Cultural Intelligence – Page 978 – Public Intelligence Blog

By Chris Arsenault

When police arrested Anthony Graber for speeding on his motorbike, the 25-year-old probably did not see himself as an advocate for police accountability in the age of new media.

But Graber, a sergeant with the Maryland Air National Guard, is now facing 16 years in prison, not for dangerous driving, but for a Youtube video he posted after receiving a speeding ticket.

FULL STORY at Al Jazeera Not in USA

Phi Beta Iota: A society with a sense of humor would establish a monthly “film the police” day. Such lunacy. When the law gets really stupid it is time to change the law, e.g. it used to be legal to abuse women and people of color.

Tip of the Hat to Steve Kirby at Facebook.

2010/08/262010/08/26

NIGHTWATCH Extract: Our Friends, our Enemies

08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military

Iraq: Insurgents conducted at least 34 coordinated attacks in 16 cities 0n 25 August. The bombings and other attacks killed 77 people and wounded nearly 400 more. Baghdad experienced five attacks.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: The attacks showed the breadth of the insurgents' operational area. They appear to be the work of a single group, apparently Sunni Arabs or secular Arabs.

The attacks also establish a baseline of the insurgents' ability to coordinate attacks over space and time. This was not a trivial display of the capability to coordinate attacks over long distances. They appear to be a test of the feasibility of taking the next escalation step in the insurgency.

Some outside entity is funding a new, most likely Sunni Arab, insurgency and has afforded its leadership the command and control capability for today's attacks. Look to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: Emphasis added above. The US Government (not America the Beautiful or the big-hearted American public) is called a “useful idiot” in most of the world precisely because it mixes hubris and naivete with vast amounts of money spent without a strategy and without accountability. It took too long to understand the Saudi funding behind the global spread of virulent Wahhabism, while the equivalent funding to the Bush family and others assured that at the political and policy level, our enemies the Saudis would remain conveniently and unethically our friends.

2010/08/242010/08/26

20 Things Learned From Traveling Around the World for Three Years

Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Media

Gary Arndt, Author of Everything-Everywhere.com
August 23, 2010

On March 13, 2007, I handed over the keys to my house, put my possessions in storage and headed out to travel around the world with nothing but a backpack, my laptop and a camera.

Three and a half years and 70 countries later, I've gotten the equivalent of a Ph.D in general knowledge about the people and places of Planet Earth.

Here are some of the things I've learned:

1) People are generally good

2) The media lies

3) The world is boring

4) People don't hate Americans

5) Americans aren't as ignorant as you might think

6) Americans don't travel

7) The rest of the world isn't full of germs

8 ) You don't need a lot stuff

9) Traveling doesn't have to be expensive

10) Culture matters

12) Everyone is proud of where they are from

13) America and Canada share a common culture

14) Most people have a deep desire to travel around the world

15) You can find the internet almost everywhere

16) In developing countries, government is usually the problem

17) English is becoming universal

18) Modernization is not Westernization

19) We view other nations by a different set of criteria than we view ourselves

20) Everyone should travel

Full article here to see elaborations for each of the twenty entries

2010/08/192010/08/19

NIGHTWATCH Extract: Colombian Constitution vs. US

Analysis, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Multinational Plus, Threats, Tribes

Colombia: The Constitutional Court yesterday declared an agreement granting US military access to Colombian bases unconstitutional on procedural grounds. La Patilla reported the vote was 6-3 against the agreement, and Semana reported the court would soon give a press conference to explain the details. The constitutional court ruled the 2009 accord should be redrafted as an international treaty and sent to Colombia's Congress for approval.

The agreement would have allowed US forces to have access to seven Colombian bases that help support operations against drug trafficking and terrorism. This is the draft legislation that other Latin American leaders criticized lat year because it abetted a rise in US regional influence.

The deal agreed by former President Alvaro Uribe in October 2009 gave the US access to the bases for 10 years and would see a maximum of 800 US military personnel and 600 civilian defense contractors based in Colombia.

The court's chief justice Mauricio Gonzalez said the deal was “an arrangement which requires the State to take on new obligations as well as an extension of previous ones.” He said that as such, it should be “handled as an international treaty, that is, subject to congressional approval”. The court did not rule on the legitimacy of the agreement itself and the ruling does not mean the US has to leave the country altogether.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: President Juan Manuel Santos said the court ruling will have little impact on U.S. military help fighting rebels and will not affect the operations of U.S. troops and contractors working with Colombia's military, The Associated Press reported 18 August. The ruling is primarily procedural not substantive. Nonetheless, it will be an inconvenience.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: Here is a rough graphic showing the four spheres of influence that are fighting World War III. Nations are flexing their Constitutional muscles against US and external incursions, while at the same time, hybrid organizations and “hidden powers” are fighting in the shadows. Most Nation-States are no longer central because they have lost its legitimacy from a mix of internal corruption and external misadventure.

It is neither possible nor desireable to “fight” the established powers–Non-Zero Strategy requires a focus on the five billion and the creation of infinite wealth with social capitalism and Information Communication Technologies (ICT) as well as energy, food, and other innovations. Non-violent innovation is the only viable winning strategy.

See Also:

Graphic: Four Threat Classes

Search: world map with 8 conflicts

Search: Africa Graphic and Four Threat Classes

Search: five front war the better way to fight

2010/08/162010/08/17

Journal: Social Security Being Set Up for a Fall

03 Economy, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends

My good friend Marshall Auerbach has one answer — can you “refudiate” it?

Which Party Poses the Real Risk to Social Security’s Future?

NewDeal2.0.org, Monday, 08/16/2010 – 5:02 pm by Marshall Auerback

Hint: it’s not Republicans.

Social Security remains one of the greatest achievements of the Democratic Party since its creation 75 years ago. Although Republicans have historically fulminated against the program (Ronald Reagan once likened it as something akin to “socialism”), they have actually made little headway in touching this sacred “third rail” in American politics. President Bush pushed for partial privatization of the program in 2005, but the proposal gained no policy traction (even within his own party) because Social Security continues to be hugely popular with American voters. It’s a universal program that benefits all Americans, not a government handout to a few privileged corporations.

Which is why it’s odd that Democrats seem almost embarrassed to continue to champion the legacy of FDR. The party frets about long-term deficits and the corresponding need to “save” Social Security from imminent bankruptcy and, in doing so, opens the gate to radical cuts in entitlements that will do nothing but further destroy incomes and perpetuate our current economic malaise.

FULL STORY ONLINE

Continue reading “Journal: Social Security Being Set Up for a Fall”

2010/08/10

Journal: DoD Falling…30-50% Cut in KR, Cuts to Benefits Next

10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Officers Call

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

(COMMENT: Retirees being targeted again…)

Tom Philpott | August 05, 2010

Advisory Panels Say Military Benefits Unsustainable

A consensus is building among current and former military leaders and defense industry executives that rising military personnel costs threaten the viability of the all-volunteer force.

FULL STORY, Excellent Quotes from MajGen Arnold Punaro, USMC (Ret) former Staff Director, Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC)

Phi Beta Iota: Health benefits would not be a problem if Congress did not insist on paying 100 times more for the top 75 prescription drugs as paid by all others (Canada only pays 10 times more). DoD can be saved, but someone somewhere is going to have to get a grip on reality, strategy, acquisition, and Whole of Government operations. We are not holding our breath.

2010/07/232010/07/23

Building an Audio Collection for All the World’s Languages

04 Education, Academia, Audio, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Languages-Translation

The Rosetta Project is pleased to announce the Parallel Speech Corpus Project, a year-long volunteer-based effort to collect parallel recordings in languages representing at least 95% of the world’s speakers. The resulting corpus will include audio recordings in hundreds of languages of the same set of texts, each accompanied by a transcription. This will provide a platform for creating new educational and preservation-oriented tools as well as technologies that may one day allow artificial systems to comprehend, translate, and generate them.

Continue reading “Building an Audio Collection for All the World’s Languages”

Category: Cultural Intelligence

Journal: Facing prison for filming US police