Happy Holidays from GK

I am writing to alert you to efforts underway this morning to zero out a large portion of the science funding from the Senate American Reinvestment and Recovery Act as a part of a $77.9B reduction effort led by Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

As you know better than most, science and technology are responsible for half of the economic development of the United States since WWII and yet, if current trends hold, some, such as the Business Round table, have predicted that 90% of all scientists and engineers will live in Asia within 5 years.

The United States simply MUST renew our investment in the single greatest economic engine this country has ever known. Small federal investments in scientific research have helped produce things like the internet and the transistor that have consistently delivered multi-trillion dollar economies.

The United States is at a critical juncture, and if this concerns you we suggest now would be a time to contact your Senators and urge them to support science funding. Here is what is being proposed to be cut from the bill, according to TPM:

NASA exploration $750,000,000 = 50%

NSF $1,402,000,000 = 100%

NOAA $427,000,000 = 34.94%

NIST $218,000,000 = 37.91%

DOE energy efficiency & renewable energy $1,000,000,000 = 38% DOE office of science $100,000,000 = 100%

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/Collins-Nelson-Cuts/?resultpage=1&

The Gaming Krib

http://www.gamingkrib.org

Welcome to GK Daniel Spitz! http://www.spitzwatch.com

“A timepiece is a Formula 1 race car for the wrist that bears an individual’s personality.”

Daniel Spitz is an international Rock Star Guitarist and one of the founding members and main songwriter of the legendary band Anthrax. He has sold more than 15 million records worldwide, nominated for three Grammy Awards and crossed the globe on more than fifty arena tours over the years. He has released ten studio albums, written platinum selling film soundtracks for the likes of Adam Sandler, Arnold Schwarzanegger and even Beavis and Butthead. Dan has left an indelible mark on the music industry by creating the first ever hip hop meets heavy metal song, first ever sold out world arena tour for a heavy metal band and a hip hop band (Public Enemy / Anthrax) together in the same arena, and so many more innovative solutions that break down cultural barriers. Simply an innovator in mind set and execution.

After his fifteen year run and departure from Anthrax he set foot on getting the paper degrees necessary to complete his knowledge base in Swiss micro-mechanical engineering. Daniel has obtained the highest Swiss degrees at this point and is regarded worldwide as one of the finest Master Watchmakers of Complicated luxury timepieces in the world. The diplomas, Swiss training and scholarships obtained by Daniel in areas of the Swiss luxury watchmaking world (a multi billion dollar industry) are usually reserved strictly for the Swiss. He teaches watchmaking, his company is the sole parts distribution hubs for luxury brands and his private service center helps luxury Swiss brands beta test and problem solve new models in the $20,000 - $1,000,000 area of sales point.

Of course don’t forget he has written songs for almost every “Guitar Hero” game with generated sales now over $1 billion.

Daniel currently resides in New York with his wife, Candi, and their Identical/Mirror-Image twin sons who are also becoming quite famous in the Entertainment world. He also has two daughters from a previous marriage.

TEGO Custom Skins - Designed by You!

earn it= skinit

http://www.mytego.com
Earn and win your own TEGO Skin for your cellphone, laptop, mobile phone, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Ipod, Notebook, Xbox, Sony Playstation, Nintendo Wii, PSP or any other portable gear. Skins are in! Don’t get stuck with a boring cellphone faceplate that only covers certain areas or voids your warranty when you replace it. Change your cell phone faceplate with a TEGO Skin!  Skin it with ease; tego Skins are easy to apply and remove - comes off completely clean.
YOU DESIGN your own TEGO SKIN! Only at mytego can you actually design in real time and see your exact design!  TEGO custom skin covers are precision cut to fit to your cell phone,laptop and other mobile gear. It’s a thin, tough vinyl skin material that looks good and helps protect. www.myTego.com is the world leader in customized skins for portable electronics, with the unique Tego Skin, the only product that you design entirely by yourself, with your own custom images and designs. A TEGO is a skin covering that fits over all of your gadgets. Make a Tego skin for your cell phone, a skin for your mobile phone, a skin for your laptop, a skin for your playstation, a skin for your nintendo wii, a skin for your xbox, a skin for your ipod, a skin for your macbook and powerbook, a skin for your Rock Band, a skin for your Guitar Hero. Yes, now you can Tego Skin the WORLD! A Tego Skin is a thin, tough, flexible vinyl covering that you can customized in any way imaginable, with ANY kind of image that you like - friends, family, pop-culture, trips, artists, NHL images! A Tego Skin will go over top of your boring cell phone faceplate, and is applied over top of your other stuff as well. It is easy to apply and easy to remove, with no residue. Design it any way that you want, and everything is made specifically for you, just the way that you designed it. 

Welcome to the GamingKrib My Tego!

The www.GamingKrib.com lists Games for Change…

3rd World Farmer
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 URL: http://www.3rdworldfarmer.com
Developer: 3rd World Farmer Team

Description: 3rd World Farmer lets players manage a small virtual farm in a developing country, and thus experience the hardships and dilemmas faced by the poor.
A Force More Powerful
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 URL: www.afmpgame.com
Developer: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, York Zimmerman Inc. and BreakAway Games

Description: AFMP is the first and only game to teach the waging of conflict using nonviolent methods. Destined for use by activists, the game will also educate the media and general public on the potential of nonviolent action and serve as a simulation tool for academic studies of nonviolent resistance
Ayiti: The Cost of Life
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 URL: CostofLife.org
Developer: Global Kids and GameLab

Description: Ayiti: The Cost of Life is a game that challenges its players to manage a rural family of five in Haiti over four years and keep them healthy, get them educated, and help them survive. Develop in a unique partnership between youth in an after school program and a professional game developer, the game has been played over a half million times since its launch six months ago and has proven to be a hit as both an engaging game and as a tool for education.
Climate Challenge
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 URL: www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/
Developer: Red Redemption Ltd.

Description: �Climate Challenge� is a single-player game about climate change, playable for free on the BBC website. It is a sandbox-style strategy game based on real climate change data, where the player can try out different approaches, learn about the issues and have fun at the same time.
Community Organizing Toolkit
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 URL: www.organizinggame.org/
Developer: Doug Nelson

Description: The Toolkit is a set of resources that supports face-to-face training for residents and community leaders. The computer-based component (the “Organizing Game”) is used to introduce concepts, prompt discussion, and allow residents to practice skills in a safe, non-threatening environment. The initial focus of the Toolkit is teaching Doorknocking, an organizing technique that’s particularly effective in moving issues within a local community.
CONSENT!
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 URL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/GK%20Machinima%20Island/176/212/25
Developer: Global Kids/ Digital Refinery

Description: CONSENT! is a game in Second Life produced with Global Kids Youth leaders in the Global Kids Playing 4 Keeps program that offers a simulation of life as an African-male prisoner confronting five decades of medical racism.
Darfur is Dying
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 URL: www.darfurisdying.com
Developer: interFUEL, LLC

Description: Darfur is Dying is a web-based, viral video game that provides a window into the experience of the 2.5 million refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan. It is designed to raise awareness of the genocide taking place in Darfur and empower college students to help stop the crisis.
eLECTIONS: Your Adventure in Politics
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 URL: http://www.ciconline.org/elections
Developer: Cable in the Classroom

Description: eLECTIONS is a powerful online learning experience that demonstrates how broadband technology - with its capacity to deliver video, audio, excellent inter-activity, design and content - can support active, meaningful and memorable learning.
Food Force
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 URL: www.food-force.com
Developer: Deepend Srl for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)

Description: Food Force is an educational action computer game that teaches kids about the problem of global hunger and the importance of humanitarian aid work.
Free Rice
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 URL: www.freerice.com
Developer: John Breen

Description: Free rice is a free online vocabulary gain that donates 20 grains of rice to the World Food Programme (WFP) for every correct answer. WFP ditributes the rice to hugry people all over the world.
Global Conflicts: Latin America
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 URL: www.globalconflicts.eu
Developer: Serious Games Interactive

Description: Global Conflicts: Latin America is a 3D-roleplaying game that let players explore key problems in Latin American countries. The region is one of the most turbulent, violent, and poverty-striken places in the world, yet we rarely hear anything about the nations that struggle with paramilitary rule, extreme poverty, and exploitation of the population.
Global Conflicts: Palestine
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 URL: www.globalconflicts.eu
Developer: Serious Games Interactive

Description: Global Conflicts: Palestine is a 3D role-playing game for players to explore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They will be confronted with issues around human rights, terrorism and the media’s role in conflict zones and will experience situations taken from real life events that are more complicated than outsiders may realise.
Harpooned
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 URL: http://harpooned.org
Developer: Conor O’Kane

Description: Harpooned is a free game for Windows. It is a Cetacean Research Simulator, where you play the role of a Japanese scientist performing research on whales around Antarctica.
Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City
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 URL: http://tempestincrescentcity.ning.com/game
Developer: Digital Creations

Description: Our game is about the everyday people who became heroes during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The player is a resident looking for her mother. Along the way she must rescue people, and help neighbors help each other by distributing local resources and aiding comunication.
ICED - I Can End Deportation
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 URL: www.icedgame.com
Developer: Breakthrough

Description: Breakthrough’s video game, ICED – I Can End Deportation, (www.icedgame.com) puts you in the shoes of an immigrant to illustrate how unfair immigration laws deny due process and violate human rights. These laws affect all immigrants: legal residents, those fleeing persecution, students and undocumented people.
Karma Tycoon
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 URL: www.KarmaTycoon.com
Developer: 9mmedia (and Do Something)

Description: Karma Tycoon is an online strategy game in which players solve community problems, such as homelessness, in cities across the US. Players learn the ins and outs of the not-for-profit world as they apply for grants, receive donations and have to manage their budget efficiently. It is available free of charge at KarmaTycoon.com
McDonald’s Video Game
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 URL: www.mcvideogame.com
Developer: molleindustria

Description: McDonald’s video game is a business game that aims to demonstrate the social and environmental unsustainability of the fast food industry.

My US Rep
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 URL: http://www.boogaholler.com/myusrep/
Developer: Red Aphid

Description: Now you can role play your favorite US House of Representative with My US Rep! Your mission is to increase your rep’s popularity while you navigate a game space of legislation, lobbyists and media. Learn how your rep voted on key bills, then cast your own vote.
PeaceMaker
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 URL: www.peacemakergame.com
Developer: ImpactGames

Description: PeaceMaker is inspired by real events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It challenges players to succeed as a leader where others have failed: bringing peace to the Middle-East. Playing both perspectives, players could experience the joy of winning the Nobel Prize or the agony of plunging the region into disaster.
Pictures for Truth
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 URL: http://www.picturesfortruth.com
Developer: Florent Guinier, Karim Osman, Patrick Boutot, Vincent Theriault

Description: Pictures for truth is a full 3d adventure game where you play a journalist in China. You will take picture and publish article to help about human right related trouble.
Planet Green Game
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 URL: www.planetgreengame.com
Developer: Tree Media

Description: Starbucks and Global Green USA have teamed up to encourage individuals to learn about global climate change and smart solutions with the launch of Planet Green Game (www.planetgreengame.com). Planet Green Game offers real-world examples of how individuals can change their own behavior and also influence the actions of community, political and corporate leaders to engage in the effort to stop global warming.
Play The News
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 URL: www.playthenewsgame.com
Developer: ImpactGames

Description: An engaging, community-driven experience - imagine fantasy sports meets the evening news. Play the News is a web-based platform that changes the paradigm of news consumption from passive reading to active engagement.
Pos or Not
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 URL: www.posornot.com
Developer: VPI
RePlay: Finding Zoe
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 URL: www.metrac.org/replay/en/index.html
Developer: METRAC in partnership with Susana Ruiz, Huy Trong, Ashley York

Description: The RePlay video game is geared towards promoting healthy, equal relationships between youth aged 8 to 14 years old. It challenges mainstream gender stereotypes that children learn from a young age, and that often lead to the social proliferation of violence against women and girls.
The Arcade Wire: Airport Security
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 URL: www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/airportsecurity.jsp
Developer: Persuasive Games

Description: Airport Security offers a satirical critique of airport security practices circa early fall 2006, when security agencies in the US and abroad changed their policies to prohibit common items like toothpaste and hair gel.
The Arcade Wire: Oil God
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 URL: www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/oilgod.jsp
Developer: Persuasive Games

Description: You are an Oil God! Wreak havoc on the world’s oil supplies by unleashing war and disaster. Bend governments and economies to your will to alter trade practices. Your goal? Double consumer gasoline prices in five years using whatever means necessary.
The Redistricting Game
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 URL: http://www.redistrictinggame.org
Developer: USC Game Innovation Lab

Description: The Redistricting Game educates, engages, and empowers citizens around the issue of congressional redistricting. As is illustrated in the game, our system is subject to a range of manipulations and helps fuel long-term political polarization in the U.S. Those empowered to change the system – congress - have the least incentive to do so.
The Vinyl Game
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 URL: http://www.vinylgame.com/
Developer: Zelian

Description: Can you manage an industry sustainably? The Vinyl Game requires you to deliver shareholder profits whilst taking socio-economic and environmental decisions. The consequences of playing purely for economic growth become apparent as EU legislators levy fines, consumers boycott products and the trade unions vote to take strike action!
Wasteland Adventure
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 URL: a.parsons.edu/~cpeng/wastelandadventure/game.swf
Developer: Ching-Yun Peng (Grace)

Description: Wasteland Adventure is a game to help people raise the awareness of the concept of recycling and how this simple activity can teach sustainability and protection of our eco-system.
World Without Oil
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 URL: http://worldwithoutoil.org
Developer: Writerguy LLA

Description: WORLD WITHOUT OIL invited people worldwide to contribute “collective imagination” to confront a real-world issue: the risk our thirst for oil poses to our economy, climate and quality of life. It’s a milestone in the use of games as democratic, collaborative platforms for exploring possible futures and sparking future-changing action.