Journal: Hubris Loses to Angst & Reality–Every Time

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats
Last Shake for Last Coin

British student held over alleged airline bomb attempt

Nigerian man reportedly linked to al-Qaida in custody after foiled terror attempt on transatlantic flight to Detroit

Police identified the suspect as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, 23. It is understood that he is an engineering student at University College London.

One official said the man claimed to have been instructed by al-Qaida to detonate the plane over US soil.

Failed terror attack…Blizzard warning…Fuel spill in Alaskan waters

ROMULUS, Mich. (AP) — Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials say the components of a failed explosive were apparently mixed onboard an international flight bound for Detroit. Passengers subdued a Nigerian man who was apparently burned when the device fizzled, but didn't explode.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. counterterrorism officials are trying to figure out if the failed bombing of an international flight preparing to land in Detroit reveals a serious new threat. Even though it burned but didn't explode, investigators wonder how the mixture allegedly used by a Nigerian man evaded detection

Phi Beta Iota: In the time immediately following 9/11 it was clearly established by multiple parties that our asymmetric opponents were spending $1 for every $500,000 we spent.  Today we speculate that the ratio is closer to $1 (them) to $5 million (us).  We lack a grasp of reality; we lack a strategy; we lack a force structure; and above all, we lack the moral high ground.  Imperial Hubris is what happens when government get “too big to fail” and then promptly collapse because they suffer from a culture that turns disaster into catastrophe.  Terrorism is the LEAST of our problems, but for the sake of avoiding argument we accept the United Nations High Level Panel's conclusion that terrorism is number nine out of ten high-level threats to humanity.  What we do every day to ourselves is easily a million times more threatening, more costly, and more immoral than anything a single terrorist or terrorist group–whatever their motivations–might do.  The BAD DECISIONS made by government are the real sucking chest wound for society, both in terms of perpetuating catastrophic industrial and weather changing practices, and in terms of failing to meet the fundamental needs of people who–if empowered with connectivity and education–would create infinite wealth in every clime and place.

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Search: map of iranian influence in africa

05 Iran, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence

Phi Beta Iota: Extremely cool search!  Should be combined with a map of Chinese, Turkish, and Brazilian influence in Africa.  OSS.Net, Inc. drew on its European allies to provide the tribal maps for Afghanistan and Iraq to Special Forces prior to their going in, and we are still astonished at the complete lack of a serious geospatial mapping capability focused on tribes, influence, and so on.

Let's start with Iran itself.  Below is a map of its own divisions.

Iran's Ethnic Distribution

So when you talk about Iranian influence across Africa, you want to be very clear about both the ethnic roots of the Iranian influence element at point X, and the tribal-ethnic roots of the African element coming into contact with Iranian influence.

We are long over-due for anthropologically-correct maps of the various diasporas, with China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia being among the most important, the latter because of the extreme corruption of their leadership and the extreme virrulence of Wahabbism.

See the graphic on Africa (7) and also, for excellence of depictions, Atlases & State of the World (21).

Articles:

Iran's activity in East Africa

Iran's Activity In East Africa, The Gateway To The Middle East And The African Continent

Cliick on above for a fine report with good detail dated 7 August 2009.  The below images come from that report.

The Iranian regime's activities in African countries

Saudis act to counter Iran's influence in the Mideast – Africa & Middle East

The Iranians have been very active in Latin America during the past ten years, at the same time that the Chinese have been using Macao to launch very deliberate campaigns into all former Portuguese territories.

Journal: ClimateGate 25 December 2009 Afternoon

Earth Intelligence
ClimateGate Rolling Update

How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room

As recriminations fly post-Copenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

United Nations backtracks on Climategate email scandal, will not investigate

Full Story Online

Last week Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), promised an investigation into the Climategate email scandal. Today at a press conference at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, Pachauri backtracked entirely saying, “I want to clarify that this is not an investigation.”

Questions about the impartiality of the various investigations into Climategate had already arisen with many pointing to the corruption that went unfettered in the UN’s ‘Oil for Food’ program. At the time, the UN stymied any attempt to investigate its own program, which generated more than $10 billion in illegal revenue and lined the pockets of many UN officials. Many other UN programs have since been shown to be rife with corruption and scandal.

The Climategate Timeline: 30 years visualized

eople have scoured the exposed CRU emails and compiled all of them into a massive timeline covering 30 years of information contained within, presenting it as a huge PDF.  You have to see this to believe it. Look up close and admire the detail while you despair at how long science has been going off the rails.

Click to Enlarge

Download the complete PDF for full detail

.Are you angry about this obvious RICO Act fraud and the national media’s complicity in the cover-up, misinformation, reframing and misdirection of the issue and the related “carbon derivatives” market Obama’s Administration is spinning up? Take responsibility and take action.

STOP all donations to the political party(s) responsible for this fraud. STOP donations to all environmental groups which funded this Global Warming propaganda campaign with our money, especially The Environmental Defense Fund. They have violated the public trust.

Journal: Life in the Cloud–Repeating Past Mistakes

Communities of Practice, Ethics, IO Secrets, Key Players, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats
Full Story Online

January/February 2010

Security in the Ether

Information technology's next grand challenge will be to secure the cloud–and prove we can trust it.

By David Talbot

Phi Beta Iota: The story is so good we will not extract from it.  It must be read in its entirety.  Government is failing to do its job, leaving a “wild west” environment alive and corruptible in the cloud.  Standards are beginning to emerge but security is not a priority and the end-user as the ultimate source of the security is not even being considered (over ten years ago Eric Hughes conceptualized anonymous banking and end-user controlled encryption of all data).  Eventually, after great expesne and great loss of data, government and industry may realize that the ultimate security is that which originates with the individual end-user, not a central service that can be hacked by disgruntled insiders or that can make a mistake that instantly explodes tens of millions of clients.  Below is the original Mich Kabay slide, still relevant.

Mich Kabay's Threat Slide Link Leads to NSA Las Vegas Briefing

CENTCOM Week in Review Ending 24 December 2009

Uncategorized

Hot Topics

AA: Russia Test-fires ‘Voevoda' Intercontinental Missile 12/24/09

AF: Taliban issue video of captive US soldier 12/25/09

AF: Troops Secure Former Taliban Ghost Town in Afghanistan 12/25/09

YE: Yemen is growing front in Al Qaida battle 12/23/09

Below the fold: Instability, Special Operations, Security Forces, Foreign Affairs, Crime

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Journal: High-Tech Low-Risk No-Brains Zero-Sum

10 Security, Ethics, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

Tim Haake

Washington Times  December 24, 2009   Pg. 4

High-Tech, Low-Risk Wars By Tim Haake

Retired Maj. Gen. Tim Haake is a Washington lawyer who served on active and reserve duty in special operations for 36 years.  Now he is a lobbyist.

Phi Beta Iota: The article has to be read in the original.  Well-intentioned and totally divorced from reality, it is what the Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Congressional Complex (MIICC) wants the taxpayer to believe.  Missing from this fairy tale depiction are the realities:   we cannot afford, nor is there sufficient time, nor can the Air Force carry, nor can the intelligence community inform, such a force, spending $5 million for every $1 spent by asymmetric opponents holding the moral high ground.  Furthermore, and Jim Bamford and Will Durant agree on this point, the only infintely expandable resource we have is the human brain–neglecting our investments in global education and national population health as we have been and will continue to do, is the certain death of the Republic.

Journal: Huffington Post–Congress is Corrupt

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Policies, Real Time, Threats

Carl Bernstein: US Congress Is Corrupt, Systemically Broken (VIDEO)

During an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe today journalist and author Carl Bernstein lamented that the debate over and the writing of health care reform legislation has shown us “Congress at its worst.”

Bernstein harshly critiques the nation's legislative branch as a body that is “responsive only to money and special interests” while ignoring the public and national interest:

The bad news is the really great problem in this country is the systemic breakdown of one of the three branches of government: the Congress of the United States. And until it's repaired, [Obama] and this country are going to be undermined. We could have had health care legislation in a meaningful way that would have gone twice as far at solving our budget and our health care problems, but because of the irresponsibility and the systemic corruption of the United States Congress, we don't.

Phi Beta Iota: Actually, all of our major institutioins have failed–the Executive, the media, the church, the schools.  We live in a “cheating culture” in which INTEGRITY is no longer the foundation value.  The good news is that there is nothing wrong with America the Beautiful that cannot be fixed by an Electoral Reform Act followed by reform of national intelligence, governance, and then national security.

A few references:

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