciousness”! (And with such relentless logic, damn it!) If you want your socio-technological foundations shaken to their roots, read that book – and be prepared to be surprised.

Anyway, the parallels AND THE DIFFERENCES came to mind – because where Bill Joy ended his essay on a more or less nihilistic tone of hopelessness, Kevin Kelly chose (like me) to see the ‘positive’ – and highlighted the expanded range of choice that technology has permitted us all.

So even if technology is evil and all-pervasive to the point of killing off all alternative (non-technology based) options in the long run (and no one can say that will happen, though logically it does appear likely), at least in the process enormous advantages/benefits will have been conferred on humanity.

Today, I believe, we have already crossed the Rubicon. Realistically, we can no longer tune out technology. Tell me… can we shut down the Internet? Can we run stock exchanges without computers? Heck, most of us can’t even make our early morning brew without extensively using ‘technology’!

So are we on the slippery slope of self-annhilation and subservience to a nameless, faceless force called TECHNOLOGY, the Darth Vader of our Milky Way galaxy?

I went to bed with that thought lurking under the surface of my awareness, mildly disturbing but not too worrisome (you’ll see why if you read my reply to Bill Joy’s article below)

Anyway, what happened today was kind of cool. Events like this make me wonder about the role (and reality) of serendipity, coincidence and chance in our lives.

I’m halfway through reading the “Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”, but sought out a different book to read over dinner. We had bought seven new books a few days back at the bookstore, and the one I picked today was Isaac Asimov’s.

Now, this book has two stories – “The Caves of Steel” and “The Rest of the Robots” – and for some reason, I selected the second one to read first!

Flipping over to page 8, I read the introduction, which included this passage – and was stunned at the relevance and congruity with the line of thinking that had been occupying my mind subliminally since last night!

Here’s what Asimov says about robots (in the context of why he started writing about them in his sci-fi novels):

“In the 1930s, I became a science-fiction reader, and I quickly grew tired of this dull hundred-times-old tale. Robots were created, and destroyed their creator. As a person interested in science, I resented the purely Faustian interpretation of science.

“Knowledge has its dangers, yes, but is the response to be a retreat from knowledge? Are we prepared then to return to the ape and forfeit the very essence of humanity? Or is knowledge to be used as itself a barrier against the danger it brings?

“In other words, Faust must indeed face Mephistopheles, but Faust does not have to be defeated!

“Knives are manufactured with hilts so that they may be grasped safely, stairs possess banisters, electric wiring is insulated, pressure cookers have safety valves – in every artifact, thought is put into minimizing danger. Sometimes, the safety achieved is insufficient because of limitations imposed by the nature of the universe or the nature of the human mind. However, the effort is there.

“Consider a robot then, as simply another artifact. It is not a sacrilegious invasion of the domain of the Almighty, any more (or any less) than any other artifact is. As a machine, a robot will surely be designed for safety, as far as possible. If robots are so advanced that they can mimic thought processes of human beings, then surely the nature of those thought processes will be designed by human engineers and built-in safeguards wil be added. The safety may not be perfect (what is?), but it will be as complete as men can make it.”

WOW!

Asimov’s philosophy regarding technological advances so closely parallels mine (as reflected in the letter below) that I cannot help but wonder if I had read this passage many years ago (and forgotten about it), and then re-surfaced it in my own paper… with the tinge of fatalism that my cultural upbringing has inculcated in many facets of my thinking.

Anyway, what are your thoughts (if any) on this subject? Read my letter below, and then (if you feel like it), leave a comment on the blog.

My email to WIRED magazine, after reading Bill Joy’s article:

THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY IS …… ‘HUMANOIDITY’ ?!

As a paediatric cardiac surgeon working with children’s heart defects, almost every issue Bill Joy brought up in this article is related what I do on a day-to-day basis. Technologic advances, ethical issues related to such developments, interfering with Nature’s course, exploring new frontiers of science, are all an integral part of my professional work. And hence, areas which I’ve thought about in depth, time and again.

Joy’s article brought up many debatable issues. Here are some of my comments and thoughts.

I agree with the basic premise. Technology will soon advance to the level where machines will become intelligent – even more so than the average human – and will do things better. Maybe someday soon, we’ll come to look upon machines as indispensible to our lives.

I also accept that such progress comes at a price, and an enormous risk. But feel the benefits derived on an everyday basis, as also on an evolutionary level, outweigh the dangers.

While the possibility that the future might see us humans get integrated with an intelligent robot is unsettling, once you get used to the concept, it becomes increasingly acceptable. Especially if, as Joy thinks, it will happen slowly, universally, painlessly. Why worry about it? Like Death, after all, it will be upon you before you realize – and then you won’t need to!

Are we constructing tools that may replace our species? Well, I’d prefer to think the tools we are working on are enhancing our species, helping it evolve into a more powerful, extinction-proof form.

As more and more computing and processing power becomes available to us, that itself will act as an impetus to unleash more of our own brain-power in a synergizing and snow-balling manner. And when you consider that barely 5% of our cerebral capacity has been tapped, you begin to realize that all isn’t lost with the human race. In fact, we might have barely scratched the surface in terms of species/intelligence evolution.

Certainly, there is the uncomfortable risk that we might destroy ourselves in the process. But isn’t that true about any revolutionary development in history?

I believe the human species is innately pre-programmed to survive – and in the process evolve to become ever better, albeit, maybe, losing what is today its essential *humanity*

Looked at in this sense, work on today’s cutting edge technology is a step in that evolutionary process that ensures survival of the fittest species – OURS.

Shouldn’t we be proceeding with caution ?

We are. Nature’s built-in safety valve makes certain that we come up with the most fascinating, innovative advances and breakthroughs ONLY when we are ready for them.

Not much has changed in the basic processes of the human brain or mind in the past century. But look at the advances it has been able to think up, create and implement over the same period. Why didn’t they happen earlier? Surely, humans *could* have thought up the same discoveries and inventions earlier than they did. I prefer to believe there is an inherent timetable that everyone conforms to, knowingly or not, which determines the speed of our evolution.

If an intelligent, self-replicating robot does indeed come into existence in 2030, it is perhaps because human-kind will then be ready for it. We will not survive an encounter with such super-human robots.

But are we sure humankind will try and engage in a battle of wits or strength with such robots? Or even if we do, isn’t it also a possibility that our own intelligence – aided by our harnessing of the *intelligence* of such robots – would have grown to the level that we can do so with a reasonable chance of success?

I’m convinced we’ll have ways to integrate the strengths of both, maybe in the process merge humans with robots in a manner hard to imagine today. The result may be, as Danny Hillis suggests, robotizing of humans. I personally feel it will be the reverse, and we’ll find ‘humanoid’ robots, humans with the processing power of robots but essentially, in all non-technical aspects – emotions, feelings, intuition – human.

And far from being dystopian, that would be utopian, wouldn’t it ? Because it would retain what is the essence of *man*, while also retaining whatever is the upside of mechanization – intellectual superiority, immortality, technical excellence, productivity.

As I see it, this scenario is infinitely preferable to the one created by dabbling in genetic manipulations. After all, how much more dangerous to mankind could a destructive, super-intelligent robot be when compared to incarnations of evil in human form, as for instance the German Chancellor Adolf Hitler?

In genetics, as in Nature, no rules are concrete, knowledge of the whole is miniscule, and dabbling with one aspect could have immeasurable effects on many others. That is a cauldron which, if stirred wrong, could throw up nightmare situations I don’t even dare imagine.

Inequality among humans is an unpleasant fact of life. Trying to correct this by genetic manipulation is not the best answer. And so, if indeed such genetic engineering results in another species with unequal groups, would we have significantly altered the status quo in its very basic sense? No.

As regards using genetic engineering, I’m worried irrespective of the purpose – military, scientific, terrorist or accident. Because we don’t have the slightest idea of the impact on the entire ecosystem, or even in isolation on a particular species alone, over time.

Any modification or manipulation of Nature can be put to the best possible use. And truly enough, this is the motivation of the scientists seeking to unlock these secrets. And just as inevitably, there is the certainty that those very developments will be perverted by a minority to suit their narrow minded needs.

In the well publicized race to decode the human genome, you see evidence of this trend. While the Human Genome Project researchers followed a plodding, methodical process, maverick geniuses like Dr.Venter short-circuited the system rushing to decode only the functional genes with commercial potential. Therein lies the danger – as the silent, non-functional codons and genes just might hold the secret of Life. And we’d never know – until it was too late.

Nature, or God if you will, has planned for such variety – and built in the safeguards that will protect humanity – or as it might become known later, ‘humanoidity’.

While we can but plan for *foreseeable* dangers of technology and evolution, how can we predict what we don’t know about? For instance, how many would have imagined, just 10 years ago, the impact of the Internet on mankind? Robotics, nanotech and bioengineering are today what the Internet was to mankind a couple of decades earlier – wonders of the future with enormous potential for good and bad, of which we know but little, and can only hope the best.

There are far too many potential situations that could wipe out humanity as we know it, many of them eerily current, and dependent on such insecure safeguards as one man’s (or a small group’s collective) ego or intelligence. A lab accident could release the small-pox virus. A temporarily unbalanced President could hit the nuclear trigger. Lazy computer programmers avoided typing four digits for a year and scared the world into believing in a doomsday as the new millenium rolled in.

Yet they didn’t happen. And – most probably – won’t ever. Why? I’d like to think because Nature ordains it that way!

Business covets a stable, peaceful environment more than does a military or government. It is more likely that a technological innovation with commercial benefits, developed by corporate enterprise, would be used for peaceful purposes than those invented by a military research lab for defensive, or as is more common, acquisitive intent.

Perhaps the marketplace, with its competitiveness and scope for enormous profits, will be the best safety check to prevent harmful application of the new technology. So let’s just ensure enormous business profitability from those technologies! And as for governments, the destructive potential itself will be the most effective deterrent against its damaging deployment, just as detente evolved as a direct consequence of the atomic bomb blasts.

While it is true that the ease of availability of this technology to the common man is disconcerting, is there any reason to believe Joe-next-door finds the prospect of annhilating human-kind any more exciting a prospect than leaders of nations?

As to the question of tampering with and altering the *awareness of Nature and the order of life*, doesn’t almost any scientific advance do just that, in a sense ?

Take for instance the treatment of a serious heart birth defect called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome or HLHS. While initial efforts at cure resulted in over 95% mortality, it is perseverance that has brought about current survival figures in excess of 90%. Naturally, left alone, these patients would ALL have died within one year of life. Now if that isn’t tampering with the *order of life*, I don’t know what is!

Yet no one today criticizes the efforts of those early pioneers. Their initial efforts were just as inefficient, the systems they built were just as fragile to begin with, as today’s efforts with robotics and software are. But over time, these systems and processes become robust, stable, effective.

Do you know what is scary about this? No one seems to condemn these efforts as strongly as they did the first nuclear explosion, or cloning, or experiments at creating intelligent robots. Why? Because, on the surface, we are restoring health to a human life. No one pauses to wonder why, and indeed if, we should try and influence Nature’s course as it affects that one patient. It is taken for granted. Indeed to REFUSE to offer this treatment would be consider unethical!

What if there were some other, hitherto unknown, yet enormously serious *other* reasons for which that particular patient wouldn’t have survived *naturally* ? And what if those very other reasons – of which we do not know anything – could be harmful to the ecosystem, in a broader sense?

There are too many unknowns in the biologic arena, much more than the relatively better controlled area of robotics and automation technology. Yet we dabble uncaringly in these bio-spheres, indeed are even encouraged to continue doing so – simply because we see no harm in the near term. The same might be true of other tech fields – nanotechnology and robotics. And the trend will continue – until disaster strikes. And then, it will be too late to worry!

Yet we talk about shielding ourselves from the terrible consequences of these exciting new technologies. But the truth is we cannot shield ourselves, or hide from them by abandoning the planet or covering it with a star-wars style barrier. There is only one sure-fire way to *protect* ourselves, and that is to abandon any efforts at developing such technologies.

And that is absurd, on the face of it. Maybe even more dangerous as well, since a lack of progress can be construed as regression, and could reduce the survival advantage our species has built up over centuries.

Indeed, many of the advances made in earlier years by our forebears might have been viewed as *threatening* by their peers, been conceived as likely to annhilate the species at the time. Yet we are still alive to tell the tale, and none the worse for wear – indeed better off in many ways.

We live in an imperfect world. Yet that world hasn’t ended. Despite many predictions to the contrary, we have survived and thrived. Yes, I believe we are pre-programmed to survive, no matter what we need to do, how we need to change and evolve to do so.

And it is naive to assume that we can hold back now. Put the genie back into the bottle and throw it out to sea. Throttle the progress that has been made already.

Maybe that was possible a few decades ago. Now that Dolly has been cloned, Venter has patented significant chunks of Man’s genetic make-up and molecular electronics has risen on the horizon of techno-research, we have embarked on a journey of no return. The only relinquishment possible will be when one or many parties have achieved their ends.

But we still hold the rudder. We can navigate within safe seas, discover new lands, explore uncharted waters, play safe and do good. Or instead we could become the Grand Pirates of the ocean of life, attacking innocent passers-by, spreading death and destruction, and ultimately pay the supreme price of self-annhilation.

As always, the choice is ours.

——————————————————————————–

A Message From My Heart..

From Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian

Reader's Digest magazine influenced my life - twice.

In 1977, with a story about a living God.  A heart surgeon
named Denton A.Cooley.  He was glamorous, a pioneer and
entrepreneur.  Operated on princes, presidents and prime
ministers.  In all, over 75,000 operations.  Founded the
world-famous Texas Heart Institute in Houston.  

I wanted to be like him.

A 1989 issue I read during my medical internship featured
a neurosurgeon named Tom Peters.  One sentence in his
interview remains burned into my mind:

"I don't accept children dying."

This time, I didn't just *want* to be like him.

I LIVED LIKE HIM.

I too won't accept a child dying.  I made myself a promise.

Anything... ANYTHING that is within my power to prevent it
happening, I will do.

   = = = = = 

1989 - It was the year I grew up.

When I realized - and accepted - that life is unfair.

1989 was when a 22-year old held my hand as his life ebbed away

1989 was when I lost a loved 8-year old niece to an untreatable
kidney ailment

1989 was when I watched helplessly as a teenager succumbed to
a terrible severe viral infection.

It hurt.  Terribly.  Deeply.

And proved beyond doubt that life isn't fair.

But that's ok.

We just need to tweak the odds - in our favor.

That's what technological advances, evolution - indeed survival
itself - is all about.

Tweaking the odds in our favor.

   = = = = = 

A child's life is precious.  VERY precious.

It's loss - crushing.  Mind numbing.

It may be Nature's law - but I don't like it.

Never will.

I won't accept a child dying.

Many forms of heart birth defects make survival impossible.

Unless they're repaired.

That's one reason I became a pediatric heart surgeon.

Apart from the challenge, the technical, intellectual and
emotional puzzles the speciality poses its practitioners.

The latter, sadly, creates robots.  Unemotional automatons
that get caught up in their craft, forgetting or ignoring
the human element.  The stress, pain, trauma, helplessness
associated with the problem.

The COST.

Heart birth defects have a unique social dimension.  Young
families, just starting out on their careers and settling
down, with little if any financial cushion, suddenly are
confronted with a daunting choice...

Raise the money - often paralyzingly huge sums - or watch
your child suffer... or worse.

Most of my work online aims to tackle this facet of the
complex problem.

I can - and do - handle the medical and emotional elements.
But alone, I can't help with the financial ones.

That's why I need YOU.

The children do.

And thanks to the heartwarming generous outpouring from a
group of amazing folks, at least 23 children will live.


Without you, they may not have.

YOU have made a difference.

YOU are special.

I'm honored to consider you my friend!

Thank you -- from my heart!

Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian

Thank you for supporting the Heart Kids Blogathon.
http://www.HeartKidsBlogathon.info

If you'd like to contribute, there's still time. Go to:


http://www.CHDinfo.com/howdonate.htm

-------------------------------------------------------

MORE ABOUT Dr. Mani:

Dr. Mani: An Internet Mogul With a Heart

Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian has been compared to Mother Theresa, especially by
poor families in India that have a child living with a congenital heart
defect.

Dr. Sivasubramanian, better known simply as "Dr. Mani," is a well known
author that handles health-related topics online. His first calling in life
was cardiology. He has performed lifesaving heart operations for numerous
children.

Already impacted by the work of heart surgeon Dr. Denton A. Cooley, founder
of the Texas Heart Institute, Dr. Mani had made a decision to become a heart
surgeon himself. In 1989 Dr. Mani read a quote in a medical journal by a
neurosurgeon named Dr. Tom Peters, who said: "I don't accept children
dying." Dr. Mani realized he didn't accept children dying either.

In fact, that same year Dr. Mani lost his own eight year old niece to kidney
disease. He regularly watched other children and young people die from
illness. He had watched as doctors that he worked with became hardened to
death and suffering. He vowed that, even though he witnessed suffering every
day, death would not become just a routine part of his job as a physician.

Dr. Mani knew he that, as a heart surgeon, he could make a tremendous impact
on the lives of children with congenital heart defects. But he wasn't
satisfied with simply staying in the hospital and wielding a scalpel. He
wanted to get involved with the families of the children, real human beings,
whose lives were turned upside-down by the misfortune of being born with a
heart defect.

So, in 2003, he launched the Dr. Mani Children Heart Foundation. Dr. Mani
also became a well known and award winning Internet and business
entrepreneur. He has raised over $84,000 to provide life saving heart
operations for children whose families could not otherwise afford the
operations. The children helped by Dr. Mani's foundation would likely have
died without his intervention.

Dr. Mani continues to raise awareness about congenital heart disease around
the world. His foundation maintains a growing base of supporters, currently
at approximately 700 members. He also sponsors major fundraising events. One
of these is The Heart Kids Blogathon, an annual event which was started in
2003. He and his foundation are also an integral part of "A Day for Hearts,"
a fundraising event that falls on February 14 each year. The day is
dedicated to raising awareness of, and generating support for, congenital
heart disease.

Dr. Mani accepts that life isn't always fair. But he also knows that it only
takes a little bit of dedication to "tweak the odds in our favor."

Copyright © 2009 www.dr-mani.com inc. All rights reserved.

——————————————————————————————-

Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Mani

His Royal Highness Prince Hassan Bin Talal about a new global Mega Project:

“More than 40 years ago the Apollo Space Program was launched to fulfill the
old dream of taking man into outer space. Today, we have a bigger dream, to
restore balance between man and his home planet, Earth. With the political
will, EUMENA countries could now launch an Apollo-like “EUMENA-DESERTEC”
Program, to bring humankind back into balance with its environment, by
putting deserts and technology into service for energy, water and climate
security. This would be an important step towards creating a truly
sustainable civilization.”

Summary of the Desertec
Concept up to 2050

We want to act as “awareness raiser”, “catalyst” and “barrier remover” to
pave the way for DESERTEC developments. One of the most useful things we can
do is to work with national governments and political bodies like the EU and
similar bodies all over the world, to create the right framework of laws and
regulations, and to ensure that there is a good framework of incentives for
DESERTEC developments. Since the DESERTEC Concept can serve as key part of
any scenario for sustainable development in a world with 10 billion people,
it will be of interest to a wide range of stakeholders. An important
function of the DESERTEC Foundation will be to serve as a think tank and
forum for the exchange of ideas and for discussion of relevant issues.

Marhaba Africa!

CNN trailer about the vision of Dr. Gerhard Knies and the science network
TREC who developed the DESERTEC Concept for energy, climate and human
security.

DESERTEC RED PAPER

“In the coming decades, global developments will confront mankind with
unprecedented challenges: climate change, a population growth far beyond
Earth‘s present carrying capacity, the global striving for prosperity, and
increasing demands for energy and water, are the core problems we are faced
with. 200 years of global industrialization has resulted in an unparalleled
standard of living and an increased life expectancy for part of the world’s
population. However, all this has been and is still being achieved at a
price: alarming environmental destruction as well as climate change which
can no longer be ignored. These things will mean dramatic changes to life on
Earth in the future.”
 

Download it now:
 English
- 
French

Concept Summary The DESERTEC Concept describes the perspective of a
sustainable supply of electricity for Europe (EU), the Middle East (ME) and
North Africa (NA) up to the year 2050. It shows that a transition to
competitive, secure and compatible supply is possible using renewable energy
sources and efficiency gains, and fossil fuels as backup for balancing
power. A close cooperation between EU and MENA for market introduction of
renewable energy and interconnection of electricity grids by high-voltage
direct-current transmission are keys for economic and physical survival of
the whole region. However, the necessary measures will take at least two
decades to become effective.

Therefore, adequate policy and economic frameworks for their realization
must be introduced immediately. The role of sustainable energy to secure
freshwater supplies based on seawater desalination is also addressed. In
order to find a viable transition to an electricity supply that is
inexpensive, compatible with the environment and based on secure resources,
rigorous criteria must be applied to ensure that the results are compatible
with a comprehensive definition of sustainability. A central criterion for
power generation is its availability at any moment on demand.

Today, this is achieved by consuming stored fossil or nuclear energy sources
that can provide electricity whenever and wherever required. This is the
easiest way to provide power on demand. However, consuming the stored energy
reserves of the globe has a high price: they are quickly depleted and their
residues contaminate the planet. With the exception of hydropower, natural
flows of energy are not widely used for power generation today, because they
are not as easily stored and exploited as fossil or nuclear fuels.

Some of them can be stored with a reasonable technical effort for a limited
time-span, but others must be taken as provided by nature. The challenge of
future electricity supply is to find a mix of available technologies and
resources that is capable of satisfying not only the criterion of “power on
demand”, but all the other criteria for sustainability too. The DESERTEC
WhiteBook describes a scenario of electricity demand and supply
opportunities by renewable energy in the integrated EUMENA region up to the
middle of the century, and confirms the importance of international
cooperation to achieve economic and environmental sustainability. You can
download various summaries of the DESERTEC Concept and the studies by
clicking to following link:


DOWNLOAD THE WHITEBOOK

Follow DESERTEC on  Twitter and
Facebook

Original date of publication (French) June 3d 2009 7:21 | by
JACQUES ATTALI

Contrary to what they want us to
believe, the crisis deepens: in the United
States, all deficits are rising; banks defaulting are worsening, and even if
Wall Street is up, its value is still 40% lower than that of October 2007.
In addition,everyone whispers within informed circles, that we should expect
many more tsunamis: on private real estate loans, on credit cards, and on
commercial real estate.

It’s not a new recovery plan that we need, but a true awareness of the
cultural and political urgencies. And in particular a radical questioning of
the division of powers between those who create and those who finance, the
condition, once again, of our survival.

————————————————————————————————————
Translation from French made possible with permission of Mr. Jacques Attali

http://blogs.lexpress.fr/attali/

————————————————————————————————————

Mr. Jacques Attali Jacques Attali (born 1 November 1943 in Algiers, Algeria)
is a French economist and scholar. From 1981 to 1991, he was an advisor to
President François Mitterrand, In April 1991 he became the first President
of the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the
financial institution established by western governments to assist the
countries of eastern and central Europe and the former Soviet Union in their
transition to democratic market economies. He worked at the bank until 1993.
In 1998 Attali founded the French non-profit organization PlaNet Finance
which focuses on microfinance. Attali is perhaps best known in America as
the author of Noise: The Political Economy of Music. More Info:

http://blogs.lexpress.fr/attali/

—————————————————————————————

Passer aux choses sérieuses

3 juin 2009 7h21 | par JACQUES ATTALI

j@attali.com
 

A RETRO-GOVERNMENT

IN NEED OF IRAN

PROMISES OF THE SUBURBS

OPTIMISMS

THREE YEARS

En version originale par Jacques Attali:

OPTIMISMES

TROIS ANS

Les 8 Secrets de la Réussite

pour sous titrage en Français, prière de
cliquer sur”view subtitles” et
faire le choix France (French) .

Discours de Jacques Chirac

L’Eau pour la Paix –

la Paix pour l’Eau

Summary in French

By Joel Bomane’s

Earth Nest Group

http://www.fondationchirac.eu/eau-pour-paix-13-novembre/

L’eau pour la Paix – La Paix pour l’eau from Fondation Chirac on Vimeo

(Crédit : NEWSPRODMedia Manser)

DROIT UNIVERSEL A L’EAU MOBILISATION

- URGENCE-

L’Eau pour TOUS EGALITE – PARTAGE – ARBITRAGE

Population – Grands Fleuves: SURVIE.

Le discours de Jacques Chirac à la Maison de l’Unesco 2008 –

Citoyens du monde, L’eau...plus que jamais…est un enjeux VITAL et essentiel pour ce siècle.

Nous avons pris du retard tant au niveau mondial, régional, que locale… Chaque jour 10 000 enfants victimes d’une eau insalubre…

Cela est INNACEPTABLE!

Monsieur Jacques Chirac et la FONDATION CHIRAC nous rappelle qu’il y a des solutions concrètes à “l’absurdité” de cette situation.

Même au milieu d’une Crise Economique et Financière: Pas de fatalisme!

Mais une VISION STRATEGIQUE de PARTAGE de l’EAU.

L’Accès Universel à l’Eau et à l‘Assainissement pour TOUS…

un DROIT...est possible et réalisable

Comment?

Par une meilleur GESTION et DISTRIBUTION de cette RESSOURCE VITALE qu’est l’EAU:

fondationchirac.eu/eau-pour-paix-13-novembre/

Note: AIDE PUBLIQUE AU DEVELOPPEMENT: 0,7% PIB DOIT ETRE MAINTENUE!

“L’effrondement des crédits d’AIDE… dans les pays du Nord…est une honte, une faute morale, et une erreur stratégique...ce que nous ne donnons pas aujourd’hui nous sera compté demain…sinon…

GUERRE de l’EAU… des EMEUTES de la soif…”

Jacques Chirac

N.B: Rappelons nous ces paroles éternelles et universelles adressées (indirectement) à chaque individu de l’espèce humaine…

et prononcées sur les rives du Jourdain :

“J’avais soif et vous m’avez donné à boire” Jésus Christ.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand pour la fondation Chirac

Yann Arthus-Bertrand pour la fondation Chirac from Fondation Chirac on Vimeo.

Franck Debié le Directeur général de la Fondation Chirac explique les objectifs du Prix pour la prévention des conflits que lance la fondation. La prévention des conflits est plus que jamais indispensable dans un monde où les guerres, les tensions intercommunautaires violentes augmentent et où des processus de paix s’avèrent soit inachevés, soit fragiles.

Lorsque la crise est ouverte, les moyens d’imposer la paix restent limités et le risque de voir un conflit durer et s’enkyster est grand.

Le Prix de la Fondation Chirac pour la prévention des conflits a pour but d’améliorer la notoriété et de soutenir ceux qui investissent une partie de leur vie et de leurs ressources à prévenir les conflits.

Franck Debié from Fondation Chirac on Vimeo

By Lee Iacocca

November 2007

with Catherine Whitney.

I Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening?

Where the hell is our outrage?

We should be screaming bloody murder.

We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car.

But instead of getting mad,everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.” Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out! You might think I’m getting senile, that I’ve gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore.

The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you? I’ll go a step further.

You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged. This is a fight I’m ready and willing to have. My friends tell me to calm down. They say, “Lee, you’re eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people.” I’d love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I’m going to speak up because it’s my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I’ll tell you how I see it, and it’s not pretty, but at least it’s real. I’m hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don’t vote because they don’t trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Who Are These Guys, Anyway?

Why are we in this mess?

How did we end up with this crowd in Washington?

Well, we voted for them

—or at least some of us did. But I’ll tell you what we didn’t do. We didn’t agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn’t agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason.

Where I come from that’s a dictatorship, not a democracy.

And don’t tell me it’s all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That’s an intellectually lazy argument, and it’s part of the reason we’re in this stew.

We’re not just a nation of factions. We’re a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together. Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better.

Where have all the leaders gone?

The Test of a Leader I’ve never been Commander in Chief, but I’ve been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I’ve figured out nine points—not ten (I don’t want people accusing me of thinking I’m Moses). I call them the “Nine Cs of Leadership.” They’re not fancy or complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to be around until January 2009.

Maybe we can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let’s be sure we use the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the country. It’s up to us to choose wisely.

So, here’s my C list:

A leader has to show CURIOSITY.

He has to listen to people outside of the “Yes, sir” crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. “I just scan the headlines,” he says. Am I hearing this right?

He’s the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.” Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he’s ready to go. If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn’t put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he’s right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don’t care.

Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn’t listen to the polls. Yeah, that’s what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a “thumping” on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn’t listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right.

A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping.

There’s a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President—the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields.

“The President was serene,” Joe recalled.

“He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well.

‘Mr. President,’ I finally said, ‘

how can you be so sure when you don’t yet know all the facts?’”

Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe’s shoulder.

“My instincts,” he said.

“My instincts.” Joe was flabbergasted.

He told Bush,

“Mr. President, your instincts aren’t good enough.”

Joe Biden sure didn’t think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn’t. Leadership is all about managing change—whether you’re leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt.

Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School.

A leader has to COMMUNICATE.

I’m not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I’m talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem.

I don’t know if it’s denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it’s painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn’t cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we’ve stopped listening to him.

A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER.

That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, “If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences.

He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths—for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he’s tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.

A leader must have COURAGE.

I’m talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn’t courage. Tough talk isn’t courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn’t mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk. If you’re a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes.

Bush can’t even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.

To be a leader you’ve got to have CONVICTION—a fire in your belly.

You’ve got to have passion. You’ve got to really want to get something done. How do you measure fire in the belly?

Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President—four hundred and counting. He’d rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake. It’s no better on Capitol Hill.

Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That’s eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that’s not leadership.

A leader should have CHARISMA.

I’m not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It’s the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That’s my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn’t look very presidential.

Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don’t go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.

A leader has to be COMPETENT.

That seems obvious, doesn’t it?

You’ve got to know what you’re doing. More important than that, you’ve got to surround yourself with people who know what they’re doing.

Bush brags about being our first MBA President.

Does that make him competent?

Well, let’s see.

Thanks to our first MBA President, we’ve got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we’ve run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq.

And that’s just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.

You can’t be a leader if you don’t have COMMON SENSE.

I call this Charlie Beacham’s rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford’s zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel.

Charlie used to tell me, “Remember, Lee, the only thing you’ve got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don’t know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you’ll never make it.”

George Bush doesn’t have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know—Mr.they’ll-welcome-us-as-liberators-no-child-left-behind-heck-of-a-job-Brownie-mission-accomplished Bush.

Former President Bill Clinton once said, “I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world—and I like it here.”

I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while.

The Biggest C is Crisis Leaders are made, not born.

Leadership is forged in times of crisis.

It’s easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else’s kids off to war when you’ve never seen a battlefield yourself. It’s another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history.

We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes.

Where was George Bush?

He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks.

He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face.

It’s all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn’t safe to return to the White House.

He basically went into hiding for the day—and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home.

It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero. That was George Bush’s moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he’d regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq—a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. B

ut Bush didn’t listen to Daddy.

He listened to a higher father.

He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn’t scare the crap out of you, I don’t know what will. A Hell of a Mess So here’s where we stand. We’re immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We’re running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We’re losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves.

The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership. But when you look around, you’ve got to ask: “Where have all the leaders gone?” Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We’ve spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened. Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina.

Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone’s hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn’t happen again.

Now, that’s just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you’re going to do the next time. Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing.

Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when “the Big Three” referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen—and more important, what are we going to do about it? Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem.

The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry. I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn’t elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don’t you guys show some spine for a change? Had Enough? Hey, I’m not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here.

I’m trying to light a fire. I’m speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. I

n my lifetime I’ve had the privilege of living through some of America’s greatest moments. I’ve also experienced some of our worst crises—the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11.

If I’ve learned one thing, it’s this:

You don’t get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action.

Whether it’s building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play.

That’s the challenge I’m raising in this book.

It’s a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America.

It’s not too late, but it’s getting pretty close.

So let’s shake off the horseshit and go to work.

Let’s tell ‘em all we’ve had enough.

http://www.bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=wherehavealltheleadersgone

Paul Polak is the founder of the Colorado-based non-profit International Development Enterprises (IDE) which is dedicated to developing practical solutions that harness the power of markets and attack poverty at its roots.

Polak was born in the Czech Republic and raised in Canada.

As a twelve year old in Canada, Polak learned that he could make five cents a quart picking strawberries. After earning his M.D. degree in psychiatry at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, Polak worked as an intern at Montreal General Hospital. —

—- In 1959, he moved to
Denver, Colorado to do his residency at the University of Colorado Medical Center. Polak received his certification from the American Board of Neurology and Psychiatry in 1968. Polak practiced psychiatry for 23 years in Colorado.

To better understand the environments influencing his patients, he visited their homes and workplaces. Polak’s career in medicine includes a stint as a deputy coroner and as a medical officer in Melrose, Scotland.

In 1971, Polak founded the Southwest Denver Community Mental Health Services Inc., which played a prominent national and international role in advancing both the concept and practical working models of community based care for severely mentally ill clients.

He has published more than seventy articles on psychiatric research, psychiatry, and community mental health. After a trip to Bangladesh, Polak was inspired to use the skills he had honed while working with homeless veterans and mentally ill patients in Denver to help serve the 800 million people living on a dollar a day around the world.

Based on extended conversations with more than three thousand small-acreage farmers in developing countries, Polak devised the simple operating principles of the organization he founded, International Development Enterprises (IDE), which has helped more than 15 million people who survive on less than a dollar a day to move out of poverty.

Polak is President of International Development Enterprises (IDE), an organization he founded in 1981. IDE has pioneered the development and rural mass marketing of affordable technologies through the small enterprise private sector in developing countries.

IDE has installed 1.3 million Treadle Pumps on small farms in Bangladesh by activating a local private sector network of 50 manufacturers and several thousand village dealers and well drillers. As a result, small farm families in Bangladesh have increased their net annual income by $130 million per year.

IDE has also disseminated affordable small-scale irrigation devices in India, Nepal, Vietnam Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Zambia.

Polak has played a key role in technology design as well as development and implementation of mass dissemination strategies. In 1998, Polak and IDE launched a global initiative which has been taken up by international organizations and governments, and has the objective of putting one million hectares a year owned by smallholders under low cost drip irrigation.

IDE started when three concerned individuals agreed to put up ten thousand dollars each to get it going. Art DeFehr of Palliser Furniture in Canada and Don Hedrick, a businessman from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, joined Polak to initiate IDE (TM) first project to build and sell 500 donkey carts to refugee entrepreneurs in Somalia.

This led to IDE (TM) present focus on intensive profitable agriculture on small farms and the use practical business strategies to increase the incomes of dollar-a-day poor people. In the beginning, Polak worked out of a bedroom in his house as the only staff member.

Unpaid and undaunted, Polak won grants from the government of Canada and the United Nations to initiate the donkey cart project.

Later, the Canadian government supported the sale of treadle pumps in Bangladesh and other countries, a project that turned into a great success.

Through it all, IDE has sold its products at fair market prices and its customers have earned three times their money back in the first year.

IDE has 13 people at its headquarters in Denver and 550 full-time staff who come from the nine countries where they directly implement projects in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia.

IDE has had an impact on the lives of 3.5 million dollar-a-day small-farm families (17.5 million individuals) since its inception, and is working together with its partners to reach 30 million families by 2020.

IDE achieves results in challenging environments of extreme poverty, poor infrastructure, disease, and war. With 90% of its employees locally employed in these countries, IDE uses an entrepreneurial approach to succeed where traditional development models have failed. IDE listens to what its customers, the rural poor, say about their needs and then develops appropriate, affordable solutions that increase their incomes.

These solutions include developing and marketing technologies for water access and control, providing expertise and training, and increasing access to markets.

In 2007, Polak founded D-Rev - create a design revolution by enlisting the best designers in the world to develop products and ideas that will benefit the 90% of the people on earth who are poor, in order to help them earn their way out of poverty. D-Rev seeks to do this by inspiring, educating, and connecting all of the people who are involved in the design process, from the inception to the purchase and use of products.

The chief collaborators at D-Rev include: Kurt Kuhlmann, an engineering consultant and entrepreneur who has developed products for the “bottom of the pyramid” with various companies; Cheryl Heller, founder of Heller Communication Design, serves as a brand strategist and product developer for both Fortune 100 and start up companies in various fields; Steve Troy, who has worked in renewable energy/appropriate technology engineering and supply with over 120 countries; Alan Schwartz, who has been instrumental in 14 diverse entrepreneurial ventures; Mohan Uttarwar, co-founder of BioImagene and several other high-tech ventures; and Lyn McLaughlin, the operations manager at D-Rev. Polak has written more than a hundred papers and articles on water, agriculture, design, and development, as well as in the field of mental health.

Book by Paul Polak: “Out of Poverty:

What Works When Traditional Methods Fail,”

San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2008, p. 9.

In one word it is brilliant! (in French at the end of this Post)

There is a crystal clear decision to Give Value First to your customers that will EXPLODE your results…

For I have witnessed Dr. Mani’s high ethical and business standards for over a decade now.

And so I felt compelled to read his soul power “Value First Manifesto,” meditate upon it and translate it into my own language (French)!

http://www.creafirm-consultant.com/manifesto

The word “Manifesto” (from Italian, “denunciation”) means a “public declaration of intentions, motives“…

The word “Value” is from the Old French “to be worth” (Latin valēre) with an Indo- European root “wal“- “to be strong.”

For you have to be strong like Dr. Mani to find might & worth within your soul to dare call ALL entrepreneurs to make an “oath” for “VALUE FIRST” & Commit to Success “even before the money changes hands.”

So ACT today!

Share Dr. Mani’s power principle found in “Value First Manifesto”with your loved ones, friends, and clients.

And let “VALUE FIRST” become your new mantra and motto!

Merci Dr.Mani de partager ce “Manifeste“

VALUE FIRST will be of great benefit to European/French Infopreneurs.

- Joel Bomane from Sunny Southern France

http://www.joelbomane.com

VALUE FIRST MANIFESTO by Dr. Mani in original language

(English) can be found here:

http://ezinemarketingcenter.com/valuefirst/

ValueFirst.pdf

————————-

Je fais parti de TIMIC (The Internet Marketing Inner Circle) crée par mon ami Willie Crawford

TIMIC réunit des centaines de businessmen de haut calibre venant de tous les continents, tels que *Dr. Mani, Case Stevens…Un de ses membres (*Dr. Mani – Chirurgien/*Infopreneur*) et ami, a partagé avec moi…

SA PHILOSPHIE du monde des affaires en 2009, et j’y adhère à 100%.

LA VALEUR AVANT TOUT …le Manifeste derrière le mouvement! Rejoignez nous Copyright 2009, Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian and InfoProfitz.com

Vous avez la permission de distribuer, partager, et republier ce document à condition qu’il soit laissé intacte sans changement au niveau du format ou du contenu.

Qu’adviendrai t’il si VOUS, en tant qu’entrepreneur en ligne et infopreneur obsédé par l’idée de valeur, faisiez ces choses?

Pour quiconque tombe sur votre présence en ligne sur le Web…

Créer un site Web rempli d’un contenu qui informe, éduque, et amuse votre audience, leur donnant ce qu’ils recherchent, leur fournissant quelque chose d’utile et d’avantageux – gratuitement Pour quiconque prend le temps de l’explorer…

Offrir un trésor insoupçonné d’informations précieuses basé sur votre expertise, expérience et enthousiasme, des choses qui améliorent la vie de toute personne qui entre en contact avec vous – sans leur demander de s’abonner ou même leur email Pour quiconque se joint à votre fichier clients par email…

Publier un Bulletin Electronique ou Newsletter via email rempli des réponses précises en rapport avec les questions qui les préoccupent, des solutions aux problèmes qui les assaillent, idées, conseils ou aides pour atteindre leurs buts Pour quiconque lit votre magazine électronique ou Ezine…

Communiquer clairement et rester en contact fréquemment , découvrir ce qu’ils veulent et ont besoin, en trouvant une manière pour leur livrer l’info de manière efficiente, en agissant dans votre secteur de spécialisation en tant que guide et mentor rempli de compassion

Pour quiconque voudrait acheter quelque chose chez vous…

Créer, compiler ou se procurer les droits pour un produit qui introduit vos futurs clients à votre domaine d’expertise, en utilisant un style et un modèle plus axés sur la façon dont ils tireront des bénéfices de cet achat que du profit que vous allez tirer de cette vente Pour quiconque est hésitant lors de ce premier achat…

Faire une proposition si attrayante, sans risque pour l’acheteur et avantageuse – avec une mise à prix si accessible par rapport à la valeur inhérente du produit/service – afin de faciliter sa décision qui doit être aussi simple, sûre et sans stress que possible Pour quiconque a déja commandé vos produits et services…

Faire un suivi, prendre des nouvelles, et s’engager avec empathie avec les acheteurs après qu’ils aient acheté chez vous, pour s’assurer qu’ils obtiennent le maximum de valeur de cette interaction, peu importe le montant de l’achat lors de la vente initiale Pour quiconque veut aller plus loin et acheter un peu plus chez vous…

Etre sélectif au niveau des produits, programmes ou services que vous offrez à votre clientèle, les adaptant en fonction de leurs besoins, niveaux d’expertise et habileté, plutôt qu’en les “chargeant” faisant ‘feu de tout bois.”

En d’autres termes, qu’adviendrai t’il, si dans vos affaires en tant qu’infopreneur sur Internet, vous viviez pleinement cette philosophie de privilégier la VALEUR AVANT TOUT – même avant que l’argent ne change de mains – et ainsi continuer sur cette même ligne de conduite… pour toujours ?

Pouvez vous imaginer combien vos affaires vont prospérerer, le bien que cela va vous procurez, et la joie que vous allez ressentir en aidant les autres à suivre cette approche ?

Votre but ultime sera le bien-être, la protection et le succès de vos futurs clients, vos abonnés, vos patients, VOS AMIS… pas simplement votre marge bénéficiaire au sein de votre business d’infopreneur.

En effet, d’une manière remarquable, vos affaires vont fleurir. Prospérer. EXPLOSER. Ce qui est bien plus important, dans une certaine mesure, c’est que VOUS aurez du plaisir à être dans votre affaire, chaque jour de votre vie, tout en apportant de la valeur à votre réseau.

La clé dans tout ceci c’est de se poser une question cruciale, pour tout ce que vous prévoyez d’entreprendre dans votre affaire.

La question à vous posez est celle ci : « Ce que je fais rendra t’il la vie de mon client meilleure, d’une manière quelconque, que si je n’y avais jamais été ? »

Toutes les fois que la réponse sera « oui », votre récompense est garantie, que ce soit en termes d’argent, de respect, d’influence, de part de marché ou de croissance en valeur d’actifs. Inversement, toutes les fois que la réponse est « non », vous devrez impérativement changer votre ligne de conduite et revoir ce que vous prévoyez de faire…de façon à obtenir un « oui » à la question !

Ajouter LA VALEUR AVANT TOUT…

Même avant que l’argent ne change de mains!

Que pensez vous de ce message?

Veuillez prendre un moment pour partager vos pensées en laissant un commentaire sur notre blog, Money.Power.Wisdom – . Et pendant que vous êtes là, n’oubliez pas de récupérer vos rapports-info GRATUITS qui valent pas mal d’argent et que j’offre à titre gracieux – ma manière d’ajouter LA VALEUR AVANT TOUT à vos affaires et à votre vie.

Rejoignez le mouvement?

Le manifeste LA VALEUR AVANT TOUT deviendra la semence d’un mouvement qui créera un meilleur internet pour les infopreneurs.

Un différent des perfides, pillant les clients, où « seul le fric compte » reste la devise, et ce manifeste sera plus en harmonie avec la VERITABLE éthique de l’infopreneur qui est d’influencer de manière positive la vie de notre audience. Pour faire cela, nous avons besoin de nous entraider. Faire un effort concerté pour amener le changement.

Créer un mouvement. Cela commence par diffuser le message. Partager le manifeste LA VALEUR AVANT TOUT avec vos amis – partenaires commerciaux, abonnés et clients. Par ailleurs, si vous voulez partager ce manifeste avec VOS amis, il y a une manière de le faire qui vous sera avantageuse.

* Infopreneur: “combinaison d’un chef d’entreprise et créateur d’information. Le terme« infopreneuring » renvoie à l’action de créer (ou d’avoir créé) des ressources précieuses en information qui sont ensuites exprimées en valeur monétaire de manière entrepreneuriale.” *Dr. Mani

La Fondation du *Dr. Mani CHILD HEART FOUNDATION:

est à but non lucratif créé pour sensibiliser le public au sujet des cardiopathies congénitales et récolter des fonds afin de parrainer et sauver des enfants (souffrant de maladies cardiaques congénitales) issus de familles pauvres en Inde.

http://www.chdinfo.com/

The problem is not new from: Ross Perot’s in 1992 presidential election… Mr. “r-e-a-d m-y l-i-p-s” and raising taxes…

Bill Cliton in 1993...(where they first lost the Congress in 30 years…)

David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States (2007) thinks USA have four deficits:

1) Debt/Budget
2) Balance payment,
3) saving,
4) Leadership

Americans have a vague sense of their government’s long-term fiscal prospects… Young people worry more about the war in Iraq, terrorism, jobs than the bad shape of the economy.

By 2030 Medicare will be about $5 trillion in the hole. Isn’t this an unfair burden on future generations? David Walker has planned a fiscal wake-up tour for 2008?

Here is a short video on this topic from David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States:

N.B: Lucidity...bring together…the recent “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore with “USA growing fiscal imbalance” by David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States What is at stake? …

It’s not just the future of the USA…

“whenever America sneezes…rest of the world…flue”

I let you make your own conclusions.

2007 – Marseille – FRANCE : TIME: 5:30 PM -

As I am writing on my pc* I can hear the children back home from school shouting, and laughing here in the sunny streets of  Southern  FRANCE….

The children, our future…

- BOSTON – USA - (early 90’s) -In those days as a foreign student (French) in the USA it was a requirement to digest Mr. Gore:”Earth in the Balance” book… (BIOL G141 – Biology Class- named: “Life in the Balance”).

This Biology Course based on Mr. Gore’s book opened my eyes: our “Nest” planet Earth was in imminent danger!

I believe Mr. Gore was selected for the Nobel Peace Prize because he is a man with a vision, a man of peace*.

He has an uncany ability to see the future (cf.“climate crisis”...), to find a way out the maze (* cf. Gore opposed the Vietnam War…).

He makes patterns where the average man sees only confusion (cf.”The Assault on Reason“…) and he tells the truth (cf.“An Inconvenient Truth“)…

Let’s look at… How he relates the past with the future…following in his dad’s foosteps… and How he was able to surf on the “Interstate highway system” and bring the “Internet Puzzle” to the average “world citizen”…

——————————————————————————————-

* March 9, 1999 during CNN’s “Late Edition” show.Specifically, what Gore said was “I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the term “information superhighway” became a sort of mantra in Gore’s speeches. Some observers, in fact, credit Gore with coining that very term.

Actually, for Senator Gore to seek to build a national data network analogous to the interstate highway system should not surprise us; his father, Al Gore Sr., as a senator in the 1950s was a major proponent of the creation of the Interstate Highway System, modeled after the German autobahns.

No doubt Gore Jr. was inspired by the model and metaphor of his father’s efforts. Gore Jr.’s remarks in 1989 reflect this throwback to Gore pere’s earlier role:

THREE YEARS AGO, ON THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM, I SPONSORED THE SUPERCOMPUTER NETWORK STUDY ACT TO EXPLORE A FIBER OPTIC NETWORK TO LINK THE NATION’S SUPERCOMPUTERS INTO ONE SYSTEM.

HIGH-CAPACITY FIBER OPTIC NETWORKS WILL BE THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAYS OF TOMORROW. A NATIONAL NETWORK WITH ASSOCIATED SUPERCOMPUTERS AND DATA BASES WILL LINK ACADEMIC RESEARCHERS AND INDUSTRY IN A NATIONAL COLABORATORY.

THIS INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE WILL CLUSTER RESEARCH CENTERS AND BUSINESSES AROUND NETWORK INTERCHANGES, USING THE NATION’S VAST DATA BANKS AS THE BUILDING BLOCKS FOR INCREASING INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTIVITY, CREATING NEW PRODUCTS, AND IMPROVING ACCESS TO EDUCATION.

LIBRARIES, RURAL SCHOOLS, MINORITY INSTITUTIONS, AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS WILL HAVE ACCESS TO THE SAME NATIONAL RESOURCES — DATA BASES, SUPERCOMPUTERS, ACCELERATORS

– AS MORE AFFLUENT AND BETTER KNOWN INSTITUTIONS. CAN WE RELY ON THE MARKET SYSTEM TO PROVIDE THIS KIND OF INFRASTRUCTURE? WE CERTAINLY COULDN’T WHERE THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM WAS CONCERNED, ALTHOUGH PRIVATE INDUSTRY ULTIMATELY BENEFITED A GREAT DEAL FROM THE GOVERNMENT’S LEADERSHIP AND INVESTMENT.

I BELIEVE THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MUST AGAIN BE A CATALYST, TO GET COMPANIES INTERESTED IN THOSE INFORMATION NETWORKS AND SHOW THEM THAT THERE IS A MARKET OUT THERE. CLEARLY, THE TECHNOLOGICAL SPINOFFS AND PRODUCTIVITY GAINS WOULD BE ENORMOUS, FROM A NETWORK THAT WOULD COST THE GOVERNMENT LESS THAN ONE STEALTH BOMBER.

——————————————————————————————-

No less an authority than Vint Cerf, inventor of the Internet Protocol, has gone on record confirming Gore’s role in U.S. Internet development.

On June 14, 2000, Time Magazine hosted a live Internet forum with Cerf. The (anonymous) moderator joined his journalistic wisecrackers by invoking Gore’s Internet inventor “claim.” Cerf abstained from the frivolity:

Timehost: Welcome to the TIME auditorium. We’re thrilled to have as our guest Vinton Cerf, one of the inventors of the Internet. Mr. Cerf has just written an article for TIME magazine, in which he says that the Internet will be everywhere.

Even, literally, in our bodies! So send in your questions about the past, present and future of the Internet. Who better to answer those questions than the man who invented the Internet?

(Sorry, Al Gore)

Timehost: Mr. Cerf is now with us.

Welcome!

Vinton Cerf: Good evening, or whatever time zone you are in, hi!!

While we’re waiting for questions, I’d like to clear up one little item – about the Vice President …

He really does deserve some credit for his early recognition of the importance of the Internet and the technology that makes it work. He was certainly among the first if not the first in Congress to realize how powerful the information revolution would be and both as Senator and Vice President he has been enormously helpful in supporting legislation and programs to help further develop the Internet - for example the Next Generation Internet program.

I get to see a lot of this stuff because I am a member of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee and we regularly review the R&D programs of the US Government and many have relevance to the evolving Internet.

—— On September 28, 2000, Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf released a statement to key Internet mailing lists stating their unequivocalbelief that Gore played an important role during his congressional years in supporting the Internet: I am taking the liberty of sending to you both a brief summary of Al Gore’s Internet involvement, prepared by Bob Kahn and me.

As you know, there have been a seemingly unending series of jokes chiding the vice president for his assertion that he “took the initiative in creating the Internet. ” Bob and I believe that the vice president deserves significant credit for his early recognition of the importance of what has become the Internet. I thought you might find this short summary of sufficient interest to share it with Politech and the IP lists, respectively.

——————————————————————————————-

-Now you can see Mr. Al Gore was the first in Congress to realize the implication of the Information Revolution in our lives. I believe his awareness about global warming once again will help all of us foresee and ameliorate the future of our planet.

Al Gore through his actions has already made a bridge between Technology and Environment for adults and childen worldwide… So I congratulate Mr. Gore for The Nobel Peace Prize 2007. In return for the BIOL 141G “Life in the Balance” awareness course… I am ready to give him a hand… Will you “Earth Citizen” give him a hand too? Let us better our planet and secure the future of our children.

The doors of the 21st Century are just opening… “Earth Citizen Friends”

let us follow the path of Mr. Gore and of all men of peace, good will, and vision!

Joel Bomane from Sunny Southern FRANCE

*P.S: I am about to switch from DSL-CABLEto Fiber Optic… It’s FASTER…thanks to AL G.!

* peace: * Gore said in 1988 that his experience in Vietnam: *

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_GoreEarly_life

“It didn’t change my conclusions about the war being a terrible mistake, but it struck me that opponents to the war, including myself, really did not take into account the fact that there were an awful lot of South Vietnamese who desperately wanted to hang on to what they called freedom. Coming face to face with those sentiments expressed by people who did the laundry and ran the restaurants and worked in the fields was something I was naively unprepared for.”

*http://issues2000.org/Celeb/More_Al_Gore_Homeland_Security.htm

*More Al Gore on Homeland Security. Houghton Mifflin. Retrieved on 2007-02-24.

* March 9, 1999 http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_10/wiggins/

“What we’re doing is all about transforming the very concept of poverty among the poor themselves”

Muhammad Yunus, winner of Nobel Peace Prize 2006 and co-founder of Grammeen bank

“They [social entrepreneurs] are rebelling against the idea that the problems that surround us are so big that ordinary men and women can’t make a difference,”

said Jeff Skoll, co-founder of eBay and the moneybags behind the Skoll Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.

MEET THE PRINCIPAL VOICES:

http://www.principalvoices.com/

Principal Voices gathers together a series of the world’s foremost thinkers in their respective areas. For 2007 this is in social entrepreneurship, technology and innovation, and alternative energy.

Principal Voices is a project aimed at stimulating discussion on some of the major challenges facing our world today. In 2006 we explored environmentalism, urbanization, economic development and collaborative corporation with views from renowned experts, and just as importantly, your own comments.

Again in 2007 TIME, FORTUNE and CNN, in association with Shell, will be bringing together a group of globally-renowned experts – Principal Voices – in a series of videos, articles and round-table discussions.

Social Entrepreneurs:

Kailash Satyarthi is India’s foremost leader in abolishing bonded labor.

Rick Aubry is one of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. For over 21 years he has lead Rubicon Programs, a social enterprise in the San Francisco Bay Area that helps people

Technology and Innovation:

Neil Gershenfeld is the Director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms.

Jimmy Wales is the revolutionary luminary who founded Wikipedia in 2001

Alternative Energy:

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran is an award- winning journalist for The Economist and environmental commentator.

Jeremy Leggett has been described by Time Magazine as “one of the key players in putting the climate issue on the world agenda.” An award-winning scientist and oil-industry consultant…

More info:

http://principalvoices.com/index.2005.html

More about:

Muhammad Yunus, winner of Nobel Peace Prize 2006 and co-founder of Grammeen bank