The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Headlines Only:
Not Just Drones: Militants Can Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes (Updated)
Spytech Agency Wants Software Brains to Connect the Dots
Training For The Civilian Surge
TSA Cannot Order Sites to Take Down Sensitive Manual
Headlines and Snippets Below the Fold with Phi Beta Iota Comment
Continue reading “Journal: Well-Intentioned Idiocy Abounds….”
Phi Beta Iot
Phi Beta Iota: Our commentary was posted 19 Dec 09, well prior to the two debacles:
Journal: Underpants Bomber Shines Light on Naked USG–Without Four Reforms, USA Locked in Place
Journal: Death of CIA Personnel in Afghanistan
Strengthening Our Nation's Front Line Of Defense
Friday, December 18, 2009
Phi Beta Iota: This is a seriously misleading article, our comments are provided after each paragraph.
The legislation authorizing post-Sept. 11 intelligence reform — the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 — was signed into law five years ago this week. We are often asked whether the new organizations, authorities and additional resources have made a difference. The answer is yes.
Phi Beta Iota: In combination with the Patriot Act, which was not read before passage, the legislation has perpetuated all of the bad practices of the past and poured gasoline on the fire by giving incompetent intelligence managers more money. America is less safe today because of the combination of $75 billion a year wasted on a system that still does not process more than 10% of what it collects, still cannot do machine speed multi-lingual exploitation, and still cannot do multinational human engagement and multi-lingual open source.
To be clear, the task of reinventing our intelligence structure and integrating the capabilities, cultures and information technologies of 16 diverse intelligence agencies is massive, and it is incomplete. Problems persist in our technologies, business practices and mind-sets. I have no illusions about how challenging they will be to overcome. But there is an ocean of difference between difficult and impossible.
Phi Beta Iota: Every single criticism in ON INTELLIGENCE: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World (AFCEA, 2000) remains valid today. NOTHING HAS CHANGED in the way of fundamentals. The clandestine service is still full of cowboys under official cover; there still is no processing; the CIA analysts are babies and the DIA analysts are brain dead; technical sources are too big, too late, and too expensive; the list is long. Analysts still spend a quarter of their time trying to access the disparate classified databases at the same time that the Open Source Center remains a national disgrace, unable to do multinational engagement and totally out of touch with the 80% of the information we need that is free, open, and in 183 languages we do not speak. Note: Blair has a set of Steele's book in his possession, he obviously has not read them or this article of his would be completely different. He has no power, no authority, no vision, and with the possible exception of Andy Shepard, no one with a proven track record of knowing what is actually needed–Shepard knew in 1992 and has had to wait 17 years to be heard.
Continue reading “Journal: Director of National Intelligence Alleges….”
Ahmadinejad makes more sense on climate change than US leaders
Ahmadinejad: All countries should be able to use nuclear power
Iran's President Says Materialism, Capitalism Cause of Climate Change
Islamic Republic of Iran News Network Television (IRINN) as translated by Open Source Center (OSC)
Friday, December 18, 2009
(Ahmadinezhad in progress) … … Every year millions of people lose their lives as a result of pollution, and skin and respiratory illnesses are on the increase. If greenhouse-gases continue to increase at the present speed, they will reach twice the level of gases before industrialization. In other words, instead of a reduction of 50 per cent, they will increase by 50 per cent and will pose a real challenge to the natural environment.
Gentleman, you may associate these remarks with various similar and related issues in your minds. However, the question is this: What is the cause? The first answer is the increase in the consumption of fossil fuels and widespread and destructive meddling with nature. But the main and more serious question is: What is the factor responsible for the increase in the use of fossil fuel and meddling with nature? I would like to present the answer to this question in two levels.
The first level takes a fundamental and macro view of the problem. Is the climate change phenomenon merely an ecological problem or is it first and foremost a cultural, behavioral and economical issue?
Dear colleagues, a glance at the changes in social circumstances and thought processes in the, at least, past two decades will reveal the dominance of materialism over thought, behavior and ties in vast parts of the world. The survival of capitalism depends on the rigorous spread of consumerism and widespread meddling in nature.
Continue reading “Journal: Iranians Making Sense on Climate Matters?”
Palestinian village caught amid Israel settlements
By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writer Thu Dec 17, 5:29 pm ET
QARIOUT, West Bank – In this West Bank village surrounded by Israeli settlements, a Palestinian farmer says he has documents proving he owns his land. On a nearby hill, Jewish settler Batya Medad says she too has proof of ownership — the Old Testament.
This quarrel over the land Palestinians claim for their future state is the chief roadblock in Middle East peace efforts.
Mohammed Muqbil was born in this West Bank village in 1939; Medad has lived in neighboring Shiloh since its creation four decades later. They speak different languages and have never met, though their homes lie less than a mile apart.
And between them lies the harsh conflict over Israel's West Bank settlements.
The Palestinians have refused to resume negotiations until all settlement building stops. Last month, Israel's government announced a 10-month halt to new construction in hopes of bringing the Palestinians to the table. But east Jerusalem and some 3,000 homes already under construction were exempt and the Palestinians rejected it.
Qariout, a rocky village of 2,600 people about 20 miles north of Jerusalem, illustrates why Palestinians are desperate to halt the spread of Jewish settlements.
Beyond the political issue of their effect on borders for any future Palestinian state, settlements restrict daily life in hundreds of West Bank villages and gobble up farmland — Qariout has lost two-thirds of its land since 1979.
I doubt it, but hope springs eternal could this be a significant development? To date, Simon Johnson has been a very astute observer of the financial meltdown and has been crusading for breaking up the mega banks …
Dec 17, 2009
For most the past 12 months, Paul Volcker was sitting on the policy sidelines. He had impressive sounding job titles – member of President Obama’s Transition Economic Advisory Board immediately after last November’s election, and quickly named to head the new Economic Recovery Board.
But the Recovery Board, and Volcker himself, have seldom met with the President. Economic and financial sector policy, by all accounts, has been made largely by Tim Geithner at Treasury and Larry Summers at the White House, with help from Peter Orszag at the Office of Management and Budget, and Christina Romer at the Council of Economic Advisers.
With characteristic wry humor, Volcker denied in late October that he had lost clout within the administration: “I did not have influence to start with.”
But that same front page interview in the New York Times [10/21/09] contained a well placed shock to then prevailing policy consensus.
Volcker, legendary former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board with much more experience of Wall Street than any current policymaker, was blunt: We need to break up our biggest banks and return to the basic split of activities that existed under the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 – a highly regulated (and somewhat boring) set of banks to run the payments system, and a completely separate set of financial entities to help firms raise capital (and to trade securities).
Continue reading “Journal: Integrity (Truth) Coming to the Top on Banking”
Global Asset Security: Oil and Gas 2010
22 and 23 February 2010, Houston, Texas
Maximizing the defense of infrastructure, personnel and intellectual property in a landscape of evolving threat
In a constantly evolving threat landscape the role of your security operations must constantly adapt to meet changing economic, geo-political, criminal and homeland security challenges. As technologies and strategies are renewed and developed, it’s critical to stay one step ahead.
Phi Beta Iota: Recommended by Berto Jongman. We're still looking for decent global water security conferences. If anyone runs across one, please do alert us using contact email under About.
Countries at the Crossroads is an annual survey of government performance in 70 strategically important countries worldwide that are at a critical crossroads in determining their political future. The in-depth comparative analyses and quantitative ratings – examining government accountability, civil liberties, rule of law, anticorruption efforts and transparency – are intended to help international policymakers identify areas of progress, as well as to highlight areas of concern that could be addressed in diplomatic efforts and reform assistance.
A new edition of Crossroads is published each year, with one set of 35 countries analyzed in odd years and the other 35 in even years. Crossroads reports are written and evaluated by some of the most prominent independent experts available for each country.
The Interactive map color-codes all Crossroads countries based on their government performance, and provides policy recommendations and each country's status in the Millennium Challenge Account process. By clicking on the hyperlink within the pop-up boxes, users can access the most recent country reports.
Countries at the Crossroads Blog
Phi Beta Iota: As recommended by Berto Jongman. These countries are precisely what General Al Gray, then Commandant of the Marine Corps, was thinking about when he advocated, in 1989, that we get serious about “peaceful preventive measures.”
