Volume 9, Number 15
11/01/2006
Edited by John L. Petersen
johnp@arlingtoninstitute.org

See past issues in the Archives

In This Issue:

TAI Presents: A Lecture on Morphological Analysis
Future Facts - From Think Links
Think Links - The Future in the News…Today
A Final Quote

TAI PRESENTS:

Dr. Tom Ritchey
of the
Swedish Defense Research Agency
On Morphological Analysis
November 14th – 4:30PM
at
The Arlington Institute

Many of you have become familiar with TAI’s Scenario Planning methodology. At our next TAI PRESENTS, we are excited to have the opportunity to present a complementary approach. Dr. Tom Ritchey (http://swemorph.com/index.html) of the Swedish Defense Research Agency will be visiting TAI in November. He is an expert on the use of Morphological Analysis for solving complex and messy problems. Dr. Ritchey has been conducting practical workshops with agencies and organizations around the world for the last 15 years.

Tom will be presenting his framework and methodology on how Morphological Analysis techniques can be used to solve complex and intractable issues during a 1.5 hour session at TAI on November 14th, at 4:30pm. Please RSVP by Thursday, November 2nd if you plan on attending – space is limited. Late registrants will be accepted if there is space available.

RSVP for this lecture at Ken@arlingtoninstitute.org

The Arlington Institute is located at 1501 Lee Highway in Arlington, Virginia. Parking is available in the building. 1-703-812-7900

FUTURE FACTS - FROM THINK LINKS
DID YOU KNOW THAT...

• The Atlantic current came to halt for 10 days in 2004.
• Unabated climate change could cost the world between 5-20 percent of global gross domestic product every year.
• Australia is building the world's largest solar power plant, with a generating capacity of 154 megawatts.

THINK LINKS – THE FUTURE IN THE NEWS...TODAY

EDITOR'S EMPHASIS: Where is America's democracy headed?

Pull the Plug on E-Voting
Recipe for a Cooked Election
Turning Bad Policy into Bad Law
Bush and Martial Law
Pentagon Gears Up for New Media War

Pull the Plug on E-Voting -- (Opednews -- October 25, 2006)
(a two-part article)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bruce_o__061025_pull_the_plug_on_e_v.htm &
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bruce_o__061026_pull_the_plug_on_e_v.htm
All computer systems which process high-value transactions include audit mechanisms that monitor the advertised features of the system to enable an independent means of detecting flawed or fraudulent program logic - everywhere that is except for voting systems, which arguably process the most important transactions of all.

Recipe for a Cooked Election -- (Yes Magazine -- October 23, 2006)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102706C.shtml
An opinion piece, this article explores the details and ramifications of the millions of votes that are rejected as 'spoiled' each U.S. election - more than 3.6 million in 2004 alone.

Turning Bad Policy into Bad Law -- (Amnesty International -- September 29, 2006)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511542006
A fascinating opinion piece, this article contains AI's review of several pieces of 'War on Terror' legislation, with a focus on the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Bush and Martial Law -- (Uruknet -- October 26, 2006)
http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2006/10/27/bush-moves-toward-martial-law
All too often, we fail to remember that America's actions and progress are viewed from myriad perspectives around the globe. This opinion article comes from a particularly notable, and perhaps increasingly prevalent, foreign viewpoint. Its focus is on recent legislation further empowering the office of the President of the U.S.

Pentagon Gears Up for New Media War -- (BBC -- October 31, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6103056.stm
The Pentagon's new effort to influence media coverage of the war in Iraq is an example of how governments react when a war is not going too well. They begin to think it is not the war that is the problem, but the presentation of it. The media, being the messengers, get the blame, not the message itself.

INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE

Firms Point to Biometric Future -- (BBC -- October 26, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6070576.stm
Keys, cards, passports and PINs could soon be a thing of the past as biometric technology makes our bodies the only passwords we need. Biometric systems - which identify a person by their unique physical or behavioral features - are rapidly being designed and applied to many aspects of our everyday lives.

NEW REALITIES

Good Information - It’s Not All about the Brain
Alloy of Hydrogen and Oxygen Made From Water

Good Information - It’s Not All about the Brain -- (Physorg -- October 27, 2006)
http://www.physorg.com/news81148594.html
A neuroscientist and a roboticist have created a new way to objectively quantify an idea that philosophers, educators and psychologists have discussed for decades -- that the many ways in which our bodies interact with our environment produces better information that helps the brain. The scientists used real and simulated robots to create a unique mathematical framework, which they consider the first step toward the development of an explicit quantitative framework that unifies neural and behavioral processes.

Alloy of Hydrogen and Oxygen Made From Water -- (Physorg-- October 26, 2006)
http://www.physorg.com/news81094124.html
Water, the only indispensable ingredient of life, is just about the most versatile stuff on Earth - and has revealed yet another trick up its sleeve. Researchers have now used x-rays to dissociate water at high pressure to form a solid mixture--an alloy--of molecular oxygen and molecular hydrogen. As long as the sample remained under pressure equivalent to about 10,000 times atmospheric pressure at sea level, it stood up to intense punishment.

GENTICS/HEALTH TECHNOLOGY

Chatting on the Cell Too Long May Cut Sperm Count
A Better Way to Build a Face
A New Look at Your Brain on Drugs

Chatting on the Cell Too Long May Cut Sperm Count -- (Guardian -- October 24, 2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1929904,00.html
Samples taken from men attending a fertility clinic revealed that their sperm declined steadily in number, quality and ability to swim as mobile phone usage increased. Where men used their mobiles for more than four hours a day, researchers found a 30% drop in sperm motility or movement - though the findings are not currently deemed causal.

A Better Way to Build a Face -- (Wired -- October 27, 2006)
http://wired.com/news/technology/medtech/0,72015-0.html?tw=wn_index_19
Scientists are poised to perform the first full-face transplant, but a group of Stanford surgeons hopes to eliminate the need for the drastic surgery altogether by learning to regenerate the skin on the face.

A New Look at Your Brain on Drugs -- (MIT Technology Review -- October 30, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17674&ch=biotech
For a recovering drug addict, the sight of a hypodermic needle or a crack pipe can trigger powerful cravings. Now scientists hope to use new brain-imaging technology to train substance abusers to control cravings. The addicts would literally watch real-time images of brain blood flow and use mental exercises to try to control their brain activity.

NANOTECHNOLOGY

Nanotube Computing Breakthrough -- (MIT Technology Review -- October 30, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17672&ch=nanotech
The use of carbon nanotubes in ultrafast computers and other electronic devices has been stymied because batches of the material contain nanotubes with varying electronic properties. One nanotube is semiconducting, while the next is conducting. Now researchers have developed a way to sort through this mess, segregating nanotubes into precisely the types needed for high-performance electronics.

GLOBAL EPIDEMIC

Get Your Daily Plague Forecast -- (Wired -- October 19, 2006)
http://wired.com/news/technology/0,71961-0.html?tw=wn_index_4
Web-based maps are handy for keeping tabs on weather and traffic, so why not for disease outbreaks, too? The new Healthmap website digests information from a variety of sources ranging from the World Health Organization to Google News and plots the spread of about 50 diseases on a continually updated global map.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Polar Rose to Launch Picture Search Engine
Beaucoup Cell-Phone Security

Polar Rose to Launch Picture Search Engine -- (Smart Economy -- October 9, 2006)
http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2006/10/polar_rose_to_l.html
A new, web-based search engine has been created that can find photographs of people by analyzing pictures and identifying faces. The search engine will be the first of its kind in the world.

Beaucoup Cell-Phone Security -- (Wired -- October 28, 2006)
http://wired.com/news/wireservice/0,72027-0.html?tw=wn_index_9
A new mobile phone takes security pretty seriously: It can recognize its owner, automatically locks when the person gets too far away from it and can be found via satellite navigation if it goes missing.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Sea Change: Global Warming Could Leave Britain Feeling the Cold
World's 10 Most Polluted Places
Britain Issues Call for Green Growth
A Modest Proposal

Sea Change: Global Warming Could Leave Britain Feeling the Cold -- (Guardian -- October 27, 2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1932760,00.html
Scientists have uncovered more evidence for a dramatic weakening in the vast ocean current that gives Britain its relatively balmy climate by dragging warm water northwards from the tropics. Most alarmingly, the data reveal that a part of the current, which is usually 60 times more powerful than the Amazon River, came to a temporary halt during November 2004.

World's 10 Most Polluted Places-- (Live Science -- October 18, 2006)
http://www.livescience.com/environment/061018_polluted_places.html
Areas that researchers have declared the most polluted in the world are typically little known even in their own countries. Yet they afflict more than 10 million people. The kinds of pollution in these areas not only lead to cancers, birth defects, mental retardation and life expectancies approaching medieval levels, but are also often found all around the globe.

Britain Issues Call for Green Growth -- (International Herald Tribune -- October 30, 2006)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/30/news/stern.php
Unchecked global warming will devastate the world economy on the scale of the World Wars and the Great Depression, eventually costing the world from 5% to 20% of global gross domestic product every year.

A Modest Proposal-- (Economist -- October 26, 2006)
http://www.theelectroniceconomist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8086839
How to provide clean water to the vast and arid north of China has long been a headache for its rulers. Of late they have considered more ambitious proposals. One example would involve diverting water hundreds of kilometers from Tibet at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. What about a more modest approach: using market-driven prices to deter waste and pollution?

ENERGY DEVELOPMENTS

Google Announces 1.6 Megawatt Solar Campus
Australia's Going Solar

Google Announces 1.6 Megawatt Solar Campus -- (EI Solutions -- October 25, 2006)
http://www.eispv.com/success_stories/google.html
Could it be that one day to "Google" a building will mean to add solar panels to it? Perhaps not, but the company is about to embark on a record-setting solar electricity project, installing 1.6 megawatts of solar power at its headquarters campus. It will be the largest solar power system installed on a corporate campus- and the system will pay for itself in about 7.5 years.

Australia's Going Solar -- (Al Jazeera -- October 25, 2006)
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/
335A6F3A-B4ED-4D6D-AE90-936776D8C292.htm
Australia has announced plans to build the world's biggest solar power station as part of a radical rethink on climate change. The 154 megawatt power station is the first of a series of projects aimed at reducing the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

TERRORISM, SECURITY AND THE FUTURE OF WARFARE

Air Passengers Could be Tagged
Launching a New Kind of Warfare
Boarding Pass Hacking
A Dangerous Step toward Space Warfare
Airborne Laser Closer to Completion

Air Passengers Could be Tagged -- (BBC -- October 12, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6044310.stm
Electronically tagging passengers at airports could be the next step in the 'War on Terror'. Airports could be fitted with a network of combined panoramic cameras and RFID (radio frequency ID) tag readers, which would monitor the movements of people around the various terminal buildings.

Launching a New Kind of Warfare -- (Guardian -- October 26, 2006)
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1930960,00.html
Robot vehicles are increasingly taking a role on the battlefield - but their deployment raises moral and philosophical as well as technical questions.

Boarding Pass Hacking -- (Wired -- October 27, 2006)
http://wired.com/news/technology/0,72023-0.html?tw=wn_index_2
A researcher created the Northwest Airline Boarding Pass Generator in the hope of spurring Congress to look closely at the nation's aviation security policies, which he calls "security theater." The site lets anyone create a facsimile of a Northwest Airlines boarding pass, with whatever name they choose.

A Dangerous Step toward Space Warfare -- (MIT Technology Review -- October 27, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17668&ch=infotech
The release of the U.S. National Space Policy has worried many experts, who say the policy marks a strategic shift toward a more military-oriented, unilateral approach to space for the United States. They fear that the policy, if followed, could begin an arms race leading to catastrophic space warfare.

Airborne Laser Closer to Completion -- (Physorg -- October 28, 2006)
http://www.physorg.com/news81242559.html
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency rolled out an airborne laser aircraft, the latest development in a missile-defense system that was once ridiculed as a "Star Wars" fantasy. It should be operational within two to seven years.

ECONOMIC SHOCK

Housing Slump Sends Chill through U.S.
Deconstructed

Housing Slump Sends Chill through U.S. -- (Financial Post -- October 28, 2006)
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id
=5164cab3-f27a-40f3-9276-c2b22a201783&k=25326
The slumping U.S. housing market is sending a chill through the entire economy as new data yesterday showed growth slipped to 1.6% during the last quarter, the slowest in three years. Residential housing construction fell at an annual rate of 17.4% in the latest quarter, the largest decline since the first quarter of 1991.

Deconstructed -- (Economist -- October 27, 2006)
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8099087
Among all the questions pinging around the world’s financial markets, one stands out: how much and how abruptly is America’s economy slowing? Recently, the markets got a partial answer: more abruptly than they thought. In the third quarter the economy grew by only 1.6% at an annualized rate, much less than expected and a full percentage point less than in the previous three months.

CONTACT AND THE EXPLORATION OF SPACE

A Growing Intelligence around Earth -- (NASA-- October 26, 2006)
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/26oct_sensorweb.htm?list163225
EO-1 is a new breed of satellite that can think for itself. It was programmed it to notice things that change (like the plume of a volcano) and take appropriate action. EO-1 can re-organize its own priorities to study volcanic eruptions, flash-floods, forest fires, disintegrating sea-ice—in short, anything unexpected.

DEMOGRAPHICS AND SOCIAL CHANGE

Fears of Inquiry Dampen Giving by US Muslims -- (NY Times -- October 30, 2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/us/30CHARITY.html
Fearful that donations to an Islamic charity could bring unwanted attention from federal agents looking into potential ties to terrorism, many Muslim Americans have become reluctant to donate to Islamic causes, including charities.

A FINAL QUOTE...

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. - Thomas Edison

A special thanks to Hanna Adeyema, Bernard Calil, Ken Dabkowski, Neil Freer, Ursula Freer, Humera Khan, KurzweilAI, Sher Patterson-Black, Diane C. Petersen, John C. Petersen, the Schwartzreport, Joel Snell and Matthew W. Sollenberger our contributors to this issue. If you see something we should know about, do send it along - thanks.
johnp@arlingtoninstitute.org