Evolution

Requirements for an e-participation platform in human political CASs

We won't be able to stop the movement toward oligarchy unless we can create a new institutional framework that allows us to change those aspects of our present situation supporting oligarchy and undermining open society. We need a framework that will operate within the context of existing rules and laws to create changes supporting increased self-organization and distributed knowledge processing shifting our democratic PCASs back towards an open state. Read below the fold...

Since I provided some reaction to the SOTU, I thought I might also provide some analysis of Jill Stein's version of it. I won't dignify Mitch Daniels's reply to the President with an analysis, however, because it's simply not worth the electronic ink to comment on that nonsense.

By and large, I really liked Jill Stein's Green New Deal speech, and I think I'd be much happier if she were in the Presidency then I am right now. Dr, Stein, is really direct and straightforward, and she seems to genuinely care about the condition of working people and about protecting the constitution and its guarantees of liberty. Her sincerity shines through and she seems to lack the guile of the major party candidates. Her program seems to be a synthesis of the WW II New Deal and Green Agendas and I strongly support the idea that we need both right now. Here are some quotes and comments. Read below the fold...

Thursday kick-off was awesome, with around 2000 at City Hall during the busy hour. Austin police not the NYPD, at this point anyway. This afternoon they offered to give us a traffic lane to march to BOA if we had at least 200 people involved. An hour later 600 people marched and the APD facilitated. Something like $60K removed from BOA before they shut their doors. I'm pretty sure we'll be back later.

Some unfortunate, ugly behavior at the GA tonight when things got temporarily off track, but the parties initially in conflict ended up in dialog and understanding each to be aligned on goals and beliefs, but not necessarily timing. Not only peace, but much understanding prevailed. Mistakes were made but owned up to and grieved. Read below the fold...

Meh, for me today it was 12 hrs with one client and four more with another on the west coast later before I can sleep, so this is going to be short. I'd like to fill the rest in as I respond in the comments, reading what you all have to say. But the question is: what supplements do you take? Vitamins? Oils, cremes, salves, teas, and any other delivery device that doesn't come from Big Pharma or Big Ag, that helps you feel better? Why do you take them? How did you learn about them? Why do you know they work? What scientific-standard of proof can you offer they do, if only in your case? Read below the fold...

The outside:

Computers for co-ordination via email, Facebook and Twitter: Read below the fold...

'We are One!' was more a commentary on our size than our unity. The huge numbers I anticipated did not materialize. But some interesting things did happen.

The same MoveOn co-ordinator for last two rallies was present but did not take a prominent role. The AFL-CIO was not present at all even though the rally was scheduled under the aegis of both organizations. Read below the fold...

Once I saw a prizefighter boxing a yokel. The fighter was swift and amazingly scientific. His body was one violent flow of rapid rhythmic action. He hit the yokel a hundred times while the yokel held up his arms in stunned surprise. But suddenly the yokel, rolling about in the gale of boxing gloves, struck one blow and knocked science, speed and footwork as cold as a well-digger's posterior. The smart money hit the canvas. The long shot got the nod. The yokel had simply stepped inside of his opponent's sense of time.

Ralph Ellison

Read below the fold...

OK, Corrente: let me be boringly personal for a sec. Tomorrow, I will become officially Old. Yep, it's my big 4-0 tomorrow, and I'm going to give myself a present I really need. I'm going to quit smoking. It's this silly thing I've always told myself, that 40 should be a milestone in as many ways as possible. Quitting smoking will be the first step in a new journey on the road to becoming a better person. Read below the fold...

No one expects the Australian Palace Coup. Read below the fold...

This week is Holy Week for both Jooz and Christians; the week between Palm Sunday and Easter, and the week of Passover. People go to their holy places and sing, or listen to music, or eat, or don't eat, and contemplate the mysteries of the universe, or check out the cute guy three pews ahead and to the left.

As for me, I'm getting more like my Communist grandfather (and my atheist mother) all the time. Suddenly the word "Socialist" is starting to sound better than the word "liberal." (Liberal Socialist? Hmmmm....) Out on the street with my sign on Saturday, I ran into a blogger called "The Unrepentant Marxist," who was thrilled to see me and my fellow travelers protesting in the streets. I kind of felt a little thrill myself. Read below the fold...

At what point do progressives stop being Democrats' whipped dogs and start acting like a movement capable of putting the Dems in their proper place as the party of the people? David Sirota wrote today about Obama's latest call to increase war spending beyond its already ludicrous proportions. Read below the fold...

Whales Online:

IT was hailed as taking artificial intelligence to a new level.

Now, the creation by Welsh scientists of the first robot in the world to make an independent scientific discovery has been named the fourth most significant discovery of 2009 by one of the world’s most influential magazines.

Adam, a computer that fully automates the scientific process, discovered in April how a baker’s yeast converts food like sugar into the amino acid lysine to produce the protein in bread.

Read below the fold...

Last week, I was moving picnic tables on one of our beaches and I came across a large snapping turtle laying her eggs under one. She was about the size of a bag of cement, and probably only a little lighter. While not unusual, perhaps more time or my mood got me to thinking about her. Here was a living fossil, essentially unchanged for 200 million years. There was no need for further evolution in her species; she had achieved what was objectively perfection. I know that I am far from perfect, but I had not been thinking that we humans have strayed that far from what seems to be the ideal. Read below the fold...

I'll get back to Guadalupe Mountains National Park another time,

_{Guadalupe Mountains NP, seen from Carlsbad Caverns NP}
but in the spirit of keeping my promises to talk more about Carlsbad,

here are some photos from the National Park Read below the fold...