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Global Trends 2025: A transformed world

Here is an excerpt from the introduction inside the report:

“Global Trends 2025 is the fourth installment in the National Intelligence Councilled effort to identify key drivers and developments likely to shape world events a decade or more in the future. Both the product and the process used to produce it benefited from lessons learned in previous iterations. Each edition of Global Trends has tapped larger and more diverse communities of experts. Our first effort, which looked out to 2010, relied primarily on expertise within the US Intelligence Community. There was some outreach to other elements of the United States Government and the American academic
community. For Global Trends 2015, we engaged more numerous and more varied groups of non-US Government experts, most of whom were American citizens.”

I have copied the report onto my site for ease of downloading.  I hope the publishers wont mind.  Their server is overloaded and it is harder to get the report there.

Cool Anti-Smoking Video

This video is pretty cool.  I wish this kind of anti-smoking allure existed several years ago.  Here in Canada, there are so many resources out there to help you quit.  It’s almost overwhelming.

One thing funny about cravings, is that they some when you think about it.  It does not matter whether you are thinking good thoughts or bad thoughts, you simply have that thought and then you crave.  Some of these anti-smoking initiatives might do just as much to advertise smoking as they do to dissuade it.  I liken it to celebrity publicity.

The US Marine that killed Civilians

On Nov. 19, 2005, a squad of United States Marines killed 24 apparently innocent civilians in an Iraqi town called Haditha. The dead included men, women, and children as young as two. Iraqi witnesses said the Marines were on a rampage, slaughtering people in the street and in their homes. A year after the attack, four Marines were charged with murder.

This episode of 60 Minutes can be played by clicking play below.

 

 60 Minutes Podcast - Haditha Tradgedy: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I like the comment from Tracey Bates (taken from the 60 Minutes website):

“Scott Pelley should be ashamed. How dare he call himself an American! How many combat situations has he been in? I doubt ANY after listening to the despicable way he spoke to a brave Marine that voluntarily served our country. We send our brave men and women into dangerous and often deadly situations when they are 22 or 23 years of age, and expect them make decisions that we think we might have made while we are sitting over here in complete and total safety.”

After listening to this podcast I was deeply concerned for the soldiers.  They are ’stuck between a rock and a hard place’.  They are serving their country while the elected politicians are playing games with their lives.  How much of this can be blamed on this soldier, especially two minutes after surviving a bomb blast.  How rational could he have been?  This exemplifies a solid relationship among his ’shoot first’ training, the attitude of his political leaders, and the general lack of understanding of the war.  Just look at the recent civilian deaths in Afghanistan (read the article “U.N. cites evidence that U.S. attack in Afghanistan killed 90 civilians“).  We can see that focus on this issue is often short sighted and blame is at the lowest level.

Everything has gone wrong.  I hope the US elections bring changes like Obama promises.  If I was an American, I would vote for him.  Look at what Sen. Edward Kennedy said in his speech

“Barack Obama will be a commander and Chief who understands that young Americans in uniform must never be committed to a mistake but always to a mission worthy of their bravery“.  This was a phenomenal speech that marries up nicely with this article.

The Rapper Emmanuel Jal

Emmanuel Jal grew up in Sudan during the conflict.  His father left and he was forced to become a war child.  At a very young age he was a trained killer witnessing atrocities beyond what we can fathom.  Now he urges peace through his music.  I really enjoy his song entitled “Warchild”.

I find it interesting that he raps about peace when other rappers are portraying lives of gangsterism in their struggle of life.  The thing is, Emmanuel is real, 50 Cent, Eminem, Bustah Rhymes etc… exaggerate their on-going struggle with distrust and immorality.

The Threat of Total Water Consumption

It is becoming more and more apparent as we watch the news that the water is running out.  The planet does not have the resources to sustain our huge population.  On my travels through all the sites I visit on a day to day basis, I came across a couple really impressive videos.

Without further ado:

We are running out of clean water at an alarming rate here in Canada.  I really get fed up with those people who leave the tap running while they shave or brush their teeth.  It takes work to clean that water and move it through the tap then down the drain on to treatment.  If you turned off the water in your house for a day what would happen?  What would you do if it just ’stopped’?  Have you taken the time to really think about it?