Atlantica

The Great Plains International Trade Corridor

The Great Plains International Trade Corridor is strategically located
to increase economic efficiency by connecting regional trade centers
through the Great Plains from Canada to Mexico.
Ports-to-Plains, Heartland Expressway and Theodore Roosevelt
Expressway, designated United States High Priority Transportation
Corridors, form the infrastructure of growing domestic and international
trade, energy and travel opportunities.
These connections are taking advantage of new opportunities created
by the expanding significance of north/south trade in relation to the
historical east/west patterns. The Great Plains International Conference
is bringing together both the business and government sectors to
increase awareness of the corridor and increase economic activity

The Ports to Plains Trade Corridor reflects the growing need for a north-south axes of communication and commerce for the North American Continent.  Planning for this conduit says a great deal about what some of the movers and shakers of the continent believe will be the future of our culture. 
Tags: The Great Plains International Trade Corridor

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The Creation Museum

Tara Smith, who writes the Aetiology Blog reports on her trip to the Creation Museum.  She has so photos that add to the piece.  The anti-science view of this place depresses most scientists.  Tara was no exception.  Her point about there being very little science in the presentation is not surprising.  Can you imagine trying to fill a museum with convincing arguments about literal creation.  Creationists can raise plenty of money.  They can hire the best audio visual people and make world class exhibits but they need something to show.  A museum full of 'God did It'  would be a professional presention of a long family vacation at best and at worst it would be complete drivel.  There could be no logical argument.  There could be so steps to explain the design.  It would be just 'God did It'  don't ask questions.

Tags: creationist, creation museum

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Overpopulation and Poverty

<embed src="http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/826361/train_drives_through_a_bangkok_market.swf" width="400" height="345" wmode="transparent" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </embed><br><font size = 1><a href="http://www.metacafe.com/watch/826361/train_drives_through_a_bangkok_market/">Train Drives Through A Bangkok Market</a> - <a href="http://www.metacafe.com/">Funny home videos are a click away</a></font>

I'm afraid that this video shows too much of the future of our race.  Can you imagine what it is like to live in such a world? Can you imaging what it is like to fight for every little bit of space.  These people must do that every day.

Tags: population, family planning, trains, thailand, bangkok

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Pangeaday - the Website

Pangeaday has a counter to the day of the event.  It also has several good videos to demonstrate what is desired.  I have a suspicion that a certain mindset might be overly represented but we will see.

Tags: pangeaday, video

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Pangeaday - somethin new under the Sun

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The power of non-professional video to speak to each of us about what is important in our lives is riveting. Suddenly we can see someones point of view from behind their eyeballs. The result is very powerful. This effort should be very interesting. I wonder how many people will produce a video as a result of this opportunity and how much of it will be a real history resource?

verily prosaic: Imposing Our Beliefs on Others

verily prosaic: Imposing Our Beliefs on Others

The question is instead whether whatever is going to be imposed by the force of law is reasonable, just, and good for society and its members.

In response to 'verilyProsaic' , I must agree that the embryonic stem cell debate is about what is reasonable, just and good. In fact, I would say that the issue is really about with is reasonable. You see, the Church and more traditional members of society believes that human life begins at conception. Those who hold that view believe it to be reasonable. Many of us, who have studied modern biology, do not believe that conclusion is reasonable. We believe that it is false. The more biologists look the more the traditional view fails to hold. Twins pose a great problem for me. You see all identical twins start as one egg and one sperm. The combination looks just like the beginning of an individual then after a few days voila we have two or more. When did each twin emerge? The environment in the womb that fertilized eggs live in affects everything about what that person will be. How does that work with the idea that a fertilized egg is a human being? I think a fertilized egg is no more a human being than a pumpkin seed is a pumpkin.

Pumpkin seeds are required to grow pumpkins however and eagle eggs are required to grow eagles so we husband them if we wish to grow the things that emerge from them.

What is important is not whether a proposed law happens to be taught by religion, but whether that proposal is just, right, and good for society and its members.

Verily may be appealing to some simple idea of fairness here but he surely hasn't thought of the political problem for the Church. You bet it's a problem when the Church teaches that a fertilized egg is a human and someone kills the egg. That is murder. So, by the way is abortion murder. Any honest churchman can see that. If killing a fertilized egg is not killing a human, than the Church finds itself blocking research that may lead to great benefit for society and its members. That is exactly what I believe it is doing.

Charlie Rose and the Explaination of Culture

Charlie Rose is remarkable in his span and in his interviewing skills.  Anyone can benefit from looking at either.  Today, I discovered that he has a website that catagorises his programs and gives a small video window where these programs can be seen.  Just to look at the guests on this show will give many of us a glance at the the width and depth of our culture. 

Tags: Charlie Rose, Harold Bloom, culture

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NAU

The North American Union

Have you heard of the North American Union? How about the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America or SPP? If you have not, you are like me. Even though I read newspapers all the time and follow the national news, I hadn't heard of our federal government's work to combine this country with Canada and Mexico in several key areas. Border security would concentrate on Mexico's southern boundary and the coast line frontiers of the USA and Canada. Trade and executive orders on product safety and transportation would be subject to review by officials of the new union. There would be a new court that would be superior to the Supreme Court of the United States when dealing with decisions on matters of this type.

The SPP ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_Prosperity_Partnership_of_North_America )was set up after the meeting in Waco in 2005 where President Bush, President Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Martin of Canada decided to pursue this idea.

Robert Pastor, one of SPP's vice-chairmen, has advocated a monetary union and has suggested that North America's common currency might be called the "amero", which would be similar in concept to the EU's euro.

All this is to take place before 2010 with no discussion by Congress so far. American citizens generally have no knowledge of this program and have been given no chance to form an opinion of it. What do you think.

The North American Union or NAU

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This video demonstrates the federal government's disconnection from the common citizen of America.  The common man is not being informed about this program of combining the US, Canada and Mexico so that we have common and coordinated borders, standards and goals.  This would be the biggest change in this country since the American Revolution.  It needs to be discussed.  The common citizen of all three nations need to be very aware of it.

Tags: North American Union, NAU, trade, Amero, Lou Dobbs, President Bush, Vincente Fox

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The Problem with Literal Bibical Intrepation

Literal Biblical interpretation requires a perpetual habit of blindness to the facts Martin Scheen brings up in this video. Literal interpretation weakens the impact of the great truths in the Bible and leaves its defenders with the task of explaining just how some of these statements make sense. That is an almost impossible task.

Community informatics

Community informatics, also known as community networking, electronic community networking, community-based technologies or community technology refers to an emerging set of principles and practices concerned with the use of information and communication technology (ICT) as understood in the information systems discipline, in conjunction with community development and other social academic and practice areas, for the personal, social, cultural or economic development of and within communities. It can be considered as a cross or interdisciplinary approach utilising ICTs for different forms of community action in the real or virtual spheres.

Link

Community informatics looks like a confused, beginning discussion about ways to use old and new communications technology to make changes and discusses programs.  The confusion would not be allowed if the methods and goals of ICT were understood.  The wikopedia article the link references is a good starting point for joining the discussion.

Tags: ICT, community informatics, CI, information and communication technology

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Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra Has it about Right:

Deepak Chopra clearly states what I have believed for many years. Death is the lose of personal consciousness. Good cannot exist without evil. Sin is its own punishment.
Link

Tags: Deepak Chopra, Organized Religion, Consciousness

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StumbleVideo: BBC-Horizon-The Six Billion Dollar Experiment

VIDEO

This video reviews the hopes for the large hadron collider.  It's done by the BBC.  It's very well done and goes a long way to ask fundamental questions in the few minutes it runs.

Tags: Large Hadron Collider, Geneva, Atomic Physics

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Bionic Arm

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Bionic Arms Approach the Real Thing

Bionic muscles have been a long standing goal. This movie shows the state of the art. The device seems to be able to move in all the ranges a human arm can. 

It seems that when all these pieces are put together and decent AI is present we are ready for a truly capable robot companion.

Link

Tags: Robots, Artifical Arms, prosthetics, muscles

The Noosphere

This approach by defenders of religious positions is much more effective than the name calling that is normally done.

The North American Union

Online Videos by Veoh.com

This video lays out the goals of the North American Union. The time frame is boggling for the size of this task.