Edward Snowden Interview FULL VIDEO

Edward Snowden Appears at Flagship TED

Vint Cerf, the Grateful Dead, and Flying Sea Anemones

"I am not a happy camper when I see the gridlock and I see the polarization and I see the increasing ad hominem character of what should be a deliberation leading to compromise. And I'm not fully capable of analyzing why that's all happening but it is inhibiting rational discourse. In my world cooperation and collaboration is very important because the kinds of things that we do are so signifigantly hard that you need a lot of help and you need people working together. It only works if they respect each others opinions and when they disagree it isn't because the other guy is stupid it's because the other guy is seeing it differently and may or may not be able to justify the position, but you listen and debate and discuss and persuade and try to come to some rational conclusion, believing that everyone's intent is positive and aligned. What we see in the current political atmosphere is that intent is not aligned at all."
  ~Vint Cerf

Listen to the rest of this phenomenal interview with Andrea Seabrook on one of my new favorite podcasts - DecodeDC.



If you have an hour and half to spare the following video discussion from the 2012 World Science Festival panel "Internet Everywhere" will blow your mind. If it doesn't blow your mind please contact me (see sidebar). Now, prepare yourself to see Vint Cirf on camera in all his dapper glory.



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The New Colossus

The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus. As inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty was written in 1883 and read here by Kristopher Hite along the south bank of the Cache de Poudre River in Fort Collins, CO.

Towards Peace in Congo.

Free Speech: South Park Censored

This story has a special place in my heart as it echoes the origin story of Tom Paine's Ghost. Since Comedy Central will be bleeping it out let me reiterate Jon's eloquent language. "To anyone who is threatening death in the name of religion or politics... GO FUCK YOURSELF"

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The Four Horseman

OK, which one of these guys came up with that name? Next they'll be "the four horsemen - men in tights"

Anyway, I couldn't help posting this mainly because of two new YouTube features - one - the colored border and - two - the HD button - you can watch it in high definition! Vimeo is cool but I knew YouTube wouldn't be that far behind.

Within the first two minutes of this video I was reminded that the UN is considering a resolution banning blasphemy. Talk about the religious folks playing the "hurt feelings card." Now it will be illegal in the eyes of the UN to question any religion's authority anywhere in the world.

Freedom to Write in Stone

USA Today has announced that humanists are happy about the recent supreme court decision regarding free speech. I consider myself a humanist yet I am not so happy about it.

The supreme court in essence ruled that a city government can decide which religious monuments to allow in public places. The issue at the center of this case began when a small religious group in Pleasant Grove, Utah known as the Summum church requested that the city display a three foot granite slab outlining its core principles, the "Seven Aphorisms" next to a monument listing the Ten Commandments that has stood on this public park since it was donated by eagle scouts in 1971. I have posted about this case before and you can find all the quarks surrounding this religion described in detail here.

The problem with the supreme court decision is that it allows city governments to choose which religions are allowed to mark up public places. In my mind when one religion is allowed to display their beliefs carved in stone then that automatically makes the surrounding space a public forum and therefore any person or peaceably assembled group of people have the right to place their words in that public forum as well.

As I said before...

"In the case of the Summon religion and their granite slab I feel like the only fair thing to do is tell the city of Pleasant Grove to either remove all religious writings from the public land or allow those tasteful and aesthetically pleasing views of other religions to be erected as monuments of equal size and equal real estate value. The city still has the right to refuse in this instance but has to be an equal opportunity censor."

What do you think?

Nikola Tesla

For a man obsessed with the number 3 this is a unique moment. 66 years ago, between January 5th and January 8th 1943 NIKOLA TESLA, like an electron popping out of an uncertain orbital, passed out of earthly existence in room 3327 on the 33rd floor in the Hotel New Yorker. The story of this man's life is more magical because of its truth than the most fantastic fiction ever written. I imagine his life as a heavenly existence spent in reality passing time with some of history's brightest stars - Mark Twain, John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Edison. His vision for free and equitable POWER (in all philosophical and practical definitions of the word) for every man woman and child on earth has still not been fully realized. As the internet gains depth and gravity this vision is pieced together slowly and perhaps one day will be complete. The ghost of Nikola Tesla breathes life into the very medium in which I pass these keystrokes along. May he never be forgot!

Art Church

The Church of Beethoven in Albuquerque, New Mexico is described by NPR here.

"I have struggled so long in the arts. It's like you're crying in the wilderness. You're saying, 'Look at all this incredible music that really isn't getting out there to the extent that it should.'"
-Felix Wurman

He says he wants this idea to spread with Churches of Mozart, Chopin, Bach, Schubert, and Rachmaninoff. But why limit the idea to music and why call it a church. Gatherings celebrating music, writing, and visual arts of secular content could be the next step in the interconnectedness of the web manifesting in the real world.

This story reminded me of an article I read in Time magazine entitled "Sunday school for atheists." My favorite tidbit from this story was the description of the children singing songs like "I'm Unique and Unrepeatable, set to the tune of Ten Little Indians." Though I don't think organizations like these should be advertised as "for atheists only." Thomas Paine believed in one God just not any of the stories written about God over human history. A forum for people who want to socialize their children without having to sign up and take oaths to a code of beliefs should be more widely available in our United States under its metaphorical banner of FREEDOM.