Sterling Seagrave: Reflections of an Old China Hand

02 China, 03 Economy, 03 India, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, History, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Sterling Seagrave

Gold rising further except for profit taking bursts. China is buying all the gold it can get, and unloading all the paper dollars it can dump.. Other countries, including Russia are buying gold. I can see the Yuan or RMB playing a larger role as a global currency, but most people are too ignorant of China to accept the Yuan quickly or easily. The Swiss have a huge mass of gold well stashed, so I can see the Swiss franc playing a larger role. It's hard to make a forecast for the Euro, although it will almost certainly survive the US dollar. It's also possible that the Swiss might make a deal with the EU that would result in the Euro being backed by Swiss gold. Now that the head of the IMF has been burned at the stake, his very good brain is of no further use. The EU is scrambled eggs right now. Sarko can't survive without a miracle. India's potential will take a very long time to organize and get rolling; I went to school there and it's a seething cesspit.  It's time for the US to get out of foreign wars, but unlikely that it will because of the weapons market. Obama seems impotent. The Pentagon and its corporate backers and partners seems to be deciding policy. I'm not happy about Petraeus at the agency.  I think the USG and the US are totally hosed. Desperate for a new demon. Good time for Lee Kuan-yew to retire. Wise of him. The immediate future does not look good. War and more war. Civil war. Revolution. Take your pick. The cupboard is bare. It's all been looted. What a mess America has made since 1945. Moments of glory, decades of folly and stupidity….  Israel and the Palestinians are a parody of the world as a whole.

I think the last real ingots of gold in Manhattan were in the basement of the Twin Towers. The Fed and the Treasury don't dare be transparent or audited, because whatever real (solid) gold they ever had was moved to Malta and other offshore or mountain stashes long ago, replaced with Play-Dough. Christ, even the Bureau of Engraving and Printing stops now and then to change engraving plates and produce “Presidential dollars” to be used as bribes by the White House (ever since Truman); we have that from a guy who is now retired after running the shop  since 1945. The satellite imagery boys, where I have sources, dream of being about to electronically penetrate the earth to a depth of 100 feet or more from satellites but when I last checked 3 or 4 years ago they were still dreaming. They fiddle with HAARP trying to achieve earth-penetration, and only end up causing huge earthquakes and tsunamis; measurements already show the poles have begun to shift partly due to melting ice masses, but also due to fiddling with HAARP. The Fukushima quake and tsunami have been attributed to fiddling with HAARP, possibly the Sumatra disaster as well. Not all scientists are smart and prescient. We're damn lucky they haven't already blown us to smithereens, while scratching their backsides. Never forget that the Fed has always existed as a fraud by intent and design. President Wilson commented years after enabling the Fed in 1913: “I have destroyed my country.”

See Also:

INTERVIEW WITH STERLING AND PEGGY SEAGRAVEOSS.Net, Inc.

Review: Gold Warriors–America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold

Harnessing Social Media Tools to Fight Corruption

Corruption, Tools
Patrick Meier

Harnessing Social Media Tools to Fight Corruption

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Patrick Meier

I had the distinct pleasure of being interviewed for this report on Harnessing Social Media Tools to Fight Corruption (PDF). The study was prepared by Dana Bekri, Brynne Dunn, Isik Oguzertem, Yan Su and Shivani Upreti as part of a final project for their degree from the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The report was prepared for Transparency International (TI).

As part of this project, the authors compiled a very useful database of projects that apply social tools to create greater transparency and accountability around corruption issues. The authors recommend that TI draw on this list of projects to catalyze an active network of civil society initiatives that challenge corruption. The report also includes an interesting section on Mobilizing Volunteers and considers the role of volunteer networks as important in the fight against corruption. The authors write that,

“As an essential expression of citizenship and democracy, the past 25 years have seen rapid growth in the practice of volunteering worldwide. One study reports approximately 20.8 million volunteers in 37 countries, contributing US$ 400 billion to the world economy. The increasing enthusiasm of individuals to serve a cause while improving their own skills complements key goals of civil society organisations to build a strong volunteer force.”

This of course relates directly to the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF), so I’m always keen to learn more about lessons learned and best practices in catalyzing a thriving volunteer network.

Do let me know if you’d like to get in touch with the authors, I’d be happy to provide an introduction via email.

OpenMesh: Humans Are the Routers

Autonomous Internet
Click on Image to Enlarge
Shervin Pishevar Feb 27, 2011
TechCrunch

Editor’s note: Guest author Shervin Pishevar is the founder of the OpenMesh Project, SGN and an active angel investor.

On January 7, 2010 I was ushered into a small private dinner with Secretary Hillary Clinton at the State Department along with the inventor of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google and a few others. We were there to talk about technology and 21st Century Diplomacy. As we mingled I noticed next to me the small table that Thomas Jefferson wrote the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence. I was inspired by the history around us as we discussed the unfolding history before us. I was sitting in front of Secretary Clinton and when she asked me a question I said, “Secretary Clinton, the last bastion of dictatorship is the router.” That night seeded some of the ideas that were core to Secretary Clinton’s important Internet Freedoms Speech on January 21, 2010.

Read rest of article….

Phi Beta Iota: This is the kind of initiative that the Open Source Agency (OSA) could and should sponsor, integrating exploitation of and proliferation of the Open Source Tri-Fecta (open source software, open spectrum, and open source intelligence or decision-support).

Amazon’s Broken User Experience

03 Economy, 04 Education, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, IO Sense-Making
Jon Lebkowsky Bio

Doc Searls has posted a slideshow explaining how Amazon’s user experience is broken, in the context of a discussion about vendor relationship management (VRM), which is about evolving a world where customers have at least symmetry in the power relationship of customer and vendor. The slides are old (January 2010) and things might have changed, but I don’t think they’ve changed as much as they should’ve, because I still experience similar frustrations when I visit Amazon.

Phi Beta Iota: Amazon is a great company with an extraordinary cloud offering and enormous potential they have chosen to leave unattended.  They rejected a 2007 proposition (Amazon as the Hub of the World Brain) that would have seen them create a markeplace for informed relationships and knowledge by  the call or page, and they have rejected all suggestions for enabling buyers, readers, and reviewers to “co-create” the Amazon experience.  It's a pity mostly because the world need multiple forms of M4IS2 hybrids, and this is something Amazon could have provided as a service of common concern, with both the cloud for melded shared information and the authors and their readers as the human intelligence component.

Review (Guest): Idiot America — How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Complexity & Catastrophe, Consciousness & Social IQ, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Education (General), Intelligence (Public), Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science

Vote and/or Comment on Review

Charles Pierce

5.0 out of 5 stars It's True: We See This Everyday, July 2, 2009

“Idiot America” is great, informative book about concepts we see everyday. Also, many of the 1-star reviews are likely biased because of some of the political and religious topics noted. I think this book is definitely a full, 5-star book.

The Following comments aren't meant to be particularly negative towards the United States and the concepts in this book aren't exclusive to the USA. The concepts in “idiot America” exist all over the entire world. “Idiot America” is a superbly covered account of something that's very prevalent in the US.

Charles Pierce provides the history of “cranks” (con artists and showmen) from the founding of the nation to current examples today in contemporary America. I focused on TV and Radio because of it's widespread impact on the populace today (even in the age of the growing Internet, which is becoming dominant). Much of TV and Talk Radio promote misinformation based on emotion, histrionics, shock, being loud, and over-the-top attempts to get ratings.

The author notes “The 3 Great Premises: and applies them to many instances in this book:

1. Any theory is valid if it moves units (rating, and making money).
2. Anything can be true if it is said loudly enough.
3. Fact is what enough people believe (the Truth is what you believe).

There are many examples in this book. Here are just a few:

Continue reading “Review (Guest): Idiot America — How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free”

Nuclear/Climate Change: CLOSED 17 May 2011

03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, 12 Water, Communities of Practice, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Technologies

ROLLING UPDATE from Beginning of Crisis

SHORT URL: http://tinyurl.com/PBI-Japan-Update

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16 May 2011

ALL:  Study: Seaports unready for climate change

CANADA:  Climate change threatens arctic coastlines

CHINA:  China’s Nuclear Arsenal: Status and Evolution

EUROPE-SPAIN:  Spanish Quake Jolts European Nuclear Debate

GERMANY-JAPAN-USA:  Nuclear Nations Turn To Natural Gas And Renewables

INDIA:  Manmohan Singh takes stock of country's nuclear arsenal

INDIA-PAKISTAN:  Towards An Indo-Pak Nuclear Lexicon: Minimum Nuclear Deterrence – Analysis

INDONESIA:  Strong earthquake strikes off Indonesia’s Java island

JAPAN:  Japanese Officials Ignored or Concealed Dangers

JAPAN:  Japan Sticks to Timeline for Solving Nuclear Crisis

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. also acknowledged that one of the factors contributing to a rapid meltdown of reactor cores was the failure to keep emergency batteries safe from the tsunami, preventing a key emergency cooling system from performing its intended function.

Meanwhile, Tepco said one of the key causes of a rapid meltdown at Unit No. 1 was the failure of two emergency cooling mechanisms—the suppression pool and the isolation condenser—to perform their intended functions.

PAKISTAN:  Pakistan's nuclear surge exposed

Indian slam, satellite and video, 100% jump by 2021.

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SWEDEN:  Sweden's Holding Tank For Nuclear Waste

“We have here about 2,000 tons that you are looking (at), and you can stand here as long as you want to,” she tells me before quickly adding, “If we take one of these bundles out of the water I will give you 20 seconds to leave this room alive.”

USA:  US reactor outages 50 pct above late-spring average

USA:  U.S. Nuclear Output Falls as Entergy, Progress Shut Reactors

Twenty- five of the nation’s 104 reactors were offline.

USA:  75% of Americans Have Never Heard of Climate-Gate, Study Reveals

Prior Updates, Graphics, and Original Overviews Below the Line

Continue reading “Nuclear/Climate Change: CLOSED 17 May 2011”

REVOLUTION 2.0 CLOSED 17 May 2011

08 Wild Cards, Autonomous Internet, Cultural Intelligence, YouTube
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16 May 2011

BAHRAIN:  How radical are Bahrain's Shia?

EGYPT:  Could Egypt's revolution become mirage in the desert?

IRAN-BAHRAIN:  Iranian ships carrying aid to Bahrain turned back in Persian Gulf

IRAN-SYRIA:  ‘Nakba' clashes: Iran, Syria trying to turn Arab Spring fury into attacks on Israel?

ISRAEL:  The Arab Revolution is knocking at Israel's door

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LEBANON-SYRIA:  Syrian soldiers who defected to Lebanon are arrested

LEBANON-SYRIA:  Hundreds flee Syria crackdown to Lebanon

PALESTINE:  Arab spring puts Palestine back on agenda

PALESTINE-ISRAEL-MALAYSIA:  Malaysian aid ship to Palestine attacked by Israeli naval forces

SYRIA:  Syria: mass grave found in Dera'a

SYRIA:  Bashar Assad Is Almost Illegitimate

YEMEN: Yemeni MPs establish coalition to support revolution for change

Past Dots Below the Line; Basics on Revolution At the End

Continue reading “REVOLUTION 2.0 CLOSED 17 May 2011”

noble gold