Hey asgardians!! I hope your days are going well.  I’ve finally printed off a bunch of our website info so that I can dig through it and make notes.   I will do as much as I can online going forward, but needed to kick myself in the pants by reading it in hand.  I’m looking for the next schedule of events and I’ve already started to get questions and feed back from other citizens.  By the way if you see a member that would like to be in the parliament but cannot afford the fee, please consider helping them Out if you can.  I will do my best as well.  Keep the questions coming I will do my best to talk to you all just know that I work full time (as do so many of you) so my communication will mainly be at night east coast time.

Good day Asgardia.  How humbled and surprised I was to learn my name is on the list of Parliamentarian members.  I can only promise you that I will do the best I can with our first move forward.  I am happy to hear any concerns you may have and am looking forward to the next official steps in this new en devour.  We are all writing our names in the history books alongside those who have explored unknown territories before us.  Some will scoff, some will laugh, some will back us wholeheartedly.  Don't let anyone be a negative force in your attempts to achieve the new.  Welcome all and lets move onward and upward.

Good day Asgardia.  How humbled and surprised I was to learn my name is on the list of Parliamentarian members.  I can only promise you that I will do the best I can with our first move forward.  I am happy to hear any concerns you may have and am looking forward to the next official steps in this new en devour.  We are all writing our names in the history books alongside those who have explored unknown territories before us.  Some will scoff, some will laugh, some will back us wholeheartedly.  Don't let anyone be a negative force in your attempts to achieve the new.  Welcome all and lets move onward and upward.

Good morning asgardia and happy Easter.  I’m excited to hear about any election updates that are out there and wanted to take a moment to say take some time for you today!   Me?  I’m baking a ham dinner and I’m thankful that I can do so.

UNITY----- IS EQUAL IN ALL FORMS OF COGNITIVE ACCEPTANCE----- EVERY THOUGHT  MATTERS

I think I mentioned that I am the Vice President of a non- profit theater called the Springfield Community Players, in Springfield VT.  We have been around for almost 100 years, in fact, we are the longest continually running community theater (all volunteer) in the state of Vermont.

While I am looking to the future with my running for office in Asgardia, I am also working in the here and now with my theater group.  We are en devouring to get funding to upgrade out heating system and put in an air conditioning system to our theater.  We run out of a re purposed elementary school that was built back in the 1930's.  We have to shut down in November and re-open in April as our heating system uses so much oil it's too expensive and bad for the environment.  We are looking to change all that.

If you would just take a moment to look at my gofundme link and feel free to donate or share the link, I would appreciate it so much.

https://www.gofundme.com/central-heat-and-ac-campaign

I don't believe that I am breaking any rules by posting this here as I could not find anything forbidding it.  But if you know of it, please copy me on the rule and I will take this down.

In the meantime, thanks for any help you can provide, monetarily or just sharing.

Todd Hutchinson

Vice President

Springfield Community Players.

http://www.springfieldcommunityplayers.org/

I think I mentioned that I am the Vice President of a non- profit theater called the Springfield Community Players, in Springfield VT.  We have been around for almost 100 years, in fact, we are the longest continually running community theater (all volunteer) in the state of Vermont.

While I am looking to the future with my running for office in Asgardia, I am also working in the here and now with my theater group.  We are en devouring to get funding to upgrade out heating system and put in an air conditioning system to our theater.  We run out of a re purposed elementary school that was built back in the 1930's.  We have to shut down in November and re-open in April as our heating system uses so much oil it's too expensive and bad for the environment.  We are looking to change all that.

If you would just take a moment to look at my gofundme link and feel free to donate or share the link, I would appreciate it so much.

https://www.gofundme.com/central-heat-and-ac-campaign

I don't believe that I am breaking any rules by posting this here as I could not find anything forbidding it.  But if you know of it, please copy me on the rule and I will take this down.

In the meantime, thanks for any help you can provide, monetarily or just sharing.

Todd Hutchinson

Vice President

Springfield Community Players.

http://www.springfieldcommunityplayers.org/

So we thought I had the flu, but after a week and the medications have not worked, I went back to the doctor and the took and X-ray and found I have a mild case of pneumonia..... If THIS is mild?, then I’d have to have the full blown version... this makes me think.... how do we handle illness in a closed space environment?   Hmmmmmmmm....

hmmmmm interesting.....

Water: Economic Commodity or Human Right? -- Christiana Z. Peppard

Author
Christiana Z. Peppard

April 2, 2015

Water is essential to biotic existence, and it is not a value-free substance, even as the availability of fresh, clean water is often taken for granted in the United States. In other parts of the world, billions of people lack potable water; their lives are constrained by its absence.

Fresh water is also a necessary resource for generating economic wealth and political power; corporations and governments contend over water in many regions of the world.

Who owns water, allocates it, manages it, receives it—in what ways and for what reasons? These are political, economic, and ethical questions.

Structurally entrenched patterns of privilege and injustice—such as access to fresh water—require action on many levels of scale and with the input of variegated forms of situated, moral creativity. In the twenty-first century, such issues of political ecology should interface productively with religious ethics.

Consider water: Should it be understood primarily as an economic commodity or as a fundamental human right? Fresh water is not like most other environmental goods or services. It is sine qua non (fundamental to ecosystemic and human existence) and sui generis (there is no substitute).

These features are universal but are not uniform. Yet for a range of reasons it took the United Nations General Assembly until 2010 to affirm a fundamental human right to water.

Given the U.N.’s rather recent endorsement, it surprises many observers that the Catholic Church has taken a moral position on this issue since at least 2003—insisting, in no uncertain terms, that fresh water is a unique and essential substance for human life; that it is a gift from God; and that therefore access to fresh water should be considered a fundamental human right.

In fact, the hierarchical magisterium has even referred to fresh water as a “right to life” issue, which is no small claim in the pelvically-focused United States. How might this insight resonate with environmental justice movements in the twenty-first century, in and beyond the pews?

Like many U.S. municipalities, the city of Detroit has significant segregation between relatively affluent (often white) middle-class suburban families and downtown residents with compressed earnings—many of whom are African-American, some of whom are unemployed.

During the summer of 2014, attempting to limit economic losses as part of the city’s bankruptcy management, Detroit Water and Sewerage District (DWSD) began shutting off water supply to accountholders in arrears, ranging from corporate clients to individual homeowners.

Implementation was uneven. Stories trickled out of people—some elderly, some homebound, many living below the poverty line—whose water had been cut off without an apparent appeals process.

National outcry by local water justice advocates attracted international attention, leading to a public condemnation by the U.N. special rapporteur on water and sanitation. Discrimination charges were filed by legal aid organizations on the grounds that the shutoffs disproportionately and unfairly affect African-American residents.

Detroit's arrangements of political economy, urban infrastructure governance, and structural racism converged to privilege certain human bodies over others and reveal that problems of environmental (in)justice exist right in the backyard of middle America.

These contests over water resonate globally with patterns of privilege and disenfranchisement in global political economy, even while specific cases vary. Ethical reasoning and prudent, justice-oriented norms for action in this planetary context can benefit from the engagement of religious communities and moral traditions.

The Catholic Church’s global, public endorsement of the right to water is but one example. There are many others.

In Detroit, where questions of water and justice remain visible and vexed, support for disenfranchised people can—and should—take practical, embodied forms.

One compelling and recent example comes from Islamic Relief U.S.A., which along with the Michigan Muslim Community Council donated $100,000 to defray water bill payments for impoverished Detroit residents. “It is important to us in our faith to help our neighbors,” said the CEO of Islamic Relief USA in January 2015.

To be sure, religious cosmologies or moral principles will not save the planet on their own. But they are crucial, often vibrant repositories of values and practices that might just help to make the world a more just, sustainable place—one municipality or human right at a time.

Resources :

Peppard, Christiana Z. Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2014.

To learn more about the stance of the Roman Catholic Church on the issue of water, see, for example, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) , chapter 10.

United Nations Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Detroit’s water shutoffs target the poor, vulnerable and African-Americans.” October 20, 2014. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15190&LangID=E .

Couch, Robbie. “Muslim groups give $100,000 to help Detroiters Without Water, Say ‘It’s Part of Our Faith to Help’.” Huffington Post , January 8, 2015, Impact: What's Working. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/08/muslim-group-detroit-water_n_6437506.html

The authoritative, catalyzing text on U.S. environmental racism is Robert D. Bullard, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality, third edition (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000).

For a recent analysis by a religious ethicist, see Willis Jenkins, The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2013), chapter 5.

Image: Industrial sites (Zug Island and US Steel) on Detroit River, 2014; Credit: Corey Seeman / flickr creative commons. To comment, email Managing Editor, Myriam Renaud, at DivSightings@gmail.com .

To subscribe to Sightings and receive it by email every Monday and Thursday, please click here .
Author, Christiana Z. Peppard , (Ph.D. Yale University) is Assistant Professor of Theology, Science, and Ethics at Fordham University. Her research focuses on ethical analysis of modes of valuing fresh water in an era of economic globalization and climate change, and on the construction and deployment of the concepts of nature and of human nature. She is the author of Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis (Orbis Books, 2014). Peppard is also a Fordham University Public Voices Fellow and her work has appeared in TED-Ed, CNN.com , Microsoft's Global Innovators in Education blog, the History Channel, and the Washington Post. @profpeppard

See all articles by Christiana Z. Peppard

Topic Tags: Christiana Peppard Catholic Church Detroit U.N. structural racism environmental justice water rights Islamic Relief USA

.... even the sun is a limited resource.... we need to determine how to recycle as much as we possibly can ... in ways that no one has ever thought of before... what can we do to ensure we are leaving no footprint in space outside of what is necessary?   There’s so much garbage in orbit already... we need to help clean it up.... for our own safety.. the safety of our satellites And the future of any long term established colony’s should we go that route.... thoughts?

As much as I get the flu shot every year, wash my hands and do everything I can to NOT get sick.... this year the flu has nailed me.   While it’s not the worst case in the world it just proves I can’t always avoid it.   So I’m feeling Blah but still excited to see how our elections went, when they are finalized.  Be safe and healthymout their folks!

A toast to you Asgardia.....thanks to all those who voted for me and thanks to all those that didn't.  I wish everyone the best of luck and here's to our future!

Parliament Candidates:

Votes have closed for Parliament Candidates and I wish each of you the best of luck. Also, the best of luck to the ones that get chosen after the interview with the Election Committee.

I hope that the members that get to represent this planet will take this iniative step to help define where we stand in the future. This is a make or break situation for all of us and this is your moment to shine. Alot of us came with ideas and only a few will be able to execute those into reality. So please make our dreams come true with your wholeheart.

Decades or even centuries later... the future generations will look back at this and laugh at us for getting it nowhere OR you made that generation into who they are NOW. You will go down in the history book as the 1st Parliament to lead Asgardia to become of the first space nation in the galaxy! So no more words of wishful dreams of this and that right now. Once you are elected...IT'S PLAN AND EXECUTE!! GOOD LUCK!!

Best regards,

Randy Nguyen

Government Position Candidate District #1 English

As I sit at work and watch the snow fall I am reminded that one snowflake by itself is a minor beautiful thing.  But when many come together they can cause havoc, create power outages, cause traffic snarls and become a force to be reckoned with.  I am just a snowflake but I want to join the avalanche that is asgardia.  Join now.  Start the future with us.  Vote for me.

Hello everyone,

My name is Randy Nguyen and I am a candidate as Deputy Minister of Industry.

My short term goal:

I want to work with my fellow colleague, Minister of Industry, immediately on how to get trades and participation of labour going. Nothing is set in stone yet but I want to see if we can create a bazaar online type of marketplace for people to start creating and harvesting goods. I am no expert but I have seen people creating websites that have the same functionality as Amazon on a small scale with the existing online tools. We can find a website savvy person to create a website with the same Amazon functions for our citizens to start listing stuff online to sell.

We may have to consult with the Minister of Justice on legal matter about current state/country taxes that we all preside in and have to pay. Also any legal issues with having people using labour to create any goods. I will work with my fellow Minister of Industry on policies that may be short term to see how it will affect our citizens and see which ones stay permanently for long term.

I also want to work closely with the Minister of Finance and Minister of Justice to see if we can add a tiny tax margin (solar currency if it get approved) on your goods on top of your state/country tax. It may burden you but think of it as paying tax as a starting point for your country because this money can funnel back to Asgardia Bank and that can be used for other departments. We need money to get other projects going and researches. This way, we are not asking people for donations but relying on the taxes to pay for things. Also it will help people buy and sell among eachother to get the community more serious about this country.

I hope you will consider voting for me and see that I am already commiting ideas to getting this country moving forward.

Best,

Randy Nguyen

*Nothing is set in stone and may subject to change

I would like to set up a informal group through a texting group chat or voice (discord or whatever is everyone preference) to discuss about monthly subjects and Asgardia progress.

I'm looking to gather a handful of brilliant Asgardians to hold informal monthly meetings to discuss about various subjects and any progress of Asgardia. Our discussions will somewhat focus on logical things that can be done and not wishful thinking. Of course, the public can also join in to hear our discussions (we urge all to come).

We will have a certain amount of permanent seats for members that'll talk during our meetings. However to be fair we'll have a rotation round every month of speakers.

For example:

20 people will represent the speakers for our think tank for monthly meetings

If Sarah spoke at this month meeting. Sarah will listen in on the next meeting and meanwhile that'll give Tom the chance for that month to speak. so 10 members speak every other month. (This amount of members is still being decided but the reason why its so large is because not all members can attend every meeting so ideally we would like to have a half room)

Also we'll have 1 representative that'll represent the public to join into the discussion (since all of the public can't speak at once)

The moderator won't chime in and only help with the time keeping

Total: 11 speakers (10 speakers + 1 representative)

At the end of every monthly meetings. I would like to see the role leader to get passed around the circle of the Asgardians holding the meeting so each have a fair share. When a role leader get tossed the torch. They get to choose the topics that they want to bring up about and tell us in the group chat ahead of time (2 weeks) so we can research with our own diligence.

Each meeting agenda:

Speaker moderator opening speech - 5 minutes duration

1. Topic - 20 minutes duration (may change)

2. Topic - 20 minutes duration (may change)

3. Topic - 20 minutes duration (may change)

4. Asgardia progress - 20 minutes duration (may change)

Speaker moderator closing speech - 5 minutes

Total meeting time: 1.3 hrs (may change)

Each person at the discussion will only have a certain amount of turns to jump in per topic (to keep within the limit of 20 minutes duration)

I'll see how the first meeting go but giving an example:

Rules:

1. 2 hand raises per topic (during anytime of the topic that person have 2 chances to jump in to discuss, critique, or add anything)

2. Each hand raise will allow the speaker have 1 minute per raise to voice anything (if the last person that speaks reach the topic 20 minute duration. The remaining seconds will be added over to that speaker next choice of topic but must inform moderator ahead of time) Not using your two hand raises will NOT carry over to other topics.

3. Be respectful

Ideally, I would like one of our Asgardian (secretary type) to store these archive of discussions on a blog/ website so we can go back to reference anything.

This way, we have our own little informal think tank. Maybe some of the stuff we discuss about may make enough sense to pass it to the official Asgardia themself for them to hear us out.

If you're interested on helping me create the layout of this monthly discussion. Please don't hesitate to message me (credit will be given to you for your help) or if you want a seat on the monthly discussion (no experience neccessary).

Don't follow the hype or what ifs

I've read multiple blog posts by other Asgardian citizens on what they hope to see and what ideas they have. A few sounds possible but need heavy investments meanwhile a few other ideas we need to progress with our current technology first or if it does already exist. We, Asgardian, must get access to it somehow and it won't be easy.

Reality

Alot of the stuff posted are things that we all definitely want to see (get to space, build our colony, set up a space ship, etc) happen but what have to remember to fall back to reality and come up with logical ways to get to whatever that objective is. Giving an example, at one point people thought Elon Musk was crazy with SpaceX but with fails and planning. Look at where they're now. Remember not to follow the hype or what ifs. Ask them on how we can get to that target.

At the end of the day, I want to hear from other brilliant Asgardians on what resources we may need to achieve that objective (capital, materials, connections, etc).

i don’t always catch the biggest fish but I never stop trying.  I believe my leadership will be the same.  I will never stop trying.   I believe that everyone is equal no matter where you are from, your age, race, sex, sexual orientation, education level, skin color, religious beliefs. Those are all things that make you, you.  I celebrate your difference and I look forward to learning from them.  I also believe that there is a strong correlation between the science and arts and the way they compliment each other.  The creative process is the same whether your building a Hedron collider, putting a mustange into orbit around the earth or painting a bowl of fruit.  It’s all tied together.  I would like to ensure that each cultures art is represented and combined equitably to form an Asgardian artistic culture.