censorship is the absolute enemy of freedom. censorship is a weapon used by corrupt governments, cowardly corporations and conservative extremists to SILENCE dissent, restrict INFORMATION and enforce their 'morals'. simply take a look at the extreme on-going cases of Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and China. even in places with laws protecting FREE SPEECH, the battle is on-going.
the arguments for censorship consists of sheltering people and children from 'inappropriate'…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 24, 2010 at 1:00am —
118 Comments
ten years has seen some major changes in the ideas surrounding money and currency. after what is now called the 'Final Crash' of 2018, people finally decided to end the affair with the stock market and unstable trading/currencies. the currencies of individual countries had fluctuated to the point that they were no longer even usable. companies that relied heavily on stock value collapsed. the 'too big to…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 22, 2010 at 1:30am —
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Austin, TX is quite an interesting city; it's also the capital of Texas. it does not surprise me that there are quite a few projects on urban resiliency, both government and independent.
City of Austin - Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management
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Added by nomadHAR on April 17, 2010 at 8:55pm —
3 Comments
one of the most important actions that must happen in a major disaster is communication. information must be both delivered to a wide area and be aggregated into meaningful data.
Ushahidi is an innovative and useful system. however, a system is only as resilient as the systems it relies upon. what happens when the phone lines and mobile phone towers are not working (as is the case with many disasters)? perhaps we should be considering lower tech…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 15, 2010 at 2:30am —
11 Comments
the EVOKE 'powers' just seem suspect to me, with the fact that the World Bank is sponsoring Urgent Evoke. many of the 'powers' focus on invention and capitalism. people have been involved in entrepreneurship for centuries; however, many of the worst problems don't go away by throwing money at them.
it seems to me that there are several ideas at the HEART of social activism that are not present in the EVOKE 'powers'.
0) COMPASSION - LOVE, not…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 14, 2010 at 10:09pm —
15 Comments
what i really want to see is a complete equality in rights and a freedom from stereotyped gender roles. 10 years hasn't been quite enough time for that to happen, but the tide keeps building.
most of the laws that been preventing women from voting, owning land, running businesses and other fundamental rights have been repealed. in the countries where women have been especially targeted and repressed, laws have been put into place both to protect women and to punish…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 14, 2010 at 2:40am —
2 Comments
we finally decided to send our most ambitious and widespread message yet. this is news of one year later.
through the efforts of social activists, people had been slowly learning about the issues surrounding water security. methods for finding, cleaning and distributing have both become better and cheaper through inventions and charities.
one major ROOT of the problem still remained, however. while water quality has improved and the amount of…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 12, 2010 at 10:17pm —
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as has been pointed out, there is so little actually usable water in the world. along with efforts to make sure that people have free or cheap access to water, some of us must also look at ourselves. for those of us like myself that live in the parts of world that use the most water, we must REDUCE our use of water.
in truth, i feel guilty every time i take a shower, because i know that many people don't have clean water to live on, let alone bathe…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 11, 2010 at 3:12am —
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we simply must reduce the amount of energy we are consuming, especially those of us like myself that live in the worst offending countries. why?
world consumption of energy is projected to grow by as much as 44% by some sources.
at the current growing rate of consumption, it will become impossible to power…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 11, 2010 at 2:30am —
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supermarkets throw away massive loads of perfectly good food everyday, simply due to overbuying and the resultant lack of space. this is food that can and should be used.
bin diving involves retrieving the usable food from the trash bins used by supermarkets for this purpose. a lot of supermarkets frown on this, because a) they don't want to be liable for sicknesses and injury and b) they aren't making any money from this.…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 10, 2010 at 10:56pm —
4 Comments
i had developed the idea at the beginning of the week, but i don't know enough people where i live yet to really test it. please give me your thoughts and ideas on how i might give this a shot.
Karmic Currency
the idea is that every action done by an individual has an intrinsic Karmic worth, positive or negative.
Karmic points are gained by doing positive actions or providing goods at no cost; the action is…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 10, 2010 at 9:57pm —
4 Comments
today, we are hosting the weekly eat-together with our neighbors and friends. everybody brings an appetizer, main dish and side dish. my family is excited over the thought of the cuisine that one of our new neighbors will be bringing over. in general, the wonderful mix of recipes both traditional and experimental is always something to look forward to.
first, we head to our miniature garden/grove to gather some seasonal goods. then, we head to the local store to pick up the…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 9, 2010 at 10:18pm —
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was just reminded of this, something one of my best friends made me aware of, so one more post before i go to sleep...
i want to share a bit about a woman working for social change on several fronts: Irshad Manji
one is her Moral Courage project. so what is moral courage? from her website, "it's the willingness to be original, unique and…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 9, 2010 at 8:12am —
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nowadays, it's like every action that i do has a technology that allows it to generate energy. ever since the boom of personal generators that started with simple dynamo flashlights, people can actually go 'off the grid' and generate enough power for their house, provided that some care is taken to be conservative. i've had a lot of help in both finding out about these gadgets and trimming my own power usage, i've also worked with people to make sure that my house was build with renewable…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 9, 2010 at 5:13am —
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as a beginning to this mission assignment, i am mentioning Urgent Evoke and listing links to gender equality activist groups that i support on the social networking sites that i am a part of, including Facebook and MySpace:
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Added by nomadHAR on April 9, 2010 at 2:30am —
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how about i expose the fact that Urgent Evoke is trying to force us to look at only the news that they want us to see?
here's some dirt-digging on UN created projects that have harmed women for years:
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Added by nomadHAR on April 9, 2010 at 12:42am —
30 Comments
i have been following Urgent Evoke from the beginning and only had the chance to start recently. however, i have noticed a bit of a trend that i think arises from the fact that this is funded by the World Bank. there seems to be a large focus on capitalism and entrepreneurship; as opposed to volunteering, charities and non-profit organizations. as in, Urgent Evoke rarely mentions the latter three.
Gandhi did not use business and capitalism in social activism.…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 8, 2010 at 2:00pm —
15 Comments
i am a creator of and involved in a fair number of projects whose themes are yet to occur in the weekly missions. i think that being involved with multiple projects is awesome. Urgent Evoke really encourages us to learn about and take part in some of a vast number of projects, both through our research and that of other agents.
however, remember that we are human and only have so much sheer energy and hours of the day. as a person with driving passions for social change and a big…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 7, 2010 at 12:00am —
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yet another case of killing innocent people, including reporters and journalists. the video release by the brave whistleblowers on Wikileaks shows that the people fired upon were CLEARLY not armed or engaged in any sort of aggressive stance. the soldiers and commanders responsible will receive NO punishment of any kind. from the New York Times article:
“Look at those dead bastards,” one pilot says. “Nice,” the other…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 6, 2010 at 10:30pm —
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as a martial artist, i tend to practice most days. while this activity provides benefits both physical and spiritual, the energy spent could be stored and used as an energy source. my proposal is a sort of gym filled with devices that capture this energy. the following is an initial list of devices that might prove useful.
1. heavy bags and striking pads that collect energy.
i got this idea from sOccket; if it works for footballs (soccer balls), it could also…
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Added by nomadHAR on April 6, 2010 at 9:33pm —
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